Kester froze. My father? he thought dumbly. But that’s ridiculous. I don’t have a father. It’s always been just me and my mother, no one else.
“There’s been some mistake,” he croaked, backing away. His head started to spin, and the walls seemed suddenly a lot closer than they had been a few seconds previously. It didn’t help that the room was small, as tightly enclosed as a womb, and windowless. It felt bewilderingly oppressive in the heat of the summer’s day.
“No, this is definitely your father,” Miss Wellbeloved confirmed, oblivious to his distress. She nodded curtly, then retreated. “I’ll leave you to have a private chat,” she concluded. The door snapped into place with a loud click, leaving the room in stifling silence.
Kester wiped the sweat away from his brow, then reluctantly faced the man he’d been left alone with. They stared at one another for an indeterminable amount of time.
“Well, this is unusual, yes?” Dr Ribero announced finally. His accent was surprisingly rich, and the words flowed round the room like velvet, laden with Spanish undulations, like the tossing of a midnight ocean.
The owner of the magnificent voice sat in a leather armchair in the corner, fingers folded neatly as a judge, looking upon Kester as though he were a fascinating specimen in a laboratory. Kester stared back, gormless as a puppy, the word father still echoing in his ears. There was nothing fatherly about this figure. And certainly there was absolutely nothing about his appearance that seemed to connect Kester to him.
Dr Ribero was leonine. There was no other word for him. He exuded elegance, from his long, pointed shoes, right up to his aquiline nose. He was handsome, especially given his advanced age. His hair, though grey, was lustrous—smoothed back with wax, it formed a perfectly shiny wave over his scalp. A dashing moustache curled from under his nose like a pair of inquisitive grey worms. His eyes were dark, but twinkled with electricity. He reached slowly across to his side table, picking up a cigarette holder complete with half-smoked cigarette, then lit it with one deft flick of a silver lighter.
“Isn’t it illegal to smoke in a public place?” Kester squeaked.
Dr Ribero shrugged. “My office, my rules,” he replied, his voice rolling languorously over the vowels and consonants. “I take it you do not like to smoke. So, I will not offer you one.” Kester stared, struck dumb by the shock of it all, unsure where to put himself. Dr Ribero surveyed him, before gesturing with a regal nod. “Please, sit.”
He looked around. There was a cluttered desk at the other end of the room, complete with a studded leather swivel chair. Unceremoniously, he plumped himself onto its rigid seat, and tried to resist the natural momentum as the chair threatened to swing him in the wrong direction.
“So, I can see that you are Gretchen’s boy,” Dr Ribero said at last, after studying him for the best part of a minute.
“How can you see?” Kester asked.
Dr Ribero pointed two elongated fingers at Kester’s eyes like a pair of tiny cannons. “It’s all there,” he replied, with a cryptic nod.
Kester said nothing. He fixed his gaze on the floor, focusing in on the bright rug below his feet, a sea of ruby-red geometric patterns that separated him from the doctor. This is insane, he thought. What on earth am I doing here? And why did that woman say he was my father? That’s just ridiculous. It’s simply impossible. Ruefully, he acknowledged that there was no way such a handsome chap could have produced him. His real father, whoever he may have been, must have been every bit as paunchy and pale as himself. It didn’t make sense.
“So, what do you think?” the doctor continued, interrupting his thoughts. He exhaled, slowly pistoning out a stream of smoke. It curled languidly, masking his face briefly before billowing out towards the ceiling, which Kester could see was a mottled shade of beige from years of nicotine exposure.
“What do I think about what?”
“About all of this, of course. What do you think of my agency?”
Well, that’s a peculiar question, given he’s just been told that I’m his son, Kester thought. What a strange man. Though of course, it can’t be true. Mother would have told me if I had a father who was alive. She never would have kept it from me.
Doctor Ribero studied him intently. “You are deep in thought, I can see,” he said finally. “I think perhaps you are confused, yes?”
Kester nodded dumbly.
“Well,” the doctor continued. “Why don’t we start at the beginning? If you are my son, that means you are Gretchen’s boy. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Kester.”
“Why aren’t you surprised?” Kester spluttered. “You look so . . . so unmoved by finding out that you have a son!”
Dr Ribero chuckled, an earthy rumble, like the precursor to an earthquake. “You presume that because it is a shock for you, it must also be a shock for me. However . . .” He paused, letting the word hang in the air. “I have known about you for a very long time, my boy.”
