The Love of the Dead (2 page)

“Mr. Took.”

“Beth,” he said, nodded. Disapproving, but she didn’t give a shit.

“I better go, Jean. See you.”

“Oh. Bye then.”

Beth made sure she pulled the door closed behind her. The plastic bag with her medicine in it flapped in the wind.

***

“Nothing else?” the policeman asked. Beth almost got his voice right.

“Sure,” she said, talking to herself as she walked back along the coast road, ignoring the swelling sea and the grit from the beach kicked up by the winter wind that scoured her face.

But really, how did you tell a policeman something that sounded completely nuts?

“Sure, Mr. Policeman. I’m a medium, don’t you know. I see dead people. That’s funny, right? I see dead people. I don’t see living people. So, it’s funny, see? Because I can see the killer’s hands.”

“What’s that you say, Mrs. Willis?” she replied to herself in a gruff voice.

“That’s right, Mr. Policeman. Mr. Coleridge. What is your damned first name, eh?”

“Never mind that, Mrs. Willis. Get to the point, will you?”

“I see dead people, you stupid fucking copper, and I saw the killer. How’s that?”

And that was the thing she couldn’t tell him. She could tell him sometimes she put her left foot in a bucket of cold water to meditate, but she wouldn’t. She could tell him she saw dead people every day, and sometimes they clamored and shouted for her to tell their loved ones things so they could move on. She could tell Jean that she saw her grandfather over her shoulder, and that he thought she was an idiot. She could tell Coleridge that when she spoke to him on the phone a man came and stood in front of her—and that he had a hole right through his face. She could tell Coleridge,
hey, I have your partner here, he blew his head off, with a shotgun.
Right.
Well, he wants his watch back.
Seriously, you couldn’t rest after death and you came back to tell your old partner you want a watch back?

Sure, she could tell him all that and more. But what she couldn’t tell him was that the man who was killing mediums across their desolate stretch of county was dead.

Chapter Four

A solitary raven, buffeted by the wind, drifted toward Beth’s house. It flapped its wings a couple of times, the clap of air audible even over the gusts blowing in from the North Sea. The bird landed on the worn wooden rail on Beth’s back porch, the sea churning behind it. It watched through the window, unnoticed, as Beth put the bag containing her medicine on the kitchen table.

The sun had nearly set. The raven hid in the gloom. Beth switched on the light, illuminating the bird, but it wasn’t concerned. The light would reflect from the inside of the window and she would be blind to whatever was outside.

It watched from the shadows while Beth pulled a tumbler from the cabinet, poured a healthy shot, and swallowed it in one gulp.

The woman leaned against the table, her head hanging down. Tired.

The raven wasn’t tired. It felt something stirring within its marrow, a hunger that could not be sated.

A seagull flapped and hopped on the sand behind its perch, watching the raven.

The raven turned its head and watched the seagull. It made a sound, like speech. People say ravens are possessed of intelligence. Cunning birds, tricksters, eaters of the dead.

Superstition.

But this wasn’t a raven. It was something much more.

It ate the dead. It tricked, it mislead.

It lied.

“
Toc-toc
,” it said to the seagull. The seagull flapped its wings, disturbed. But it didn’t fly away.

The raven ignored it, turned back to Beth.

She pulled a cigarette from a gold and silver packet. She flicked a lighter, drew long and hard on the cigarette, and then exhaled a plume of smoke into the air.

Another seagull fluttered down on the sand at a distance from the raven. It hopped closer, then back. Larger than the raven, it still seemed wary, as though it sensed something unnatural about the bird. But another landed, and another. Hopping back and forth, getting bolder.

Beth turned away from the table and wandered to the back door, nearing on the porch.

The raven that was more than just a bird glanced once more at the seagulls, ultimately dismissing them because it had more important work this night.

It did. Hunger drove it. Its business wasn’t the birds, or the woman in the window. Not tonight.

It flapped its wings wide and then it was lost in the dark.

