Between a Ghost and a Spooky Place (Ghosts of London Book 1) Read online

  “Well, see, that’s where the trouble begins. The Elder of the Absinthian Church, an ancient Chinese creed, is the only one who can extract from the book’s pages the information to turn someone immortal. But any of his priests can extend lives. One of these priests, apparently tired of living a life of abstinence, decided that he wasn’t going to spend the rest of eternity locked up in some Chinese temple, and decided to live a little for a change. So he had the book stolen and went into business for himself. The Elder only grants requests for life extension or immortality to a precious few deserving souls, handpicked by him. But this priest, who goes by the name of Jingoist, according to the woman who sold me the book, established his operation on a monetary footing instead.”

  “Wow. He’s going to make a lot of money,” Harry said, her head buzzing as she tried to absorb all this.

  “Yes, that was his idea,” Buckley confirmed with a sad smile. “Trouble is, ordained priests cannot touch the book. If they do, they lose their immortality. That’s why they have laypeople who act, among other things, as page turners. And since Jingoist couldn’t steal the book himself, he convinced one of the laywomen to do his dirty work. Only problem was, this laywoman had the same idea as Jingoist. She didn’t feel like flipping pages for the rest of her natural and unnatural life, so she decided to double-cross Jingoist by selling the book to me. One million pounds goes a long way into buying her a very nice life indeed. At which point the whole saga begins. I sell the book to Master Edwards, who, of course, needs Jingoist to extract its life-giving secrets, so he has it delivered to the priest by Philo. At which point Jingoist decides that enough is enough, and he starts removing everyone from circulation who he feels has betrayed him…” He sighed. “Starting with me, alas.”

  “So the person who killed you was…”

  “Jingoist himself, unfortunately. He’s going round to terminate anyone who came into contact with the book, effectively erasing the trail it left as it traveled from the holy temple of the Absinthians to him.”

  Harry’s eyes widened. “But that means…”

  “That means he’s going to come after you, too, Harry.” He looked extremely uncomfortable now. “I’m so sorry to have dragged you into this.”

  She pointed to Philo. “So did Jingoist send him?”

  “No, he was acting on his own accord. Philo doesn’t like to leave traces, and you were a witness who could identify him as taking possession of the book.”

  Harry thought about this. So the book had traveled from the Absinthian Church’s Elder to the laywoman to Buckley to Harry to Philo and now to Jingoist. “So this Jingoist is going to come after Philo as well?”

  “I doubt it. Master Edwards is, after all, a client now, in a roundabout sort of way.”

  So only Harry and this laywoman who stole the book were in danger. Then something occurred to her. “Who’s going to be flipping pages for Jingoist now that his laywoman has betrayed him?”

  Buckley shrugged. “No idea, my dear. He’s going to have to find himself someone, though, for he’s not allowed to touch the book himself.”

  “And is there nothing I can do to stop him?”

  “He’s immortal, Harry, and he can make himself invisible to human eyes. Which is why Scotland Yard will never catch him. All around my store—all around London in fact—the city has set up a smattering of security cameras, and still he murdered me without leaving a single trace.” He shook his head. “No, the only way to stop him is by turning him into a mortal again. By delivering the book back to the Elder. He’s the only one who can rescind Jingoist’s immortality.” He nodded firmly. “That is your only hope, Harry. You have to find that book and give it back to the Absinthians before Jingoist comes for you.”

  “What do you mean I have to find that book? We’re in this together, Buckley.”

  He gave her a weak smile. “I’m not going to be much help to you, dear.”

  “Of course you will. You just saved my life by knocking out Philo here.”

  The old antiquarian quirked an eyebrow. “Yes, I did, didn’t I?”

  “We’re going to find the book and return it to the Elder,” she said decidedly.

  “What book? Who are you talking to?” a masculine voice called out from the entrance to the flat. “And why didn’t you follow my orders and get the hell out of here?!”

