A Gentleman of Providence (work in progress)

Okay, so here’s the beginning of ‘The Jonathan Trent Case Files Part 2 – A Gentleman of Providence’.

Enjoy…

The Jonathan Trent Case Files Part 2 – A Gentleman of Providence

Copyright J. N. Thorpe 2009

What’s worse: being forced to do something you don’t want to do, or being forced to do something you do want to do? Okay, maybe it’s a stupid question, but as I stood there in Harman’s office, I couldn’t help feeling that the path of my life was no longer in my own hands. Maybe it never was. And that’s a scary thought. The idea that this smug, supercilious twat, slouching in his tailored suit, held my future in his clammy palms was repellent to me, but there was nothing I could do. I really didn’t have any choice.

“So, Mister Trent,” he said in that silky croon of his, “have you come to a decision?”

I nodded. I really didn’t want to dignify his fatuous question with an answer, but this was one of those situations where the only course of action was to swallow my pride and jump through the fucking hoop that his offer represented. ‘Officer Trent’ – that would be my new title, and I couldn’t deny that it was an appealing prospect. More than that, it was the chance I’d been waiting for my whole life. Finally, I would have the opportunity to investigate real mysteries, to discover the real truths about our reality – a glimpse of which had brought me to this moment in the first place. And then I thought of Billy. The last time I’d seen my best friend, his twitching flesh was being desiccated, drained of the last of his life by the thing that now inhabited his girlfriend’s body. I owed it to him to pursue the creature that was once Liz and destroy it – though I had no idea how I would do that. If there was a way, though, I was determined to find it.

“Yes,” I said, trying to mask the querulous tone of my voice by clearing my throat. “Yes,” I repeated, at a more manly pitch.

The smile that spread across Harman’s face then made me want to turn around and walk out of his office for good. And I probably should have, though it wouldn’t exactly have helped my career prospects. Barely twenty four hours after I’d witnessed Billy’s appalling demise, this arsehole had all but framed me for his murder. Unless, of course, I did as I was told.

“And?”

“I’ve decided to take your offer.”

“Excellent. Well, then, we’ll see you at nine ‘o’ clock sharp on Monday. Just report to reception for your orientation.”

I nodded, then rose to leave.

“By the way,” Harman said before I had my fingers closed on the door handle, “what was it that gave me away?”

I frowned at him, confused.

“When we first met, you didn’t believe me when I introduced myself as a doctor.”

“How many NHS doctors wear Saville Row suits?” I asked him.

“Hmph. Indeed. Then I trust that those keen perceptive talents of yours will serve you well in your new role.” There was only a hint of sarcasm to his tone, a half curl of his mouth that made me want to kick his damn teeth in. I’m not normally prone to violent thoughts, but recent events had driven me to a state of almost total nervous collapse, so I was a little on edge, to say the least.

“I was, though, once. A doctor, I mean. I was an RMO during the first Gulf War. Do you know, I still have nightmares about the day we uncovered another of the mass graves filled with victims of the chemical attacks against Halabja? I suppose you would have been still at college back then, drinking and smoking your way through your student loan, no doubt. But believe me, Mister Trent, I am well acquainted with the face of evil. And so, I believe, will you be, soon enough. So you’ll forgive me if I don’t offer you a shoulder to cry on over the death of your friend, but such is the nature of the job we do. Do you understand that, Mister Trent?”

“No, but like you said, I think I will do. Soon enough.”

When I left Harman’s office that afternoon, the sky was a leaden mask that wept a torrent of tears, while the impotent thunder god who wore it flashed his rage ineffectually against the darkling clouds. Sorry to get all prosaic about it, but I was in that kind of mood. And what I needed was a drink – several, in fact. I needed to go and get so utterly shit-faced that I forgot all about this surreal nightmare, and everything else for that matter. But isn’t it just the way, that when you really, desperately need to thoroughly obliterate your own consciousness with alcohol for a few hours, you just can’t?

I trudged, dripping and disconsolate, into a Slug and Lettuce down the road. It was quiet after the lunchtime rush, so I was pretty much on my own. I sucked down five, six pints of Stella and a double JD while I scowled at my reflection in the mirrored panel on the opposite wall. I was beginning to feel like John Constantine, except not so good looking. And I don’t mean the one played by Keanu Reeves – I mean the boozy, trench-coated psycho from the Hellblazer comics. I love comics. I stood up and shoved my way through the empty chairs to that mirror, and drew a big thought bubble on it with my finger. Then inside it I wrote, ‘Shit, fuck, shit, fuck, shit.’ The barman, a wiry Australian in his twenties, gave me a dirty look, so I gave him a dirtier one. Then I sat down to admire my artwork, and finish my pint. Then I ordered another.

