Witch Is Why The Laughter Stopped (A Witch P.I. Mystery Book 14) (11 page)

Chapter 18

The next morning, I arrived at the office before Jules. When she turned up, the first thing she did was bring me a cup of tea.

“Be careful with that, Jules.”

She was only carrying the one cup, but tea was still slopping into the saucer.

“Sorry, Jill. I just can’t seem to carry cups.”

“Maybe, in future, it would be better if you give me a shout when the tea is ready, and I can come and get it.”

“That’s a good idea.” As she put the cup down onto my desk, more tea slopped over the side. “Sorry, Jill.”

“It’s okay.”

“What about sugar? I didn’t put any in, because I don’t really understand how much you take.”

“It’s okay. I’ve got some in my drawer. I’ll see to it.”

She turned around, and was about to leave.

“Jules. Just a second. I thought you should know that Mrs V took a call from Jethro, yesterday.”

“Why was he calling Mrs V?”

“He didn’t intend to. Peter gave him the office number so he could get in touch with you, but he omitted to tell him that you don’t work here every day. He just happened to ring when Mrs V was in.”

“What did she say to him?”

“That’s just it. I think Jethro must have been nervous. He heard a female voice, assumed it was you, and asked Mrs V out.”

“Oh heck! What did she say?”

“She more or less told him to get lost.”

“Wait a minute. Does that mean Jethro thinks it was me who told him to get lost?”

“It’s possible, yeah.”

“I knew I should have called him. All that ‘playing hard to get’ didn’t really work out, did it?”

“Sorry about that, Jules.”

“He probably won’t want to hear from me now.”

“I’m sure he will—if you explain what happened.”

“Have you got his number, Jill?”

“Yeah. I checked the call log after Mrs V had spoken to him.” I passed Jules the slip of paper I’d scribbled the number on.

Winky had been remarkably quiet since I’d arrived. It was almost ten-thirty when he eventually crawled out from under the sofa. He stretched, and gave a big yawn.

“Nice of you to join us,” I said.

“You’d sleep in too if you’d been woken up every hour by a stupid cuckoo clock.”

I chuckled at the thought.

“I don’t know what you’re laughing at. It’s not funny. I need my rest. How am I meant to be at my best if I’m woken up every hour?”

“Why don’t you put those earmuffs on?”

“For the hundredth time, they’re not earmuffs. They’re ear defenders.”

He jumped onto the sofa, and from somewhere, produced a tablet.

“Where did you get that from?”

“I have my sources. If I’d waited for you to come up with a solution to my communication problems, I would have been waiting forever. Bella and I have decided to communicate via Skype.”

“Has Bella got a tablet?”

“It turns out that the old lady she lives with has one; her son bought it for her. She doesn’t have a clue what to do with it—she’s been using it as a placemat. So now, Bella has acquired it.”

The distinctive Skype call sound caught his attention.

“Hiya, Sweetie,” he said, to the screen.

“Hello, lover.” I heard a voice call back.

Was I going to have to listen to these two all morning?

“Say hello to Bella.” Winky held the tablet towards me.

“Hello, Bella,” I shouted.

She purred regally.

“Hey, Winky,” I whispered.

He put the tablet to one side. “What?”

“Have you told Bella about your time machine?”

“Shush! She’ll worry if she knows I’m going to be time travelling.”

“Okay. Mum’s the word.”

***

I’d made no real progress with Gloria Cloverleaf’s sudden and mysterious death. Her husband had tried to be helpful, but was obviously as much in the dark as everyone else. Mabel Beauford’s husband neither knew nor cared what had happened to his wife, but he had given me the name of a friend of hers, Elizabeth Tagg. Unfortunately, every time I’d called her, I’d got no answer, and she didn’t have voicemail.

It was such a strange way to die, and yet, there had now been three similar deaths in Candlefield recently. I’d spent the best part of two hours going through the archives of The Candle to see if I could find any more cases, but with no success. Searching The Candle’s archives was a laborious task. It made me even more determined to push the Combined Sup Council to reconsider their stance on the internet. It was absolutely ridiculous that there was no online access in Candlefield.

Next, I planned to see if I could find any similar cases in the human world. At least there, I had access to the internet. I searched on a variety of terms including: ‘Die after laughing,’ and ‘Laughing death.’ Eventually, I struck lucky when I searched for: ‘Laughing causes heart failure.’ I found a number of cases over the previous two years in various parts of the UK.

A man in Dover had laughed so much while at a football match, that he’d collapsed and died. An elderly woman in Pontypridd had been at her local knitting club when she’d started laughing for no apparent reason. Moments later, she was dead. The other cases all followed the same pattern. The person suddenly began laughing uncontrollably for no apparent reason. Moments later, they were dead.

