The Parliament of the Dead (8 page)

Tiggy hung up the phone with a sigh.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The Oncoming Storm

Father Pious adjusted the long row of buttons on his cassock.  The militant monks of the Third Order of St Cyril were due any minute.  His companions were obviously nervous; Father Pious had told them about the violent and merciless reputation of the Third Order.

In the Middle Ages the Inquisition had purged the Church.  When witch-hunts were no longer morally acceptable, certain branches of the Inquisition went undercover: some still dealt with witchcraft, some dealt with the spirits of the dead.

When the twelve monks finally arrived Father Pious was taken aback by their appearance.  They wore black leather cassocks - long coats that skimmed the ground.

Their hair was close-cropped, and shaved into the back of each of their heads was a large cross.

Father Pious had hoped for rather less conspicuous back-up, but if they were going to exorcise the entire‘Parliament of the Dead’they would need all the muscle they could get.

“Welcome brothers,”Father Pious’smile was devoid of warmth,“we have one job to do tonight, then we must prepare for tomorrow’s operation.”

One of the monks with grey-black hair frowned,“I was not informed about any actions before tomorrow.”

Father Pious rubbed his chin,“Just one: a highwayman.”

The monk furrowed his brow.

“A special case,”Father Pious continued,“he’s pretending to be alive.”

The monk shook his close-cropped head,“Why don’t you just take him out with the rest of the Parliament?”

“He’s an outsider.  My source tells me that he will not be attending.”

“You have spies?” For the first time the monk seemed to approve. “That is excellent.  Can we meet with them before the attack?”

“I’m afraid our informant is dead,”Father Pious admitted through tight lips.

“That’s unfortunate, when did he die?  Can you be sure his information is still reliable?”

“I think he died about two hundred years ago.”Irritation was mounting in Father Pious’voice, he was not accustomed to being questioned. “And he is very reliable - high up in the Parliament.”

The monks looked disapproving:“You mean to say that your informant is one of
them
?”

“You do not like my methods?” Father Pious tutted.  “You would do well to study Holy Scripture.  In the book of Joshua, Rahab the pagan harlot helped the Israelites’soldiers. 
Only through the assistance of the enemy
did Jericho fall into the hands of God’s people.”

The monks murmured together, and were silenced by a grim look from their leader. “But the Israelites spared Rahab when they slaughtered the rest of her city.  You cannot seriously plan to let this
ghost
, this
abomination
, survive?”

Father Pious looked at the floor for a moment, then spoke briskly,“Oh no, of course not.  In the end he’ll be exorcised with the rest of them.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

An Interview
with the Undead

“Of course, you’re dead!”cried Iona,“It all makes sensenow.  Living people need toilets and kitchens.  I bet you can’t smell anything when you’re dead, right?”

Arthur shook his head with a sad smile:“I can’t eat, I can’t drink, I can’t taste anything
or
smell anything.  I have a greatly reduced sense of touch.”

Iona looked horrified.

“Oh, don’t pity me.  I had a life, and my after-life is better than some.  There is a ghostly maid in a small hotel in Dundee, who is doomed to spend eternity as an incorporeal phantom; whose sole mission in death is turning the kitchen’s bread mouldy.”

Iona, who had been standing throughout the conversation, sat down on one of Arthur’s old wooden chairs. 

“So,”she leaned forward as she spoke,“what happens when you die?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?  You’re dead aren’t you?”

“Yes, but only a few of us come back like this.  The rest go wherever they go.  Only those with unfinished business linger as ghosts,”Arthur shrugged,“but I really try and not think about these things.  Being dead is just as mysterious as being alive.”

Iona looked at the floor. “My dad’s dead.”

“I know,”Arthur said softly,“when you told me you were descended from Tom King I made some enquiries.”

“Enquiries to find out if he’s one of you?  Is he a ghost?  Tell me he is.”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Are you sure?”

“As sure as I can be.”

“But why didn’t dad come back?”

“Maybe he had no unfinished business.”

“But if he loved me, bringing me up would have been his unfinished business?”

“No Iona, I don’t think so.  Perhaps it was because he loved you so much and so well that he could move on.”