“I think you’ve had enough, mate, don’t you?”

I sneered at him as I stumbled back out to the street and the pissing rain, heading for the first off licence I could find.

Much later, when the sky had turned so dark as to be an almost featureless expanse of void, I was sitting with one arm draped over Billy’s freshly laid headstone, a half empty bottle of JD in my hand and a half smoked spliff in the other. Highgate Cemetery isn’t easy to get into at night, but somehow, I managed to shin up a drainpipe and over its high wall. I doubt I could have managed it if I was sober, and I’d earned plenty of scratches and bruises for my trouble. After a long while of stumbling around in the dark, I found Billy’s plot in the Eastern Cemetery. I was properly drunk by then, and the weed helped to give it that beatific edge. My melancholy thoughts were smeared into a long, drawn-out babble of philosophical rhetoric, spilling from my mouth as gibberish. It fell on dead ears. Literally. And by that I mean that the only people listening – besides maybe a passing cat or a fox – were the dead. And I know they were listening because one of them interrupted me.

“You know, I was never much good at all that ‘meaning of life’ crap – though I’m starting to get an idea now.”

I recognised the voice immediately, and it sent a shiver down my spine. Literally. The air around me felt suddenly freezing.

“Billy?” I whispered.

“What – you were expecting someone else?”

And there he was. He stepped into view right in front of me, and even though it was dark, I knew it was him straight away. I think my heart actually stopped for a second or two. In the past few days I’d experienced real fear – terror, even – but this, this I can only call awe. I said his name again, and he smiled, and suddenly there were tears spilling hot trails down my face.

“Yep. Here I am. In the flesh. Well, in spirit, anyway. My flesh is right underneath your -”

“Billy!” I cried, and leapt up to embrace him, realising my mistake all too late as I passed straight through him and landed face first in the grass.

“You dozy pillock,” he said laughing. “I would offer to help you up, but, well…”

Dazed, I rolled onto my back, and heaved myself upright. Then fell over again, and decided that sitting was probably a good idea.

“Erm, sorry, mate. I just… you know… shit! You’re a ghost!”

“Well, don’t look so surprised. I mean, I am dead an’ all,” Billy said, sitting down beside me. This close up, I could look at his face and see through it to the hazy outlines of the gravestones behind him.

“Yeah, I’ve never seen an actual, real proper ghost before, though. Shit! I mean… wow! What’s it like?”

Billy frowned, considering my question.

“It’s like at first, I didn’t know what was going on. I mean, I remember what – what happened. What that thing inside Liz did to me. And I remember looking down and seeing myself, all wrinkled and shrivelled up, you know? And I thought, ‘Christ! That can’t be me, ‘cos I’m standing right here.’ And then I worked it out. And I saw you, and I was shouting at you, ‘Run! Run for fuck’s sake – just get out!’ But then I remembered I’d handcuffed you to the radiator. Sorry about that, by the way.”

I shrugged. If anything, I’d come out of the situation better off. Mostly.

“‘Salright,” I slurred. “So, did you see what happened to me? And where did the… thing – Liz – go? ‘Cos I can’t remember a bloody thing!”

“I…no. Things sorta started to fade then. It’s funny. Time’s different now. I remember being there, and then there was just like this fog, and I could see shapes, people. Other souls, I guess. But I couldn’t get to them. When I tried it was like they were always just out of reach. And I knew I couldn’t follow them. I wanted to, but it was like I had to be here. Only now that feels like… like years ago… And then I found myself here, waiting for you.”

“Waiting for me? Why?”

“Because you’re in danger. You’re in deep shit way up to your neck, Johnny, and if you don’t watch your step, we’ll be spending a lot more time together, if you get what I mean?”

“Well, yeah, I guess. So I’m in danger, am I? Fuck it! Whatever it is, I couldn’t give a shit. Let it come.”

Billy looked at me then with real concern, which felt odd coming from a ghost. I would’ve thought he had more pressing matters on his mind than my safety. Like being dead, for one.

“What’s that face about?” I asked, feeling more than a little leary.

