Page 72 of Crazy Spooky Love
“Melody,” Isaac’s paper-thin voice calls from behind me on the attic stairs.
“Melody Bittersweet!” A second voice barks my name from below too, more forthright and loud.
I turn to see Isaac standing behind me, and his face tells me thathe’s probably been there long enough to overhear much of what’s been said.
“Isaac, I’m so sorry,” I say, laying my hand over my heart. “I’d like to have come upstairs to tell you all of this properly.”
“I came to warn you that they’d arrived,” he says, and I frown.
All becomes clear a moment later when Donovan Scarborough storms up the stairs toward me with Leo and the creepy twins in tow.
“Out!” Scarborough yells. “Key, and out! I hired you to clear this place, simple, and by the sounds of the last few minutes you’re hatching some hair-brained outrageous scheme to try to discredit my entire family and challenge my ownership! Who the hell do you hokey-cokey people think you are? This isn’t fuckingHeir Hunters!”
He’s proper livid, purple in the face from having overheard the majority of our conversation just now.
The twins are behind him, nodding earnestly throughout his speech, and I catch Leo’s eye and find his expression impossible to read. The fact that he’s sporting a tweed eye patch over the shiner he gained from the flying-book incident doesn’t help, frankly.
“Heir Huntersis my mum’s favorite TV show,” Artie says, in that untimely, unintentionally fabulous way that only he can.
“Popeye, you’re officially rehired,” Scarborough blusters. “You lot, get out!”
I look at Isaac, stricken. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, and he shakes his head violently.
“Find him, Melody. Find Richard.”
I swallow and glance quickly toward Leo because he’s the only other living person here who will have heard Isaac’s words. Once again, his good eye is curiously impassive.
I look at Marina and Artie and shake my head imperceptibly, willing them not to argue withme.
“Come on,” I say. “We’re done here. We need to leave.”
I hand Donovan the back door key as we file past him, and Leo puts his arms out to his sides in front of the twins as if he’sprotecting them from us. I’m not certain. I think he’s making sure they don’t stick a delicate ankle out and try to trip usup.
As we pull away fromScarborough House I take a last glance up at the attic, and as expected, I see Isaac standing there, watching us leave. He’s just found out so many poignant things he didn’t know; his only son was a casualty of the Second World War, and the woman he loved never remarried or had any more children. I hope she wasn’t unhappy for her whole life. It’s so terribly sad to think how many people’s lives were affected by Douglas’s murder.
“We’re not really leaving it there, are we?” Artie says as he drags his seatbelt across his body.
“Not a prayer,” I say, dogged.
Marina starts to laugh as we rumble along Brimsdale Road, breaking the tension. “Your mother called you ‘Sausage’!”
“Hull’s a long way fromhere,” Artie says, tipping his head to the side to study the map on his screen.
We’re back in the office and have spent the afternoon going over everything we know, writing all of the births, deaths, and marriages and possible scenarios up on the whiteboard until we all reached the same inevitable conclusion. We need to go to Hull.
“I hope Richard isn’t frail,” I say, worried. I don’t want to be responsible for the demise of Isaac’s grandson. My great hope is that once we fill Richard, and possibly his daughter, Jojo, in on all of this, they’ll agree to come back to Brimsdale Road and meet Isaac. I know.I know.We’re going to rock up on their doorstep in Babs from the other side of the country, flash our shaky ghost-hunter credentials, and then tell them that their ghost-relative needs to see them urgently so he can pass over, and hey, good news, they mightbe in line to inherit half of a rather grand old house if we can find the murder weapon and prove that Lloyd killed Douglas. It’s rather a lot to take on board, isn’t it? At least we’ll have a long road trip to plan how best to break it to them—more than three hours, according to Artie’s calculations.
“Is there anything we need to remember to take with us?” I ask. “Beside Nonna’s biscuit tin, obviously.”
“I’ll get Mum to print out the family tree so we can show them,” Artie suggests, and I nod. That’s good.
“Agnes’s diaries?” Marina suggests. We’ve read all but the last one and discovered nothing further to helpus.
“It’s a pity we don’t have any family photographs or birth certificates, that kind of thing.” It strikes me that physical evidence will be helpful in convincing Richard and Jojo that we’re not shysters trying to trick them into the back of our van.
“Oh, my mum’s probably printed all of that off already. She’s organized like that.”
“My God, Artie Elliott, we got lucky with you,” I say.
