Spookshow: Book 3: The Women in the walls Read online

  Kaitlin looked up at Billie. “I still think you should do it. Maybe not with that guy, but you should still help.”

  “The police? No way.”

  “You have a gift, Billie. I think if one has that, they’re obliged to help if they can.”

  Jen slapped the table, exasperated. “Kaitlin, why do you encourage this nonsense?”

  “It’s not nonsense!”

  “Yes it is. There are no ghosts. No one can talk to the dead.”

  Billie squared her oldest friend with a look. “How do you know?”

  “Oh brother,” Tammy griped. “Here we go.”

  “Food’s here!” Kaitlin piped up as the waitress arrived.

  13

  “YOU KNOW THIS is a waste of time, right?” Detective Odinbeck removed the top of the next box and gazed down with defeat at the crammed folders within.

  “Always the optimist,” Mockler said. Like the older detective, he was facing another moldy box stuffed with documents. Old paper that smelled of musty dampness. “Let’s just put our heads down and get it done.”

  “We’ll be here till Christmas.”

  Task Room Three had been given over to Mockler to work the stone cold murders he’d uncovered. Boxes of files wilted on the long table, more of them piled into teetering stacks on the floor. He had recruited Odinbeck and another member of the unit, Detective Hoffmann, to help him dig through the archives. A hopeless task. Thankfully Hoffmann, unlike Odinbeck, didn’t complain.

  “Just the women?” Detective Hoffmann asked.

  “Yeah. Just pull it and stack it. Then we’ll go through them.”

  “We still got nothing more to go on than that? No division by age or year?”

  Mockler forced a smile. “Nope.”

  Odinbeck flipped through another file and tossed it onto a growing stack on the table. “Look at this. Do you know how many women go missing every year? Jesus.”

  “Too many,” said Hoffmann. “The national average is—”

  A rap on the door cut the detective’s words short. The three men turned to see Sergeant Gibson in the doorway.

  “How goes the fight?” she said to Mockler.

  Mockler nodded at the mess before them. “Methodically.”

  Sergeant Gibson waved him out to the hallway. “Can we talk?”

  Mockler followed the sergeant out of the room. He didn’t bother trying to gauge her mood. Gibson’s poker face was masterful.

  “What is all that?” she asked.

  “Missing persons files.”

  “Why are you working through hard copies? Run the database.”

  “Those are pre-nineteen ninety-five. They’re not in the database.”

  The sergeant narrowed her eyes. “And what exactly are you looking for?”

  “We’re pulling all the missing women.”

  “It’s that bad?”

  “Yup. The M.E. hopes to estimate the age on some of the remains. We can narrow the search from there.”

  “There’s nothing else?”

  “Forensics came up empty. The company that owns the property is a shell that, according to the Oslo police, doesn’t even exist. I have nothing.” Mockler cocked a thumb towards the task room stacked with boxes. “Hence the needle-in-a-haystack approach.”

  Gibson’s face darkened, the poker mask slipping a little.

  That worried Mockler. “What is it?”

  “Details are leaking out about how bad this is,” she said. “Pressure is coming down to get traction on it.”

  “That’s what I’m doing.”

  “I know you are. But people on the floor above are grumbling. Along with others at city hall.”

  “What are they grumbling about?”

  “Sooner or later, this is all going to leak out to the public and then the torches will come out. The grumbling is about this being your first crack at primary. Other, more seasoned investigators, have been suggested as new primaries.”

  Mockler bit down his anger. “You can’t pull it away and give it to someone else.”

  “I won’t have a say if it comes to that. You need to find something. Anything. We need the appearance, at least, that progress is being made. If that doesn’t happen soon, and I mean soon, this will get ugly.”

  He looked at the wall. An overwhelming urge to punch it came over him.

  “You understand this?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  “I’m sorry, Mockler.” Gibson walked back toward her office. “Find me something. Anything.”

  Mockler walked back into the task room with a gait not dissimilar to that of a condemned man walking to the gallows.

  Odinbeck looked up from the mess he was making. “What was that all about? The Sergeant giving you a pep talk?”

  Mockler plucked another stack of files from the nearest box. “Something like that.”

  ~

  The Foal’s Head is considered one of the worst pubs in the east end of London. Even the regulars hated it, and they came every day, eager to complain and gripe. At the booth under the side window, a couple argued about a lost mobile.

  “Did you drop the bloody thing in the bog?” the woman said. She looked under the table again.

  The man patted his pockets for the fourth time but still came up empty. “Of course not! Do you think I’m that fucking stupid?”

  “If the shoe fits,” she said with an acid droll.

  On the far side of bar sat a man in a rumpled tie and wrinkled shirt. He flicked away the ash from his cigarette as he scrolled through the screen of the missing mobile that the couple continued to argue about.

  John Gantry had no intention of keeping the phone. If the dimwitted couple hung about for another round, he’d slip it back into the dumb bloke’s pocket with none the wiser. If they stormed out now, well, the dumb arsehole was in for a good bollocking.