“Seriously, Johnny. You’re not up to this. There’s something coming, something really fucking bad. When the boy, our – Liz’s – whatever. When it put it’s hand on my head, I saw things, Johnny. I saw the future – the one they want, anyway. And you’re part of it.”

“Me? What the fuck are you on about?”

“I don’t know what it is, but you have something they need, and they won’t stop until they get it. You need help, Johnny. You need protection.”

“Protection?”

“Yeah. Read Liz’s notebook. Things keep…fading from my mind, I don’t think I’ve got much time left, but I know that what you need is in there.”

“What do you mean? I did read the damn thing, and I didn’t see anything about protection.”

“Read it again. All of it. You’ll know when you see the sign. I think it’s time for me to go now. Sorry, Johnny.”

“What? Go where?” Then it dawned on me what he meant. “Oh…shit. Well, I hope it’s the good place, but without the harps and all that bollocks.”

“I guess I’ll find out, won’t I?” Billy smiled, and raised his hand. He had become little more than a shadow, a wisp of smoke. His voice was fading, too. “Take care, Johnny. If I can, I’ll be watching your back.”

“Yeah… uh, Billy? I’m sorry – I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.” Tears were budding in my eyes again as I watched my friend fade away before me.

“I know!” he shouted, as if from a long way away. “It’s okay! Oh, and ghouls like fire!”

“Eh?” I said, confused. But he was already gone, and I was alone. I sat there, on my own for a while, wondering whether I’d just been hallucinating, and had been talking to myself the whole time. I wiped the tears from my eyes, and took a slug of JD, then I stood shakily. I needed sleep, so I staggered off to find my way out of the cemetery.

“Goin’ somewhere, are we, young fella?” It was more a growl than a voice – guttural and harsh. I stopped and looked around me. There was a dark shape in between the gravestones that wasn’t there before – or if it was, I hadn’t noticed it. It was squat, vaguely humanoid, and even in the dark I could tell that I didn’t want to see much more. I glanced toward the path through the trees, and started toward it, backing away from the voice. My heart was suddenly thumping hard.

“Whoever you are, I don’t want any trouble, okay?” I said, trying to sound dangerous.

“Oh, it won’t be no trouble, young fella. You’ll be good an’ dead ‘fore ya know it.”

The creature crept out from between the headstones, moving on all fours with the slow determination of a stalking predator. It was hunched, slightly smaller than a man, with gangly, clawed limbs. It was clothed in dirty, tattered rags. Its bald head had pointed, dog-like ears, jaundice-yellow eyes, a vestigial, stubby nose. It leered at me, displaying a set of rotten, jagged teeth set in a grisly scar of a mouth. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to be confronted by a ghoul, the way things were going for me recently. And I was in a graveyard, in the middle of the night. Alone.

“That’s far enough,” I said, stepping closer to the path.

“Is it, now?” crooned the ghoul. “Why? Got something up your sleeve have you, eh? You’re out here all on your ownsome, young fella. Ain’t no one gonna save you now.”

And then it pounced – leaping the twenty or so feet between us in a heartbeat. It hit me full in the chest, its claws tearing at my face as I toppled backwards. I hit the ground hard, dazed for a moment as my vision was filled with the ghoul’s hideous face. Its breath reeked of decay.

“You ain’t as ripe as your mate over there, but you’ll do for my larder.” It closed its bony claws around my neck with a grip so strong I couldn’t breathe. “I likes nice fresh eyeballs, though. I’m gonna suck yours out an’ squeeze them ‘tween my teeth ’til the jelly bursts out.”

I flailed and bucked in panicked desperation as the ghoul opened its mouth and put its scabrous lips to my face. I screwed my eyes shut and tried to turn my head away. A lucky jab with my right knee caught its midriff and it jerked back for a moment, growling. Then I swung the bottle in my hand, connecting with the creature’s temple. That must have hurt it because it let go of me, hopping sideways and clutching at its face.

“Oooh, you filthy little runt!” It snarled, casting a hateful glance at me, “I’m gonna slice you up good an’ proper for that!”