Kester swallowed hard and ended up choking. Coughing, he fought to regain control of his lungs as his face grew redder, banging his fist against his chest. Dr Ribero gestured to a jug of water on his desk. His expression didn’t alter, even while Kester’s cheeks turned to a deeper shade of plum. Kester ignored him, feeling more ridiculous with every sputtering moment.
“Why didn’t you ever come to visit me?” he eventually wheezed, loosening his collar. “If you knew I existed?”
The older man leaned back in his chair with a sigh. He gazed around the office, as though seeking inspiration, before taking another deep tug on his cigarette. “This is a very serious conversation to be having, so late on a Friday afternoon,” he stated finally. “Allow me to ask some questions instead, yes? How is your dear mother?”
“Dead,” Kester blurted out.
Dr Ribero paled. He remained motionless for a minute or so, as composed as an owl in a thunderstorm, before slowly placing his cigarette holder on the ash tray. Kester noticed then that his hand was shaking.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you’d be upset,” he said.
“Gretchen is dead?” Ribero repeated weakly. Kester nodded.
The room rang with the weight of the words. They seemed to grow larger in the silence, filling the space with their brutal finality, puffing out with unbearable pressure. That one word. Dead. It was shocking how it could change the atmosphere so much. It made everything greyer, colder. Kester had noticed that a lot in the last fortnight. Death still wasn’t a concept he’d wrapped his head around yet. Death. Even the word itself was like a final, icy breath.
“How did it happen?” Ribero whispered, all exuberance sucked from him like a vacuum cleaner. He looked haggard, as if he’d aged a decade in the space of only a few minutes.
“Cancer.”
“But Gretchen was always so healthy,” he mumbled. “None of this poison.” Ribero jabbed an accusing finger at his smouldering cigarette, as if it was directly responsible. “Always so slim, so energetic, so sensible. How could she get cancer?” He muttered something in Spanish, looking down to the floor.
“I think it can happen to anyone,” Kester said, as kindly as he could. He suddenly felt sorry for the man in front of him, this suave man, reduced to a morsel of his former self in a matter of moments; he felt guilty for having caused the change.
With a shake, Ribero composed himself, straightening against the back of the chair. He drew back, studying Kester hard, black eyes burrowing tunnels into Kester’s own.
“And now you are on your own, and this is why you are here? Because you don’t know where else to go?”
Kester shook his head, then nodded. “No. Well, yes, partly. I’m certainly on my own, but that’s not the reason I’m here. My mother told me to come and find you. When she was . . . when she was dying. That’s why I’m here. I’m fulfilling her final wishes. But to be honest, I’m not sure what good it has done.”
Ribero gave a grim shake of the head, pressing his chin against his fingers. He appeared lost in thought, staring at the wall behind Kester’s head as though waiting for the solution to the problem to magically appear. Kester waited, as the minutes stretched on. The mantelpiece clock ticked gently. Ribero’s cigarette fizzled to a limp line of ash.
This is madness, Kester thought. He stood awkwardly, then offered a hand. Dr Ribero didn’t take it, only narrowed his gaze, still staring at the wall. Eventually, Kester lowered his arm.
“I’ll say goodbye then,” he said. “Don’t worry, you won’t hear from me again. I don’t want anything from you. My mother obviously didn’t expect you to provide for me, so I shan’t either.”
The doctor’s head snapped up, like a puppet pulled to attention. He pointed a finger directly at his son’s face. “My boy, you may leave, if that is what you want. However, I have to correct you on that last point. I have been providing for you since you were born. Perhaps not emotionally, but financially, very much so, yes.”
Kester’s eyes widened. The doctor nodded.
“I didn’t know that,” he stuttered, the wind taken out of him.
“How did you think your mother had that nice house?” Dr Ribero asked in disbelief. “She didn’t work, surely you must have wondered.”
Kester paused, blushing. “I . . . I don’t believe I did, no.” It pained him to admit it, and he felt suddenly incredibly stupid. Have I really been that naïve? he wondered. Why have I never questioned it before?
The truth was, he had never stopped to give it any thought. It was the way it had always been, he and his mother in their cosy semi-detached house in the quiet Cambridge suburbs, tucked away from the bustle of the city. He had always presumed it had been left to them by the dead father his mother sometimes alluded to, but never spoke directly of, and he’d never asked any questions about the matter.
Except that his father wasn’t dead. He was alive, very much alive, and living in Exeter, only a matter of hours away. The weight of it all crashed upon him like a sack of wet sand, and his knees weakened with the horror of it all. He sank back into the chair, cradling his head in his hands.