  Chapter 14

  Jarrett eyed the building curiously. He’d talked to the taxi driver, and the man had told him he’d taken the passenger, who was a woman of Asian aspect all dressed in black and very, very pretty, to an abandoned warehouse near the River Thames in a run-down part of the Thames Gateway area. So he’d instructed his own taxi driver to take him there, and was now scoping out the place, one of London’s veritable eyesores. He wondered why anyone would bring a book here that was so extremely valuable.

  Nevertheless, he stepped from the car and set foot for the entrance. He had to pass a pile of rubble that smelled of human dung, and he screwed up his face, careful not to ruin his Salvatore Ferragamo moccasins. He suddenly wished he hadn’t worn his twill suit. It wasn’t exactly the right outfit to be traipsing around the ruinous part of the city, fishing for this peculiar book.

  He deftly walked up to the warehouse and pushed open the corrugated metal sliding door, then called out, “Yoo-hoo! Anybody home?”

  When no response came, he ventured inside, careful not to step in any doo-doo. Even though he was quite certain Deshawn wouldn’t mind cleaning his shoes, he detested getting dirt on his person.

  As was to be expected, the abandoned warehouse was dark and dank, its windows grimy, the floor littered with decaying debris and all manner of industrial archeological items, the high ceiling festooned with cobwebs and probably a small army of bats. Yikes. Not exactly the Ritz-Carlton!

  But then he was on a mission to save his mother and, perhaps, if he was lucky, to become immortal, so he pinched his nose to keep the putrid aromas from assaulting his sensitive sense of smell, and carefully picked his way along the wreck of an ancient piece of machinery, a tipped over oil drum, black sludge leaking into a drain grate, and what looked like the rotting carcass of a big, black dog. And as he reluctantly headed deeper into this eerie remnant of the industrial age, he wondered why a woman as allegedly stylish and attractive as the Asian lady would have come here last night. Carrying an extremely valuable book, for that matter.

  And he was just wondering if perhaps her taxi driver had sent him on a wild goose chase, when from the corner of his eye he caught a flash of movement. He quickly glanced over, but nothing stirred.

  “Erm, hello there!” he called out. “Would you by any chance know where I can find the, erm, inhabitant of these… premises?”

  When no response came, he proceeded in the direction of the movement. He just hoped it wasn’t rats. He hated rats, and only now realized how ill-equipped he was to go looking for mysterious life-giving books in this part of town. Perhaps he should have brought Deshawn along after all? Or a small army of beefy blokes? The Chippendales were in town, and for the right price they were probably willing to do a little work on the side. He could see how a dozen muscular men could mean the difference between a rather awkward investigation and a very enjoyable adventure.

  Still, he’d promised his father to retrieve that book, and retrieve that book he would. So pressing a handkerchief drenched in Hugo Man to his face, he walked beneath a rusty steel girder into a smaller room and decided that at one time this must have been an office of some kind. To his surprise, it was actually quite clean. He removed his handkerchief from his face and took a sniff. Oddly enough, a faint scent lingered in the air, and it wasn’t his own. Someone had been in here recently, and if his nose wasn’t deceiving him, it had been a woman with an expensive taste in perfume.

  “Hello!” he called out once again. “Anybody home?”

  And then he saw it. A door that led off this room and into the next. And as he pressed his hand to the handle, he found it warm to the touch
, as if someone’s hand had lingered only recently—within the past few seconds. He hesitated for a moment, wondering if he wasn’t getting himself into hot water here, but then figured that he’d met and socialized with Master Edwards. They were, after all, fellow polo patrons. If he could only persuade the man to return the book, they could find an amicable solution for all involved.

  So resolutely he pressed down the handle and flung wide the door. To his elation, he found himself inside a small space, set up like a chapel of some kind. There was an altar near the back, religious symbols decorating the wall. And next to it there was a lectern, a very large, very ancient-looking book placed on it. And with a sigh of relief, Jarrett realized that this book was that book. The book, in fact. One hour into his investigation and he’d already reached journey’s end. It was some kind of record. Even Indiana Jones needed at least two hours to get his hands on a lost ark or some other gem.

