The Shadows Call Read online

  ‘Huh,’ said Sarah, ‘Hilary’s cool, eh? Have I got some competition for your affections?’

  ‘Trust me, when I look at Hilary I feel no romantic inklings. But you have to admit she’s an interesting little thing.’

  ‘You want her for her mind, and me for my body?’ Thankfully Sarah was teasing, but if I knew women the way I thought I did then she was fishing for a compliment.

  ‘I get the full package with you. Beauty and brains.’

  ‘Shame the same can’t be said for you,’ she quipped. I mock scowled at her, but after a beat we laughed. It was good to have the old sarcastic Sarah back.

  Once back at the house, I left Sarah to prepare sandwiches and a cup of coffee each for us while I went to the parlour and phoned Catriona, intending to set a time on Saturday when I could collect my children.

  ‘So it has started again,’ was my estranged wife’s opening statement.

  ‘What’s started? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Your obsessing, Jack. What the hell do you think I’m talking about?’ Instead of her usual bitter self, Catriona sounded weary. ‘You need to see a doctor before it’s too late.’

  ‘What are you going on about?’

  ‘You know, Jack. It’s the same as the last time.’

  I looked at my phone, but it didn’t help.

  ‘You’ve lost me, Catriona.’ Fateful words. ‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’

  ‘That’s exactly why you need to speak to your doctor.’

  ‘At least give me a clue: what do you mean? I only phoned to say I’ll pick the kids up-’

  Catriona cut me off mid-stride. ‘You’re not getting the kids. Not while you’re like this.’

  ‘Come again? Like I’m what?’

  ‘Obsessing.’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘Are you still taking your medication, Jack?’

  My Naproxen and Lansoprazole? What the hell had that to do with anything?

  ‘Yes, I’m taking them. What’s this about, Catriona?’

  ‘First it was Naomi. Now it’s me?’ she sounded defeated.

  ‘Catriona, you’d best start making some sense or you’ll have me thinking you’re the one who should see a bloody doctor.’

  ‘Twenty-seven text messages,’ she stated.

  ‘Pardon me?’ Again I looked at the phone.

  ‘You’ve texted me the same message twenty-seven times today, Jack.’

  ‘I haven’t even messaged you once!’

  ‘Jack. They’re from your phone. Hang up and check your sent texts if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘I don’t need to bloody check. I haven’t sent you a damn thing. This is the first time I’ve phoned since the weekend.’

  ‘On the same phone,’ she said. ‘It’s the same number, Jack.’

  ‘I can bloody well reassure you they didn’t come from me. I’ve been at work all day and I left my phone at home on charge.’ My statement wasn’t exactly true, but if it helped shut up her accusations then so be it. ‘Any way, what exactly am I supposed to have said?’

  ‘The same thing every time,’ Catriona said.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘You repeated the same message twenty-seven frigging times, Jack. Are you telling me you’ve no knowledge of sending them, you don’t remember?’

  ‘I don’t have to remember. I didn’t bloody send them!’

  ‘Jack…please…’

  ‘No. It’s fucking you, Catriona. You’re just trying to piss me around. What is this? Some stupid attempt at getting back at me for spoiling your weekend with Mark?’ That had to be what she was up to. ‘You’re telling me I can’t see my own kids? Why: to force me to beg and plead with you? Then you can make out you feel sorry for me and relent, so that I take the kids off your hands all weekend. Just what you hoped for all the time? Well fuck you, Catriona. I’m not playing that game.’

  ‘Jack, listen to yourself.’

  ‘No! You listen to me. Fuck off you twisted bitch!’

  I hung up.

  When I turned around Sarah was standing in the parlour doorway. She had a sandwich on a plate in one hand, a mug of steaming coffee the other. Her eyelids were downcast; she wasn’t able to meet my gaze, dismayed at the vitriol of my conversation with Catriona.

  I wanted to throw the phone away, maybe kick something. Instead I felt deflated. ‘I, uh, I’m sorry you had to hear that,’ I whispered.

  Sarah didn’t comment.

  ‘It was my ex. She’s trying her hardest to make things difficult for me.’ I wondered if I should say what was on my mind, and thought that it was probably best to do so. ‘I think she knows about us, Sarah. That we’re a couple, I mean. I’m not sure she’s very happy. It’s all right when she’s sleeping with someone else, but I’m not allowed to have a relationship without her getting jealous.’

  Placing down my sandwich and cuppa, she retreated to the kitchen. Perhaps it was too soon to proclaim our status, but I’d done it. I just wasn’t sure that Sarah was on the same page. Yet when she returned a moment later, she was carrying her sandwich and coffee and placed them on the table next to mine. She sat without speaking, but patted the cushion next to her. I joined her on the settee.