“Gosh, I had no idea,” he murmured. What a fool he must think I am, he thought. To have lived this long, and never stopped to wonder how my mother could afford to keep me? How could I not have realised? His mother had always said he was too accepting of things. Now he appreciated exactly how right she was.
Finally, he looked up. “Was it you who put me through university then?”
“Yes.”
“And you own the house? Our house in Cambridge, I mean?”
The doctor shook his head. “No. I bought it for your mother. She needed somewhere to live. It was . . . how do you say it? The least that I could do.”
Kester felt a little lightheaded. The combination of grief, tiredness, and unexpected revelations rendered him stupid, speechless, unable to determine the correct response. After all, he thought, running a hand through his hair, how are you meant to speak to your father, when you meet him for the first time? It’s not exactly the sort of thing we get taught at school.
“Why didn’t you ever come and visit me?” he asked. “I mean, weren’t you curious? Or do you have other children, is that it? Do you have another family?” Looking at the doctor, he could well imagine a succession of women falling for his charms. Although old, the force of his masculinity was still strong, and Kester could only imagine how attractive he had been as a younger man. The thought made him rather jealous. If indeed this was his father, why had none of those handsome genes passed on to him?
“No, no, nothing like that,” Dr Ribero snapped, reading Kester’s expression correctly. He reached across for his cigarette, realised it had gone out, and relit it with a flick of his lighter; he tugged on it sombrely. “No, I have never married. I am not that kind of a man, Kester. Not like you think. I am not the Lothario or the Casanova, no.”
“So why never come and see me then?”
It was a pleading, plaintive question, and it surprised him, even as the childish reprimand left his lips. Why do I even care? he thought, as he surveyed the old man, who had, before three o’clock this afternoon, been completely unknown to him. Why should it bother me that he’s never been to see me? Why am I even still here?
Yet it did bother him. It nettled him, and the sting of rejection ached within him like a fist to the stomach. What was wrong with me? he wondered. What could have possibly been so very unpleasant about me that my own father never wanted to see me? The notion of it made him feel unnervingly anchorless, as though an unseen carpet had been whipped from under his feet.
To his surprise, instead of answering, the doctor stood, straightening his knees with an audible crack. He gestured sternly to the door. Kester gulped.
“You want me to go?” he mumbled, shocked. His feelings of rejection multiplied in the space of a second.
Dr Ribero pulled open the door with force, the gust fluttering his paperwork across his desk. “Miss Wellbeloved!” he bellowed. Kester winced.
The woman slid into the room as though on rails. Her swift arrival indicated that she must have been listening to their conversation, or at least standing very close to the room. Without a single glance at Kester, she quietly closed the door behind her.
“Tell him,” Dr Ribero said, stalking back to his chair like an alpha lion returning to its rock.
Miss Wellbeloved frowned. “About which part?”
Ribero grunted. “About the agency, Jennifer. The rest can wait.”
“It would be better coming from you,” she replied. “It’s hardly my place.”
The doctor waved an impatient hand, batting her comment away like an imaginary wasp. “It’s every bit as much your place as mine. And I do not know where to begin. Please, Jennifer. You explain it. I have only just woken; I am still tired. This is all too much for me.”
She sighed, then walked across to the desk, resting herself on the edge.
“Kester,” she said, glaring in Ribero’s direction. “Your father wants me to tell you about this agency. After I’ve finished, his absence in your life will probably make a lot more sense.”
So she was listening, Kester thought, with bewilderment and irritation. She heard every word of what we were saying. She isn’t even bothering to conceal the fact. He’d always been raised to believe that eavesdropping was the height of bad manners, and it shocked him to see such an austere woman so comfortable with listening in on the conversation of others.
“What has this agency got to do with him not visiting me?” he asked, looking at Dr Ribero. The older man sank his chin on to his fingers, brows knitted. He didn’t meet Kester’s gaze.
“Oh goodness me, this really is rather difficult,” Miss Wellbeloved said testily. “Julio, are you sure I can’t convince you to step in?”
The doctor grunted.
“Hmm,” Miss Wellbeloved concluded, after an uncomfortable silence. She raised a hand, studying her fingernails as though seeking strength from each well-manicured cuticle. “Well, I suppose I should just come out with it. Stop beating around the bush. It seems silly to string things out.”