Wheezing and dizzy, I hauled myself up as fast as I could. At that moment I suddenly felt an almighty rush of adrenalin-fuelled rage, as if all the horror and grief and despair of the last few days was suddenly welling up and bursting out, siphoned into a jet of white hot malice. I’d never felt anything like that before – I didn’t even know I was capable of such anger. Without thinking, I raised the bottle and smashed it over the ghoul’s head as hard as I could. It yelped in pain, then cowered in the grass, covering its head with its claws. Disgust and hatred bubbled up inside me like a sickly tide. I knew exactly what to do. Billy’s last words had come back to me. I pulled out my Zippo, flicked it, then tossed it at the skulking beast. The whiskey soaking its face and the tattered rags it wore ignited in a florid blossom of fire, and the thing screamed. The noise was terrible, like a dog being put through a mangle. My whole body was quivering as I watched it thrashing about in torment, gibbering and keening as it burned. The toe of my left boot stubbed something in the grass – a lump of stone the size of a half-brick. I picked it up, and with calm deliberation, strode over to the creature. I pounded its skull with the stone, smashing it down over and over and over, until the foul thing had stopped twitching, and its head was just a bloody, broken mess. Then I dropped the stone, and collapsed, suddenly exhausted.

The ghoul’s leprous flesh was still smouldering, and the stench was overpowering. I rolled over and vomited copiously. I was shaking uncontrollably, my throat and nostrils burning, and for a long time I just lay there, gasping down air. I wished that I still had some JD to wash the sick taste from my mouth. Eventually, I was able to breathe normally, though my throat hurt like hell. I stared up at the starless night, letting the cold, brutal reality of what I had just done wash over me. I had killed something, and even though it was a rather nasty something that was intent on killing me, it was still a sentient creature. I felt right then that the world was conspiring to drive me out of my mind, and it was working. I lay there and wept, for the wretched thing I had butchered, for Billy, whose life I’d been powerless to save, and for myself. Mostly for myself, I think, if I’m honest. The tears burned in the cuts on my face, but I couldn’t stop them from coming.

I discovered the half-smoked spliff that I’d dropped before the ghoul attacked me, and forced myself upright to hunt around in the grass for my Zippo. It didn’t help my throat, but I managed to smoke the last of it without choking, and that, at least, helped my head. I gathered my sluggish thoughts to assess my situation, and decide what to do next. I couldn’t leave the ghoul’s vile, half-burned corpse just lying there, its dark, sticky blood defiling this place. There was only one thing I could think of to do. I took out my mobile, and Harman’s card. At least I’d have the satisfaction of waking him up at half past three in the morning.

“Mister Trent? I hope that you have a very good reason for calling me at this hour.”

“Sorry, but I didn’t know what else to do. And yeah, it’s a pretty fucking good reason!”

“You sound drunk, Mister Trent, very drunk. Are you in some sort of trouble?”

“I think you should come see for yourself. And bring a body bag.”

Smudges of light were just beginning to bleed through the bloated belly of cloud by the time Harman found me. He’d brought a team with him – black clad, carrying a stretcher, and boxes of equipment. Armed, too, which was surprising. Harman nodded to me as they approached, and surveyed the scene with a frown.

“Hmm… Well, you did the right thing to call me, Mister Trent. We thought that we’d managed to eradicate these vermin from Highgate years ago,” he said, indicating the ghoul’s corpse. “Clearly that’s not the case. Although they prefer carrion, they’re certainly not averse to attacking the living. As you now know, of course.”

The clean-up team moved quietly and efficiently, and barely five minutes later, as I stood with Harman inspecting their work, Billy’s grave looked the same as it had when I found it.

“We’d better get those cuts treated,” Harman said, looking at me. “Ghouls carry all kinds of unpleasant diseases.” He signalled to one of the clean-up team, who produced a first-aid kit. “I’m impressed, Mister Trent. Tackling a ghoul single-handed, in your condition. That’s not easy.”

“Guess I’m just lucky,” I said, wincing at the pain from my wounded face as I tried to smile.

“How does it feel – your first kill?”

“Ugly,” I replied. “Ugly and disgusting.”

Harman nodded.

“Yes. You will get used to the feeling in time, though. Remember, this is a matter of public health, Mister Trent. We didn’t hire you, though, just to be a glorified exterminator.”

“No? Why did you hire me? Why not just lock me up?”

“You’ve just proved that you’re a valuable asset, Mister Trent,” he said, gesturing to Billy’s grave, “and if our suspicions concerning the former Lady Winterbourne-Strickland are correct, then we need you on the front line.”

“What, so I’m bait, am I?”

“Mister Trent, we are engaged in a war here, on several fronts. And for the most part, we are fighting blind. Intelligence is our most effective weapon, and that is what you represent.”