I made a note of the various towns in which these incidents had taken place. One of them was in Tableford—twenty miles away. A few phone calls and a bit of expert P.I-ing later, and I’d found the name and address of the dead man’s wife. The deceased was a Mr John Monroe; his widow was Carrie Monroe. I made a call, and she readily agreed to talk to me. She said I could go straight over there.

“Jules, I’m going out.”

“Is it okay if I call Jethro while you’re gone?”

“Yes, of course. Good luck.”

Carrie Monroe was in her late forties. She was a pretty woman with bright blue eyes.

“I’ve been looking into deaths similar to that of your husband, and I wondered if perhaps I could talk to you about exactly what happened.”

“Of course. Have a seat. Would you like a drink?”

“No, I’m fine, thanks. Perhaps you could start by telling me something about your husband?”

“John and I were very happy. He was a quiet man who kept himself to himself. He wasn’t loud like some men. He was very hardworking. A postman, actually.”

“Where was he when it happened?”

“We were together. We’d been out for the day to Lake Trinkle. Not actually on the lake. Just sitting by the side of it; watching the water. It was so peaceful—such a lovely day. Then, as we were about to come home, John started laughing. I couldn’t understand why. John rarely laughed like that, even when he was watching something funny on TV. His laughter set me off. Laughing can be contagious, can’t it? But he carried on and on, and I could see by his face that he was in some distress. Then, he collapsed. I called the ambulance, but he died before they arrived.”

“What did they say was the cause of death?”

“They said his heart had given way. The strain of all the laughter had killed him.”

“Had he been all right before that day?”

“Yes, he’d been fine. We’d been going about our daily life. In fact, only the night before, we’d been to see a band at the club down the road. The guitarist was an old friend of John’s. We used to go and see his band whenever they played locally. We thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a lovely evening.”

“He didn’t complain of feeling ill then?”

“No, he was fine. There were no signs that anything was wrong at all.”

***

I needed to find a snow globe that looked exactly the same as the one that Jack had bought for me. But how on earth was I going to do that? After I’d left Carrie Monroe’s house, I checked online, and to my surprise and delight, I found there was a shop which specialised in snow globes just the other side of Washbridge. It was called Snow Limits, and they described themselves as the country’s leading snow globe emporium. They apparently stocked thousands of snow globes. Maybe I’d be able to find something similar there.

The shop was on a small retail park, in between a furniture shop and a toy shop. The man behind the counter was wearing thick-rimmed glasses, which he took off when I approached him.

“Good afternoon. My name is Donny McDonald. How can I help you today?”

“You have an awful lot of snow globes.”

“Yes, indeed. It’s all we sell, hence the name: Snow Limits. Did you have a particular snow globe in mind? We have lots of different themes: romantic snow globes, scary snow globes, and even funny snow globes. This is one of the most popular at the moment.” He lifted one up and showed it to me.

“Are those camels in there?”

“That’s right.” He shook the snow globe, so snow came tumbling down onto the camels. “Hilarious, isn’t it?”

Side-splitting. “I’m not really looking for a funny snow globe. Do you have any with houses in them?”

“Lots of them. You want aisle B.”

There was shelf after shelf of snow globes with a variety of buildings inside them. Snow globes with churches, snow globes with town halls, snow globes with stadiums, and any number with houses of all shapes and sizes. But none of them looked anything like the one that Jack had bought me.

I went back to Donny McDonald.

“I haven’t found anything suitable. Do you by any chance make custom snow globes? From a photograph, say?”

“We can, but I should warn you they’re very expensive. They start at three hundred and fifty pounds.”

“How much?” I surely hadn’t heard him correctly.

“And that’s the cheapest. I would have to see a photo before I could give you a firm price.”

“I’ll have to think about it.”

I couldn’t afford to pay that kind of money. I would just have to come clean, and tell Jack that I’d broken it. What else could I do? I couldn’t tell him I’d sent it back to the supernatural world.

On the street outside my office, were seven young people—three women and four men—all dressed in shorts, and t-shirts with “I- Sweat” on the front. They were doing push ups and squats, and all manner of exercises. One of them offered me a leaflet.

“Can I interest you in this? It’s for the new health club.”

I took it from him. “Is it open?”

“Not yet, but they’re accepting membership applications, so you can sign up today. It’ll help you lose some of those excess pounds.”

Excess pounds? Cheek.

Chapter 19

Jack had been up and out early doors. I’d slept in, and was running a little late. I hadn’t had time for breakfast, so I called in at Coffee Triangle on my way to the office. As soon as I walked through the door, I knew something was amiss. There were lots of people crowded around the counter; they all seemed to be complaining. When I got closer, and could hear what was being said, it became apparent that the management had decided to introduce a woodwind day. And today was the first one.