  And as quickly as his legs could carry him, he crossed the distance to the lectern, and was just about to grasp the book and abscond with it, when a young Asian woman, dressed in black from head to foot, rose from behind the altar, where she must have been crouching, and launched herself at him, fists raised, her face contorted in an expression of extreme disapproval.

  He warded off her blows, for he’d once taken a correspondence course in the noble art of Taekwondo, and told her, “Hey! I’m just here for the book!”

  This only served to enrage her even more, however, for she screeched something in a language he didn’t comprehend, and jumped on his back, her hands clawing at his noble features. It was then that he briefly caught sight of a second figure rising up behind the altar. A large and powerful figure with a funny little goatee in lieu of a real beard. But since he was busy grappling with his attacker he hadn’t time to make the figure’s formal acquaintance.

  And just when he was about to take down the woman in black, in a movement called chestnut fist, seemingly out of nowhere he received such a powerful blow to the head that immediately the lights went out, and he fell to the floor. He didn’t even notice the shady figure hovering over him, drinking him in. And then his body was being dragged away by the woman in black and left for dead in a pile of rubble not very far from the warehouse where he’d been inches away from the book that would have saved his mother’s life.

  What would have irked him the most, had he been conscious, was that his Savile Row suit with the invisible stripe was now irrevocably beyond salvage, even for the most talented dry cleaner, as were his Salvatore Ferragamos…

  Chapter 15

  “What’s that?!” Darian grunted, pointing at the floor.

  “That’s the man who tried to kill me,” Harry supplied helpfully.

  “But why is he like that? Did you do this to him?”

  Harry hesitated for a moment, then vigorously nodded. “Yep, that was all me. I knocked him out cold. Just, you know, picked up that coffee table over there and… gave him a good old big wallop.”

  She was eyeing a point in space nervously, Darian noticed, and wondered what it was. He followed her gaze, but all he saw was a nice picture of New York’s Grand Central Station. Like the rest of Harry’s furniture, including the fateful coffee table, it had IKEA written all over it.

  He frowned. “So you took this coffee table…” He walked over to the remnants of the ill-fated piece of furniture, now only held together with a few of those pesky IKEA screws. “… and hit his lights out. A big guy like that.”

  She nodded. “Yes, that’s right. Uh-huh. That’s exactly what happened.”

  He raked his fingers through his mane. “Describe the scene to me.”

  He simply couldn’t imagine a daintily built woman like her, barely a hundred pounds, taking out an enforcer who must be well over two hundred and fifty, and towered over her by at least a foot. Many had tried to get the drop on Philo Bovine-Marks but none had ever succeeded. Until now.

  “Of course,” she said nervously. “So I was standing here, trying to fight him off with my, erm… oh, that’s right, with my fork!” She grabbed a fork from the table and held it out like Hermione Granger holding out her wand, swishing it just as fervently. “He came at me, all threatening like, all ‘I’m going to kill you dead, Harry McCabre, you piece of lint stuck to my shoe’ like. And then, erm…”

  Darian cocked an eyebrow, picturing the scene in his mind. “And then?”

  “And then he…” She licked her lips and was staring at that picture of Grand Central again, for some reason. “And then he turned his head…”

  “Why did he turn his head?”

  “Because… because he must have heard something?” She laughed a little uncertainly. “I mean, duh, right? Why else would he have turned?” She gestured wildly with the fork for a moment, then continued, “So then I slipped around him, quickly tiptoed over to the TV nook, picked up this coffee table and hit him over the head with it. Bam! And then he went down,” she said, her hands describing an image of gently fluttering leaves.

  It was hard to see a giant like Philo fluttering down like a leaf from a tree. He visualized the scene more like the felling of an ox. Nevertheless, she’d done good. “But why the hell didn’t you get out of here like I told you? He could have come to and then you would have been in even greater danger. A man like Philo doesn’t take kindly to being knocked out with furniture.”

