The Dead Speak Ill Of The Living (The Dead Speak Paranormal Mysteries Book 1) (31 page)

  
“Hmm,” said Joe.

  
“Yes?” John Paul picked it up.

  
“The relic, he wants himself sold to you.”

  
“He does?” Pohl asked.

  
“Yes. He wants to stay here.”

  
“Of course he does,” John Paul confirmed, “they all want to stay here. In death
most allow themselves to be moved over the world, for many reasons, but over
time they crave the company of the few people who understand their position.
And I gather them and they enjoy it here.”

 
“So your father said.”

  
“Yes,” he confirmed to Pohl.

 
“Why not the Vatican?” she asked.

  
“Tourists.”

  
“Wait. How did you hear? Can you hear the spirits?”

  
“Sort of,” Joe said, and he unveiled the box.

 
After a short explanation, and a longer pause, John Paul said “I’ll give you
ten million Euros for the box.”

  
“It’s not for sale,” Joe said with enough firmness to put negotiations to bed.

  
“I understand. I don’t like it but I understand.” He looked so jealous he might
have them all executed. “You will at least sell me the relic?”

  
“In this case, yes.”

  
“Excellent. I pay a hundred thousand Euros for a Pope. I will pay that to you.”

  
Joe’s jaw fell, and Pohl said calmly “that is sufficient.”

  
“And there’s more if you find more.”

  
“We’ll bear that in mind.”

  
“Will you at least put the machine on loudspeaker for a few minutes?”

  
They stayed another hour, before John Paul finally leant back into a seat.
“I’ll pay you double for this evening,” and he didn’t say it as an offer, “but
I beg of you, let me keep you on retainer so you can come back every so often
and we can do this again.”

  
“Will you fly us out?” Joe asked.

  
“You live in England?”

  
“Yes.”

  
“Then of course.”

  
“And there’s really four of us.”

  
“Four?”

  
“Two are in a car outside as backup.”

  
“They must be bored.”

  
“Luckily this radio only works one way, they can hear us, we didn’t build a way
for them to moan back.”

  
Joe couldn’t hear, in a car outside, Nazir going ‘Hey!”

  
“But will you accept my offer?”

  
Joe looked at Pohl, who nodded. “On behalf of all four of us, we accept. Just
once every six months and special occasions, okay?”

  
“Yes, yes, it’s been truly an honour to have met you.”

  
Joe and Pohl were now shown out by a Butler who’d mellowed considerably, and
soon at the car.

  
“You sold him the relic…” Nazir said, letting the issue hang.

  
“Yes,” and Joe launched into an explanation, “the man wanted to stay, so why
not let him stay?”

  
“I happen to agree with him,” Pohl said as backup.

  
“I don’t disagree,” Nazir said, looking confused at himself, “I just feel… kind
of dirty. Kind of like we helped something bad happen.”

  
“I understand,” and Pohl put a hand on his arm, “but these ghosts are real
people, who obviously think and feel. They have wishes, and they come before a
church building. If you could affect where you were after death, wouldn’t you
want the living to accept your wishes?”

  
“I understand,” Nazir said, patting the hand.

  
Dee continued the thread. “I feel like I’ve just put my mother in a home for
the bewildered.”

  
“But a home your mother wanted to stay in. With people who understand her
experiences.”

  
“I guess you’re right.”

  
“And people can hear.” Everyone looked at Joe and his unbridled excitement, so
he explained, “John Paul’s father could hear without the aid of a machine. He
could do it. We need to look into this, we need to discover how. There’s a
whole world of, maybe psychic, experience out there I’ve been dismissing and
some of it, a fraction of it, might be true. We have to look.”

  
“If only you knew an expert in the paranormal,” Nazir said elbowing Dee.

  
“We’ll look into it Joe, don’t worry,” Dee said. “But first let’s go back to
the hotel and celebrate a case solved and a shitload of money.”

  
“I do feel bad carrying round a bag full of cash,” Pohl said, shoulder weighed
down.

  
“Are we going to look suspicious paying it into a bank tomorrow?” Joe pondered.

  
“This is Rome, there’s been dodgy deals here since the ninth century BC, we’ll
find a way,” and with Dee’s words comforting them they all got into the car to
drive back.

  
“So we’re celebrating,” Nazir asked.

  
“Yes,” said Dee.

  
“Right, I need you to come out with me tonight as my wingman.”

  
“Winglady,”

  
“Whatever.”

  
“And why would I be your winglady?”

  
“It’ll be fun!”

  
“I’ll tell you what’ll happen, you’ll try and chat up a gay Swiss Guard and
some fucker will think I’m your drag act sidekick.”

  
“Now that would be funny. Hang on, has that ever happened?”

  
“Yes. We don’t talk about it. Stop fucking laughing you three.”

  
“You so have to come out with me. It’ll be outrageous.”

  
“Alright, alright, I’ll come. But you don’t speak Italian and we’re in the
middle of where they make it.”

  
“There are plenty of those soldiers who speak English. Or who speak the
language of pulling.”

  
“And what are you going to say to them? Come back to my rooms, you can speak to
your dead granny?”

  
Nazir grinned, showing off his teeth. “Once you’ve had brown you can’t sit
down.”

  
Dee put her head in her hands, “We’re going to be deported.”

