The Love of the Dead Read online

  She put her head in her hands and realized she was crying. Her life, whatever it was she was living, wasn’t even close to being perfect. Now it was screwed beyond redemption, and she was going to die. The man who’d killed the Westmoors wasn’t even a man. How could she tell the policeman that?

  “I can’t help you,” she said. “Just leave me alone.”

  “If you...”

  “No,” she said. “Listen to me. I can’t help anymore. I won’t. I don’t want you here, either. Don’t call me anymore. I can’t do this.”

  “He left something this time.”

  She nearly asked. He nearly seduced her. She made her hand put the phone in the cradle and walked away.

  She couldn’t walk away from the killer, but she could hang up on the lying, fat policeman. She knew he was lying, because his guilt hung from every syllable.

  Did he mean to use her as bait?

  No. That didn’t feel right. He wanted her help. He was desperate. He was genuinely sorry, but he was guilty, too.

  Coleridge’s partner followed her down the hall, pointing at his bare wrist.

  “Fuck off about your watch, would you?” she told him.

  He went away, and she was alone.

  “I can’t help,” she told herself, sat with her back against the wall in the hallway. She still had her bra and panties on from the day before. She noted with disgust a speck of darkened blood on the strap.

  She padded on the cold tiles through the house to the bathroom, ran the shower until the steam covered the mirror and then stepped under the scalding water.

  She stayed there until the tank ran cold. Stepped out and stood shivering. Then she went down to the water. The water always helped. The water would set her straight.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The tide was turning, but the beach was firm where the sea ran back. Beth pulled off her boots and sank her feet into the freezing sand. The sky overhead was a thick gray, rain waiting. Soon, probably, but her hair was wet anyway. She didn’t mind getting wetter.

  She checked her cigarettes and hunted in her cardigan pockets for a lighter. Flicking the lighter and taking her first drag of the day was a kind of ritual, like her first drink of the evening. The first cigarette said the day was waiting. The first drink said the day was done.

  The sea murmured as the tide went out. She sat through half a cigarette, maybe three minutes, maybe two, until the rain came; a gentle rain, more of a drizzle than a downpour. The rain was setting itself in for the day, too.

  Beth thought about her day while she cupped her cigarette in her hands to keep it dry. She had no clients today. She’d just lost her easiest regular. She doubted Becky would come back after yesterday—being drenched in hot blood didn’t seem like Becky’s scene. She had a few clients that probably would’ve got off on it, but not Becky.

  She thought about the man who cut into her son’s neck, and what it meant. She thought about the phone call from the police.

  Same man?

  Without a doubt.

  But then that begged the question, didn’t it?

  It was a simple question that she really didn’t have the answer to. How could a man kill someone real, and kill a ghost?

  What kind of man could do something like that?

  She shook her head, seen only by the sea and the clouds and the sand.

  It didn’t matter.

  What was she going to do about it?

  It was obvious. She wasn’t afraid of the dead. She lived with her dead son. The Xbox turning itself on in the middle of the night. A little dead boy with his skin ruptured and his bones poking through his Lara Croft T-shirt. The dead men and women whose voices he aped. The rare times when he was lonely and he got in bed next to her for comfort. The dread she’d felt in the early years when she’d felt his dead flesh pressed beside her.

  No. She didn’t scare and wasn’t afraid. She knew well enough what she was. She was a drunk. She was some kind of medium. Sometimes she was a charlatan and sometimes the real deal. But she wasn’t afraid.

  But someone that could do what the killer had done yesterday?

  No. She was all the things she thought she was. And more. She was unreliable, a liar, a bad friend, a worse lover. She was weak most of the time and brave when she needed to be, but when it all came down, she needed a regular gig and cigarettes and, yes, whiskey.

  She didn’t need to be involved in something that could get her killed. That wasn’t being a coward. That was just common sense.

  The police could sit on it for all she cared. She was done.

  She stabbed her cigarette out in the wet sand and slid it back into the packet. Turned her face up to the rain and smiled.

  She had everything she needed right here.

  The rain was steady. The rain knew what it was. The sea was always there.

  She wasn’t afraid of the dead, and when she heard light footsteps on the sand behind her, she didn’t break out in goose bumps or a cold sweat. It was just her son. Calling her.

  She wasn’t afraid of him. Not anymore.

  Miles never spoke in his own voice, just others’. He mimed putting a phone to his ear.

  She was afraid, though. She was terrified. Because the killer wasn’t alive, wasn’t dead. He was something else. Something she didn’t understand, could never understand. A demon, the devil himself, a shade. A dark spirit, malevolent and powerful and driven by reasons beyond anything a mortal could understand.

  She was afraid by what she didn’t know. A thing that could step from the corporeal to the ether was coming for her.

  Afraid or not, she pushed herself to her feet and went back to the house. The day ahead waited.

  Drunk or sober, heartbroken or happy, scared or brave. The day didn’t give a shit either way.

  Chapter Nineteen

  When Beth got back to the house her son was gone and her ex was on the phone.

  “You’re in the paper?”

