Page 10 of Crazy Spooky Love
Arthur looks as if a lightbulb has suddenly gone on in his head. “Are you like that Leo Dark off the telly?”
I grip the edge of my chair and resist the urge to swear as I sigh and say, “Sort of. A little bit. Only I’m a lot, lot better.”
“She is,” Marina pipes up from the armchair. “She sees them everywhere, all of the time. You’ll get used to her.” She smiles sweetly and adds, “I have. It’s taken me twenty years, but I have.”
And then, surprisingly, a wide grin splits Arthur’s face, like a splash of pure sunshine.
“You two are funny.”
Marina doffs her imaginary cap. “We’re here every day.”
I look him straight in the eyes and choose my next words carefully. “Well? What do you say, Little Art? Want to be here every day too?”
He goes still, and then slowly picks up his letter from the desk and tucks it inside his jacket pocket while he considers his answer. When he looks up, his eyes tell us his decision before his mouth does.
“I’m in.”
I nod and reach out to shake his hand. This time his hand isn’t clammy and his smile is genuine.
Marina escorts him to the door and shakes his hand too as he leaves.
“See you in the morning,” she says, pumping his hand. “You’re a wizard, Arthur.”
He stalls and his brow furrows. “I’m a trainee ghost hunter, not a wizard.”
Marina rolls her eyes and I look down to hide my smile. Things are never going to be dull around here with these two.
She closes the door and leans her back against it. “Bet you a tenner he doesn’t show up in the morning,” she says.
“He’ll be here.”
I saw the change in him when I called him “Little Art.” He knows exactly who recommended him for the job, and he doesn’t want to let his dad down.
I grab the tin of Nonna’s limoncello babas and lift the lid, inhaling the smell so deeply it’s a wonder the buns don’t levitate.
Marina rummages in her bag and pulls out a pack of fresh Sicilian dark roast. “Coffee break?”
A snort of laughter bubbles up my windpipe. “Naked Tuesdays.”
Fifteen minutes later, we’re allcaffeined-up and I’m trying to decide if a third limoncello baba would send me into a sugar coma when Leo sodding Dark swans onto the TV screen with an affected flick of his cape.
“Someone should tell him not to take fashion tips from Sherlock Holmes.” Marina curls her lip and I love her for her loyalty.
I’d reasoned with myself that the TV was a necessary purchase for the business of watching CCTV recordings and such like. We most definitely won’t be using it to watchMorning TVor reruns ofCharmed.No, sirree. Well, not once Glenda Jackson starts next week anyway. I reach for the remote and turn the volume up, feeling the beginnings of a tingle down my spine as we watch the outside broadcast from an old, decrepit, Victorian gothic house I vaguely recognize.
“I know that place,” Marina says, brushing crumbs from her jeans. “It’s out on the edge of town. Brimsdale Road, I think?”
I nod, listening to the owner bemoaning that he can’t keep workmen on-site because of the numerous reports of ghostly hauntings at Scarborough House. Leo is nodding along, frowning in all the right places as he listens to the owner, Donovan Scarborough, grumble about the fact that he’s inherited a house that’s proving nigh on impossible to sell. The buyers he’s lined up are keen to change the place from a house into a nursing home, but they’ve gota serious case of the jitters and won’t sign on the dotted line unless, in their words, it’s officially declared a poltergeist-free zone. He couldn’t load his words with more derision if he tried.
You know when you instinctively take a dislike to someone and you can’t put your finger on why? That’s exactly how I feel about Donovan Scarborough. He looks like a city banker with middle-aged spread from too many expensive client dinners, all swish suit and red braces with shiny shoes and an even shinier face.
The tails of Leo’s cape flutter in the sharp wind as he turns to the camera and smolders down the lens about the fact that it’s an incredibly sensitive situation and then invites us to tune in next time to find out what happens when he goes live inside the house in a bid to discover the source of the alleged hauntings.
I click the TV off and look excitedly at Marina. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That I need to take Nonna’s buns away from you for your own good?”
I blow a sad kiss at the tin as she prizes it from my fingers. “No.” I stand up and grab my car keys. “That we need to get our backsides over to Brimsdale Road.”
