‘I’m sure Josh didn’t mean it,’ said Ben, picking up his chickpea wrap and biting into it. We were out for lunch and I’d just finished venting to him about what’d happened at Maggie’s place. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t get Josh’s angry expression out of my head.
‘I’m sure he did. He was just so angry. Like a totally different person.’ My shoulders dropped at the memory of Josh’s reaction to me.
Ben frowned. ‘He’s been through a lot and isn’t emotionally mature enough to process any of it. Most of us wouldn’t be. He just needs time.’
‘Yeah, I hope you’re right.’ I continued eating my food without really paying attention to it. I was too focused on everything else going on to enjoy – or even really process – what I was eating. It was fuel, nothing more.
To distract myself from how Josh’s words had hurt me, I eavesdropped on the conversations around us. A table of four people in suits were clearly talking about work. Yawn. A couple gazed into each other’s eyes, lovingly discussing their upcoming wedding. I wasn’t sure whether to find that one cute or nauseating.
But I didn’t have much time to think on it, because I heard the table closest to us mutter the words ‘serial killer’. Which gave me an idea.
‘What about a seance? To summon one of the other victims?’
Ben nodded, taking another bite of his food. Once he’d swallowed, he said: ‘It’s a start. They might remember more than Tessa. Or something else that could offer us some new insights.’
‘Let’s hope so.’
Although, to be fair, being more helpful than Tessa wasn’t hard. And everyone would remember something different, so it might give us more to go on.
After we’d finished lunch, we set up my living room, put Tilly in the kitchen, and drew a salt circle. Since we didn’t know anything about who we were summoning, and there was a murderer on the loose, I wasn’t taking any chances. The ghost appeared without hesitation. He was a middle-aged Pakistani man in a sharp, grey suit with a warm smile. But he did look very confused about why he was in my living room, which was fair enough.
‘I was just about to strike a deal!’
‘With who? You’re dead!’ Not my most tactful response, admittedly, but seriously. Who was he striking a deal with?
He straightened his collar. ‘That’s none of your business. Who are you?’
Unable to stop myself, I glanced down at his right hand. It looked a lot like the one Tilly had found, but less rubbery. I suppressed a shudder.
‘We’re trying to find who murdered you,’ said Ben.
The guy recoiled slightly. ‘It’s patchy. And it was dark, so I didn’t see much. But the guy almost…glowed? People don’t glow! I must’ve been hallucinating.’
I gestured to him.
He looked down at himself. He, too, had a slight glow to him. He was surprisingly opaque, too, which meant he’d had some sort of power when he was alive, whether that was mental, physical, or magical.
He gasped. ‘I was murdered by a ghost?’
‘We believe so, yes,’ confirmed Ben. ‘Do you remember anything about him? Anything at all?’
‘Who are you?’
Sigh. I supposed he did deserve some answers. We were asking fairly personal questions in an impatient and untactful way. Which was my style. Clearly Ben was getting worried, too, and not thinking.
‘My name is Niamh. I’m a ghost hunter. This is Ben, a witch. We’re trying to find the person responsible for your death so that he can’t hurt anyone else.’
‘A ghost serial killer?’ He let out a long, low whistle. ‘Wait! He whistled! That was the last thing I heard before I passed out. Then, I woke up like this.’ He gestured to his spectral form.
Goosebumps formed on my arms. His murderer had…whistled? So I had been hearing the killer, all this time?
Ben glanced at me, his eyes wide. He’d suggested it was tinnitus, but apparently it was something much, much worse. Was I connected to the murderous ghost in some way?
‘Did you see what he looked like?’ I asked, trying to keep the conversation on track while my heart was pounding. What did it mean if I could hear him before he killed?
‘Now that I think about it, I heard this weird noise for a few days before, too. It was so jarring I couldn’t sleep.’
Gulp.
‘What was the sound like?’ asked Ben.
‘Um…disconcerting. Unnatural. Hard to pin down.’
Ben inhaled, keeping his face as neutral as he could. He was connecting the dots, too.
The ghost continued, oblivious to our revelations: ‘He had on a bloody apron over the top of some fancy looking suit. Way too formal. Almost Victorian, maybe? Is that possible? I was murdered by a ghost that’s older than my grandparents?’
Ben and I exchanged looks.
‘It’s possible,’ said Ben.
It’s not what we’d considered, though. It was rare for ghosts that old to still be around, although when they were, they were usually causing trouble or recently disturbed. Looked like our new friend was both.
*
‘I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about the whistling,’ said Ben after our ghost friend had returned to the Other Side.
I fell back on to the sofa, the warm fabric engulfing me. ‘I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t have believed me, either.’
He sat beside me, pulling me into his arms. I curled into him, wishing we could stay there and not have to deal with a crazy, murderous ghost. But it wasn’t that simple. We were the only ones who could stop him.
The question of whether or not I was next because I’d been hearing the whistling hung in the air. But something about it didn’t make sense. If I was a target, why had I heard it more than the other victims?
*
Ben stayed as long as he could, but eventually, he had to return to work. So I went to find Thomas. He was a Victorian ghost – he might know something. I wandered through the graveyard, the frosty grass crunching under my leather boots. There were still no signs of him. Now I was getting worried. He hardly ever left the graveyard, let alone for so long. And he always appeared when we called him.
Edie had popped in a couple of times around college, but she hadn’t seen him either. Neither had Ben, and the library where he worked looked out on to parts of the graveyard. He used to see Thomas playing football with himself fairly often, but he hadn’t seen him at all since Tessa’s death. Had the ghost hurt him? If the ghost had hurt him, I was going to make his exorcism extra painful.
Feeling hopeless, I went to see Gwendoline. She hadn’t been haunting the town as long as Thomas had, since she’d been trapped in a collapsed mine for a couple of centuries, but she was resourceful and knew where to find information.
‘Hey Niamh.’
‘Thanks for the autopsy reports you gave Ben. That, along with a couple of other bits of information we’ve gathered, proved we’re dealing with a ghost.’
Gwendoline widened her eyes. ‘A serial-killing ghost? I didn’t even think that was possible.’
I sighed. ‘Neither did we.’
Instead of sitting down like I usually did, I paced up and down the park’s path, my phone to my ear, as if I was talking on it. ‘We know what he looks like, and what he does, but we still don’t know his name or his motivations. And the Victorian era is too long for us to search through without narrowing it down, especially when we don’t know if he’s a local ghost or not.’
Gwendoline hovered along beside me, her hands behind her back. ‘I can put the word out, see if anyone knows anything else?’
‘Thank you, but be careful. This ghost can’t know we’re on to him.’
‘You think it’d make us a target?’
‘It’s possible.’
Gwendoline frowned. She was the matriarch for a bunch of ghosts who were lost after their deaths but weren’t ready to cross over. She understood my need to protect people. ‘I’ll see what I can find out. I can’t guarantee there’ll be anything else, but I’ll do my best.’
‘Thanks. Have you heard anything from Thomas yet?’
‘No. Is he still missing?’
‘Yeah. If he’d crossed over, Javi would’ve said. There’s something about this that feels off, I just can’t put my finger on what it is.’
‘Did you try summoning him?’
‘I’m worried it might do more harm than good, especially if someone like the ghost responsible for these murders has found him.’
Gwendoline pursed her lips. ‘You’re right. You know him better than I do, so if you feel that something is off, I believe you. I have some friends who will help look for him, and search for information. They’re discreet and won’t alert anyone questionable to what’s happening. Just be careful in the meantime, please?’
‘I will.’