  She sighed and rubbed her temples. Her head was already thumping. She didn’t need this.

  “Yes. Little old me. I’m not thrilled about it.”

  That was a pretty big understatement.

  “Is it true? You’ve been helping the police?

  “I was, I suppose. Not anymore.”

  “Did you hear?”

  “Hear what?”

  “There were two more murders last night. Mary and Stan. I mean, Mary and Stan? What the hell is wrong with this guy?”

  “I know. I can’t believe it either.”

  “Did you get anything? You might be able to help catch him. He needs to be caught.”

  “I told them I’m not doing it anymore.”

  “What?”

  Just that tone. That tone got her every time. Like he knew what was best and she was an idiot.

  He had cause to think that. He’d been right often enough. But he didn’t have all the facts.

  “You heard. I’m not doing it anymore.”

  “Why not? You were helping. This is what you do.”

  “I’m not interested. It’s...different now.”

  “But seriously. Another medium. Another two! Come on, Beth. What if he comes for you?”

  “I had thought about it. Maybe he won’t.” She didn’t know, though. Did she? How could she know? How could she understand something like that? A creature not of flesh, not of spirit, but some place in between. Sure, she’d been warned off. By seeing her dead son’s throat slit.

  But was it a warning or a prelude to something more terrible?

  But she couldn’t tell Peter that, because she couldn’t tell him about their son.

  “I’ve been warned off.”

  “What? By who?”

  “Who do you think?”

  She could hear his cogs whirring on the other end of the phone.

  “He was there?”

  “After a fashion.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Just that tone. It could get to her. But he was worrie
d about her. Always worried. She understood why. She was grateful, too, in as much as she was capable of gratitude. But God, he could be irritating.

  She didn’t want to tell him, but she was angry. Angry at Coleridge. Angry at Peter. Angry, she supposed, with herself.

  “Peter, let me spell it out. Our son, you know, the dead one?” She didn’t want to tell him, but she needed this conversation to stop right now. Her hands shook and her head pounded. People trying to get her involved when all she wanted was out. She needed all conversation to stop until it hit five o’clock, maybe half past the hour, when she was so drunk she couldn’t talk anymore.

  “Beth...”

  “Well, last night, he got his throat cut. By some psycho, murdering bastard. I can’t figure it out. Can you? Can you tell me what’s going on? A man who can murder people for real and cut a dead boy’s throat in the same night?”

  “Baby...”

  “Don’t. Fucking don’t.”

  She took a deep breath. She could really do with a drink about now.

  “Seriously?”

  “You think I’d make this up?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just...what the hell? Come on. You can’t kill a...”

  She heard his voice catch, and her heart broke all over again. Her heart was so broken she hardly even felt it anymore, but she could hear his pain. He might not be her lover anymore, but he was still her friend, and she wasn’t made of ice.

  “Peter, I’m sorry. I’m being a bitch. But I’m scared. OK? I’m seriously scared. I don’t understand what’s going on anymore than anyone else. Maybe Miles does, okay? Maybe God does. I don’t. I don’t get it. I don’t see how it’s even possible.”

  Peter fell silent. Cogs whirring. She’d always know when he was deep in thought. Something in his breathing, maybe. Just a sense of it.

  “It must be possible, right? Because it happened.”

  That was the Peter she’d loved. Before Miles died. Before their little boy tore their marriage apart. It was the Peter that was still her friend. The one who believed. In some ways he was childlike himself. Nothing was beyond the realm of possibility. Miles came to her. Haunted her. Peter had never wasted a moment on doubt. She said it was true, he believed her. He didn’t need proof. She realized right then that he still loved her and always would. Despite all that had come before.

  That ship had sailed though.

  “People see the dead, right? People like you, mediums...it’s something most people would never believe. Most people, they think that’s crap. Most people think miracles are crap. They don’t believe because they’ve never seen it. But it’s real, right? So why not this? Maybe it’s magic. Maybe he’s something else, you know? Not strictly human?”

  She rubbed her eyes. God, her head was thumping. A bastard of a day’d do that to you. She checked the clock in the hall. Eleven o’clock. The day was still young. Plenty of time for it to go from bad to worse, and happy hour was still a long ways off.

  “Maybe. I don’t know. It’s something, alright. But I’m not dealing with it because I can’t. This is way beyond me.”

  “Honey,” he said, and the pieces of her heart tinkled, “you know he could come for you? Right? He’s been once. It doesn’t matter what he did, whether it was to warn you off, or to show you what he can do. You think he’s reasonable?”

  “It had crossed my mind.”

  “I’m worried about you. You want me to come down?”

  She did. But if she was in danger in her house, he’d be in danger, too. She couldn’t bear to lose him. He was all she had left.

  “No. I don’t want you to, OK? Don’t you come here.”

  She could hear him grinding his teeth. She smiled. He always did that when she made him crazy.

  “I’m coming.”

  “No.”

  “Beth...”

  “No.”

  “Be careful, Beth,” he said, sighing. He knew when she wouldn’t budge. “Please. This is...oh...”

  What else was there to say?

