Tamsyn Murray-My So-Called Haunting (14 page)

‘You need to get angry,’ I advised. ‘Then try to push it with your finger.’

Looking anything but convinced, he knelt beside the ball and thrust a finger towards it. Nothing happened.

He wasn’t feeling enough emotion, I decided. ‘You don’t look very angry to me. Are you sure you want this?’

Ignoring me, he stabbed his hand towards the ball again. Still nothing happened.

There were signs of movement on some of the other pitches. The teams were starting to arrive and we were running out of time. I summoned up my most jeering tones. ‘I thought you were
supposed to be good at this? You can’t even pick up the ball!’

Dontay scowled furiously at me. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s called football, not handball.’

‘So kick it, then!’ I yelled and dredged my mind for football phrases. ‘Bend it like Beckham!’

In a burst of rage, he lashed out his foot. It connected firmly with the ball, sending it soaring through the air and on to the neighbouring pitch. We stared at in stunned silence for a
minute.

‘So,’ I said in a tentative voice. ‘How did that feel?’

‘Almost as good as it used to be.’ Dontay flashed me a tiny grin. ‘What was with that Beckham stuff?’

My cheeks turned pink. ‘It was the only thing I could think of to say. It worked, anyway – think you can do it again?’

His grin almost split his face it was so wide. ‘Are you serious? Now I know how to do it I’m never gonna stop!’

Which could be a bit of a problem, I thought, as he raced towards the ball. People tended to get a bit freaked out by things apparently moving around on their own. And it could be exhausting to
do it for long periods of time. I needed him fresh if our plan was going to work.

‘Wait for me!’ I called and jogged after him. ‘I can’t do this without you.’

By the time Nelson and his team-mates arrived at the Marshes, I’d learned a lot. I’m not saying that I was ready for Skill School or anything, but thanks to
Dontay’s teaching I could manage at least to keep the ball under control. Dontay had mastered touching physical objects with incredible speed; I guessed his talent for football had helped.
All I needed now was to use my newfound talent to get Nelson’s attention.

I knew that he’d clocked me standing on the touch-line almost straight away, but he didn’t acknowledge me until half-time. I stood to one side of the pitch, practising bouncing the
ball off my knees and trainers, just as Dontay had showed me. Nelson jogged over to me, his gaze suspicious.

‘You again.’

‘Hi, Nelson,’ I said absently, concentrating on keeping the ball in the air.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Playing keep-ups, what does it look like?’

In my desperation to look like I knew what I was doing, I gave a particularly energetic thrust of my knee. The ball bounced high and I knew I was going to lose it, but then Dontay was beside me.
With a flick of his leg and a look of intense concentration, he brought the ball under control and sailing back towards my foot. I stuck out a muddy trainer and the ball landed obediently on it.
Dontay winked.

I slid Nelson a sideways look. ‘Fancy a game?’ Then I blushed. What if he thought I was chatting him up?

Sure enough, his eyebrows shot up. ‘Nah. I’m in the middle of a match.’

Surreptitiously, I tried to fan my blushing cheeks. ‘Afterwards, then? Or are you scared of getting beaten by a girl?’

He shrugged. ‘Fine. If you want to get your arse kicked, it’s no skin off my nose.’

He turned and went back to his team. As he reached them he said something and they all turned to look at me. I was so busy trying to watch them out of the corner of my eye that the ball once
again spun out of control and this time not even Dontay’s skills could rescue it. As it flew upwards and over my head, I heard Nelson and his friends laugh.

‘This had better be worth it,’ I told Dontay through gritted teeth as I picked up the ball and started again. ‘This had so better be worth it.’

The jibe about losing to a girl must have really hurt Nelson, because he showed me absolutely no mercy. A few of his team-mates had come over to watch after their match was
over, and if I hadn’t had Dontay beside me, flicking and nudging the ball, I’d have lost almost as soon as the game began. I couldn’t believe how good he was; two hours earlier he
hadn’t even been able to even touch the ball and now he was giving Cristiano Ronaldo a run for his money. His skill was unnatural; he must have been some footballer before he died.

