The Dead Speak Ill Of The Living (The Dead Speak Paranormal Mysteries Book 1) (39 page)

  
“And I want to see you again. Well hear you, well you know what I mean.”

  
“Good, good, then you promise?”

  
“Polly, you really won’t be able to keep me away.”

  
“Why is there a horse dancing?” Nazir asked.

  
“It’s dressage,” Dee replied.

  
“Yes, but who thought making a horse dance was a good idea. It’s a beast from
the wild, it needs to be running with a herd, not side stepping to classical
music.”

  
“Do I judge your choice of sport?”

  
“You’re only watching this because there’s still a small part of you that’s
girly and likes ponies.”

  
“No, I’m watching it because it’s hardly ever on television and I find it
visually fascinating.”

  
“Weird pony girl.”

  
“Are you two fighting again?” Pohl called out from the kitchen.

  
“Mum’s angry with us.” Nazir grinned.

  
“I suppose you’d feel happier if I turned the horses off.”

  
“There must be something better on.”

  
“Well tough, it’s my house.”

  
“Definitely little pony girl.”

  
“I suppose you’ll refuse to get me any more wine, and the moment I move the
football is on.”

  
“My plan is foiled.”

  
“Looks like I’m sobering up tonight.”

  
Pohl now came through with three plates on a tray. “Here we are, salt marsh
lamb.”

  
“And this is special why?

  
“Ah Dee, just taste it!” Nazir laughed.

  
“Because the salty marsh had seasoned the meat, it’s an interesting taste.”

  
“Next time I’m cooking it’ll be a horse dish.” Nazir grinned, and Dee turned to
him horrified. “You wouldn’t!”

  
“Oh I would.”

  
“You’ll be banned.”

  
“Until you need something hacking when you’ll crawl back with curry sauce and
demand some tasty equine.”

  
“We’ve all eaten horse,” Pohl said solemnly.

  
“Oh don’t remind me,” Dee sighed, “I started going to a local butcher after
those supermarkets got screwed over.”

  
“How very virtuous of you,” Nazir teased.

  
“Then I had to stop because the butcher’s son dumped me for being weird.”

  
“Your poor virtue.” But as Nazir looked at the three plates he had a thought.
“Joe not coming again tonight?”

 
“No,” Pohl answered, “he said something’s come up and he’s busy.”

  
“He’s awfully busy lately, I wonder what he’s up to?”

  
“I do miss him,” Pohl revealed, “I find it hard that he’s missed so many of our
meals. It feels like part of our family is missing.”

  
Dee sat down, took a sip of wine, and pondered. “That’s because one of our
family is missing. And I don’t remember giving him permission to do anything
without us. So the question is, what’s he doing?”

  
Nazir laughed, “you’re dating Maquire, not him.”

  
“And Jeff works round our meals, or we work our meals round Jeff, but the point
is I haven’t missed any. So what’s he doing?”

  
“Maybe he’s working with MI5 on their project?”

  
“Good point Professor,” Nazir complimented, “Maybe your boy has graduated to a
job.”

  
“No, he would have told us about that.”

  
“Dee, I sense you have a thought.” Nazir soon joined Pohl in looking at her.

  
“Yes I do. He’s keeping something secret, and we said we shouldn’t do that. I
want to know what it is. If he’s in trouble…”

  
“Let’s ask!”

  
“No Nazir, he won’t tell us, we always ask him if he’s okay, he says ‘fine’.”

  
Nazir titled his head. “You’re suggesting I follow him aren’t you.”

  
“Oh yes.”

  
“Well this is creepy,” Pohl commented as she looked at the laptop Nazir was
holding.

  
“There is nothing creepy about using a tracking device to follow where your
friend is going,” Nazir tried to argue.

  
“Can we leave the philosophy for a second and tell me whether he went left or
right?”

  
“Right.”

  
Although the group were determined to follow Joe and see where he was going,
they soon realised he went there in a car, and didn’t want to tail him because
he was bound to notice. Nazir had come up with the alternative: whack a tracker
on Joe’s car, wait for it to go, and follow at a safe distance. And, amazingly,
it was working, as the car was progressing along the map on Nazir’s machine and
they were close behind.

  
“Does this all look familiar?” Pohl asked, as they went over a bridge that
looked very similar indeed.

  
“This is where we found that girl, it’s something to do with that.”

  
“Thank you Sherlock Dee.”

  
“Shut up Watson, get following that tracker.”

  
They drove for a few more minutes, before Nazir was able to tell them ‘he’s
stopped.’ This was their cue to park their car and sneak along on foot, albeit
on foot with a mobile phone held out almost in front.

  
“Well squirrel fuck me, it’s the asylum.” Dee was right, there was Joe’s car
parked up outside the crumbling edifice.

  
“Why has he come here?” Pohl asked.

  
“He must be talking to that ghost. Come on, full ninja mode.”

  
Dee led the way as they crept through the building, and soon heard voices.

  
“And what happened next?”

  
“The Tardis flew off on its next journey.”

  
“So many adventures, thank you for sharing them. Why don’t you put them on,
what do you call it, the web?”

  
“Then I’d be another sad, pathetic fan fiction writer.”

  
“You’re not sad and pathetic to me.”

  
“Thank you Polly, thank you, and there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell
you.”

  
“What is it Joe, you look very serious.”

  
“I’ve thought about my life and I’ve decided to…”

  
“You’re being spied on.”

  
“…sorry, what?”

  
“Your friends are around the corner.”

  
“Thanks you bitch,” Dee called out as the group showed themselves.

  
“Hey, don’t call Polly that, and what are you doing here anyway?”