Iona stood up and walked to the window.  It was almost dark.  As she looked out she thought she saw a black-clad figure slip back into the shadows.

She clicked her tongue and stared out into the night.

*   *   *

“So who were you?”asked Iona.

“Who
am
I?”corrected Arthur.

“Sure,‘are,’whatever; who
are
you?”

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try me,”insisted Iona. “You mean it would be harder to believe than the fact that I’m talking to a ghost?”

“Alright,”sighed Arthur,“I was a highwayman.  I was…”

“Don’t tell me!” Interrupted Iona,“You were‘Dick Turpin, knight of the bleedin’road!’”Iona impersonated Arthur’s passionate speech during his ghost walks when he would rhapsodise about the exploits of the highwayman.

Arthur looked startled for a moment, then appeared to take a deep breath. “Well, to be fair young lady,”he replied with a deep sigh,“I was not quite all that I said I was.”

Iona shot him a curious look,“You mean you lied about yourself?”

“Well,”Arthur offered slowly,“let’s just say that the true story would not inspire my customers.”

“So why are you telling me this?”

Arthur tugged at his collar,“I feel I owe it to you.”

“Owe it to me?”

Arthur studied Iona, and once again she had the feeling that he was measuring her: weighing up her ability to hear what he was about to say. “I knew your great-great-great (I don’t know how may greats) grandfather.”

“You mean Tom King?”

“Yes.  It pains me to say it but Tom King was the
original
dandy highwayman.”

“I thought that was
you
, the dashing Dick Turpin?”

“Alright, I’ll tell you the whole story,”Arthur began,“I was born in 1706, the son of a farmer.  I was an apprentice to a butcher.  My stealing started as a joke, a bit of a lark.” He spoke with a melancholy expression. “I borrowed two oxen.”

“Borrowed?”asked Iona.

“Well I didn’t
intend
to keep them; I was playing a trick on Henry Oak, a farmer who sold my employer some rancid meat.  Well old Henry didn’t see the funny side,”Arthur continued,“and he got the Law onto me, so I went into hiding.”

“What happened then?”

“Well, with the Authorities after me I couldn’t make any kind of living, unless I made crime my profession.”

“So you became a highwayman?”

“Not quite,”Arthur looked embarrassed,“I rarely did any actual
highway
robberies, unless the travellers were elderly or female.”

Iona tutted,“So much for a‘gentleman thief’or‘knight of the road.’”

“I know, I know, but that is not the end of my shame.  I formed a gang with other undesirables.  The‘Essex Gang’they called us.”

“The Essex Gang?” Iona butted in,“I guess you were operating in Cheshire then?”

“Please don’t mock Iona.  I have not told anyone this story in two hundred and fifty years.”

“OK, the Essex Gang, carry on...”

“Well, we were all cowards, we attacked women because they had more jewellery and were less likely to carry weapons.”

“Bloody-hell Arthur!” Iona paused. “Or should I say Dick?”

“I prefer Arthur at the moment.”The old man said quietly before picking up his story again. “My career changed when I met your great-great-great and so  on... grandfather.”

“Tom King!”cried Iona,“at last!”

“Yes, he was everything I wanted to be.  A handsome, dashing and brave swashbuckler.”

Iona grinned,“I can definitely see the family resemblance.”

“Anyway,
he
would not take money from people who he felt needed it more, or from ladies he felt were too pretty.  (Of course I would nip back and rob them after Tom had gone!)”

Despite her constant quips, Iona became increasingly horrified as Arthur’s story progressed. “You were a right nasty little git!”

“You don't know the half of it.  I did terrible things.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” Iona suddenly felt a flash of fear. “Arthur you’re talking like a villain in a movie who was telling the hero the whole story before trying to kill her with an overblown scheme involving laser-beams, radioactive sharks and a giant food-blender.”

“I’m getting to the why,”Arthur looked uneasy,“but you need not fear the blender.”

“A horse that I had stolen was traced to an inn where we had been staying.  Tom was captured, so I loaded my pistols and decided to stage a rescue to make Tom proud.”

“What happened?”

