The Dead Speak Ill Of The Living (The Dead Speak Paranormal Mysteries Book 1) (30 page)

  
“When you’ve finished, I can’t see any motorbikes,” Pohl explained, looking
round at the other vehicles.

  
“Great, that means they’re out, come on,” and Dee led them up to the flat. It
turned out that Italian locks weren’t any harder to break through than British
ones, and they soon donned gloves bought for the purpose and began sneaking
around the flat.

  
It didn’t so much look like a poltergeist had hit it as a tsunami of toddlers,
as the place was a mess. “It would be easier for us to just tidy the place up,”
Dee commented as she moved a pile of clothing from the floor.

  
“They do a lot of travelling,” Nazir called out.

  
“Oh?”

  
“Passports here, for two men, stamped in most of Europe, and road maps for a
lot of places. Surprised they actually live here as they holiday a lot.”

  
“Some sort of salespeople?” Joe pondered. But then he was able to say “I think
I’ve found it.”

  
“Think?” Dee said as they all came in.

  
“Well this looks suspicious.” They agreed. What Joe had found was a metal
strongbox bolted to the floor of the flat, with a very heavy duty lock on it.
“If you wanted to hide something you stole…”

  
“That’s either got guns in it or we found the relic. But there’s no way I’m
breaking into that without my equipment, and that’s in Blighty.”

  
They heard a fumbling of keys outside, and Dee waved her hands to order a
dispersal. They’d been discussing what to do in situations like this as part of
their drive to competence, and so a man was able to unlock his door, enter,
drop his keys on a table, walk into his lounge, find Pohl standing there,
panic, turn, and find his way blocked by the other three who flowed out of
rooms. He was trapped, and this was perfect.

  
“We have a few questions,” Pohl said firmly, and was intrigued to see the man
slump and say “From the Vatican?”

  
“Private Investigators for them.”

  
It took a few minutes, but the man was soon tied to a chair, and Joe had
liberated the keys, opened the lockbox, and retrieved the reliquary, which now
sat on top of Joe’s rucksack. They probably could have left now, but Dee had
questions.

  
“Why did you steal the relic?” she asked, translated by Pohl, as the whole
conversation was. The man looked at the ground, silent. “We’re not going to
torture you, but we are going to make your life a misery, so get talking.”

  
“To sell,” came the clipped reply.

  
“Why is that a secret?”

  
“He buys a lot from us. Don’t want to harm a client.”

  
“Okay, who’s the client?”

  
“John Paul.”

  
“The dead pope?” Joe said, and Dee shook her head.

  
“No, he took the name as a tribute to the Pope when he returned to Italy to
inherit from his father. He’d been in the USA to that point making movies no
one watched.”

  
“Wealthy then?” Dee continued.

  
“Yes. He has a large property, filled with… history. And he buys relics, and
we’re going to sell him the reliquary of the Pope.”

  
“Were…” Nazir corrected.

  
“So how do you fit into this? You’re the monkey, he’s the organ grinder…”

  
“I don’t understand? Monkeys?”

  
“Why do you travel so much?”

  
“To find relics.”

  
“Ah, Thieves Without Borders.”

  
“He’ll pay a lot, we could split the money?” The thief looked desperately at
them.

  
“There’s no good looking at the men you sexist fuck, I make the decisions round
here.” Dee felt certain she did.

  
“Do you have a computer?” Nazir asked.

  
“Yes, bedroom,” and Nazir reappeared with it a moment later.

  
“Won’t it be in Italian?” Pohl asked.

  
“I can change the language settings. Right, let me google, John Paul you say?”

  
“What’s he doing?” the thief asked.

  
“All part of the process,” Pohl said of her own volition, covering up the fact
she had no idea what Nazir was doing.

  
“Right, I have found the address of a Mr. John Paul, and his house, and a map,
but there’s nothing on the web about a large collection of anything.”

  
“It’s a secret,” the thief said, as if that was fucking obvious.

  
“Nazir, you have the look of a man with a plan.”

  
“Yes. This laptop tells me two things. We have a mysterious collector expecting
someone to sell him a stolen relic, to add to his other stolen relics, and I
think we should go and scope him out. Take the one we’ve got, offer to sell,
see what’s going on.”

  
“You didn’t get that from the laptop.”

  
“No, the first thing the laptop tells me is that this man if gay, look at all
the homo porn.”

  
“How is that helpful?”

  
“Ask him where the Swiss Guards drink after work.”

  
“Oh Jesus, you’re like a dog after a bone.”

  
“He says the Medina Plaza.”

  
“I really don’t want to ask, but what’s the second thing you found?”

  
“They’re expected tomorrow morning. We have time for a snooze and then we can
go selling.”

  
“We’ll need to prepare for this, talk a few things through.”

  
“But can we leave this man tied up all night?” Pohl said. The thief was
following, but the speaking, but not understanding.

  
“Tell him we’re taking the relic back to the Vatican, and if he tries this
again we’ll send a demon after his ass.”

  
After being told his eyes widened. “You can do that?” he stammered out.

  
“Oh yes,” Dee grinned.

  
“Then I stop, we stop.”

  
“Good. Now, do you have any good snacks in that jumble of a kitchen?”

  
The plan was relatively simple: Pohl and Joe would go in, present themselves as
salespeople, and use their talking skills to discover why this man was
collecting relics. They’d also be hoping to collect some evidence, because
telling the Italian police all about this seemed the inevitable endgame. Joe
and Pohl had dressed appropriately: smartly, like two people in a working
environment not two tourists on a summer holiday, and while Pohl normally
looked like this Joe had to buy some clothes as he’d come dressed down.