  
“We’re here to discover where you keep going, and why you’ve dumped your
friends and the project. And it’s to come and speak to a ghost.”

  
Joe was not happy with Dee’s tone. “Not ‘a’ ghost, with Polly.”

  
“She’s still dead Joe.”

  
“She might be dead, but I love her, and she loves me.”

  
Joe stood defiant, glaring at Dee, who had frozen as she took it in. “You…you
think you love her?”

  
“I do love her!”

  
“Fuck.”

  
“You had your chance, but that chance is gone, now it’s Polly and I.”

  
“Is this true Polly?” Pohl asked skeptically.

  
“Yes,” came the voice quietly.

  
“This is fucked up,” Dee decided.

  
“You can’t come here and judge me, you had your chance.”

  
“This isn’t about me or her, this is not jealousy. This is not ownership. This
is me telling you that falling in love with a ghost is a bad idea.”

  
“Is it?” Nazir whispered.

  
“Of course it fucking is.”

  
“I am here you know.”

  
“Joe,” and Pohl realised she didn’t know what to say. But as the stand-off
continued, Pohl decided to take a stab. “Does she make you happy?”

  
“Yes.”

  
“Then maybe Dee we shouldn’t interfere. We can’t stop him coming here.”

  
Dee decided her role as mother would be different, so she marched over,
switched the machine off, picked it up and marched up to a stunned Joe. “You
are coming home right now young man.”

  
Joe’s jaw had dropped, and felt physically overawed by Dee, so he nodded sadly,
let her take his hand, and let himself be walked off. Dee drove Joe’s car home,
and Pohl took Dee’s.

  
Pohl felt it all over again, this sense that she was losing control of her
family, and on the journey home decided she would work hard to balance Dee out,
whatever level of argument it took. They were soon all in Dee’s house, drinks
and nibbles not served, and Dee tried to argue Joe into never going back,
saying he needed some nice fleshy, living friends, like he had in this room,
and he mustn’t think he loved a ghost. She sounded like a freaked out father
telling his daughter not to let a biker touch her up anymore, and Pohl worked
to moderate this, acting as concerned mother. Joe sat and took it, nodding,
saying he was sorry, and acquiescing to their demands. He was contrite,
realised he’d made an error of judgement, and promised to stop using the
machine for a while. A group holiday was mooted, somewhere nice and warm and
far away. Everyone was in agreement.

  
When they finally let him go home he drove at a safe speed, parked up and made
a coffee. Then he opened his laptop and looked at the collection of photographs
he’d gathered of Polly. There was a class photo with all the girls in, the one
from the newspaper when she died, and a snap from a Facebook history page. Just
three, but very much Polly. His Polly. And as he looked at them, as he normally
did, he realised that Dee had done him a favour. Dee had made his mind up,
pushed him into a new place, made him realise the folly he’d been under. But
not even remotely in the way she thought she was doing.

  
Then he snapped the laptop off, looked at the machine, and knew he’d be heading
back over to the asylum the next day, as soon as he’d been able to hire a van.
Any van would do.

  
A vehicle which was nominally white, but at this moment a combination of
Saharan sand and English mud was now parked in front of the asylum, and to most
people this was very conspicuous. But it had the advantage of capacious space
in the back, and a lack of tracking device which Nazir had silently not removed
from Joe’s car. But Joe didn’t care, he was just going for it, so he ran up to
meet Polly and switched the machine on.

  
“Joe, oh Joe, I didn’t think you were coming back!”

  
“I wouldn’t leave you Polly, I wouldn’t.”

  
“The way you walked off with your friends, I thought…”

  
“Just to get them off my back. I needed them to go away for a bit, so I could
get my van here.”

  
“Van?”

  
“Yes, this is the thing Polly, it’s going to be hard for me to come here
anymore. I have things to organise before, well, before, and they’ll stop me if
I keep coming. Maybe they’d even have me locked up in another asylum!”

  
“The monsters!”

  
“But I’m not going to leave you Polly, I’m not, I promised I wouldn’t, so
here’s what I’m going to do: your soul is anchored to the frame you used to
sleep in. It’s got no mattress, the paint is rusting, and it smells funny, but
it’s what you’re anchored to, and I’ve bought a van and I’m going to take the
bed, and you, back to my house, where you can stay until… until I’m ready.”

  
“Oh that’s fantastic, I get to travel!”

  
“Yes” Joe beamed.

  
“You’re sure this’ll work?”

  
“I don’t see why not. I’ve been thinking it all through and I’m certain.”

  
“Great, great. But, Joe, what do you mean before, ready? What’s happening?”

  
“I’ve made a decision Polly, a big decision. There’s nothing in life holding me
back, so I’m going to come join you as a ghost. We’ll pick a place, get your
bed there, get me there, and we can be ghosts happy together.”

  
“Yes, and I will wait sixty years for you to die!”

  
“Sixty? No Polly, by the end of the year.”

  
“Oh Joe, are you ill? What haven’t you told me?”

  
“No, no Polly, I’m not ill. I’m just going to become a ghost.”

  
“Do you mean?”

  
“Yes. Us together, in the same state. I just can’t wait to see you with my
eyes.”

  
“Joe…”

  
“A big step I know, and a shock to you. And I don’t even know if ghosts can get
married, but let’s do this the best way we can.”

  
“Married?”

  
“Yes. I’ve bought a ring and everything,” and Joe produced a silver band with a
single diamond on it.”

  
“It looks wonderful, but expensive.”

  
“Money’s no real worry now. But I want to make sure my affairs are in order, my
nieces get my funds, the machine is left to the right people, all that sort of
thing.”