Dontay stood so close to me that we were practically touching. I knew it must be as uncomfortable for him as it was for me; Mary never stopped moaning about how unpleasant it was to have someone
walk through you. But it worked like a charm, and by the time Nelson and I were both panting through the exertion, he was looking at me with new respect.

‘You’re not bad,’ he said when we stopped to catch our breath. ‘For a girl.’

Dontay shook his head in mock embarrassment. ‘Our mum would go nuts if she heard him say stuff like that.’

‘Yeah, well I had a good teacher,’ I replied, without thinking. ‘Your brother.’

Nelson stared at me. ‘Dontay taught you to play keep-ups? I thought you said you met him down the snooker hall.’

I blushed. ‘Er . . . we did. But then he showed me some of his other skills.’

Sniggers broke out among Nelson’s mates.

‘I bet he did,’ one of them called out.

‘It wasn’t like that,’ I insisted, keeping my eyes trained on Nelson. ‘We were mates, that’s all.’

Nelson looked like he didn’t believe me. ‘Like I said, he never told me about you.’

‘He told me plenty about you,’ I said, lowering my voice. ‘Like how you’re going to be a great footballer and play for West Ham someday.’ I paused and waited until
he returned my gaze. ‘How proud he was of you for staying on the straight and narrow.’

There was an awkward silence. Then Nelson spoke, ‘Yeah, well.’

The other boys started shuffling around. The one who’d made the joke about Dontay showing me his skills waved a hand. ‘Nelson, man, I’m off. See ya.’

The others took that as their cue to go as well, leaving Nelson staring at the pitch and me wondering where to go from here.

‘He wouldn’t want you to go looking for revenge,’ I said once we were alone, deciding on the direct approach.

Nelson looked up angrily. ‘How do you know? He was murdered by them Marsh Street scum and no one cared. The police talked about catching the shooter but they never did nothing about it.
Who else is going to sort it out if I don’t?’

I glanced towards Dontay anxiously. ‘Don’t get involved with the gangs. You’ll just get hurt and Dontay doesn’t want that.’

Nelson shrugged dismissively. ‘Shank won’t let that happen. He looks after his own.’ He fixed me with an accusing stare. ‘Why are you talking about my brother like he was
still here?’

Realising there was only one way out, I took a deep breath. ‘Maybe he is.’

Disgust etched itself over his face as he backed off. ‘You’re a nutter. Keep away from me, yeah?’

‘That went well,’ I mumbled to Dontay as his brother stamped across the pitch.

‘That wasn’t him talking,’ Dontay said, his voice flat. ‘That’s the sort of thing Shank would say. They’re building him up to do a shooting and using me as an
excuse.’

I shivered, and it wasn’t due to the sweat drying on my skin. ‘Then we have to find out when and where. Because if you ask me, Nelson seems plenty angry enough to do something
he’s going to regret.’

Celestine folded her arms and threw me an adamant look. ‘No. Absolutely not.’

I slumped on to the sofa and sighed. ‘Why not? All I have to do is find out where the gang leader is, set Mary on him, and Nelson will be safe. Actually, we’d be doing the whole
world a favour.’

She held up a finger. ‘One, Mary is not an evil spirit.’ Considering some of the stunts she’d pulled on me I had severe doubts about that, but I kept my mouth shut and
Celestine went on. ‘Two, it goes against everything spiritualism stands for to use ghosts to get something you want. And three, it’s too dangerous. What if he’s so terrified he
takes it out on the living?’

OK, so I hadn’t thought of that, but it still wasn’t the worst plan in the world. And I couldn’t see another way of preventing Nelson from getting himself into a situation
where it was kill or be killed. ‘What do you suggest, then?’

‘I could talk to his parents, make them aware of what’s going on?’

I shook my head. ‘I suggested that. Dontay says it wouldn’t work. They’d try to ban Nelson from going out and he’d become even more devious. Anything else?’

Jeremy looked up from the Sunday papers. ‘Have you thought about going to the police?’

‘And saying what? There’s a ghost who’s worried his brother is going to try to avenge his death?’ I snorted derisively. ‘That’d go down well.’