“String what out?” Kester said. He was getting exasperated. “I really don’t have the foggiest what you’re talking about.”
“This agency . . .”
“Yes?”
“Well, it’s an agency for supernatural investigations.”
Kester choked, then chuckled. The others looked at him expectantly. Kester laughed again, waiting for a giggle or wry wink, anything to indicate that he was currently the butt of a rather peculiar joke.
“Excuse me?”
“I said, it’s an agency for—”
“Yes, I heard you the first time. I just don’t have the faintest idea what that means.”
Dr Ribero grunted. “It is not so difficult a concept. We are an agency for the supernatural.”
“So you keep saying,” Kester replied. “But that still makes no sense at all!”
Miss Wellbeloved massaged her brow, wincing. She frowned at Ribero, who pursed his lips together, shaking his head like a disappointed headmaster.
“Do you know what the supernatural is?” she asked, adopting the slow tones normally reserved for small and dim-witted children.
“Of course I do,” Kester replied. “Ghosts and all that stuff. But that’s made up, it’s not real. So you can’t have an agency to investigate something that’s made up. That’s nonsensical.”
“Why would you say it was nonsensical?” Dr Ribero interrupted, bushy eyebrows bobbing up and down in a rather alarming manner.
“Because ghosts don’t exist. It’s been proven,” Kester replied, feeling rather hot and bothered. The questions were baffling him and he couldn’t work out whether they were teasing him or were stark-raving mad. But why would they tease him? Paternal claim aside, they were complete strangers. Did they normally tease people they didn’t know? If so, that was a little bit mad too, wasn’t it?
I wonder how one is meant to act when surrounded by insane people? He looked around for something to defend himself with. The best he could find was an antique paperknife on the desk behind him, though its tarnished blade suggested it had seen better days. Was it improper to threaten lunatics with a paperknife? Or should he simply try to escape at the first opportunity?
“I hate to tell you this, Kester, but that’s actually not true,” Miss Wellbeloved said, interrupting his thoughts. “It’s what the government would have you believe, but the reality of the situation is very different. The supernatural is very real indeed.”
Kester straightened his collar. “I’m ever so sorry,” he said in as polite a tone as he could muster. “But I’m afraid I don’t believe you. Not one little bit.”
“Dios mio! And you’re meant to be my son?” Dr Ribero exclaimed, shaking a fist at the ceiling, as though berating the heavens themselves. “But that cannot be! I could never produce so narrow-minded a creature, no?”
“Dr Ribero, please remember, this is all very new to him,” Miss Wellbeloved said warningly. She turned to Kester. “This is precisely why your mother asked him to stay away from you. We run a very unusual type of business here, and she didn’t want you involved in it when you were a child.”
“Hang on,” Kester said heavily. “Just a moment please.”
Miss Wellbeloved and Dr Ribero waited patiently, observing him with implacable severity. He felt like a beetle under a microscope, about to be squashed.
What on earth am I meant to do? he wondered. Nothing in his twenty-two years of life so far had prepared him for this kind of situation, and he felt utterly helpless. All that he had learnt about social etiquette seemed completely useless in this current situation. There had never been a time at Cambridge where he’d been educated on how to address people who were potentially mad.
He cast his mind to Alice in Wonderland, one of his favourite childhood books. How had Alice dealt with the Mad Hatter? Humour him, he thought, with sudden clarity. Humour them both. That’s the way out of this situation.
However, there was something in their faces that deterred him from this approach. Neither looked at all mad, despite their outrageous claims. In fact, a more classic image of sanity would be hard to find. The austere ruler-straightness of Miss Wellbeloved and the charismatic elegance of Ribero didn’t work at all with his preconceived notions of insanity.
“You said earlier my mum used to work here,” he began, proceeding with the delicacy of a tiptoeing ballet dancer. “Are you seriously telling me that my mother used to investigate ghosts?”
“Aha, now he finally starts to grasp it!” Dr Ribero said, with a sarcastic slap of the thigh. Miss Wellbeloved shot him a look. She leaned over, grasping Kester by the arm.
“Come on,” she said firmly. “Perhaps if the others tell you more about what they do, you’ll understand things a bit better.”
“Hey, you are not having this conversation without me,” Dr Ribero said hastily, rising from the chair with an energy quite at odds with his age. “I will come with you.”
“Hang on, I’m not sure I want to come with you myself yet!” Kester squawked, pulling his arm from her grip as politely as he could. He smoothed down his hair, shoved his glasses up his nose, and eyed them with deep suspicion.