  
They were to gather in Dee’s room before they left.

  
“Are you ready?” the host asked.

  
“What did that maid mean as she walked past?” Joe asked, curious about the look
he’d just got.

  
“Oh,” and Pohl explained “she thought we were swingers given how often we’re
all in here together.”

  
“Seeing new places, meeting new people, being thought of as a slut, wonderful.”
And Dee got back to the point. “So this kit is working?”

  
“Yes,” Nazir said, “I’ve wired both Pohl and Joe up and we’ll be able to hear
everything that’s said. And tape it. And if we have to rush in guns blazing we
can.”

  
“Except we don’t have any guns.”

  
“True Joe, but our very presence will deter bullets.”

  
“And why exactly do you have the machine?” Dee asked.

  
“So we can speak to anyone in his relics.”

  
“He’s not going to let you wander around his house alone.”

  
“Ah, I am trialling some new kit.”

  
“Oh?”

  
“I’ve cannibalised a Bluetooth headset, and I can turn the speaker off and just
get it to this ear piece,” and a grey piece of plastic was clipped over his
ear.

  
“You look like a nerd,” Dee commented.

  
“You’ll never get any vadge with that,” Nazir added.

  
“Where we’re going all the vadge is dead.”

  
“Maybe you have hidden psychic powers.”

  
“Right, don’t start on Keyes again, let’s get going.”

  
Soon a car was parked, with two people staying behind and two venturing inside.
Well, up to the door, where they knocked at the time the thieves were supposed
to visit, and found a butler stood there, as if he’d just stepped out of an
Edwardian drama.

  
“Yes?”

  
“We’re here to sell some items of interest,” Pohl explained.

  
The butler was clearly pondering how much to admit. “My master is expecting
someone.”

  
“Yes, us. The others aren’t coming. There’s been developments.”

  
This was also pondered, and he finally said “come in, I shall escort you to a
waiting room.”

Pohl
quite forgot what was happening as she was led through a wide corridor filled
with art and history, from paintings to sculptures to a few weapons, and they
were soon left in a room equally adorned.

  
“Must have cost a fortune,” Joe exclaimed, not daring to touch anything.

  
“I could spend a week just in this building,” Pohl dreamed.

  
A deep voice said hello in Italian from across the room, and the newcomers
turned to find a five foot tall man with a barrel chest and huge arms. He
looked like an extremely wealthy gorilla, and he came over and shook Joe’s hand
before kissing Pohl’s.

  
He said a few more words in Italian, laughed from his belly and changed
language. “I heard you speak English,” he said, “so let us speak English.”

  
“Very kind,” Joe thanked him.

  
“I believe you have something to sell me?”

  
“Yes.”

  
“And such an interesting time, as two men were due to come and sell me
something. Am I to assume they will not be arriving?”

  
“Correct.”

  
“But their piece has arrived nonetheless?”

  
“Also correct.”

  
“Very interesting. I am a curious man by nature, but am I to assume you’re
keeping this change in business close to your chests?”

  
“Again, correct.”

  
John Paul smiled at Pohl. “I can respect that. But why don’t we begin by seeing
the merchandise?”

  
Joe nodded, and withdrew the box from his rucksack, where it was packed above
the machine, from which he was getting a background hum of voices. Then Joe
carefully opened the box and displayed it.

  
“Marvellous, marvellous, the blood of a very fine Pope.”

  
“He hardly lived long enough to be fine,” Pohl said, determined they look
forceful.

  
“Ah, you know your history, so you are interested in relics?”

 
“Yes.”

  
“Will you want the usual price?”

  
“Actually, we’d like to see your collection.” Pohl realised she’d let herself
be led into saying that. She also saw from John Paul’s smile he was happy to
show them.

  
“There is something about you, it makes me believe you appreciate history. Your
colleague less so, but you… why don’t we take a look.”

  
Pohl smiled, Joe shrugged, and they were led through the house until they
reached a first floor room with a ferocious lock. Once this was opened with two
keys they were led inside, and Pohl gasped pleasingly. Every wall was shelved,
and most had relics, from elaborate gold boxes in the form of skulls with a
bone fragment inside, to small glass vials.

  
“This is my collection!” he proudly declared.

  
Pohl looked at Joe, who nodded. He was hearing a babble of voices all talking
with each other. “Lots of Popes,” Joe said, but John Paul misinterpreted.

  
“Yes, I have the relics of many Popes here. In fact I collect Popes, but there
is room for others.”

  
“Why?” asked Pohl.

  
“Do you need to ask?” he said, gesturing at all the history around him, and he
had a point. Why else but this collection, the weight of the past and the
closeness of religious power. But Pohl sensed something else.

  
“Yes. Why.”

  
“If I tell you, maybe you will think I’m insane.”

  
“We’re hardly going to tell anyone.”

  
“True, true. So I will tell you. My father started this collection, I only
inherited and continued his work. And he started it because he could hear the
spirits.” If John Paul was expecting Joe or Pohl to look shocked he was
disappointed. They seemed to accept the fact easily.

  
“He collected great people to converse with?”

  
“Yes.”

  
“Can you hear?”

  
“No,” he said looking as sad as a child that’s lost a mother.

  
“Sell me, I want to stay here.”

  
Joe heard the voice in his ear, crisp and clear, as if a ghost had fought its
way to the front and was talking straight to him. Which it was, in accented
English.