Mary Hades (15 page)

I put my hand in my pocket and thumb my p
hone. When he left Five Moors, he finally gave me his number, and even his home address. Then he smiled and left with his head hung low, kicking the occasional stone from his path. I think of fifteen year old Seth, wandering onto the moors, watching his father commit the worst act in the world. I want that image out of my head. I want it to have never existed, to never have happened.

I want the world to be better.

I want Seth’s life to be better.

I want Amy to still be alive.

I want Lacey to still be alive.

I want Seth.

I want him.

“Whoa, Mares, what are you thinking about? You
r expression, it’s like pain,” Lacey says. “You look like a girl with the weight of the world on your shoulders, like you’re about to have your heart kicked in.”

“Maybe I am,” I mutter.

A breathless Neil jogs around the corner of the playground. “Guys, I have news. Lemarr knows where that ghost walk guy hangs out. Apparently he drinks in The Nag’s Head, around the corner. We should go and talk to him, see what he knows about… You all right? You look terrible, Mary. Did Seth’s story check out?”

“I don’t know how to tell,” I reply. “If the police never had enough evidence to convict his dad, how would I be able to find out for certain?”

“But you believe him,” Neil says.

“
Yeah, but is it enough?”

Neil doesn’t reply
; instead he motions for me to get off the swing, and then he wraps a large arm around my shoulders and gives me a squeeze. “Come on, let’s go find this ghost walker guy.”

“It’s only
afternoon, though,” I say. “Will he be there?”

“Apparently he goes there every day before his ghost walks,” Neil replies.

I pull my phone out of my bag. “I should text Seth so he can meet us there.”

“Is that a good idea?”
Lacey says.

“It’s his life on the line,
Lacey. He has a right to figure out how to get rid of Amy,” I reply.

She frowns. “Okay.”

On the walk to the pub, Lacey is very quiet. It’s obvious that she doesn’t believe Seth’s story, but I can’t think of anything else that makes sense. She doesn’t understand that I have to go with my gut, and my gut tells me Seth is innocent.

Neil opens the door
of The Nag’s Head and holds it open for me. It swings back as Lacey is stepping through, going straight through her.

“Thanks, Neil,
” she says with a mean-spirited, sarcastic edge.

I flash
her a look. It’s not like Neil can see her. Or that she even needs the door to be open.

We step through into the pub and the usual wall of chitter-chatter plus background music hits
you in the face. It’s a proper “old-man’s pub”. The kind you find in the most remote of places. You can tell who the locals are because they turn around and stare at you with more than a little hostility; the old men wear flat caps and Wellington boots. They wouldn’t look out of place stomping through fields with a shotgun draped over one arm. The women are caked in make-up, with skirt suits in pastel shades. I imagine one of them in the passenger seat of a convertible, a headscarf tied neatly under her chin.

But it’s not all wealthy farmers in the pub. The thing about England is that no matter how posh the area is, it’s always near to a council estate, and in one of the rooms, a raucous game of pool is going on.
I peek into the room to see beer sloshing over the sides of pint glasses, hitting the sticky carpeted floor. It smells like cheap antiperspirant and farts.

“What do you want to drink?” Neil asks.

He can’t persuade me to have a real drink, so instead he heads to the bar for a Coke and a pint of real ale, the ten pound note already in his hand. I wander through into the room with the pool players. It’s there that I find the guy from the ghost walk—Igor.

He sits at the small bar in the second room with his top hat next to him on a separate stool. His lanky hair, ba
lding on top, straggles over the sides of his shirt collar and rests on the shoulders of his black waistcoat. There is the gold chain of a pocket watch peeking from his waistcoat pocket. He’s a man who would look out of place whatever the era. In the 21
st
century he is a Victorian Goth. If you transported him back to Victorian times, he would appear unkempt and scruffy—a man to be avoided.

“He can’t be that good of a ghost hunter,”
Lacey says. I’d almost forgotten she was there. The sound of her voice makes me start. “He never even noticed me on the ghost walk.”

While I’m
mulling over how much help Igor will actually be, Neil presses a cold glass of Coke into my fingers. I’d not even noticed him approach, or the way the pool players had stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at me.

“All right, love?” A lanky chap winks at me.

I reply with a half-hearted smile, hoping it’s enough to convey “I don’t want to be rude, but please don’t talk to me”, before following Neil towards our ghost walk tour guide.

Neil clears his throat
. “Um, Mr. Igor?”

Igor turns and angles his chin down so he can examine us over his odd little spectacles. He is older than I thought, with hair greying at the roots and burst blood vessels around his nose. “What is it?
Who are you?”

“We were at your ghost walk last night,” Neil continues.

He looks at Neil and then me, his eyes impatient, his fingers tapping the side of the pint glass. “And?”

“We wondered if we could talk to you, about…
ghosts
,” Neil whispers, leaning forward on his toes.

Igor sighs. “Not again. Look, I come here for a bit of peace and quiet, not to be hassled by teenagers. If you want a freak to point and
laugh at, there’s a circus outside Leeds with—”

“It’s not that, Mr. Igor,” I say. “We need your help.”

Lacey steps forward and passes through Igor. His eyes widen and his back straightens. I nod to him as he begins to realise what has happened.

“We’re not alone,” he whispers, staring through me towards the back of the room. He pauses and remains still in contemplation. Then he
raps the bar with his knuckle and leans towards the bartender. “Eileen, do you mind if I pop upstairs for a few minutes? These kids need to talk shop.”

“Sure
.” She sets down a cleaned glass and picks up a set of keys from behind the bar. “Bring them back when you’re done.”

