The Love of the Dead (13 page)

He could back off, take it easy. He liked her. She was solid. But he didn’t back off.

She shook her head at him, but he stared right back. They needed each other. Maybe he needed her more than she needed him, but he thought she was keeping secrets. No, that wasn’t quite right. He fucking
knew
. That was more right. He couldn’t play games with her, even if it drove her mad. He’d done some game-playing with women before, and that hadn’t had a sweet ending. One partner was dead and his wife was fucking a painter and decorator. He knew full well where games with women went. It went downhill fast and you ended up out of pocket, living in a house full of shitty floral wallpaper.

“Your son,” he said. He didn’t like doing it, but he couldn’t work any other way. It was all or nothing. When he hit three hundred and kept going he knew he was an all or nothing type of man. He wasn’t the kind to leave leftovers.

“You bastard.”

“Clean slate, Beth. You need to trust me. But I need to trust you. I need it on the table. Sharing a drink is one thing, but your life is on the line. No half-measures from me, not now, not ever. I don’t work like that.”

“What is this, a fucking job interview now? A psych evaluation? You going to get me to stare at pictures of butterflies, tell you I see blood?”

Coleridge could feel uncomfortable. He wasn’t made of stone. But he was a long way from a fool. He knew she was rearing up at him to get him to back off. If he backed off now, he’d lose her. She was testing him just as much as he was testing her.

“His bed’s always made. There’s dust on shelves, but the rest of the house is clean as a whistle. Every time I’ve been here, he ain’t here. None of the other policemen have seen him. You say you sent him away but his toothbrush is in the bathroom cabinet and it don’t look like it’s been used for years.”

“You asshole. You went in my bathroom cabinet?”

“I was looking for tooth floss,” he lied. He’d actually been hoping for some Vaseline. Fat cops and piles. It wasn’t rocket science. “But that’s by the by, Beth.”

“You expect me to trust you?”

“Beth.”

“Fuck you.”

“Beth. I’m sitting here, sharing a drink. I’m in your house. I can leave anytime you like. But I can’t work with you if we’re not straight with each other. I don’t have a partner. My boss thinks I’m a piece of shit. I ain’t got no friends. I’m here to look after you, but I need you, too. You’ve got something, I know you do. But you need me, Beth. You know you do. Because he’s not going to stop. You know that, right? Right?”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m a bastard.”

She was crying now and he wanted to stop, to back off, but he knew he couldn’t. She’d bite him, she’d shut up shop, and she’d be as fucked as him, and maybe dead.

“It’s none of your business!”

“It is now. You’re my business. I’m yours. Let’s get that straight. I’m not going to let you die, and you’re the only one who can stop it. You know that. Tell me now, Beth, and let’s move on.”

“He’s fucking dead, OK? Good fucking detecting. Happy? Happy, you cocksucker?”

No, he wasn’t happy. He wasn’t happy at all. But the way she sagged into her chair looked like defeat and that made him happier, because it wasn’t defeat. It was the way a cyst looked when it popped and the poison came out. Deflated but clean. Not healed all the way but better. A damn sight better than it was.

“I ain’t happy, Beth, but I’m glad you told me. Now we can start. Now we can find him. Stop him.”

“I want you to leave.”

“I’ll leave if you want. But I want to stay. I want to save your life, Beth. Do you believe that?”

“You’re a bastard, you know that?”

“I know. But life’s a bastard. You want to give in now, before it’s even got hard? Then you’re no good to me, and you won’t last the week. Get over it, Beth.”

“You’re so cold.”

“I’m not. Because I’m sitting here watching you tear yourself up, and we don’t have the time. I’m hard, Beth, but I’m not cold. Why do you think I’m still here?”

“You got what you wanted.”

Coleridge shook his head slowly.

“I haven’t even started,” he said. He took a long gulp of his drink and realized it was all gone. He got up, the couch groaning in relief. He brought the bottle back from the kitchen and filled her glass. Passed her cigarettes and lighter and an ashtray he found under the sink.

She didn’t look at him. He guessed she couldn’t look at him. But that was OK. For now, it’d work.