Lots of customers had arrived expecting it to be gong day, and were very disappointed when they realised that they’d have to choose an instrument from the woodwind section.

“The only reason I came was because it was gong day,” one man said.

“Me too. I like to get rid of all my tension by hitting a gong. I can hardly do that by playing a recorder, can I?”

“It’s only a trial run.” The young woman behind the counter was trying to placate them. “We’re just trying it out for a couple of weeks to see what the reaction is.”

“I can tell you my reaction.” A young man wearing baggy jeans stepped forward. “I want a gong. I don’t want a clarinet, thank you very much.”

I eventually managed to order a flat white ‘to go’.

Kathy was behind the counter in Ever, and already very busy. She had a queue of people waiting to pay. There was no point in my going inside because she wouldn’t have had time to talk to me.

The shop across the road looked as though it was ready for opening, so I waited until the road was clear, and went to check it out. There was a display of seashells in the window. Inside the shop, I could see all manner of marine bric-a-brac. Suddenly, the name of the shop made perfect sense. ‘She sells’—
She sells seashells
. There was only one person I could think of who would open a shop selling seashells, and that was none other than my old acquaintance, Betty Longbottom, the intrepid tax inspector.

The notice on the door read:
‘Opening Tomorrow, 9:00.’

***

Mrs V was hard at work knitting what was obviously a scarf. On the desk were two which she’d already finished. It was a long time since I’d seen her so absorbed in her knitting.

“Morning, Mrs V.”

“Morning, Jill.” She didn’t even look up.

“You look very busy.”

“I’ve got a deadline to meet. I have to knit twenty scarves by a week on Saturday. I’m not sure I’m going to make it.”

“You could always get Jules to help you.”

“Jules?” She stopped knitting for a second. “I assume that’s a joke?”

“I thought you were teaching her.”

“I am, but you saw the state of the scarf she’s just knitted.”

“It was a
little
uneven.”

“That’s the understatement of the year. She’ll get there eventually, but I think it’s going to take a year or two.”

“Why the deadline for having the scarves finished? What’s the occasion?”

“They’re for Armi. There’s a fundraiser for the Cuckoo Clock Appreciation Society.”

“I like the little cuckoo on each end of the scarves. That’s clever.”

“But very time-consuming. It’s my own stupid fault. I should have given him some of those scarves out of the cupboard. But no, I had to suggest scarves with cuckoos on them. And not just that.”

She held one up, and I could see the word ‘cuckoo’ had been knitted into the scarf.

“That’s very nice.”

“Thank you. I hope whoever buys these, appreciates the work that’s gone into them.”

Something about the cuckoo clock in my office didn’t look right. I walked over to get a closer view, and then I realised what it was. There was parcel tape over the little door.

“Winky?”

“I’m busy!” The voice came from behind the screen.

“Come out here a minute.”

“I’ve got to fit this accelerator.”

“The accelerator will have to wait. Get your backside out here now!”

He appeared, holding a screwdriver and a spanner. “What is it? I’m very busy.”

“What have you done to the clock?”

“I haven’t done anything to it.”

“What’s this then?” I pulled off the parcel tape.

“Oh that? The stupid cuckoo kept waking me up every hour, so I had to do something to stop it. I didn’t think you’d appreciate it if I smashed it again, so I put tape over the door to stop it popping out.”

“And what exactly do you think Mrs V will say when she sees that?”

“The old bag lady hardly ever ventures in here. I don’t think she likes me.”

“I wonder why. Anyway, you can’t leave the tape on the clock.”

“How about I only put it on at night, so I can get some sleep? You don’t want to see me sleep-deprived, do you?”

“Okay, but not until the office is closed, and Mrs V and I have gone home. And only on condition that you remove it before anyone arrives in the morning.”

“Okay. Deal.”

***

I was still very concerned about Jessica Lambeth. When she’d come to see me, she’d been worried about her boyfriend’s behaviour. But other than that, she’d been bright enough. And yet, the other day when I’d gone to her flat, she’d seemed totally out of it—almost in a trance. She and her boyfriend were now
both
acting very strangely. I felt I owed it to her, as a client, to check that everything was okay, so I decided to pay her another visit.

When I got to her flat, I spotted Paul through the window, so I waited outside in the hope that he might leave, and allow me to speak to Jessica alone. I was out of luck because, three quarters of an hour later, they left together. They both still had the same trance-like look about them. I followed at a distance, even though they were so spaced-out that they probably wouldn’t have noticed if I’d jumped out in front of them. It didn’t take long to work out where they were headed. They were taking the same route to Bar Scarlet as Paul had taken when I’d followed him before.