  Needs must as the devil drives. That’s how the saying went so that’s how Gantry justified it. Truth of it was that he was simply too lazy to find an internet cafe at this hour. And he didn’t own a mobile himself. It was far more convenient to “borrow” someone else’s.

  Tapping at the little keys, he kept searching through news sites for any odd bit of intel coming out of the Hammer. The news feeds were less than stellar, both the Spec and the CBC. He scrolled through pages of local, minor crime. Nothing pinged his radar.

  Then it snagged. Hard. He sat up and brought the mobile closer to read the fine print. Remains found at abandoned property. The details were scant as he scrolled down but he when he caught the name of the lead investigator, he barked out an enormous laugh.

  “Mockler!”

  Everyone in the pub turned to look at him. Including the couple arguing over the lost phone.

  “Never mind, you all,” he said to the patrons. They went back to their pints of misery.

  Gantry skimmed through the article again. Nothing unusual in the piece itself but it hit home all the same.

  “Shite,” he muttered to himself at the prospect of crossing the pond again so soon.

  If he wasn’t careful, one of these days he’d get nicked for sure.

  14

  THE DEAD DRIFTED up from every shadow and dingy corner, calling out to her, eager to vent their tragedies. Some lurched and shambled like zombies, others swept over the ground with graceful movements. Billie quickened her pace and hurried home, unable to shut them all out. Arriving at the third floor flat on Barton Street, she reached for the mason jar she kept at the door and poured a generous line of salt over the threshold. A simple line of defence, but it worked most of the time.

  A noise startled her and she turned to see something scuttle up the wall to the ceiling. Half-Boy was waiting up for her. He clung to the darkest corner and watched her.

  “My night sucked,” she said to the legless ghost. “Thanks for asking. How was yours?”

  The Half-Boy just stared at her.

  The protective channel of salt at the front door was replenished constantly, as
were the seals on all the windows. The seal kept the dead out, except for the Half-Boy, who came and went as he pleased. She didn’t know how he entered the apartment but she no longer cared. As long as he behaved, he was free to come and go.

  Putting the kettle on, she flopped onto the couch and waited for it to whistle. The night out had left her in a rotten mood; defensive and more than a little resentful of the few friends she had. Weren’t they supposed to be on her side? Instead, she had felt attacked. Admonished by Kaitlin to help the police and scolded by Jen for getting involved with a man who was engaged. It wasn’t as if anything had happened. It wouldn’t, she’d make sure of that.

  Gathering up the remote, she flipped through channels of dreck before settling on the news. Most of it floated past without sinking in but when footage appeared of an old building cordoned off with police tape, she sat up. An update on the gruesome discovery found inside the decrepit property, an unconfirmed report that the number of bodies uncovered was now up to seven in total. The footage flashed by; more shots of the building and police vehicles parked outside. Police officers, both uniforms and plainclothes detectives, moved in and out of the doors. Among them was Detective Mockler, trudging inside the old building with his head down and his shoulders stooped as if pressed under from some unseen weight.

  Kaitlin’s words came back to her, about her obligation to help if she could. Like a splinter caught under a fingernail, the words stung and throbbed. She changed the channel, flipping through more blathering nonsense before settling on some innocuous sitcom.

  The kettle in the kitchen boiled and turned off and when the sound of the rumbling water faded, another sound filtered up. An awful squeaking sound that grated her nerves. She sat up to see what it was.

  The Half-Boy was hunkered down on the far side of the room, bent over something. The squeaking racket grew louder.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  The small ghost startled, his head snapping back to look at her as if caught doing something he shouldn’t. He scurried away quickly and something clattered to the floor.

  Billie crossed the room and knelt down to see what the Half-Boy had dropped. It was the small chalkboard she had bought, lying face down on the floor. A stick of chalk lay next to it, broken into two pieces. She turned the board over. Faint chalk marks were scratched across the black face. It took a moment to decipher what it was. A single letter, scrawled in a shaky hand. The letter “B”.

  A smile broke over her face. The little ghost had tried to write something on the chalkboard she had brought home for him. He hadn’t gotten very far but that didn’t matter. He had tried. Her heart swelled up at the scratchy little marks in white chalk.

  What had he tried to write? Was it his name? Bill or Bobby or Bart? She studied the squiggly mark that barely formed the second letter of the alphabet. Maybe, she thought, he had tried to spell her name.

  ~

  “Wake up, bud.”

  Mockler opened his eyes and blinked at the harsh light overhead. For the life of him, he couldn’t place the man’s voice nor why the man was in his bedroom. His eyes continued to blur and it took a moment before he realized where he was. Not at home in his bed but still at Division One, inside the task room and surrounded by stacks and stacks of near-useless paperwork. It was like some clerical nightmare.

  “Time to go home,” said the man who had shaken him awake.

  Mockler looked up at Hoffmann, another detective in the Homicide Unit. Hoffmann had rotated to the graveyard shift.

  “Shit. What time is it?”

  “After midnight.” Hoffmann looked over the tumble of boxes and papers. “How long you been at this?”

  Mockler got to his feet and his back groaned in protest. “Too long. Thanks for waking me up.”