“Now,” he said. “Let’s talk about the killer. Let’s talk about the feathers. Let’s talk about the things you didn’t tell me because I’d think you were a nut. You’re not a nut. We’ve gotten to the bottom of that.”

She looked up, finally. “I...I’m tired.”

“Me, too,” he said. “But we’re not getting any sleep until you tell me what you know. It might mean your life, Beth, and I’m not about to give up on you.”

“You say it like you give a shit, but we’ve only just met.”

“That’s true. But then, we all go around, right? Maybe we’ve just met again.”

She laughed. A short, bitter snort. “Been boning up?”

“Detecting, I believe it’s called.”

She lit a cigarette, took a long pull.

“You’re not going to believe me.”

“Try me,” he said. But she was right. It was a hell of a stretch.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Miles came in before she could start talking. He poked his head around the corner and saw Coleridge. His face lit up.

Beth had a trick of looking out of the corner of her eye at spirits when she was in the company of the living. People thought she was mad as it was without her staring off into space every five minutes. But she couldn’t help but look, because Miles beaming like that was such a rare sight.

It was somehow horrible, because of his ravaged neck, but it was beautiful, too. When the dog followed him into the room she must have gasped, because Coleridge looked up from his drink and followed her eyes to the door.

Obviously he saw nothing, but he wasn’t an idiot.

“Your son?”

She nodded. “Miles. He’s brought a friend.”

She didn’t need to look at Coleridge to know he shivered. He probably wasn’t frightened, but being in the room with the dead freaked most people out, tough as nails or not.

She didn’t point out the obvious to him. There were far more dead people than living. Chances were, you shared a space with a spirit most days.

To his credit, he didn’t bolt.

“Say hi,” he said.

“Say hi yourself, if you want.”

Miles stood in front of Coleridge, staring raptly at the big detective.

“Er. Okay. Where is he?”

She didn’t want to really freak out the detective. Her anger at him was already fading. It had been replaced by a kind of numb relief. Like her emotions were drunk. She tried to drink away the guilt every day, but it never worked. Even now, it was there, solid as the dead she saw, but it was somehow softer.

She smiled at the detective. He smiled back. Miles smiled. The fucking dog smiled.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “He seems happy. I can’t figure out why, but he seems to like you.”

“Charming bastard, me.” He winced. “Sorry.”

“He’s heard worse,” she said, and she was charmed, a little, that the brash, hard detective was suddenly worried about swearing in front of her dead son.

“I think I know that dog.”

“What? There’s a dog?”

“Yeah, Dean’s dog.” She guessed it must’ve liked her more than him. “You know, the one with the moustache?”

“His dog’s here?”

“He must have stayed when he left. That’s all I need. A spirit dog.”

“Cleaning up after him should be easy.”

Maybe he was all right, after all.

The dog curled up in a corner, and Miles put his head on the dog’s chest. His head rose and fell as he watched them.

“He gone?”

“Yes,” she said, just to make it easier on Coleridge. She didn’t want him thinking about Miles. She was ready to talk right now, and if he got distracted, she’d lose heart, start wondering. Wondering, like she always did, if she was seeing things that were real, or if she was truly mad and all this was just her hallucination.

“The head.”

He nodded, suddenly intent. A minute ago he’d been smiling for her dead son, now he was all ears.

Switched it on and off.

She didn’t know if she liked that, but then she thought about it. If she’d ever learned to switch it on and off, wouldn’t she do it? Damn right she would.

“The head spoke to me.”

Coleridge stared at her for a second. Then he pointed at her cigarettes.

“Give me one of them, would you?”

She flicked the pack and the lighter across the room at him. “You’re not a smoker?”

He shook his head. “Tonight’s a night for firsts, I think.”

He lit the cigarette and coughed. But he braved it out.

“The head spoke? Did I hear that right?”

“You going to listen or repeat everything I say?”

“Sorry. Go on.”

“The head spoke. I can’t remember her exact words, but she did say she was a gift. You understand now why I wasn’t afraid so much before tonight? I mean, I was scared, but not...you know...”

“Shitting yourself?”

“Yeah.”

He grinned. “Go on.”

