The Dead Speak Ill Of The Living (The Dead Speak Paranormal Mysteries Book 1) (20 page)

  
Heart pumping, Pohl took a knife and slit the first package open, finding…a
book. A book she’d ordered herself before this nightmare started, and a book
with no bones in it at all. Feeling more confident, Pohl opened the second
package, and found another book she’d ordered at the same time.

  
Of course, the shop sends everything individually. So, panic over, another
postman visit without bones. Pohl sighed, finished her coffee, and prepared to
go out.

  
When she finally did so, smelling ozone and petrol fumes, she looked around.
Over the last ten days, Pohl’s mind had begun to change. She was no less
paranoid of the bones arriving, of being watched, of being someone’s toy, but
her mind had pushed into a new zone. For the first time she felt a hunger for
something, and this feeling was called revenge. She didn’t just want the bones
to stop, for the man or men to be arrested, she wanted him punished. She wanted
him, to use Dee’s parlance, to be fucked up for what he’d done to her. She
wanted to grind his face beneath her feet. An entirely new feeling, one she’d
associated with ancient writers than more herself, but one there nonetheless.

  
And it felt comfortable.

  
But still Pohl had to go into the world, so she walked to the end of Dee’s
short path, looked around, checked there was no traffic…and saw a white van
parked up. There was a man in it, sat casually staring out, a man she didn’t
recognise but who caught her eye and looked away.

  
The indignity of it, that bastard sat there, looking at her, waiting until
she’d gone. Well she wasn’t going to take it anymore. She stormed over, right
to the side of the van, and the man inside looked puzzled. She wrenched the
door open and began a stream of shouted invective her brain very rarely used,
and balled a fist up as if to hit him.

  
“Woah! Woah! I’m just here to repair some fucking plumbing!” the man replied in
shock.

  
“You intestinal parasite, you deserve to be…”

  
But as she shouted her mind noticed the dirty overalls, the catalogue of
plumbing supplies and the general state of the van.

  
Oh fuck, she thought, it’s not him.

  
In a car, parked up at the end of the road, the patron was sat watching Pohl.
Well, he wasn’t exactly watching, more in hysterics, having watched her storm
over and harangue a perfect stranger. The professor was clearly going to crack,
and then he’d start on that tight cunt of a lodger she had. Oh this was
glorious, such total fun. Better than television, better than typing things on
the internet.

  
But first things first, something to do. As Pohl apologised, put her hands up
embarrassed and walked as far away as quickly as possible without looking back,
the Patron exited his car, walked over, and quietly slipped a new package
through her letter box. No noise, just something she’d find when she came back.
Assuming she dared show her face in this street again. Then he returned to his
car, drove a safe distance, and began to laugh again. Deep, booming belly
laughs.

  
Pohl spent the afternoon shamed faced in the library, sneaking out for snacks,
and only came back when she imagined plumbers had knocked off for the day. And
she’d timed it right, as the van was absent when she got to the street, so she
went to Dee’s front door, unlocked and slipped inside.

  
“Hello,” Nazir’s voice boomed out of the lounge.

  
Dropping her jacket off, Pohl walked in to find Nazir sitting in front of a
laptop in the lounge with Joe and Dee with him.

  
“Social visit or do we have a job?” Pohl asked.

  
“Oh, we most definitely have a job,” Joe grinned.

  
“Good what’s it about?”

  
“Did you not get my text message?” Nazir asked Pohl.

  
“No?”

  
“I bet you didn’t get the one for yesterday either.”

  
“No,” and Pohl’s hand dropped to her pocket.

 
“Did you get mine?” Joe asked.

  
“Look, I haven’t had any text messages.”

  
“Have you been walking about with your mobile off again?”

  
“I’ve never quite adjusted to having this device on you. I keep thinking it’s
all message in pigeon holes and catching someone during their lunch hour…”

  
“Then we have some news for you. Firstly, we’re in the twenty first century,
and then…”

  
“Perhaps,” Dee suggested to Nazir, “we should introduce this sensitively.” Pohl
cocked her head, so Dee went on. “Another box was delivered this afternoon, for
you, with finger bones in it…” and Dee shot a hand up just in time, “let me
finish. Let me finish. While you were out yesterday Joe and Nazir rigged up a
tiny camera on our front door, so it would capture whoever came to it.”

  
“I didn’t see anything?”

  
“That’s the point. It’s very small, you can’t tell it’s there unless you’re
looking. Joe got it sourced and then…”

  
“Isn’t technology marvellous these days,” Joe exclaimed.

 
“Yes unless some perv is shooting up your skirt on the tube, but that’s for
another night. Now the lads have been through the footage, and we have a visual
on who’s doing this.”

  
Pohl shot round to the laptop. “Show me.”

  
“Okay, here we go,” and Nazir bought an image up. There stood a man, in his
late fifties, with a hairline that looked fake and a face that found it
impossible to smile nicely.

  
“That’s not our craftsman…”

  
“No, he’s still gone to ground. This is the man harassing you. Us.”

 
Pohl looked around the room. “Thanks Dee, thanks all of you. So who is it?”

  
“We don’t know,” Nazir explained. “The next stage is to run a face recognition
scan on all the papers and social media sites in the area.”

  
“Then let’s do it.”

  
“Can we just finish this episode of CSI, we’re halfway through.”

  
“No Nazir, you can not.”

  
“Okay, let me just set it off.”

  
“How long does it take?”

  
“It might find a match quickly, it might take all night.”

  
“Okay, let’s get tea organised.”

  
“An excellent idea.”