Eight: Factions

  
Dee had just woken up and her head hurt. Over the years she’d developed the
capacity to drink a large quantity of alcohol without pain the next day, so
something else must be the cause. Hmm, she lay there with her head throbbing
and decided she must have slept awkwardly. Which was when she realised she was
still clothed, and that the night must have been good. The neck problem must
have been dancing.

  
Still, a hot shower should sort that out, so she dived in, burnt the flesh off
where the pressure hadn’t scoured it off and slipped into a white dressing gown
which she’d only reluctantly admit was fluffy before she heard someone knocking
on the front door.

  
Opening it she was pleased to see it wasn’t anyone who’d judge her for the wet
hair and drowned puppy look, because it was Nazir.

   Nazir
with a large box.

  
“I thought you’d still be at the club telling everyone you’d fucked a Swiss
Guard.”

  
“Sadly the club shuts, but I was woken this morning with a surprise.”

  
It didn’t take much to conclude what that was. “And you’re bringing it round
here?”

  
“Don’t you love a good unboxing?”

  
“I’d rather pull my own uterus out. But I’m making breakfast, so come in and
have some.”

  
They were soon in the kitchen, bacon was under the grill, coffee was being
served, and Nazir was using a kitchen knife to open his box.

  
“I cook with that.”

  
“I’ll be cooking with this.”

  
“What is it?”

  
“On the one hand, it’s a collection of electronics from a very private retailer
who specialises in subterfuge. On the other it’s a big box of toys.”

  
“You spent your share of our two hundred thousand at a James Bond wannabe
shop?”

  
“Some of it. Right, what have we here,” and the big box turned into lots of
little boxes.

  
“Do you have a better coffee machine? With all of us here we should buy a
proper, serious one.”

  
“Good call, get on that.”

  
“Do you want bacon now or after you’ve opened one?”

  
“Always now.”

  
It took a few minutes for the sandwich to be eaten, and for the bacon to work
its magic powers on Dee, by which point Nazir had begun opening boxes, holding
things up and telling Dee what they were, with a small demo if possible. The
pile soon turned into a full table coating of plastic and toys, and Pohl had
come in to watch as she collected a new cup.

  
“And what’s that last one?” Dee asked.

  
“This,” and Nazir chopped through more tape, “detects bugs.”

  
“Are you getting paranoid?” Dee teased.

  
“I thought I’d complete the range.”

  
“Oh God he’s becoming a hoarder.”

  
“Right, I switch this on and…the red light indicates there’s a bug nearby.”

  
Dee burst into hysterics at seeing a red light. “You’ve bought a faulty bug
detector!”

  
“No,” Nazir said looking hurt, “look, if I follow this,” and he stood and
walked, “I get to this light fitting, and the dial is going crazy, so there’s a
bug.”

  
“Do they do refunds?”

  
“Look, if I unscrew this, yes, there, look, there’s a bug in your lamp.”

  
“Okay, you win, it works.”

  
They stood there, looking at each other, their faces moving from amused,
through to confused, and then to horror.

  
“Oh fuck,” they both said looking at the small piece of electronics in Nazir’s
hand, “there’s a bug.”

  
In a small bedroom located two doors away, a man took a pair of headphones off
and turned to his colleague, who was hunched over a laptop. The room was hot,
both were sweating, and both would have loved a few days apart from the other
eating food that didn’t come out of a cellophane wrapper and drink which
poured.

  
“They’ve got us,” he said, not sad or angry, but frustrated, because it
happened “in the most stupid way possible.”

  
“We’re good,” the lady said still tapping, “people only beat us through luck.”

  
“Well, they’re lucky.”

  
“Luck only goes so far.”

  
The man turned back to his screen, and hoped the next time he was assigned to
surveillance his partner would speak in more than attempts at profound sayings
and riddles. Although after this he might never be assigned surveillance again,
and let’s be honest, as it was the most boring job in the world he might not be
too upset. He could do something you were allowed to tell people about.

  
“You best ring this through” she said.

  
“Sure you don’t want to make the call?”

  
“I am happy being your junior.”

  
“Probably soon to be senior.”

  
She laughed. “Come on, Kosar is many things, but one of them is good to his
staff.”

  
“Kosar is many things, and one of them is ruthless.”

  
As if on cue, a mobile phone rang, and the man answered it.

  
“Hello Kosar, how are you?”

  
“Just ringing for an update, how is the surveillance going?”

  
“There’s been a small problem sir.”

  
“Which means a large one, what happened?”

  
“The Syrian man is tech literate, and very, very lucky. He found our bugs. He
is, at this very moment, using a detection device to sweep Nettleships' home.”

  
“How has a high street detection device found our tools?” The voice was firm,
level, neither angry nor surprised.

  
“It’s not high street. This chap knows people. He’s bought some good stuff.”

  
“I see. Which is in itself interesting. I trust you will be able to find his
source so we can look at it ourselves?”

  
“You’ll have to speak to the team collecting their web usage, it happened
online.”

  
“Indeed. A slip if they’ve omitted to mention this to me. We don’t want that,
perhaps a reminder of their responsibilities is in order.”

  
The man winced. What did that reminder mean?

  
“What shall we do now?”

  
“Pack up, be ready for your next task.”

  
Kosar put the phone down and smiled. Time for a conference call.

  
Nazir, Dee and Pohl spent thirty minutes walking round the house using the
detector, and while they’d taken apart a lot of things which could have safely
remained intact, they finally ended up with three bugs, one from the kitchen,
the lounge, and one in Dee’s room, which she thought outrageous. Then they all
sat around looking at them.