There didn’t seem to be much point in arguing, and anyway I was too tired. So I let his team take me away to get patched up, then went home to sleep for a very long time.

I passed the weekend trying to immerse myself in doing normal things. I watched crap daytime telly, ate junk food, did some shopping, ignoring the looks people gave me when they saw my wounded face. It didn’t help. Billy’s words haunted me. “You have something they need, and they won’t stop until they get it.” I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but, as ever, my inquiring mind needed to solve the mystery, so I spent most of Sunday mulling it over. What did I have they ‘they’ needed? Was it knowledge, a piece of information? Something I’d seen? Or some artefact, maybe – though I couldn’t think what that could be. As far as I remembered, I’d taken nothing with me from Winterbourne House on that terrible night. Apart from the awful memories that plagued my waking hours and corrupted my dreams. I didn’t think that there was anything I could have witnessed that the Liz-thing didn’t know already. So was it her notebook? But then, she wrote it, so that seemed doubtful. And anyway, I didn’t have it. Harman did – or, at least, he knew where it was now being kept. I decided that it was time to look through my collection. At the time it seemed like a pointless exercise, but I was trying to keep an open mind.

For several years, now, I’ve been building up a collection of curios – keepsakes, I guess, from various investigations. Nothing especially valuable, really, and nothing that anyone would miss. Just stuff that I found interesting. I keep it all in a big, old wooden chest in the spare room, which doubles as my library and study. Though mostly it’s where I dump all the stuff I can’t be bothered to find a proper place for. Like my bicycle, rusting gently against one wall. A guitar that Billy gave me, and I never learned to play. An assortment of tabletop gaming miniatures and rule books from my teenage years, that I’ve never had the heart to get rid of. That kind of thing. Carefully, I removed all the miniatures that I had arranged on top of the chest, tutting at the amount of dust now obscuring the paint work I’d once so lovingly applied to them. Then I unlocked the chest, and lifted its heavy lid. As I did so, an image from the dream I’d had the night before I visited Winterbourne House flashed in my mind’s eye – so vivid and startling that I let go of the lid. It slammed onto my other hand, resting on the edge of the chest. I swore. A lot.

This time, using both hands to lift the lid, I managed to swing it all the way back without any disturbing flashbacks causing me to add to the growing list of injuries I’d suffered recently. My arm still ached from where Billy had shot me, even though it was just a flesh wound. And my face was raw and tender from the ghoul’s claws. Perhaps I should have taken one of its claws as a trophy? Then again, perhaps not. I looked down into the chest at my collection, all neatly packaged and labelled. Here was a box of ‘poppets’, supposedly used by a witch to curse her enemies. The little cloth dolls were faceless and crudely made. There was nothing magical about them, and of the witch who supposedly still haunted the house where they were found, I’d seen no evidence at all. Then a leather bag of runes, carved from animal bones. Nothing special about them, either, nor their former owner, a so-called ‘sorcerer’ who’d used them during his ritualised child abuse. An odd-shaped gem stone: just a piece of smoky quartz, not part of an alien vessel, as some nutcase had claimed. In a glass bottle, a Victorian ‘nondescript’ – the stuffed remains of different animals cobbled together, in an attempt to fool people into thinking it was some mythical beast. In this case, a piglet’s body had a shaved dog’s head stitched onto it, and the wings of a crow clumsily sewn to its back. Why were people ever taken in by this rubbish?

Then I picked up a small, wooden box, and immediately the nightmare flashed in my head again. I fumbled to undo its tiny latch, then wrenched it open. Ah, yes. Inside, on a burgundy, felt pad, was a crystal ball. I’d labelled the box, ‘Paperweight, Richmond – 2003′. The pub where I’d found it had been the site of another ‘haunting’, and I’d discovered the box buried under the hearthstone of the fireplace in the lounge bar. A skull had buried there, which was supposedly the ghost’s remains. It was removed, and properly buried, and that was that. The box had been buried under the skull, and since the haunting ceased after the skull’s burial, no one was interested in it. So I added it to my collection. And there it had stayed, until now.

I lifted the glass out of the box. It felt unnaturally cold to the touch, and my fingers tingled like a current was passing through them. I held it up to the light. It was about six inches in diameter, and spherical, with an odd stippled pattern of whorls inside it, like a whirlpool or a galaxy, frozen in crystal. It felt way too heavy for what it was, and it made my arm ache after only a few seconds. I placed it back in the box, putting it to one side, then packed everything else back in and closed the lid. I made a point of blowing the worst of the dust off each of my miniatures before I arranged them back on their makeshift battlefield on the lid of the chest.