  
They had a lovely lasagne for tea, and spent its cooking time trying to divert
attention away from the matter in hand, which went very well as Nazir was
explaining the entire plot of the Dexter TV series, which he was informed
didn’t count as police research, and then CSI seasons one to four, which they
conceded might count as research.

  
“Have you watched anything Joe?” Dee asked.

  
“I went through the first season of Pertwee last week.”

  
“Pert…that’s Doctor Who isn’t it.”

  
“Yes.”

  
“Very on target.”

  
“It helps to cultivate a mind open to the oddities we’ve been finding.”

  
“I’ll concede you th…”

  
“Eureka!”

  
Everyone looked at Nazir.

  
“Either you’ve found something or you’ve been possessed by the ghosts of
ancient Greeks.”

  
Nazir smiled at Dee, “I have a match for the face.”

  
“Who is it?”

  
“Well Professor, there’s a man who lives in the next town who gets in the
papers a lot. Local businessman, big but never on the council, loves publicity,
isn’t afraid to piss people off. I’ve got a page here from when he tried to
open a strip club to piss all over an ungrateful population.”

  
“Sounds a case,” Dee noted.

  
“So here’s his smug face on the web, and here’s his face on our video.” The
laptop was turned and they all looked at it.

  
“That’s a match,” Joe concluded.

  
“So, let’s just get this sorted and off to the police…”

  
“No,” Pohl said to Nazir. “We have to be sure. We have to go and check his
place out.”

  
They all looked at each other. “Why not,” Dee grinned.

  
It was the evening, but they all entered Dee’s car and she drove them over.
Soon they were parked outside the sort of house that was set back from the road
and needed a team of gardeners to upkeep.

  
“Lights are on,” Dee noted, “so let’s…where are you going?”

  
Pohl had climbed out of the car and started running up the drive, leaving the
car door open. The other three hopped out, shut the doors and followed, afraid
to call out. By the time they’d caught up with Pohl she’d rung on the front
doorbell.

  
“What are you doing?” Dee hissed.

  
Just then the door opened, and a familiar face stared out at them, only this
time he wasn’t looking nearly as smug. “Hello?” he tried innocently.

  
Dee opened her mouth to talk, but Pohl was faster. She just wasn’t faster with
her tongue, because the professor pulled a knife out of her coat and stabbed it
deep into the man. With the others paralysed in shock, Pohl thrust the knife in
and out of the man’s guts with a wet snicking sound each time, until he was on
the ground, sprawled and still.

  
As blood pooled on the expensive carpet, Dee got back control of her mouth.

  
“You cunted him in the fuck!”

  
“Yes,” and Pohl smiled, “I’m a cougar!”

  
“That is not what it means!”

  
Joe looked behind him. “I think we’re hidden from the road up here.”

  
“What?” Nazir said as he turned. “Oh, yes, see what you mean, if we leave now
no one will ever know it was us.”

  
“Unless he has hidden cameras.”

  
“Let me pop in and check the setup,” Nazir said, making sure to avoid the dead
fellow.

  
“What are you thinking?” Dee hissed to Pohl.

  
Calm, and looking a little scared, she tried to defend herself. “He’d driven me
over the edge. I had to stop him, I had to.”

  
“This is not what we agreed!”

  
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened.”

 
Nazir reappeared holding a black box.

  
“I got the hard drive, no one will know it’s us now.”

  
“Right,” Joe agreed “we take her home, we get her cleaned up, and we do it
quickly. Does anyone know what cleans off blood?”

  
Dee raised an eyebrow to Joe. “Clearly you’ve never been a woman.”

  
At four am the following morning the group were still all sat around in the
ladies’ lounge, drinking their way through an entire hot chocolate container
and trying to make sense of the night. This process was aided when the doorbell
rang, and Dee looked at the laptop to discover it was Maquire, standing waiting
outside.

  
“He knows…” Pohl said, afraid.

  
“If he knew he’d be here mob handed. Let me talk to him,” and Dee went and
opened the door.

  
“Having a late one Dee?”

  
“We’re all up, group chat. Big business,” no, hang on, this was going badly.

  
“Then I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s something I need to report to you
all.”

  
“Come in,” Dee offered, and soon Maquire was in the lounge and being offered
hot chocolate.

  
“No, it’s alright. I’ve got some news you may find unsettling.” And he looked
right at Pohl. “Earlier this evening, well, in the middle of the night, we were
called to a murder scene. A man had been killed, on his doorstep, and so we
swung into action. But we soon found two things. Firstly, he had a room filled
with, well, with stuff made from bones, and I think one of uniform is going to
need therapy. We don’t know where these bones came from at the moment, but we
found something else. A file. It turns out this man loves harassing people, and
not in a comments section on YouTube way but old school stalking craziness. And
I’m sad to report Professor that you were one of his targets.”

  
“Me?”

  
“Yes. Has anything happened? We don’t know if he was pursuing a campaign yet or
planning to.”

  
“No, nothing,” and the others were impressed at how nonchalant she answered.

  
“I see. Which is excellent, of course. But we’ll have to interview you, part of
procedure.”

  
“Why did he pick me?”

  
“We don’t know. The file doesn’t say. Most of it is probably in his head. But
we’ll do our best to find out.”

  
“Thank you Constable.”

  
“Not a problem Professor. Now, if I could have a word with Dee before I go?”

  
“Yes?” Said Nazir, eyebrow raised. Dee shot him a look as she escorted Maquire
out of the house.

  
Once on the doorstep, door mostly shut, Maquire turned to Dee, allowing himself
to get very close, before almost whispering “this man was killed in a frenzied
attack. Probably someone pushed to breaking point through harassment. We have
no prints and little else, and I can say, even at this stage, that we won’t
find who did it. But Dee, promise me, if it was one of your group you will get
them therapy.”