“What are you going to do instead, cower in my office all afternoon?” Dr Ribero said.
“Well, no. No, of course not. But I rather thought I might leave. This is all a bit too silly.”
“You still don’t believe us?” Ribero barked.
“Of course I don’t believe you!” Kester replied, finally losing his cool. “You’re telling me you investigate ghosts for a living, which is just plain bloody mad!”
“Oh dear,” muttered Miss Wellbeloved with a sigh.
“If you go now, do not expect to be welcomed back!” Dr Ribero said, raising his voice.
“That’s probably fine with me,” Kester flustered. “To be honest, I think you’re quite insane, and I’m not sure you’re my father either. So it’s probably best I leave.”
“Fine, if that is your choice!”
“I think it is my choice, yes.”
“Oh for goodness’ sake, will you both stop being so ridiculous!” Miss Wellbeloved flared, her icy tones heating up by a significant margin. “Julio, I said it was better for you to tell him. I’ve handled it badly, and you’ve been no help in the matter either.”
She turned to Kester and her face softened a little, like a glacier starting to drip. “Look here,” she said, tucking a stray grey curl behind her ear. “This is a shock to you, I know. But we’re telling the absolute truth. We do run a supernatural agency.” She stopped, narrowing her eyes at Ribero. “And this is very much your father. I can vouch for that. I was there when Gretchen announced she was pregnant with you.”
At the mention of his mother’s name, Kester slumped, the fight taken from him. This woman knew me when I was in my mother’s womb, he realised. He also couldn’t help but notice the look she was giving Dr Ribero. It was full of reproach, like a whipped dog. The doctor met her gaze, then looked away, rubbing his eyes.
“Will you come with me to talk to the others?” Miss Wellbeloved said finally, gesturing out the door.
Kester sighed. “Yes,” he agreed, standing. “I suppose so.” After all, he thought. What choice do I have?
“And will you behave yourself and stop working yourself into a temper?” Miss Wellbeloved snapped at Ribero.
Dr Ribero, contrite, shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. “Yes.”
“Good. Well, let’s go and discuss things with the others.”
Sweeping the door open, she ushered Kester back into the airy office, like a hen flapping out an intrusive chick. It was a welcome change from the musty heat of Dr Ribero’s inner sanctum and he felt his head clearing as the breeze from the window grazed his face. At their desks, Pamela, Serena, and Mike looked up in unison: three pets awaiting their master’s command.
Miss Wellbeloved raised an imperious hand, calling for attention. “I’ve told him about our agency,” she said, pointing at Kester. “But, unsurprisingly, he doesn’t believe a word of it. I rather thought you might all be able to help. Can you just clarify things by telling him what you do? Pamela, you start.”
Pamela stood, smoothing down the ruffles on her blouse, which billowed over her large bosom like a waterfall. “Goodness me, I don’t normally have to explain to people what I do for a job, I’m not sure where to start.”
“Just a simple explanation will suffice.”
“Very well.” Pamela smiled. “I’m the agency’s resident psychic. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a—”
“I know what one is,” Kester replied. “They’re people who predict the future, right?”
Pamela knotted her hands in a tumble of awkwardness. “Yes, sort of,” she wavered, looking at Miss Wellbeloved for help.
“How come you didn’t predict that I’d come here today then?” Kester asked.
“It doesn’t really work like that, I’m afraid.”
That’s convenient, Kester thought, but kept his reservations to himself. In spite of his belief that they were all completely bonkers, it was difficult to dislike this strange group of people, and he didn’t want to upset them, even if they were certified lunatics. It was wisest to continue to humour them, then make a run for it at the next available moment.
“A psychic picks up on spirit energy,” Miss Wellbeloved clarified. “Pamela visits haunted locations, and tells us whether a spirit is present or not, and what state of mind it’s in.”
“Oh, I see,” Kester said, with a polite cough. He looked at the exit with renewed longing, wondering whether or not to make a run for it.
Serena coughed deliberately, waving a hand in the air. “I work as the extinguisher,” she declared, then added as a challenging afterthought, “I bet you don’t know what that is.”
“Strangely enough, no. I don’t,” Kester replied, fighting to keep any trace of sarcasm from his voice.
“You might have heard of exorcists,” Miss Wellbeloved added. “It’s along those lines.”
“I ask the spirits to vacate the premises,” Serena said. “I’m sort of like a bailiff. I send them packing.”