Beth sat on her battered recliner. She cradled her whiskey in her lap, flicked ash onto the warped wood beneath her feet.

Seagulls watched her from outside the circle of light for a time, then took to the black skies, and Beth was alone but for the whiskey, and the cigarettes, and the quiet uncaring sea.

Chapter Five

Tuesday 11
^th
November

Coleridge looked down at his breakfast and wondered if he’d ever been more miserable in his life.

Fifty years old, twenty-five on the force, and today he’d nearly cried when his boss shouted at him. It wasn’t like he’d called him a cunt or anything. Just a verbal punch to the balls, and one he probably deserved.

The tomatoes were squishy and had parsley on them.

Parsley. On a fried breakfast.

The fat on the bacon was white and not in the least crispy. The sausage was pink and sickly, full of chewy bits. Coleridge knew his own sausages had chewy bits, but his wife sliced his sausages down the middle and then fried them. The egg yolk was solid. He liked to dip his fried bread in his yolk. He picked up the fried bread and stabbed at the yolk.

His wife might be a bitch, but she could cook a mean breakfast. She used to, anyway. Not so much anymore. Quitting cow.

“I can’t watch you kill yourself no more,” she said. Like he was the one cooking all those fried breakfasts, all the steaks. More like she was looking for a reason, he reckoned. Might’ve had something to do with the sex. Seemed like he’d hit twenty stones and she’d lost all interest.

Couldn’t blame her, though. If some fat bastard nearly 300 pounds heavy wanted to jump Coleridge, he would’ve been pissed off, too.

Now she was hitting the springs with some swinger. Painter and decorator, apparently. Probably not an ounce of fat on him and a cock like a hammer. He could live without ever knowing either way.

The depression had set in soon after, only the psychologist the force made him see told him it had begun way before. Low self-esteem, she said, full of self-importance, brought about by childhood bullying. She saw it all the time in the force. People with low self-esteem as a child often sought out positions of power later in life. Like being a copper.

Coleridge didn’t feel so powerful. He felt like crying, but he didn’t really know why, because when he tried to reason out how he felt, he didn’t feel depressed. He didn’t even feel sad. He felt more like he was a little bit dead. Like his emotions had evaporated. He wasn’t even angry. She’d left him three months ago.

Maybe he was angry, but not at his stupid fucking wife. He was angry at the chef of this shitty bistro in this shitty seaside town. What kind of idiot thought parsley on a fucking breakfast made it posh? It was a fried breakfast. The meat was supposed to be crispy. It was supposed to have beans with it, mushy, from being cooked too long. The yolk on the egg should be nice and runny for dipping.

Someone slid into the seat opposite him. He looked up from his offensive breakfast.

“Coleridge.”

“Sam. You mind? I’m having my breakfast.”

“Don’t look like you’re doing much eating.”

Whenever he thought his day couldn’t get any worse, it always went and disappointed him all over again.

“You’re a long way from home,” he said.

“I go where the story is. And right now, you’re the story.”

“News to me.”

“I heard you got a bit of a break.”

“Did you? Well, I ain’t interested in sharing. And you know what? At the risk of sounding rude, how about you fuck off?”

“Ah, come on. If I was that easy I’d blow you for a bit of gossip. As it is, I’ll give you a hundred quid.”

Coleridge pushed his breakfast aside with a massive sigh. Held out his hand.

You could fuck up sausages, but you couldn’t fuck up money. It came out the same, however you cooked it.

Chapter Six

Sam pushed her hair back behind her ear and withdrew a cigarette from behind her ear. She pulled a gold lighter out of her handbag, along with a pad and a pen.

Coleridge didn’t know why she didn’t just keep her cigarettes in her bag if she had to go in there anyway.

Affectation.

Good word for a man without a breakfast.

He shook his head at her. She put the pad away with that knowing smile of hers that challenged you to find out what the hell she had to be so smug about.

“Off the record, right?”

“Does that even mean anything to you?”

“Nope.”

“You can’t smoke that in here,” he said, despite evidence to the contrary, as she was already tapping ash into his breakfast.

