The Dead Have No Shadows (27 page)

A broad, well manicured lawn separated the house from the boundary.  A brick built conservatory ran across the rear of the property for almost the entire width of the building.  The conservatory and the first floor windows above were black and sightless.  The view reminded Mickey of a row of houses he’d seen somewhere before.  He couldn’t place where he’d seen them but was certain that it wasn’t his imagination.

Keeping close to the boundary fence,
Jonno
led Mickey and his two unseen companions to one corner of the house.  He took a piece of stiff plastic, about the size of a credit card, from his pocket.

“This is a crap lock,”
Jonno
said.  “I keep telling them that they should get it changed.”

He slid the plastic between the door frame and the Yale lock.  Taking hold of the door handle he rocked the door backed and forward while pushing on the plastic strip.  It only took a few seconds before there was a loud click and the door was open.

They entered a utility room that contained gardening tools and led to another door that opened into the house itself.

“They never lock this one,” said
Jonno
.  “I keep telling them that they should.”  He turned the handle and walked into the kitchen of the house just as he would on any other day.  Despite the fact that the house was empty
Jonno
still spoke in a whisper.

“They keep a load of money in a small chest in a wardrobe in their spare bedroom.”

“Twenty thousand pounds worth?” Mickey asked.

“Don’t know,” said
Jonno
.  “I only saw it once.  There looked to be a lot of cash.”

Great, thought Mickey.  All this trouble and we don’t know if we’ll get enough to pay off The Polite Man.  He spotted the infra red sensor, high in the corner of the room light flash and tensed himself for the resulting blare of the burglar alarm.  Nothing happened.  Mickey relaxed a little.  The owners must have forgotten to set the alarm when they left. 
Jonno
hadn’t realised any of this though, or had forgotten it.  He was leading the way out of the kitchen and down a short passageway into a large entrance hall.

The stairs dog-legged to the left.  As they started to climb Mickey thought he could see light coming from under a door just beyond the stairs.  Again, he tensed, then calmed down when he realised that it would be from the streetlights outside.  He was getting too jumpy.  He needed to get a grip.

A floorboard creaked as Mickey stepped onto the landing.  Everyone froze, even Pester and Elena, who couldn’t have been seen even if someone else had been in the house.

Mickey could feel his heart pounding and was sure that he could hear
Jonno’s
as well.  He was starting to feel a throbbing pain in his right thigh; but couldn’t remember banging it anywhere.  He rubbed at it absent-mindedly.  Looking around him he jumped when he saw the hazy images of a man and a woman standing at the top of the stairs.  Pester put a finger to his lips.  This had the desired effect and brought a smile to Mickey’s lips as a deeply buried memory emerged and he remembered who he was seeing.

“What’s up?” hissed
Jonno
.

Mickey shook his head.  “Nothing.  Thought I saw a ghost.  Let’s get on with it.”

Elena turned to Pester.  “Why is he rubbing his leg?  He had not hurt it earlier.”

“I think it’s because this time frame is so close to Mickey’s actual time, that his current self is so close to the surface.  That was why he could see us.”

Mickey and
Jonno
had tip toed into the spare bedroom. 
Jonno
was about to turn on the light but Mickey stopped him. It was a clear night and there was enough moon light shining through the window to show where things were. 
Jonno
opened the wardrobe door which gave out a haunted house creak.  He reached in, searched around for a moment then lifted out a small metal chest.  Mickey’s heart sank.  The chest was nowhere near large enough to hold twenty thousand pounds.

We’re going to be in deep shit, he thought.  He was right, but it was going to be deeper and sooner than he thought.

The four intruders, two visible and two merely spectral, were almost at the bottom of the stairs when a door opened.  An elderly lady walked into the hallway.  She had taken several steps before realising that two people with their faces covered were walking down the stairs.  The woman gasped, then screamed.

“Stuart.  There’s someone in the house.”

A few seconds later the door opened again and light flooded the hallway.

“Go,” yelled Mickey.

Jonno
dashed down the stairs and tried to reach the front door.  The old lady was brave though.  She’d seen what
Jonno
was carrying and had no intention of losing her savings without a fight.  She lunged for the masked raider.  The element of surprise was enough to make
Jonno
drop the chest.  The woman could have been satisfied with that but she was incensed with the intrusion into her home.  Grabbing hold of
Jonno
, she tried to wrestle him to the ground.

Mickey leaped ahead to the front door.  He hoped that it had a Yale lock and didn’t need a key.  He was in luck.  Mickey threw bolts at the top and bottom of the door and was about to turn the catch to freedom when the woman’s husband piled into him.

“Stuart, help me,” the woman called.  She was losing her fight with
Jonno
who was wriggling free of her grip.  Stuart briefly weighed up his options; hang onto one or risk losing two.  He let go of Mickey and went to aid his wife.

Mickey had the door open in an instant. 
Jonno
broke the woman’s hold on him with an elbow in the face.  She dropped to the floor and
Jonno
hurled himself towards the door.  He was so focused on escape that he barely registered Stuart and ran into him, knocking the old man to one side. 
Jonno
cleared the front door, empty handed, followed by Pester and Elena.