“It’s not quite like that,” Miss Wellbeloved interrupted, shaking her head. “We like to be respectful of spirits, and we don’t just ‘send them packing’, do we, Serena?”
Serena shrugged, tapping a stilettoed toe on the floor.
Kester screwed up his eyes, struggling to make sense of it all. The words that they were saying were said so seriously, so professionally, that it seemed almost believable. But he knew that it was all complete nonsense. His natural sense of propriety was wrestling with his sense of incredulity, not to mention his growing curiosity. Despite his desire to leave as swiftly as possible, he couldn’t help but want to hear more. He’d never heard anything so preposterous, and yet so intriguing, in his entire life.
“So what do you do?” he asked Miss Wellbeloved finally.
“I’m a conversant,” she said primly. “I inherited the skill from my father, and my father’s father. I can talk to spirits. Believe me, it’s a real asset in this line of work. I operate almost as a lawyer does, facilitating between the spirit and the human on the receiving end.”
“Her skills are very useful indeed,” Dr Ribero added, with a respectful nod. “One of our biggest assets. Many times, Jennifer has calmed down very bad situations, yes?”
“I’m glad you realise that,” Miss Wellbeloved replied, a hint of colour touching her cheeks.
“So what does Mike do then, if he’s not really the IT guy?” Kester asked, looking over at the burly man, who was currently concealed under an unruly mountain of gadgets, wires, and batteries.
“No, he really is our IT guy,” Serena said. “He sorts out our computers, runs the website—”
“You’ve got a website?” Kester said weakly.
“Not one that the public can access. It’s an Swww.co.uk address.”
“What?”
She rolled her eyes. “An Swww.co.uk address. Don’t you understand basic website addresses?”
“Not weird ones like that, funnily enough.”
Mike snorted, poking his head out of the mess like a meerkat. “Hang on a minute,” he interrupted. “I really don’t like this label of ‘IT guy’, Serena. I know you call me that just to bug the crap out of me.” The two glowered at one another, before he continued, “I also design all the equipment that we use. And believe me, some of it is pretty impressive. Larry Higgins would love to get his hands on some of this stuff.”
“Who’s Larry Higgins?” Kester asked.
“Larry Higgins runs the Larry Higgins Agency in Essex,” Serena said. “We all think he’s a fat idiot, but he’s doing very well for himself indeed. Dr Ribero can’t stand him.”
“Do not get me started on the Higgins,” Ribero growled, folding his arms and glaring in Kester’s direction.
“You mean there’s more than one of these supernatural agencies?” Kester blinked, polishing his glasses on his shirt. He was finding it almost impossible to get his head around it all.
Serena sniggered at his lack of knowledge. “There’s a few, yes. Higgins’s company is the only other one in the south, apart from bloody Infinite Enterprises in London.”
“Oh, those bastards,” Mike grumbled. “Don’t even get me started on them. Larry Higgins might be a pompous prat but at least he’s not like bloody Infinite Enterprises.”
“Infinite Enterprises are quite the government darlings,” Miss Wellbeloved explained. “Which is why we’re all very disapproving of them. It’s jealousy, pure and simple. They snap up all the best jobs.”
Government? Kester thought, bewildered. Are they trying to suggest that the government hires these supernatural agencies? This is all getting more ridiculous by the minute!
Dr Ribero stepped forward with the fluid grace of a leopard, reached out, and grasped Kester by the elbows. He studied his son intently, his dark eyes flitting restlessly over his face as though tracking a fly. The room fell silent.
“You don’t believe a word of what we are telling you, do you.” It was a statement, not a question.
Kester shrugged, unsure how to answer without causing offence. No, he thought, but it’s certainly fascinating, even if you are all living in a make-believe world.
The doctor grunted, still examining the young man’s features. Suddenly, he smiled. His face broke into light, a thousand beams of Latin sunshine manifesting themselves in his wrinkles and cracks. “Aha,” he proclaimed, drawing Kester back to view him in his entirety.
“What?” Kester asked weakly, intimidated by the scrutiny.
Dr Ribero met his gaze, then chuckled. “I have finally seen myself in you.”
“What do you mean?”
“At first, it was all your mother. A weak, plump version of your mother. Now, I see a little glimmer of me, right there.” He pointed directly into Kester’s eyes, making him wince. “It is there, that little twinkle of defiance and disbelief. I see the spirit of Argentina in you. Just a little, but it is there. That is a relief, yes?”
