Page 34 of Crazy Spooky Love
I shake my head, caught out. “Marina, he’s been stone-cold dead for more than a century. He’s just about as far from a hottie as he could possibly be.”
I bring the conversation toan abrupt end by jumping out of the van and opening the back door for Artie to climb out. He stretches his long legs and then rounds Babs to help Gran disembark in as dignified a manner as possible for a pensioner in her dressing gown.
“Is that all I need to do? Solve a murder?” I say, wondering how the hell I’m supposed to do something that the police force failed to over a hundred years ago. “I’ll have this thing all wrapped up before dinner, then.”
“You could always ask your Magic 8 Ball,” Marina suggests, then calls out, “Great job today, Dicey!”
Gran lifts a hand in a close approximation of the royal wave as she disappears off in the direction of Blithe Spirits. From the back she looks like a good-time girl doing the walk of shame after coming home on the back of a milk cart, unsuitably dressed for the time of the day.
“I should probably head off,” Marina says, checking the time on her mobile. “Mum called and asked if I could get home early to watch Grandpa.” She hugs me briefly. “Well, that’s our first successful week in business done.”
“High-five for us.” I grin as I step away and look at my watch. “You may as well knock off too, Artie, it’s after three. We’re not going to get much else done today.”
He nods, rolling his shoulders. I hope he’s not checking to see if they’re broken after his rocket-ship-style ride in the back of Babs. “I’ll give you a lift if you like,” Marina offers, digging around in her bag for her car keys. “I’m going that way.”
I watch them stroll away toward High Street. “Hey, Artie. Make sure you come back on Monday,” I call.
He turns around and gives me his goofy laugh. He’ll be back.
All quiet at last, Isettle behind my desk for an hour before I clock out with the last two of Nonna Malone’s cannoli and the case file for Scarborough House. One week down. It’s certainly been interesting and Artie is turning out to be a bit of a revelation, but I really didn’t expect to have to solve a murder inquiry in my first week of business.
I fill my face with cannoli and sigh in the silence, trying not to dwell on the fact that right now Marina’s suggestion of consulting my Magic 8 Ball to see who killed Douglas Scarborough feels like a viable suggestion. Please, please let me sort this out, I pray, to no God in particular. I’m not the religious kind, unless there happens to be a Goddess of Sweet Things, because if there is I’ll fall down on my knees and swear allegiance right now. I’d happily swallow a holy sugar lump and beg for divine assistance. Please help me, Candy Goddess, because I’m twenty-seven now, and despite my optimism and wisecracking to get through each day, I mostly feel like a kid terrified that I’m going to screw up. Starting the agencyhas been brilliant in so many ways, I don’t have enough fingers to count them, but it’s also scary as hell. I’m afraid of letting Marina and Artie down, of letting the Scarboroughs down, and of letting myself down. I was never lucky enough to know my dad, but I’m scared of letting him down too.
This whole thing really, really needs to work.
Chapter
Ten
It’s Saturday morning and I hope for their sake that whoever is banging on my door has a damn good reason. I was in the middle of one of my favorite recurring dreams, one where Thor comes and rescues me from the ice palace I’m trapped in for no discernible reason. What? So superheroes factor highly in my dreams. We all have our oddities, and that’s one of mine. If a man can fly, turn green, or smash things with an improbably big sledgehammer, I’m all over him like a rash. It strikes me momentarily that Leo is the only man I know in real life who is game enough to wear a cape, but I dismiss the thought as quickly as it arrived and haul my ass out of bed to answer the door.
“Melody Bittersweet?” Dwayne, my postman, queries even though I went to school with his sister and he knows perfectly well who Iam.
“I am she.” I hold my hand out and accept the package, frowning. I haven’t ordered anything I can thinkof.
“Feels like a book to me,” Dwayne says, looking as if he expects me to open it on the doorstep to satisfy his curiosity.
“Is it your policy to feel everyone’s mail, or just mine?”
His face cracks into a grin that is anything but innocent. “Oh, I’m selective these days. Got caught out handling a woman off the estate’s sex toys a while back.” The smile falls from his face and he leans a little closer. “I wouldn’t mind, but they were secondhand from eBay.” He shudders. “Not even bubble-wrapped. I mean, who does that?”
“I honestly don’t want to know,” I mutter, closing the door. I gave up Thor for this.
It is a book, but not one I’ve ordered. The postmark tells me that it was sent from Hay-on-Wye, which is odd because I don’t know anyone there, and there is no accompanying note, which is even odder. Why would someone send me an anonymous gift? I turn the book over in my hands and study the embossed gold title. One thing’s for sure, this hasn’t been delivered to me by accident.
Twenty Years’ Experience as a Ghost Hunterby Elliott O’Donnell. It’s old—battered, emerald-green leather with gilt-edged pages, and quite hefty. I peep inside at the date of publication: 1916.
It reminds me of something from a movie, a book that might be purchased from a magical bookshop from a gnarly old man with knowing eyes. Or, hang on, maybe it was from a bookshop more like the one Hugh Grant owns inNotting Hill.That’s more like it. Hugh Grant trumps a gnarly old man any day of the week. I indulge in a lazy couple of minutes of enjoyable fantasizing as I make coffee to wake my brain up. Hugh Grant is on his knees, valiantly searching underneath the counter in his quaint little store, because he knows he has a copy of a book I simply must read stashed under there.
I avoid looking at the book on the table as I stick a couple of slices of bread in the toaster. I’ve had one mystery on top of the other over the course of my first week as a ghost buster, and this surprise book feels almost like one too many to figure out. Maybe if I just work on resolving the secrets of Scarborough House, my mysterious gift will explain itself along the way too. I turn the Magic 8 Ball on thekitchen work surface and wait to find out whether I should head across to Scarborough House alone this morning.
Without a doubt.
Well, at least it’s a decisive answer. I reach an emergency jar down from the top shelf of the kitchen cupboard, because between the antique book and an impromptu visit to Brimsdale Road, this has suddenly become an extra-crunchy peanut butter kind of day.
The path to the backdoor of Scarborough House is much easier to negotiate now that Artie has trampled it down. I slip inside quietly, this time making sure to lock the door behind me to prevent unwanted visitors from following me inside.
“Isaac?” I call out as I walk through the kitchen. My voice echoes around the old place, and a shiver whispers down my spine. As you might expect, I don’t spook easily, but there is something about the silence today that makes me uncomfortable, a hostility in the air that I didn’t notice on my last visit. Maybe it’s because I’ve come alone.