Igor lifts his hat from the stool, sets it on his head and takes the keys. He winks at her. “I know the drill.”

*

“So, you have a friend with you
, then?” Igor says as he lifts his pint to his lips. The Guinness leaves a beer moustache on his upper lip.

I nod. “You can sense her?”

“Of course.” He leans back in his chair and crosses his legs, his ankle resting on the opposite knee.

We’re sat in the function room above the pub, on fold out chairs set on the wooden floorboards of a dance floor. There’s a stage behind us, the red curtains drawn. I wonder if they have local bands play, or whether they cater for the older crowd, employing pub singers and third rate comedians.

“Did yer think I were a charlatan or summat?” He narrows his eyes. The Yorkshire twang is gruff yet somehow comforting, evoking the tone of the Northern relatives you see around Christmas.

“We came to you for help, remember?” Neil points out.

“Aye, well. You’d be surprised how many folk come to poke fun. You’d think they’d have summat better to do.”

“We’re not like that, Mr. Igor. We need help with a powerful spirit,” I say.

“How powerful?”

“Strong enough to take another life,” I reply.

Igor’s eyes hold mine as he takes a long gulp of Guinness. He’s already put away half a pint while we’ve been upstairs. He smacks his lips and bangs the glass down. “Yer talking crap. There’s no way you’ve seen a murdering ghost.”

“It’s Little Amy,” Neil says.

Igor’s expression seems to lengthen. His jaw goes slack and his eyes widen. The rose coloured tint left on his cheeks by the alcohol fades, washing out his skin and making the shadows beneath his eyes more visible. He goes to stand up, but I put a hand on his.

“It’s true. I’
ve seen her. You know it’s true. Someone like you must have noticed the mysterious deaths around here, the way men die on or around Five Moors? I know you’ve noticed. It’s time to stop ignoring it,” I say.

Igor drops back into his seat, leaning forward on the wobbling round table. “Amy’s death didn’t just affect me, or her family, it affected the whole vi
llage.” He lifts a hand and half-heartedly rubs his eye socket. “Terrible night, it was. Little lass like that.”

“We know it was trag
ic,” I say. “But we need to find out if you know how to banish a ghost for good. She’s
killing
people, Igor. She tried to kill me.” My hand goes to my throat. “I barely survived. It was Lacey, here, who helped.” I gesture to Lacey even though I know he can’t see her.

When Igor starts, I realise
Lacey has revealed herself.

“Hi,” she says.

Igor fumbles with his glasses. “You’re a fresh one.”

“If you mean my corpse, it’s not so fresh,” she says.

“I’m sorry. I mean, you’ve not been dead long.”

“63 days 10 minutes and 27 seconds, but who’s counting?”
Lacey replies.

I wish I could reach out and squeeze her hand.

“Whatever you want to do to this Little Amy chick, you’re not testing it out on me. Just thought I’d get that out of the way from the beginning,” Lacey says.

Igor lets out a sigh so heavy that it seems to age him. “I’d hoped to put all that behind me. But I suppose it’s time to start again. You see, I used to be in the ghost hunting business. Or rather, ghost extermination business.”

Lacey stares at Igor in horror, and I share a satisfied look with Neil. We did the right thing coming to Igor.

“You
exterminate
ghosts?” Lacey says.

“I used to,” he corrects.
“A long time ago. Ghosts are extraneous spirits in this world, they shouldn’t, by rights, be here, and most of the time they cause problems for those around them. They become bitter, twisted… Oh, sorry lass, I shouldn’t have said that.”

Lacey
stares down at the table between us. This time I reach out to try and take her hand, forgetting all about her non-corporeal form, and getting a chill for my efforts.

“We’re not all extraneous,” she says. “I have a purpose. I’m going to stop that Amy chick from taking any more lives. That’s what I’m going to do.”

Igor nods. “Well, all right then. It’s good to have you on board. When you’re taking on a revenge spirit, it’s good to have a team to back you up.”

“Have you ever worked with a ghost before?” I ask.

Igor drains more of his pint and burps into his closed fist. “This’ll be a first. Fifty-two and still having firsts in this world—ain’t that something?”

“So, how does the… umm, ghost extermination work?” Neil asks.

“Can’t talk about it here.” He leans to the side and rummages around in his jeans pocket. After a few moments he pulls out a small card. “Me business card. Yer can get hold of me on that number there.” He points to the number. When I reach out to take the card, he pulls it away, flips it over and takes a pen from a small clip inside his top hat. After scribbling on the back of the card he passes it to me. “That there’s me address and a time. Come to it tomorrow and I’ll explain everything. Wear warm and comfortable clothing.”

Igor stands to leave as I’m examining his card. There’s a picture of half his face, wearing t
he top hat. Over the top, a bad photo manipulation job has superimposed a skull. Igor – Professional Ghost Tours, it says. It’s almost exactly the same as the leaflet I’d put in my bag during the first ten minutes of arriving in Nettleby. Perhaps I always knew I would be led here.

The next moment, Igor
drains his pint and his boots clip across the dance floor, leaving me with Lacey and Neil.

“Well, that was dramatic,”
Lacey says.

We head back down to the pub to find Seth at the bar. His smile broadens when we approach and the first thing he does is ask if I want a drink.

“Watch out for poison,”
Lacey says. I flash her a glare.

“Erm, ghost whisperer?
You might not want to glare at the entire pub. She
is
invisible, you know,” Neil says.

I bite my lip. “Yeah, I keep forgetting that.”

“Next time you forget, you might find yourself in some psychiatric ward somewhere,” he continues.