Silence filled the room. Kester blinked. Dr Ribero’s smile widened.
“He still doesn’t believe us though,” Serena chimed, after a minute or so.
Mike guffawed, slapping his desk. “Of course he doesn’t!” he bellowed. “Come on guys, we wouldn’t believe us either, if we were hearing it for the first time. That’s how we like it, isn’t it? It’s that disbelief that means we can do our jobs in peace.”
“Well, I don’t see what more I can say to convince him,” said Miss Wellbeloved, scratching her head and looking flustered.
Serena sidled around her desk, languid as an alley-cat. “Perhaps you shouldn’t say anything else,” she said, pixie-eyes glittering. She examined Kester at length, starting at his polished shoes, past his crisply ironed slacks and right up to his face, which was looking more baffled by the moment. Then she nodded. Kester swallowed hard.
“You should show him instead,” she said finally. Her tone was full of ill-disguised glee, to such a degree that he almost expected her to start rubbing her hands together like a Machiavellian pantomime villain.
“Show me what?” Kester asked weakly. Her cunning grin convinced him that he really didn’t want to know.
“Now that’s an idea,” Pamela said, flapping her hands towards the second of the doors at the back of the room. “We caught a Bean Si the other week, why don’t we show Kester that one?”
“What on earth is a ‘bean see’?” Kester looked from face to face with growing alarm. Wherever this was going, he was pretty positive he wasn’t going to like it.
“I’m not sure that’s a wise idea,” Miss Wellbeloved interrupted, looking thoroughly disapproving. “She’s a particularly volatile one. We don’t want to scare him.”
“Oh come on, she wouldn’t scare him, a harmless little thing like that,” Serena replied.
“I don’t know, she’s pretty noisy when she gets going,” Mike added merrily.
Miss Wellbeloved tutted. “I think that’s a rather unprofessional suggestion,” she muttered. “Not to mention disrespectful to the Bean Si in question.”
“Oh come on, she won’t mind being let out for a bit. She could probably do with a stretch before she gets deported anyway.”
“Excuse me, I am still here you know,” Kester said, as assertively as possible. He placed his hands on his hips, and tried to stand a little straighter. Then felt marginally ridiculous and slumped back into his usual posture. Authority wasn’t really his thing. “I don’t know what this bean thing is,” he said loudly, “and I’m not sure I want to see it.”
“A Bean Si, a Bean Si!” said Dr Ribero, punching Kester’s arm a little too enthusiastically. “You must have heard this name, yes?”
“No.”
“Banshee is the more common term,” Serena said, winking at the others.
“A banshee?” Kester echoed.
“Yes, a banshee,” Miss Wellbeloved confirmed. “Have you heard of such a creature?”
Kester considered. “Well,” he pondered, “My mother used to say to me, when I was a boy, that I cried like a banshee.”
“How old were you when she said that?” Serena asked.
“About thirteen or fourteen?”
Serena snorted.
“Oh dear,” murmured Pamela faintly.
“A banshee, or Bean Si as they’re known in their native land,” continued Miss Wellbeloved, delivering Serena a withering look, “is a female spirit that wails loudly before a person is about to die. However, that’s not entirely based on truth. Although they do enjoy howling whenever death is in the air, they actually wail whatever the occasion.”
“However, as you can imagine, it’s very unsettling for the person who ends up with her in their home,” Pamela added.
“Christ, yes, they make a right bloody din,” Mike added. “We all have to wear earmuffs when we deal with a Bean Si, the noise goes right through you.”
“Is that what happened with this Bean Si then? Was she in someone’s home?” Kester asked. Then he suddenly realised what he was asking. Why am I humouring them? he asked himself. Don’t encourage them! It’ll only make it worse! Yet he couldn’t seem to stop himself. In spite of the oddness of the situation, not to mention his own disbelief, he was curious to learn more. There was a strange logic to their words that wormed its way into his head, making him almost believe them.
“Yeah, down near Torquay,” Mike replied, leaning casually against his desk and knocking off a bundle of wires in the process. “She was a pretty easy case actually, a quick two-hour job. Those are the sort we like. None of these protracted haunting projects. They’re a right pain in the—”
“Yes, thank you, Mike,” Miss Wellbeloved interrupted firmly. She looked helplessly at Dr Ribero, who shrugged.
“I’ll go and get her then,” said Pamela. Delving into the deep pockets of her voluminous skirts, she pulled out a key, then puffed over to the door like a sponge bobbing in bathwater.
