Be Careful What You Wish For (28 page)

‘A million pounds,’ Tia said.

Brad whistled.

‘Wow. I hope she doesn’t broadcast that at the moment.’ I shook my head. ‘She’ll have all the nutters coming out of the woodwork claiming to have seen Chantal.’

‘Nope. The bonus is only for you, Amber.’ Tia stared at me wide-eyed. ‘Hacker has some more information for you about her. Apparently, he knew Nicole back in Haiti. Oh, and there’s a present on your desk.’

Oh, crap. ‘It’s not spiders again, is it?’

She shook her head.

‘Or a fox’s nose?’ I took a deep breath in. Yep, I got all the best presents!

‘Nope. You’ll like these.’ She grinned at me and followed as Brad and I took off down the corridor.

‘Yo,’ I said to Hacker as I dumped my bag on my desk in the office I shared with him.

Hacker glanced up from a mass of screens and keyboards surrounding him. He was a computer whiz kid and had more electronic equipment and a bigger back-up system than Houston. He was the spitting image of the rapper Snoop Dogg, complete with plaits and gangsta rapper hoodies. Today he wore one with
Rap Is Not Dead
plastered on the front in gold lettering.

‘Yo.’ Hacker finished doing a few keyboard strokes then glanced up at Brad and me.

Brad nodded back. ‘Hacker.’

Hacker and Brad went back a long way, having met when Hacker was serving in Brad’s SAS unit.

‘Agh! The chocolate éclair fairy’s been,’ I squealed, eyeing the open box on my desk. Six delish-looking éclairs with thick icing, oozing cream. Now that was what I called breakfast!

‘Told you you’d like the present.’ Tia grinned.

I could’ve kissed her. I would get my choccie fix after all. Hurrah! I picked one up and offered the box around. Since Hacker and Brad were obsessive about health food, they didn’t take one. Tia grabbed one and tucked in.

Brad perched on the edge of my desk, arms folded, shaking his head at my éclair.

‘What?’ I asked. ‘Chocolate comes from cocoa, which is a bean, and everyone knows beans are healthy.’

‘So, what’s the story with Chantal?’ Brad ignored my weird woman logic and asked Hacker.

Hacker leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. ‘OK, I knew Nicole and her sister Marie back in Haiti. Everyone in Haiti knew the La Fru Fru sisters. Both of them are
mambo
– voodoo priestesses.’

Visions of sacrificed chickens and freaky rituals with snakes popped into my head. Knowing my luck, someone would be sending me snakes as a present next. Not that they bothered me at all. Well, unless they bit me. Agonizing pain and being paralyzed to death wasn’t exactly on top of my wish list.

‘Around twenty-five years ago, Nicole La Fru Fru met James Langton and she married him and moved to the UK,’ Hacker carried on. ‘Marie soon followed. Both of them have been here ever since. Chantal is twenty-five and the only daughter of Nicole and James. Five days ago Chantal vanished without a trace.’

‘Has she ever disappeared before?’ I asked.

‘Apparently not, and in order to find out what happened to Chantal, you might have to look into the voodoo angle.’ Hacker gave an ominous pause.

‘Go on.’ I nodded at him.

‘How much do you know about voodoo?’ Hacker glanced at us all.

‘It’s a religion much the same as Catholicism,’ Brad said.

Hacker nodded. ‘True. Voodoo is a form of worship and spirituality like any other religion. In fact, there’s a lot of Catholicism mixed up in voodoo. If you mention voodoo to people, most of them will think about black magic, and there is an element of that, because, like any religion, there are people who use it for bad things instead of good, but that’s not what voodoo should be about. Voodooists believe that nothing happens by chance. Everything happens for a purpose, and that purpose is determined by the many spirits that surround us. In order to appease these spirits and make sure bad things don’t happen, we perform rituals or consult a mambo like Nicole to restore harmony.’

Back to the dead chicken thing again. Ew. ‘Like animal sacrifice rituals?’ I pulled a face.