“So he killed that woman because she wrote the article, right? The card was a message, yes, but I couldn’t tell you she spoke to me. If I’d told you that, you’d have lost all trust in me right then.”

He nodded. “You’re right.”

“But you believe me now?”

He nodded again. “Yeah.” He didn’t waver for a second, and she took heart.

“Then, here’s the other thing, while we’re at it. The head was a gift to me. But a warning, too. This is what I can do, he was saying.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. The head said something...” She paused for a second, trying to think back. “Said he’d let her go if she gave me the message. He held her, somehow. You said she had a feather...stuck in her?”

“In her throat.”

“Maybe that’s how he did it.”

Coleridge didn’t laugh. He didn’t storm out of the room. He just took another cigarette, lit it. Got up and crossed the room to where the whiskey was. Filled both of their glasses. Just to give him some time to react, right or wrong. How did you react to that?

He was going to love the next part, she thought to herself.

“He’s not real, Coleridge.”

“What? Of course he is.”

She shook her head.

“You don’t understand. It can’t be this guy you’re looking at, because the thing I couldn’t tell you, when I first saw him? I see dead people, Coleridge. And I saw him. He’s dead, is what he is, and I don’t know how or why or what the fuck, so don’t even bother to ask me. But he’s dead, and he can kill the living, so maybe, I’m thinking, maybe he’s both. But then he slit my son’s throat.”

“What? What the hell?”

“I saw him do it. He was just there, and here’s another thing...” She hadn’t thought about it before, but now that she did, things started flowing. She was seeing it from a whole new angle, just by putting it into words.

“The dead don’t speak. Most, anyway. My son can, but he’s the only one I’ve ever met, and even then, only in other people’s voices. But the killer, he can. He warned me off. Said he could touch me here or there, meaning alive or in spirit. I believe him. He’s something else, Coleridge, and I’m scared, because how the hell do you stop something like that? How do you catch something that’s not a man and put it in jail?”

Coleridge stood up and paced.

“Fucking hell,” he said.

There didn’t seem to be much else to say to that.

“He’s a shade,” she said. “A demon. He’s got a pack of cards. The Crowley cards. They’re his. The Fool was from his deck, but I didn’t get anything from it, you know? Because I couldn’t touch him. So maybe he can move through the world as a spirit whenever he wants. He’s something else, and he’s powerful. I don’t know what he is, but do you see now? We can’t fight him. We can’t do anything he doesn’t want, because he’s not human. Not even close.”

“Beth, I know you’re not a crackpot. But this...this is...”

“Insane? How’s this for insane? I went to Mary Stanton’s today, and she showed him to me. I saw him through her eyes. He wore a cloak of black feathers and, of course, they’re raven’s feathers, aren’t they? And he had a knife that was almost a sword. He cut my fucking head off, Coleridge.”

“Oh, Beth. God. You see that? How can you live?”

She felt a tear slide down her cheek, but she wiped it away angrily. She shrugged off the question.

“I could draw a picture of him, but it wouldn’t matter, because he’s not a man.”

“How can that be?”

“My ex says not to fight it. It’s all happened. Cracked or not, it’s happening. He can’t be caught. He can’t be stopped. He’s not some guy you can go and arrest. He’s dead, Coleridge, and he’s going to keep killing.”

The dog sat up suddenly, throwing Miles off. It put its paws on the window, hackles up. If it could have growled, it would have.

Beth felt the room grow suddenly colder. It had been cold before, but now she tried to look out of the glass into the darkness beyond but could see nothing. The windows were covered in frost, patterns like snowflakes cracking and spreading across the panes.

They both heard something. Like the wind, but it wasn’t the wind. It was a high pitched keening. An animal in pain. A dog, but it sounded different. Wild.

“What is that?”

“It’s him,” said Beth. “God. It’s him.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Newman and Dean drove along the quiet country lanes on the way back to Norwich, high beams on, but still they drove slowly. The country roads were deadly at any time of the year. The night was clear and cold. Not cold enough for ice, but clear enough for deer and other animals to be roaming the fields, animals stupid enough to leap out in front of a car.

“You know what?” said Newman, smoking a cigarette with the window down, even though he wasn’t supposed to. He sensed Dean shrug in the dark interior.