“I still don’t think this is very wise,” Miss Wellbeloved muttered. “I do wish you’d say something, Julio.”
Dr Ribero smiled wryly. “Serena is probably right,” he said slowly. “Only way to convince this boy is to show him. Look at him, Jennifer. You see? He is not believing us yet.”
Miss Wellbeloved sighed, pressing her arms across her flat, buttoned-up chest, but said nothing more.
After a minute or so, Pamela emerged from the darkened room clutching what appeared to be a plastic bottle of mineral water. However, as she came closer, Kester could see something shifting inside, something with a faintly greyish tinge, smoky and fiery in the centre. As Pamela held it up, he thought, for one ludicrous moment, that he could detect a small hand, no larger than a daisy-head, pressing against the grooves of the plastic. Then it disappeared, retreating back into the strange, billowing mist.
“Is that a plastic bottle?” he asked stupidly. He’d never seen anything like it in his life.
“It’s as good a way of storing spirits as any,” Mike said, with a hint of defensiveness. “Of course, Infinite Enterprises have got state-of-the-art storage devices, but we don’t have the money for those. So water bottles do the job nicely. We just have to make sure none go out with the recycling by mistake.”
Kester blanched. “I see.” He couldn’t take his eyes off the bottle. There was definitely something in there, but he couldn’t work out what it was. It pulsed, as though aware it was being watched. Kester shivered.
“Are you ready to let her out?” Serena said wickedly. Her face was full of merriment.
“Hang on, hang on!” Miss Wellbeloved snapped. “Get the earmuffs please! If you’re going to let her out, I don’t want us all to be deafened. And Serena, only a minute please, then put her right back inside. Is that agreed?”
Serena nodded, whilst Mike walked back to his desk, fishing out some earmuffs from one of his drawers. He threw Kester a pair, who looked at them in disbelief. What am I doing? he thought incredulously, even as he pulled them down over his ears. He eyed the bottle nervously, unsure what to expect. The entire day was starting to feel rather like a bad dream. Maybe it doesn’t matter what I do, he thought, looking at the others. Maybe I’ll just wake up in a moment. There was comfort in the prospect of waking up in his single bed back home and forgetting that any of this nonsense ever happened.
Before he had a chance to review the situation more sensibly, Pamela held the bottle at arm’s length and unscrewed the lid in one deft movement. Kester opened his mouth to protest, but was stunned into silence by an overwhelming hiss—a deep, throaty noise that rampaged into the room—bringing with it a huge cloud of black smoke.
It reminded him of a storybook he had owned as a child. The front cover had depicted a genie, curling enigmatically out of a lamp. What was happening in front of him now was very much like that, only a lot less charming and a lot more terrifying. In fact, he’d never seen anything more revoltingly, stomach-churningly horrible in all his life. It was like all his worst childhood nightmares, bundled together and repackaged for him to enjoy in adulthood.
Kester stumbled instinctively backwards. He tripped over his feet, nearly falling to the ground, as the cloud rolled and twisted above them, wrenching at itself like a mass of wrestling snakes. Then the screaming started. For one mad moment, he thought it was his own scream. Indeed, he did feel like screaming, and couldn’t be completely sure that he wasn’t making some sort of noise of terror. However, whatever sound was coming from his mouth was completely drowned by the deafening screech of the smoke in front of him. It tore at his eardrums, in spite of the ear muffs, and he fell to his knees, more terrified than he ever had been before.
What the hell is that thing? he thought crazily, unable to take it in. The sight, the sound, even the clinging wet-leaf smell of it was too much for his brain to process. It was by far and away the most awful thing he had ever witnessed in his entire life. He felt his head start to fuzz, as though someone was slowly squirting expanding foam into his ears.
He was dimly aware of an arm, draped over his shoulder, plus some other far away, confusing noises, all virtually drowned out by the tinnitus-inducing wail of the thing in front of him. Out of his wits with fear, he looked up, then wished he hadn’t. The cloud had a face. An ugly face. A repulsive, gnarled, cruel face, looming toothily over him. Not to mention a pair of twisted hands, with winter-twig fingers, reaching out, coming straight towards him.
And, perhaps most confusing of all, a doorway behind her. More maw than door—a ragged tear in the air, like the entrance to a cave. Shimmering, hanging impossibly above the ground. A doorway to another place, another place he didn’t even want to think about imagining.
His vision began to fluff at the edges and he keeled over, unconscious, onto the office floor.