Hacker clutched the dead chicken’s foot he wore round his neck for protection. ‘Animal sacrifice is a part of it for some spirits, yes. But there are many rituals such as simple offerings, prayer, spirit possessions, and dance ceremonies.’

‘That’s what Nicole did on her psychic show on TV,’ Tia breathed with excitement. ‘She gets possessed by spirits who have messages for people.’

‘Uh huh,’ I said sceptically.

‘Well,
I
think she’s genuine.’ Tia poked her tongue out at me.

I poked mine back. Childish, I know. ‘OK, so if she’s psychic, why doesn’t she know where her daughter’s gone, Miss Smarty-Pants?’ I grinned at her.

‘I told you before – it’s not like you can just turn it on and off at will.’ Tia scrunched up her nose. ‘Sometimes you get psychic visions and feelings and sometimes you don’t. You can’t control when it’s going to happen.’

Brad glanced over at me thoughtfully. ‘I’m having a great psychic vision about something that’s going to happen tonight.’

My temperature shot up a few thousand degrees just thinking about it. I broke smouldering eye contact with him and turned back to Tia. ‘So if you can’t turn it on and off at will, how come she gets possessed by these psychic spirits at the exact time her TV show airs, hmmm?’

‘The show is pre-taped, not live,’ Brad said. ‘Maybe if the spirits aren’t calling that day, they won’t record it.’

I gave him a disbelieving look. ‘Is being psychic a part of voodooism?’ I asked Hacker.

‘Not in the sense of having a TV show, no. In that respect, Nicole is an oddity. But in ceremonies a mambo is often possessed by the spirits, also known as loas, who will give prophecies on the future or advice on how to help with certain problems or situations.’

‘So she may or may not be a fake psychic?’ Brad asked.

Tia shook her head so hard I’m surprised she didn’t get whiplash. ‘Not a fake,’ she said through a mouthful of éclair.

‘I’ve seen Nicole do things back in Haiti that shouldn’t be possible,’ Hacker said. ‘Things that have no explanation other than voodoo power. She’s definitely not a fake priestess. ’

‘OK, what else?’ I asked him, starting to think we’d be here all day debating the finer points of psychics.

‘In voodoo, there is one supreme god called Bondye who reigns over the whole universe. Since we can’t communicate directly with him, there are hundreds of other spirits called loa that we have to make sure are happy.’

‘Wowzer. That’s fascinating.’ Tia stared up at Hacker with loved-up goo-goo eyes.

‘So, basically, it’s all about rituals that are designed to protect you and show respect to the spirits or give thanks to them?’ I asked as I finished my third éclair (I know, I know, slightly piggish!). I wiped my hands on a paper napkin. ‘You’d better take this away before I eat the whole box.’ I shoved it in Tia’s direction.

Hacker sat forward in his chair, making his plaits wobble. ‘Yeah. Voodoo focuses on respect and peace. Most voodoo beliefs centre around love and support for your family and community, generosity, and helping each other. Greed and dishonour are traits that should have no part in our lives. And there’s a big healing element involved, too. Often mambos will perform healing rituals using spells and herbal remedies.’

‘See, I told you spells were good.’ Tia grinned at me.

I rolled my eyes at her. ‘Don’t even think about it. I told you after the last time I’m never doing one of your spells again.’

‘Getting back to Nicole’s sister, Marie,’ Hacker went on. ‘M

ambos don’t normally practise left-handed voodoo, what we call black magic or bad voodoo, using this to curse or harm other people. But where there is good in the world, there’s also evil. A bokor is someone who uses voodoo to cause misfortune or injury, even death. These people are extremely powerful.’ Hacker clutched the chicken’s foot so tight his knuckles paled. ‘At some point after Nicole and Marie arrived in the UK, Marie turned her back on good voodoo and became a bokor.’ He paused for emphasis. ‘Since then, Nicole hasn’t spoken to Marie or had anything to do with her.’

There it was again. That horrible, burny feeling somewhere deep inside that something bad was going to happen. In the days that followed, I wished I’d listened to it more closely.

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