“The law doesn’t count when you’re with a copper.”

“I hadn’t heard that one.”

A waitress started their way, looking like she was going to make an issue of it. Coleridge caught her eye and flashed his credentials. She backed off, flicking blonde hair with gray showing at the roots, like she was pissed off but not paid enough to make an issue of it.

“So, I hear you’ve got a witch working on the case,” said Sam while he was watching the waitress’ back.

“Fuck sake, who’s talking? I don’t even know if she’s...ah, fuck off.”

“So you do have someone working on the case, not a witch.”

“Don’t play games with me, Sam. I haven’t had my breakfast, my boss wants my bollocks, and you’ve got about a minute before I stuff your money back in your push-up bra along with the bats you keep in there.”

“Fuck me, testy this morning, aren’t you?”

“And then some. What’re you after?”

“Last night?”

“What about it? Nice moon. Big. Hunter’s moon, is it? Winter’s on the air.”

“Don’t fuck about. You know what I’m talking about.”

Coleridge shifted uncomfortably, his gut rocking the table.

“What of it?” he said. “You know anyway.”

“Confirmation.”

“Not a fucking word, but yes, it’s the same guy.”

“How do you know?”

“Come off it, Sam. You know I’m not going to tell you that.”

“What’s the witch for?”

“She’s not a witch. Where’d you hear that?”

“Confidential.”

Coleridge shook his head. “Don’t make out like you’ve got any kind of morals.”

Sam shrugged as she stubbed her cigarette out in his tomatoes.

“That looks rank.”

“It looked worse before you stubbed your coffin nail out in it.”

“Not going to tell me how you know it’s the same guy?”

“No.”

“Not going to tell me about the witch?”

“No.”

“She getting anywhere you’re not?”

He sighed, his big chest heaving. “She only called yesterday, so I don’t know who’s talking, but they’re full of shit. She’s not working for us. She called. Once. That’s it. No story. Leave it alone.”

“As of when is she not working for you? As she’s on call? Like on a retainer?”

Fucking Harvey. Snide little bastard.

“As of fuck off. That’s as of.”

“Thanks for fucking nothing.”

Coleridge smiled. “Don’t mention it.”

“Can I have my hundred quid back?”

“Bye.”

Sam growled. “You got to give me something. Come on. I’m flying blind as you are. I write this up, people read it, you might get a few leads.”

It was true. He might. He thought about it. Felt the weight of the money in his jacket pocket.

“Alright. How’s this read? Man knows the victims. No sign of forced entry. No sign of a struggle. No leads. No suspects. No prints. No footprints. No DNA. No. Fucking.
Nothing
.”

“Shit, Coleridge, I know all that.”

“I know you do, Sam, because it’s fucking obvious. Thanks for the hundred quid.”

“Come on!”

Coleridge grunted. “You work it out. Connections. It’s not what he left.”

Sam frowned then smiled.

“The victims?”

He nodded. “You’re a bit slow, but have a sausage on me.”

She eyed his breakfast. Swimming in tomato juice and fat.

“I’m not hungry, but thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Now, like I said, nice as it’s been to see you...”

“I know, I know.”

Sam smiled as she slid from the table. Coleridge noted she still had a great set of legs. Time would’ve been those legs might have worked more wonders than a hundred quid. That time was gone, though.

She blew him a kiss.

He gave her the finger, but when she’d gone, he smiled. Forgot how miserable he was, even if it was only for a minute.

Chapter Seven

Coleridge hated driving. Hated it with a passion. The wheel got stuck on his gut. The seatbelt dug into his chest and his shoulders. The belt ran along his chest at the perfect angle to remind him he now had man boobs. Bigger tits than his ex. Thinking about boobs wasn’t helping.

He needed to focus on the case. A killer who left no clues. No sign of entry, like he knew the people he killed. No fingerprints, like he wore gloves. No stray hairs, none of his own blood, no murder weapons...the list of things absent was endless. The list of things there were was pretty fucking short.