It seemed that I had found it – the something that ‘they’ needed. So, what now? I took it with me into my front room, took it out of its box, and placed it in front of me on the coffee table. Then I sat and stared at it. And nothing happened – except that I began to feel increasingly foolish. Nothing new there, though, really. So I carried on staring at it, until my eyelids began to droop and my mind to wander. Suddenly I felt the sensation of being flung forward, into the crystal, which expanded to fill my vision, and I was back amongst the stars, hurtling, formless and without substance, through dizzying vistas of limitless night. Then I arrived once more at the place of my nightmares, that hellish purple sky and that bleak, empty landscape, raked by howling, pitiless winds. This time, though, I felt the distinct and unsettling notion that I was not alone. I looked around me and came face to face with the the thing that was once Liz, its lifeless eyes regarding me with a malignant, alien intelligence. With a start, I returned to myself, sitting shaking on my sofa, the noonday sunlight glinting off that crystal orb. Once again, I felt the need for alcohol.

By the evening I had drunk my way into a grateful stupor – anything to blot out the craziness that had become my life of late. So Monday morning found me scowling through a bastard hangover as I trudged to the tube station. Not the best way to start the first day of my new job. At least I had time to get a breakfast muffin and a strong cappuccino from the canteen before my induction. There’s a large plasma screen in the canteen, which shows the BBC ‘News 24′ channel. I glanced up at it occasionally while I chewed and slurped my way to relative sobriety. I caught a glimpse of a headline that read, ‘FIRE DEVASTATES COUNTRY ESTATE’, and the image of the charred, half-collapsed manor house was shockingly familiar. A coincidence? I doubted it.

My orientation consisted of being shown to my new office on the second floor. Until then, I’d never ventured beyond the ground floor. Then I was told about the various security and procedural protocols that came with my elevated position, and given various papers to sign. Also, I was informed that I had a meeting scheduled with Harman after lunch. I’ve never socialised much with other people in my building. Before this, my department had only ever seemed to consist of myself and my secretary, Janice. She would bring down the case files I was asked to work on – presumably issued by someone working in one of the offices on the floor where I now worked. Maybe I’d be sending down case files to my replacement? If so, I decided that I would make myself known to this person, and treat them with respect, and if I could manage it, maybe even friendship. For now, though, I took my lunch on my own in a quiet corner of the Slug and Lettuce down the road. Thankfully, the Australian guy was nowhere to be seen, and the petite, dark-haired girl who served me smiled pleasantly at me. Even so, I still felt like a freak, skulking in the corner, my face a mass of fresh scars.

A burger and a couple of pints had helped to improve my mood somewhat, so when I stepped into Harman’s office, I was more inclined to be cooperative than at our last meeting.

“Ah, Mister Trent. Please take a seat.” He motioned to the plush chair across the desk from his own.

“Call me Jonny,” I said.

“Very, well, Jonny. I’m Pearse,” he said with a genuine smile and an extended hand, which I shook. “There, isn’t that better? We’re going to be working closely together, you and I, so perhaps we should ‘start over’, so to speak?”

“Sounds good to me,” I replied.

“Then perhaps, you’d feel more inclined to offer some explanation of the events that led to you being in Highgate Cemetery in the middle of the night?”

I’d been thinking about this over lunch. There didn’t seem any point now to be keeping any secrets. Clearly Harman was on my side, and my personal feelings about him were beginning to change, anyway.

“Well, I guess you won’t think I’m crazy if I tell you that I went there to pay my last respects to Billy, and while I was there I saw his ghost.”

“I won’t think that you are lying or that you imagined such a thing, no,” he replied. “But as to the question of your sanity – well, I believe that you might benefit from a psychological evaluation.”

“Maybe,” I shrugged.

“So. Did it help, seeing your friend’s ghost?”

“Kind of. Except that he told me I was in danger and I need protection.”

“I’m assuming that he wasn’t referring to the ghoul that attacked you?”

“No. He meant Liz – Lady Winterbourne-Strickland.”

“Ah. Indeed. By the way, have you watched any news reports this morning?”

I knew what that meant. “The fire? Yes, I saw it. What happened?”

“A precautionary measure, Jonny. Keeping the public safe is our primary concern.”

END OF EXTRACT