Page 20 of Crazy Spooky Love
I pick up the Magic 8 Ball and the keys to Babs as the conversation bats back and forth between them. He won’t see them. I know that, and Marina knows that. I love his enthusiasm, but I know that when it comes down to it I’m on my own with this. It’s time to give Artie lesson 101 in ghost busting. It isn’t magic, it isn’t a transferable skill, and it certainly isn’t something he should covet.
“Enjoy being normal, Artie,” I say, as I lock the office door behind us. “You’ve no idea how lucky you are.”
We pile into Babs, me in the driver’s seat, Marina and Artie on the bench seat beside me. Marina delivers a death punch to the glove box and pulls out her sunglasses and mine, and then digs around in her handbag and hands Artie her spare pair of aviators. In unison, we slide the glasses onto our faces before I turn the key and rev the accelerator.
“I’ve never felt lucky before,” Artie says, cheerful. “Until now.”
All seems thankfully quiet atBrimsdale Road when we jerk to a halt outside Scarborough House. No TV crews, no Leo Dark; in fact, no sign of anyone at all.
“Why couldn’t he have given us the front door key?” Marina grumbles and grouches as we pick our way through the tangle of overgrown weeds at the side of the house. Artie goes up front, trampling happily over the worst of the greenery to plow a furrow for us to follow.
“Gate’s locked,” he informs us, rattling the latch. We all stand back and examine the faded, peeling, green-painted fence. Marina gives the latch a second, harder rattle and then stands back with her hands on her hips.
“Gate’s locked.”
Artie nods. “I just said that.”
“Should I try it too, just to be certain?” I scan the side of the house in the vain hope that one of the tall windows will be cracked open. As expected, they’re all closed tight. I wish I’d had the forethought to get Donovan Scarborough’s number, and there’s little point in knocking on the front door of a house that’s been uninhabited since Scarborough’s recently deceased father went into care several years back. It’s not as if a ghost’s going to handily open it for us, is it? Right, then. There’s nothing else forit.
“Give us a leg up, Artie.”
He turns to me, wide-eyed. “You’re going over the top? You don’t know what’s on the other side!”
“Well, there’s hardly likely to be a dog or a twenty-foot drop, is there? The place is empty and we need to get in, so unless you’ve got any other bright ideas, boost me over.”
He studies me, uncertain, and then a slow grin spreads across his face. “This is even more exciting than I thought it’d be. Don’t tell my mum I helped you break in, okay?”
“Technically, we’re not breaking in,” Marina reasons, sliding her sunglasses down her nose as she watches us position ourselves. “We’ve got a key, remember?”
“Ready, Artie,” I say, securing my foot in his big cupped hands, and a second later he launches me so fast and so high into the air that I’m practically standing on top of the gate.
“Jesus, Artie, lower her down a bit! You’re not tossing a fucking caber!” Marina shouts from behind me, clearly panicked.
I feel him start to wobble and begin to doubt himself. My body starts to sway because I’ve lost confidence in him as a result.Shit! I’m going to die! I’m going to die a horrible death having been hurled into the air like a human rag doll.
“Down!” I command throatily, as if he really is that Great Dane. Thankfully he does as instructed and I manage to catch hold of the top of the fence and scramble over onto the safety of a wheelie binon the other side. I dust myself off, check for broken bones and a heartbeat, then throw back the rusty bolts and creak the gate open to let them through.
Artie is clearly mortified; his wide mouth is downturned and his expression mournful. “Sorry.”
“Hey, it’s fine.” I pat him on the arm as he walks past me. “For a second there I thought I might actually die, but I didn’t, so we’re cool, okay?”
“You were like a twelve-foot-tall ballerina waving around in the breeze,” Marina says darkly as she filesby.
“I’m really sorry, Melody,” Artie says, thoroughly miserable. “I’ve never boosted anyone before, and you don’t weigh very much. I thought you’d be heavier.”
I laugh. “Free dating advice for the future, Artie. Don’t tell a girl she looks heavier than she is.”
We round the corner of the house and find ourselves on a wide, paved sun terrace overlooking the gardens.
“Wow,” Marina murmurs beside me. I feel the same way; there is a faded grandeur to the place, a sense that beneath the neglect lies the bones of beauty. The garden is a wilderness, a profusion of gnarled old trees, rambling flower beds, and overgrown lawns, but it’s huge and must have been spectacular in its heyday. I can easily imagine it looking glorious in decades gone by, finely dressed ladies milling around on the manicured lawns whilst gentlemen played croquet. Did gentlemen play croquet? I have no idea, really. I’m making it up in my own head, but the point is that this place must have been something special in its halcyon days.
“This suddenly feels like one of those movies where the family discover the house they just inherited is haunted,” Artie whispers, awed as he turns and stares up at the building.
“Isn’t that pretty much exactly why we’re here?” Marina says, peering up at the imposing Victorian gothic rear elevation. Brimsdale Road is a leafy enclave of generous, detached plots, all of them occupied by established old houses. Scarborough House isdistinctive in that it’s probably the only one left that hasn’t been remodeled and renovated to within an inch of its gable end. It’s shabby and dull-windowed, the ugly duckling among a bevy of graceful swans.
Reaching into my jeans pocket I pull out the large old key and head for the back door.
“Come on, then, troops. Let’s go inside and survey the battleground.” Truthfully, I’m excited to see inside the house. I know it’s been empty for at least the last few years, ever since Donovan Scarborough’s father moved from there to a nursing home. From what I’ve been able to gather from preliminary research, it couldn’t be sold without the current owner’s say-so, and old man Scarborough point-blank refused to sanction any sale during his lifetime. It seems that in recent months his lifetime has come to an end, and his only son hasn’t allowed the grass to grow any longer beneath his feet in trying to off-load the house as expediently as possible.