Like his wife, Stuart was brave, and wasn’t done yet.  He recovered his balance and ran after the intruders.  Four were running down the long garden path; Stuart was focusing on the two that were visible to him.  They were halfway to the gate and the gap was widening.  Stuart tried to put on an extra burst of speed.

Then there was a cry of alarm from inside the house.

“Stuart, Stuart.”

Jonno
and Mickey had reached the street by then.  Mickey glanced over his shoulder to see the old man lying on the ground clutching his chest.  His wife was on her hands and knees on the doorstep.  She had a look of terror on her blood coated face. 
Jonno
and Mickey continued running. 

Then Mickey split in two.

A translucent version of Mickey carried on down the street, while a solid and full bodied Mickey limped back to the gate and up the long garden path to where the man lay. He took a quick look at the old man then went to the woman.  She had a bloody nose and a split lip.  It was a sight that Mickey had seen too many times before.  He stepped inside the house and scanned around the hallway for the phone.

“Hello.  Ambulance please.  Two old people have been attacked.  Please hurry, I think one of them is having a heart attack.”  Mickey gave the address then hung up.

“I’m sorry,” he said to the woman, as he left the house.  “We never meant for either of you to get hurt.”  Mickey limped down the path to where Pester and Elena were waiting.

Pester had a look of admiration on his face.  Mickey removed his balaclava.

“That was very noble of you,” said Pester, patting Mickey on the back.  “It was also very risky.  You could have upset the balance of things.”

Mickey indicated that they shouldn’t hang around outside the house. 

“It was something that I felt I ought to do,” he said as they walked along the street.  Progress was slow.  Mickey’s thigh was protesting about the state it was in.

“I do not understand why you kept running but came back as well,” said Elena.

Mickey couldn’t answer Elena so Pester had to explain.  “Because this Mickey is close to the surface of the Mickey who carried out the break in he was able to influence things, but not prevent them from happening.  That was why the other, earlier Mickey carried on with what he did that night.”

Both Pester and Mickey could tell that Elena still didn’t understand.

Mickey didn’t get it either, really, but tried to clarify things.  “The man died because his wife was too badly hurt to call for an ambulance.  I don’t know if it will help this time, but I had to try.  I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.  They weren’t supposed to be here.”

Elena remained quiet but gave Mickey an appraising look.  They reached the end of the street and turned right.  In the distance sirens could be heard.  Mickey hoped it was the ambulance that he’d summoned.

“Do you think I could have upset the balance of things badly?” Mickey asked Pester.

“As your earlier self kept running, and the fact that you’re still here, I don’t think there were any consequences for you in life,” Pester replied.  “If there are to be any on this side, then I’d expect them to show up soon.”

“So, where are we going now?” Elena asked.

“We need to get away from here as quickly as we can,” said Mickey.  “Time’s running out and we don’t need the complication of me, either version of me, being picked up by the police.”

“Agreed,” said Pester.  “And because time is growing short you need to know what I learned in the back room of the sandwich bar.”

Flashing lights appeared on the road they were on and the sound of sirens grew rapidly.  The flashing lights painted the street blue as the ambulance sped past, the colours quickly fading to night shades as the vehicle drew away.

“What did you find out?” asked Mickey.  He stopped walking and waited for the answers.

“Mr. Jolly had a hand in your friend’s predicament,” said Pester.

“Mr. Jolly?  Why would he be involved with
Jonno
?”  This was something he had neither considered nor expected.  Mickey knew that both Pester and Mr. Jolly had been on the living side around the time of his death but why would Mr. Jolly go so deep into the living world?

“It just reinforces a thought that I’ve been having for a while,” said Pester.

Mickey was sure that he wouldn’t like what he was about to hear but he indicated that Pester should continue.

“Someone wanted you dead,” said Pester.  “Not just dead, but removed from existence completely.  Mr. Jolly was the person in the doorway behind your back in the sandwich bar.”

This just gets better, Mickey thought.

“His involvement began even earlier,” Pester continued.  He decided not to pull his punches.  “Mr. Jolly killed your father.”  Seeing the shocked look on Mickey’s face, Pester paused while his young charge took in the news.  Then he recounted what he and Elena had witnessed that night after Mickey had left Terry Raymond on the bridge.

Though he had no sympathy for his father the news of the violent nature of his demise shocked and angered Mickey.

“Why would Mr. Jolly do that?” Mickey asked.

“To me it looked like a plan to get you out of general circulation, one way or another,” Pester suggested.  “Perhaps he hoped that the body would be found and you’d be arrested for the murder of your father.”

“But why?” said Mickey.  “What have I done that would make Mr. Jolly so interested in me?”

“It’s not Mr. Jolly who wants you removed,” Pester replied.  “The wish comes from a far higher authority and I don’t think it had anything to do with what you’ve done.  I think this is about something that you would have done in the future.”