  “Been there,” Hoffmann said. “You all right, Ray?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Only two reasons someone sleeps at the office,” Hoffmann said. “He can’t go home or he’s becoming obsessed. Bad news either way.”

  “I hear you.”

  “Go home, bud. Come at it fresh tomorrow.”

  Mockler reached for his jacket and wished his colleague goodnight. Checking his phone, he saw that he had slept through a text message. Bringing it up, he was surprised to see Billie Culpepper’s name on the display. Her message was short and right to the point.

  I’ll do it.

  The detective smiled as he shambled for the elevator.

  15

  THE GLOW OF the streetlight was dim against the night, barely reaching down to illuminate the car parked below. Detective Mockler leaned against the vehicle and looked at his watch again. Billie was late. Pushing away from the car, he looked up and down the street but saw neither vehicles nor pedestrians. Maybe, he wondered, she had changed her mind and decided not to come.

  After her initial message, Mockler had texted back to ask for a time when she would able to help. He was surprised when she suggested after midnight the following evening.

  Why midnight?, he messaged back.

  Because, her reply text had read. That’s the witching hour. Silly.

  Her response made him laugh and he wrote back, asking her to meet him outside the building on Essex Street. Her response had been playful, putting his mind at ease about the whole idea. Given how angry she had been when he initially asked for her help, he wasn’t quite sure what to expect. And yet here it was, ten minutes past the witching hour and Billie Culpepper had yet to appear.

  She could have changed her mind about helping him. Looking up at the dark brick edifice before him, he wouldn’t exactly blame her either. The structure was grim and ominous-looking at night and he himself was not looking forward to going back inside.

  He looked up again and there she was, gliding silently out of the night on her bicycle. She rode up over the curb into the parking lot, the bicycle tires crunching over the gravel, and wheeled up before his car.

  “Hi,” he said, trying his best to sound cheerful. “I thought maybe you had changed your mind.”

  Billie disembarked and locked the bike to a post. “I almost did.”

  The night was quiet but the air seemed charged with tension. He wanted to dispel it right away.

  “Billie,” he started, “I appreciate you helping me with this. I know it’s a lot to ask.”

  “It is.” Billie looked up at the building before them. “So that’s it, huh?”

  He nodded. “Quaint, isn’t it?”

  She shivered, even though the night was warm.

  Two flashlights lay on the hood of the car. Mockler held one out to her. “What changed your mind?”

  “I’m not sure, really.” She tested the light. “Duty, I suppose.”

  He looked surprised at that. “You don’t have any duty to me. I didn’t mean to suggest you did.”

  “No,” she said, her eyes drawing back to the old building. “Not to you.”

  A moment passed. He straightened up. “You ready?”

  “Almost. I just need a minute.”

  He stayed still and watched her. Billie Culpepper studied the dilapidated warehouse for a moment longer. Then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, she turned to him. “We can go.”

  He led the way to the tall doors, lifting the police tape for her to pass under. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Were you just steeling your nerves or do you have to prepare yourself somehow?”

  “I have to open myself up,” she said. “Most of the time, I keep them shut out.”

  He reached for the tarnished door handle and gave it a tug. The hinges squealed. “How do you do that?”

  “It’s hard to explain. It’s like keeping your guard up all the time.”

  “Sounds exhausting.”

  “It is.”

  Clicking on his flashlight, Mockler entered the building. Billie stepped inside and immediately jumped back out again, almost as if she’d been pushe
d.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Billie flinched, as if trying to shake something off. “There’s so many in there.”

  “Do you need a minute?”

  “I’m fine.” She set her shoulders and crossed the threshold.

  The beam of the flashlights cut through a soupy haze, revealing heavy beams and posts and it flashed bright against the puddles on the uneven floor. Their footfalls echoed around them in the vast interior, rising up to the rafters high overhead.

  Billie stopped again and he turned to see what was wrong.

  “Can you feel that?” she said, looking at him.

  “Feel what?”

  Her brow creased, as if she was groping for a word. “Misery. Sadness? Just wave after wave of it. You don’t feel it?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said but he wasn’t positive. He had, in fact, felt something every time he stepped inside the building. It was like a heaviness that dampened one’s mood but he chalked it up to the tragic reason he was here in the first place. He hadn’t considered that it could have been something else.

  “Lead the way,” she said, indicating that she was fine.

  They went on.

  Her flashlight flickered. She smacked it against her palm until the light steadied. “What is it you want me to do?”

  “I’m not sure. Just tell me what you see. Or hear or pick up.” He looked back at her. “How do you experience the… you know?”

  “Dead people?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sometimes I can see them. Sometimes they talk to me. Or scream or cry or vent.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Sometimes it’s just a feeling.”

  Opening another creaky door, he cast the light down a set of stairs. “Watch your step here.”

  There was no handrail so he offered his hand to her. She took it and when they reached the cellar, he looked at her. “Do you see any of them now?”

  “There are two in the corner. They don’t want to come any closer. There’s another one, a woman, just to your left. She’s staring at you.”