“I charged my horse at the constables.  Unloaded my pistols.  And killed Tom.”

“Why?”

“It was an accident.  I never was a very good shot.  I waved my pistols about a lot, but I rarely actually fired them.”

Iona laughed.

“Miss Ward, this is not funny.  I killed your forebear.”

“Yeah but...”Iona shrugged,“...hundreds of years ago.”

“Two hundred and seventy-eight years Iona.  It may be a long time ago to you, but I can remember it like yesterday.”

They looked at each other in silence for a few minutes.

Iona seemed to be building herself up to something.  Her head was nodding almost imperceptibly as she cast furtive glances at Arthur.

Arthur thought she was thinking about her murdered ancestor.

He was slightly disappointed when she finally spoke.

“William wants to see you, and I really should go home; my mum will be worried,”she concluded, looking out into the fading light.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Spreading the News

Morag andGibbs spent the evening drifting around London spreading the news of the exorcists’attacks.  Gibbs told all who would listen that the time had come for them to attend the Parliament of the Dead.

“You m-must come to the Parliament.  Hff Hffnt Walfughn!  None of us are safe until we deal with these b-breathers.  Yeullfnt!”

Morag followed and observed the proceedings with interest.

The Parliament had been called for that evening.  Morag and Gibbs took it upon themselves to try and encourage as many ghosts as they could to join them.  At first it proved difficult to find any spirits who would do more than wail, clank their chains or laugh manically.  However, those who were willing to have a conversation seemed sympathetic, and by ten o’clock they felt they had done enough.  They found a nice quiet graveyard and Gibbs spent the next hour-and-a-half teaching Morag about life being dead.

She found flying quite difficult, but she soon got the hang of moving small objects.

“S-splendid!”cried Gibbs as Morag lifted up a rather startled-looking cat and gently set it down on top of a broken headstone. “You’re a n-natural.  You’ll be terrorising towns with your head tucked underneath your arm in no time.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The life of the Dead

Iona turnedaway from the window and looked at Arthur.  Could he really be the ghost of a long-dead highwayman?  Iona could feel the walls separating what she regarded as fact and fiction crumble. “All my life I’ve longed for some experience of the supernatural.  Now one of my friends is a
ghost
and he’s not even the first ghost I’ve met in the last two days.”

A smile flickered across Arthur’s face,“Another ghost; who would that have been, I wonder?”

“It’s what I was coming to tell you when I ended up taking your walk.  It said not to trust you.” Iona looked cautiously at Arthur, “And another voice in Hanbury Street during your walk told me not to trust you.”

“Hanbury Street?  Ah, that would be poor Miss Anne Chapman.  She is not a trusting soul.  But then if I had been eviscerated by Jack the Ripper I’d probably be quite bitter too.”

Iona shuddered,“But why shouldn’t I trust you?”

“Well, I was a highwayman,”Arthur answered airily,“not exactly a moral paragon.”

“But surely that was a long time ago?  Don’t ghosts let bygones be bygones?”

“Alright,”Arthur sighed,“I suppose the real reason they don’t trust me is that they see me as a traitor.”

“A traitor?”Iona rubbed her head, tousling her hair, the black dye making her scalp itch;“What did you do?”

“It’s more a case of what I
do
do,”Arthur replied wearily,“they think I am betraying them by leading my tours.”

Iona nodded,“They think you’re giving away the family secrets?”

“Precisely!”

“I almost forgot,”Iona straightened her back as she remembered the reason she had called into Arthur’s house,“why
did
you miss your ghost walk today?  Your boss, William, said he was going to call in on you to make sure you were going to take your evening walk.  Are you going to?  What did you mean, it was your‘time to move on?’”

“That’s a lot of questions.” Arthur glanced towards the door. “Ah well, young lady, it seems the Enemy is at the gate once more.  I have been discovered and it is no longer safe for me to be here.”

“Why?”

“A grey monk, a rather untalented minstrel, and a charming Scottish lady, have all come to see me in the last few days.  That’s more visitors than I usually get in a decade!  All of them wanted my help, and all came with a warning.”

“Warning about what?”Iona could not imagine what a ghost could fear.