Page 80 of Crazy Spooky Love
“I’ve never met a ghost hunter before,” Jojo says, skeptical. “You might need to prove it before I believe you.”
“She can’t do it to order, she isn’t a telephone exchange,” Marina snaps, used to batting this kind of request away for me. I put my hand on her knee to shush her. She’s usually right; there’s nothing that made me feel more weird and awkward growing up than people expecting me to perform on tap like some sort of circus freak, but this is different. We need these people to trust us. Besides, I have an in. Jojo’s best friend, Xena, who died twelve months previously in a surfing accident in Fiji, has been here ever since Jojo came in the room and is desperate to talk to her.
“Are you sure you want proof?” I ask, because sometimes people say they do, but when it comes to it, they’re bluffing.
Jojo nods, and I notice the way she crosses her fingers behind her knee.
“Okay,” I say quietly, and listen to Xena for a minute or so. “Xena’s here.”
Immediately, Jojo’s eyes fill with tears, but she swallows hard and stares me down.
“Anyone could know that. She was my best friend in the world and her death made the papers.”
I nod. I understand, I know that. I know it because I can feel the bond of love between Xena and Jojo, and it is exactly the same fierce, sisterly bond I share with Marina. I study Xena and describe what I see.
“She’s about your height.” I pause, because Xena corrects me. “Sorry, she said she’s half an inch taller.”
Jojo huffs softly, as if this was always a hotly contested point. “She said to say she’s sorry about your board,” I relay, and Richard passes his daughter a tissue as she sniffs.
“It was my board. She was surfing on my board when she had the accident.”
I nod, because Xena has already told me. I’m aware that I haven’t yet told Jojo anything that a con artist couldn’t have found out with some research.
“She said to remind you of the time you took the rap from her mum for smoking in her bedroom, even though it wasn’t you; and the day she punched David Riley in the stomach because he dumped you in the lunch queue when you were thirteen; and that it’s time you got over Prick-Face Steve and started dating again, because you were always too good for him and should never have married him anyway.” By this point, Richard is staring at me open-mouthed and Jojo is quietly sobbing. “But most of all, she wants you to know that she’s sorry she left you, and she misses you every damn day.” My voice catches, and Marina puts her hand on my knee and squeezes. “I’m sorry,” I say, annoyed with myself for projecting my own emotions when this is for Xena and Jojo.
I stand up and Jojo comes to me and hugs me hard. “Thank you,” she whispers. “Tell her I miss her every day too.”
“You just told her yourself,” I say, and then I start to laugh softly at the last message Xena makes me pass on. “She’s going now. She says to tell you that she’s keeping an eye on you, but she won’t come on dates or hover around when you’re shagging because that would be pervy and revolting.”
Jojo laughs shakily too, wiping her eyes. “She’s still a silly cow, then. God, I miss her.”
Behind Jojo, Richard rises from his seat and gathers the cups and mugs.
“Well, I think you can safely say we’re convinced. I’ll make some fresh coffee and then I think you better tell us why you’re here.”
“We’ll follow you,” Jojo callsto me as she climbs into her cherry-red hatchback. Richard is already strapped into the passenger seat and they’ve slung overnight bags in the back ready to find somewhere to stay after they’ve accompanied us to Scarborough House. They’ve spent the last five minutes admiring Babs, and the hour before that listening to me, to us, as we spilled out our garbled tale and showed them the family tree and photographs we’d managed to amass. The critical point for Richard had been the archive photograph of Isaac, a formal pose, but nonetheless so very like his own image that the family connection was undeniable.
I didn’t hold anything back, and we had to pause every now and then because it was such a huge amount for them to take in. They’ve learned about a branch of their family that has always been missing from their own family tree, and then on top of that they had to get their heads around a murder that needs solving and a bunch of ghosts that need releasing. It’s a lot to ask of them, and it’s a testament to their characters that they didn’t just chuck us out in the street as crackpot charlatans.
“Thank God they fell into the open-minded camp,” I say, sliding Babs’s door shut with a swoosh.
“I think we had a good idea they would when Margo flashed her vagina,” Marina grins, and Artie passes a hand over his brow at the memory.
“You know what though, Artie?” I say, checking my watch. “It was your T-shirt that clinched it. I don’t think he’d have even let us through the door without it.”
He leans his head back against the seat and smiles as I pull out into the quiet road, Jojo following close behind me. It’s just gone 1:00p.m.With a bit of luck and the right wind behind us, we should be back in Chapelwick not long after 4:00p.m.
I wasn’t far off withmy estimate. We turn into Brimsdale Road at 4:30p.m.and I offer up a little prayer of thanks for the fact that all appears to be quiet at the house. I see Jojo and Richard pull up to the curb behind me and give them a thumbs-up in the mirror, hoping they’re still ready to see this through. We stopped for the bathroom and a quick coffee an hour back on the motorway, and it was obvious they’d spent their journey piecing together what we’d told them and working out where they fit into the puzzle.
“I know we won’t be able to see any of the brothers but I’m nervous all the same,” Jojo said, and Richard had seemed pensive and quiet about the whole affair. I’m glad in retrospect that we were able to ambush them in the way we did, if they’d had too much time to think about things they might never have come at all. I climb down from Babs and stretch my back out, cramped and stiff from way too many hours spent driving in the very unergonomic ’70s seat. Marina and Artie join me on the pavement and do pretty much the same thing, all of us groaning and grumbling as we roll our shoulders and flex our necks.
“This is the place then?” Jojo shields her eyes from the sun as she gazes up at Scarborough House. “It’s kind of grand, isn’t it?”
“It looks like it needs taking care of,” Richard says, scrubbing his hand over his chin. He looks serious, and well he might. This house would have been his if it weren’t for a cruel miscarriage of justice, and there’s a possibility that it still could be, in part at least.
“How are we going to get in?” Artie asks, because we no longer have our back door key.
“I’m not sure yet,” I say.