  “I’ll call you in a couple of days.”

  “You call me before, if you need to? Promise. I’ll be right there.”

  “I promise. Peter?”

  “Hon?”

  “Thanks.”

  She imagined him nodding. No problem. They hung up. Then the doorbell rang.

  “Seriously,” she muttered and opened the door. There was a package on the doormat. No postman. No van. No nothing.

  “Coleridge, you bastard,” she said, and pulled the package in the house. Now she had another phone call to make. She didn’t need it. She really didn’t.

  Long way to go until happy hour. It seemed like it was right over the horizon.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Is she in?”

  “Who are you?”

  “The fat bastard that’s going to knock her teeth in. Now, is she in, or do I start with you?”

  “What?”

  Coleridge stomped to the desk and the little twerp sitting behind it.

  “Where’s her office?”

  The twerp was shaking. It made Coleridge happy, which was good, because he was just angry enough to snap the man in two.

  “I don’t even know who you’re talking about!”

  “Sam! Sam fucking Wright! Where’s her office?”

  He pointed, and Coleridge was off, the floorboards shaking under his furious steps. The top half of Sam’s door was glass.

  Fuck it, thought Coleridge. Nothing like making an entrance. He smashed the door open and the glass broke and tumbled down.

  “What’s this shit?” he shouted, and threw the paper before he realized Sam had no head.

  The rolled up paper hit the stump of her neck and landed in the pooled blood behind her with a sickly wet thump.

  “Ah...fuck.”

  He went up to her desk and looked down. Same as the others. Her head was gone and her shirt had been ripped open. He didn’t need to pull the shirt aside to know her heart, behind shattered ribs, was as absent as her head.

  “Come off it. Come off it.”

  He sat in a chair to the side of the desk and looked at Sam Wright’s corpse. Then he took his cell phone from his jacket pocket.

  The twerp from the front desk came to the door. He turned white, then green.

  “Don’t fucking puke in here,” Coleridge told him, but he did it anyway. He didn’t even bother to lean forward. He puked down his front, covering his shirt, his tie, his jacket. Puke ran all the way down until it splashed on his expensive shiny shoes.

  Fuck it, thought Coleridge. There’d be no evidence anyway. What did it matter?

  “Knock yourself out then, son.” He dialed the station.

  “We’ve got another one,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The package was heavy. She didn’t want it in the house, but she didn’t want it out on the porch, either. Whoever had taken her photograph could just as easily help themselves to the box.

  She put it on the kitchen table and went into the hall to get the phone. Then she came back and sat at the table. She put the phone down. Picked it up. Put it down. Went to find Coleridge’s number. She’d kept it somewhere.

  She searched her crap drawer in the kitchen. Went back into the hall and searched the table out there. Padded down the hall in her socks to the bedroom. The letter he’d sent with the Tarot pack was on her dresser, under a piece of jewellery.

  Beth got as far as the first five digits before she put the phone down.

  There were no markings on the box. It was just a plain box with brown wrapping-tape covering the openings at the top and bottom. Nothing unusual about it, but for the sound coming from within.

  It was muffled. It sounded like a recording, or a CD playing under a blanket. Now she was curious. Knocking it on the table must have hit play or something. Why the hell would Coleridge send her a CD player? A recorder?

  Would he?

  She didn’t think he would.

  She wen
t to the kitchen drawer again, the bottom one, and rifled through it until she found some scissors.

  Now she was having reservations, but you had to do things. If you started worrying, started thinking things through too much, you ended up doing nothing.

  She always wanted to hide away. Every day, she woke up, and wished she’d stayed asleep. But getting up, facing the day, even when you didn’t want to...that was what being an adult was all about.

  She puffed out a big breath and got on with the job at hand. She could call Coleridge after, tell him to stuff it.

  For now, she was curious.

  The scissors slid through the packing tape holding the lid of the box shut. The lid flapped open. She put her hand in and felt hair. Unmistakeable.

  “Oh...oh, God...” Her heart pounded, and she knew she could be afraid. When she was scared, thought she could fear no more, there were new depths.

  And below the hair, muttering. Like someone trying to speak. A head in a box, trying to speak. A model, something meant to scare her. That was all it was. Just a model.

  She realized she was muttering, too. A thin, keening kind of sound, just under her breath.

  Miles took her hand in his and she screamed. She leaped away, thinking it was the killer, but not knowing, not daring to look at the cold flesh that touched her hand. Miles came toward her and took her hand again, his grip firm and insistent. He pulled her back toward the box. He practically dragged her.

  “No. Miles. No. No.”

  She couldn’t shake his grip. He was strong. He put her hand back on the hair. She was crying now, so scared, so freaked out, but he was stronger than her.

  Her hand touched the hair and grasped it. Miles pulled with her.

  The head came out of the box, dripping blood from the neck. A woman’s head, once pretty, but her jaw was clenched so tight her face looked out of proportion.

  It wasn’t a model. She couldn’t fool herself.

  The woman was muttering because there was a card stuck between her teeth. She wanted to take it out, to talk, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t take the card out herself.