‘I think you should get them involved,’ Jeremy insisted. ‘They have whole departments devoted to fighting gang crime. Surely they must have an idea of what’s going
on.’

I shuddered at the thought of the reaction of the boys in blue. ‘If you feel so strongly about it, then why don’t you go and see them?’

Celestine groaned but Jeremy looked pleased. ‘All right, then, I will.’

‘I’d have thought you’d be too busy with Isobel to get involved with my ghostly problems, but what do I know?’ I said. It was a low blow, but Isobel was driving us crazy.
The moment Jeremy had given her a small lump of stone from the bridge so that she could move around, she’d taken to standing outside the house. Mary was threatening to call in an exorcist to
get rid of her. ‘Just don’t mention Nelson by name. Dontay will go mental if his brother gets picked up. And don’t drag me into it.’

I needn’t have stressed over Jeremy’s Sherlock Holmes tendencies – Dontay didn’t bat an eyelid when I tentatively mentioned it. In fact, he looked
almost pleased, much to my relief. We were at Lee Valley ice rink and Dontay was my safety net as I flailed around like Bambi on – well – ice. If he’d got the hump and left,
I’d have been flat on my backside before you could say A&E.

‘There’s a lot of couples here,’ he said, gazing round the rink and drifting sideways to avoid a speeding ice marshal. Coloured lights refracted off the frozen white ground and
a slamming bass-line chased them round.

‘I suppose,’ I said, concentrating on sliding one wobbly skate in front of another. ‘For a Sunday night, anyway.’

I’d taken Jeremy’s advice and plugged a mobile phone earpiece into my ear so I could talk without looking like a care in the community case. Dontay was hovering more than normal, a
few centimetres above the ice, making me feel even shorter. ‘Did you and Ned ever come here?’

No, and I thanked my lucky stars we hadn’t. Crazy windmill arms were not a good look on anyone. It was all right for Dontay; he didn’t even have to move his feet to stay upright.

‘His name is Nico,’ I corrected.

Dontay watched as my skate took on a life of its own and I almost did the splits. ‘Have you heard from him?’

I couldn’t stop the grin from spreading over my face. ‘Yeah. They’re leaving Romania tomorrow.’

He stared at me. ‘Leaving where?’

‘Romania,’ I repeated, ending on a squeak as I battled to keep my balance. Other skaters flew past, making it look so easy and scaring the pants off me with their pace. It
wasn’t fair; how come everyone else appeared as if they were straight from the Winter Olympics and I looked more like the comedy turn? I gave up. ‘That’s where he’s been.
Fancy a sit down?’

Dontay shrugged and we headed off the ice. I sank into one of the seats behind the Perspex sheets and loosened the laces of my skates. ‘Bliss,’ I said, wiggling my numb toes.
‘I swear they’re cutting off my circulation.’

Dontay’s gaze was fixed on the skaters. ‘How well do you know this Nick?’

‘Why?’ I said, feeling a sudden rush of defensiveness. ‘He’s all right.’

Actually, he was more than all right, especially at kissing, but there was such a thing as too much information.

‘I overheard him talking about you,’ Dontay said, not looking at me. ‘Let’s just say it wasn’t all sugar and spice.’

I stopped rubbing my ankles to stare at him. ‘When?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ His expression was evasive. ‘All you need to know is that he ain’t no Mr Nice Guy.’

Turning to face him, I repeated, ‘When?’

Dontay sighed. ‘One Saturday night. After you’d been to that gig and he’d walked you home.’

My jaw dropped. ‘You followed me? But I thought it was Mary!’

‘Yeah, well, it weren’t.’ He shuffled on his seat. ‘She asked me to look out for you and I didn’t have nothing better to do.’

‘So you thought you’d spy on me,’ I said in disgust, still reeling from the thought of him watching Nico and me doing – well, I didn’t want to think about what
we’d been up to that night. ‘Pervert.’

‘It weren’t like that,’ he insisted, his face wretched. ‘I hung back, didn’t get too close or nothing. Then, when you’d gone inside, I thought I’d make
sure he got back to the tube all right. That’s when I heard him on the phone.’