  She cast around for a reply, her lips opening and closing a few times.

  “Where is he, Harry?” he asked curtly, understanding dawning. She probably had a boyfriend stashed away somewhere. A boyfriend who didn’t want to get involved. He was the one who’d knocked out Philo, and now he was hiding around here somewhere. Or perhaps he’d already fled the scene.

  “Where is who?” she asked, eyelashes batting innocently.

  “The guy you’re trying to protect. The one who really took down Philo.”

  “I’m not trying to protect anyone, Inspector.”

  “Oh, come off it. A woman as willowy as you, taking out Philo? I find that very hard to believe.”

  She smiled. “You think I’m willowy?”

  “I think you’re lying, Miss McCabre.”

  “What happened to Harry?” she asked, her face falling.

  “Eh?”

  “You called me Harry just now.”

  He frowned. “I did not.”

  “You called me Harry from the moment I called you.”

  “You must have misheard. I never refer to a witness with their Christian name, Miss McCabre. That would be against Scotland Yard protocol.”

  “Well, I can tell you that you did,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. She was still dressed in that colorful combination, and he, for one, thought it suited her perky, slightly quirky nature perfectly. An assessment which, of course, had absolutely no bearing on this investigation.

  And as they were discussing the finer points of Harry’s tussle with Philo, the big guy chose that exact moment to come to. First, he stirred, then he opened his eyes and stared about him dumbly, then he muttered, “Huh?”

  Chapter 16

  Before Darian could stop her, Harry picked up her now dilapidated coffee table and casually dropped it on Philo’s bald head. The gangster stirred no more. His hand on his service weapon, Darian regarded her intervention with alarm. “Hey!” he cried. “What did you go and do that for?!”

  “He was waking up,” Harry pointed out. “I had to do something. Besides, I wanted to prove to you that I can knock out a guy with a coffee table.”

  Very slowly, he stepped away from her. Willowy she might be, but she wielded a coffee table with remarkable expertise. “I believe you. Now please… put the coffee table down, Miss McCabre.”

  “Oh, all right,” she said with a shrug and dropped the remnants.

  He stared down at the fallen man. “What did he want from you anyway?”

  Harry’s face grew serious once more. “He wanted to kill me. I saw his face yesterday, you see, and apparently he didn’
t like that very much.”

  “Yes, Philo is notoriously shy,” Darian said. He wondered why he would risk coming here, though. The man usually had more sense than that. “Well, backup should be here any minute, and they will take him into custody. Meanwhile, I don’t want you to stay here one minute longer, Harry.” He closed his eyes. “I mean Miss McCabre.”

  She gave him a look of triumph. “So where do you suggest I go?”

  “Don’t you have a place to stay? With a friend perhaps?”

  She shook her head. “My aunt and uncle, but they live in Scotland, and I’d rather not go. They’re…” She grimaced. “Let’s just say we don’t get along very well.”

  “Right.”

  “I could always stay with my Uncle Curtis.”

  He frowned, the memory of Chief Whitehouse’s phone call not a happy one. “On Long Island, you mean. This… Happy Bays place.”

  “Yes. He’s invited me to go and visit.”

  It was a possibility, he allowed, though he was loathe to see her leave as long as they hadn’t caught the Buckley killer. She might have more information to share.

  “Though I’d much rather stay here,” she said, echoing his own sentiments exactly. “Until Buckley’s killer is caught, I mean.”

  He looked up in surprise. It only rarely happened that a member of the public displayed such conscientiousness. She and Sir Geoffrey Buckley must have gotten on very well for her to show such an interest in the man’s murder investigation. “Yes, I’d rather you didn’t leave too, actually.”

  “You don’t?” she asked, her face lighting up.

  “Because of the investigation, I mean.”

  “Of course.”

  They stared at each other for a beat, but then Philo stirred again, and Harry picked up the coffee table again, and he quickly moved to wrench it from her grip. “You do wield that coffee table like a pro, Miss McCabre.”