I waited until they’d been in the bar for a few minutes, then followed them inside. Just as on my previous visit, the clientele was made up almost entirely of vampires. I made it inside just in time to see Paul and Jessica walk straight past the bar, and towards the back of the building where I’d lost Paul on the previous occasion. I was determined that wouldn’t happen again, so I pushed my way through the crowd. I made it there just in time to see them go through a door, which I hadn’t even noticed on my last visit. It was painted black, and set into a black wall. When the door was closed, you wouldn’t have known it was there. Only when it opened, and light shone through from the room behind it, could you tell there was a door there at all.

As I got closer, two vampires blocked my way.

“Sorry, you can’t go in there. It’s private.”

“But two friends of mine just went in.”

“Sorry, no entry.” They were both large men, and not exactly what you’d call friendly-looking. I could have used magic to get past them, but I wasn’t sure it was appropriate. It could all have been quite innocent, and I didn’t want to cause a scene unnecessarily.

I decided to leave the bar, and wait across the road until Paul and Jessica came out. A lot of people, mainly vampires, went in and out. The majority of the vampires stayed no more than a few minutes. The few humans who ventured inside seemed to stay much longer.

It was almost two hours later when Jessica and Paul re-emerged. If anything, they looked even worse than when they’d gone in. They seemed pale and tired, and were holding onto one another as though without each other’s support, they would have collapsed. The two of them went straight back to Jessica’s flat.

What was the attraction of Bar Scarlet? What was in the back room? And why did Jessica and Paul look so spaced-out? I would need to take a much closer look.

***

When I got back to the office, Mrs V was still hard at work on her scarves. Winky was also hard at work—on his
time machine
. Yeah, right!

I’d only been back for twenty minutes when I felt the familiar chill that told me a ghost was about to appear.

It was my father.

“Dad? I haven’t seen you for a while.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been rather busy. There was an unexpected turn of events.”

“Nothing bad, I hope?”

“Quite the contrary. I’ve started seeing someone.”

“That’s great. Who is it?”

“Her name’s Blodwyn.”

“That’s a very Welsh name, if ever there was one.”

“Her mother is Welsh—hence the name. But her father is Italian. She was born and raised in Italy.”

“I see. How did you and Blodwyn meet?”

“At my first NGS meeting.”

“What’s that?”

“The Novice Ghost Society. It’s a support group for those struggling to adapt to being a ghost. I thought I might get a few tips there. It was Blodwyn’s first visit too. In fact, she’s the reason I’ve come to see you today.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve told Blodwyn all about you, and she’s keen to meet you. But I thought I should speak to you first, to see how you felt about it.”

“I’d be delighted to meet her. Is she able to attach herself to the living yet?”

“She hasn’t had the opportunity to try because her parents are both deceased, and she doesn’t have any other family. Maybe the next time I come over, I could bring her to meet you.”

“Sure. That would be great.”

So, now I had a ghost mother who was married to a Welsh-Italian man named Alberto, and a ghost father who had recently started seeing an Italian-Welsh woman by the name of Blodwyn.

Nothing unusual there, then.

***

Jack wasn’t home when I got back from work. There were no fresh molehills, and the existing ones were beginning to fade. It appeared my little chat with Mortimer had done the trick. I hadn’t intended for him to go next door; I’d assumed he’d move into the fields behind. Poor Megan. Snigger.

I was still in the garden when Jack came home. When he spotted me through the window, he came out to join me.

“How was work today?” I asked.

“I have exciting news!” He had a big grin on his face.

“Did you get a promotion?”

“Much better. The guys at work have organised a bowling tournament.”

“I thought you said it was exciting news?”

“It is. It’s mixed doubles. So I thought that you and me—”

“Forget it!” I interrupted. “I’m not bowling.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s boring. With a capital ‘Y’.”

“Huh?”

“’Y’ for yawn.”

“I seem to remember you enjoyed it when you beat me in the doubles.”

“That was only because you’d set me up to lose. I was teaching you a lesson.”

“Hello, you two.”

“Hi, Megan.” Jack beamed.

“Hi, Megan.” I didn’t beam.

“Did I hear you correctly, Jack?” she said. “Were you talking about a bowling tournament? Is that ten-pin bowling?”

“Is there any other kind?” Jack had a stupid grin on his face.

“I love ten-pin bowling,” she gushed. “I used to play when I was younger, and I was pretty good, even if I do say so myself. I haven’t played for a couple of years, but it’s like riding a bike, isn’t it? If Jill isn’t interested, and you need a partner, I’d love to play.”

“You’re on,” Jack said.

“Okay, I’d better get going.” She started back to the house. “Let me know when you need me.”