  ‘I heard what Catriona said. I wasn’t being nosey, but I couldn’t help but hear…’

  ‘She can be a real bitch at times,’ I said.

  Sarah shifted on the settee.

  ‘Did you hear what she was accusing me of? She’s making me out to be some kind of bloody stalker.’

  ‘The text messages?’

  ‘Yeah. She said I sent her twenty-seven texts…I haven’t sent her a single one!’

  ‘Can I just see your phone?’

  ‘Why? Don’t you believe me?’

  ‘It’s not about believing you, it’s just that we can sort this out quickly if you let me.’

  I was reluctant to hand over my mobile, though for what reason I couldn’t say. There was nothing incriminating on it. It was some survival instinct kicking in, as though by Sarah asking she doubted my honesty.

  ‘It’s just that you might have hit a few buttons by accident and accidentally sent the same one you sent me at work today.’ She must have recognised the dumbfounded expression I tried hard to conceal, because she added: ‘You did send me it, didn’t you?’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘I want you.’

  The same words that I’d repeated over and over again while attacking the bedroom wall with the screwdriver. I felt sick. Perhaps I was going nuts and had sent the texts after all.

  ‘I didn’t send you a text,’ I said, sounding as lame as I felt. ‘I do want you, Sarah, but I didn’t send you that text.’

  She frowned. ‘It’s not the first time,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That day we had coffee in town. You sent me the same text then. I thought you were shy, and I was waiting for you to make the first move. I thought that by sending me the text it was your way of letting me know you liked me. I thought you sent me the same text today because it was just your way of making up.’

  I recalled the incident at Starbucks. But I didn’t send her the text; it was the other way around. ‘I do like you. A lot. And I was dying to tell you but, Sarah, I didn’t send that text. In fact, I got one from you saying the very same thing. I thought you were making the first move!’

  Sarah shook her head. She was perplexed, and not the only one.

  As a conciliatory gesture I held out my phone. ‘Take a look. I’m not making this up.’

  She paused, but then accepted my phone. She brought up my message log. I watched her the entire time, saying nothing. Sarah grunted.

  ‘Did you clear your history?’ she finally asked.

  ‘Nope.’

  She held my phone out so I could see the screen. On it was the text I’d received while standing in the queue in the coffee shop. I WANT YOU. The proof was right there in my inbox.

  ‘Very strange
,’ she said. ‘I’m not kidding you, Jack. I didn’t send this.’

  ‘I didn’t send one to you.’ I felt vindicated, as this was all it took to show that I wasn’t guilty of sending the message to her again today, or the huge number that Catriona accused me of sending to her. ‘Check and you’ll see. And there are none to Catriona either. You’ll find where I telephoned her last weekend, and then again just now, but that will be it.’

  Sarah didn’t reply. She thumbed through the message lists but there was nothing else there.

  ‘Strange,’ she said again. I could tell she was figuring out if I’d deleted the incriminating evidence or not. But that wouldn’t explain how my phone would show a message received she was equally adamant she had not sent.

  ‘Remember when my iPhone went missing that day?’

  Anticipating where she was going with this, I held up a hand. ‘Your phone went walkabout after we came back from the café,’ I reminded her. ‘Check the time the message was sent to my phone, it was on the afternoon when we were in town. Your iPhone went missing later in the evening: I didn’t take it and send my own phone a message so I had an alibi for when things turned really weird now!’

  Sarah’s cheeks coloured. ‘I wasn’t accusing you of anything,’ she said, ‘just wanted to make the point that phones have featured in all the strange stuff that has been going on in your house.’

  ‘You’re saying it’s my ghost that has been sending the texts to us all?’

  ‘I’ve heard of stranger things. If you believe the reports, some people have received telephone calls from deceased friends or relatives, some of them have had message pop up at random on their computer screens, some have even had the voices or images of their dead loved ones come over TV programmes. If we believe that the spirits can communicate with us via devices like the SB-seven and through EVP’s on recording devices, then is it a long shot to say they might be able to manipulate a mobile phone?’

  I laughed, sounding manic. ‘You think that Naomi played cupid in order to get us together?’

  She smiled at the notion, but her expression remained fixed, and didn’t extend to her eyes. ‘It’s a romantic notion, but why would she then send the same message to your ex wife? It sounds more of a vindictive act, if you ask me.’

  Yeah, I had to agree, very vindictive.

  30

  PK Nuts

  We were still puzzling over the issue with the mobile phone texts when Brianne Walker arrived. To my surprise she’d brought Hilary with her. When I first laid eyes on Brianne I’d designated her a trophy wife for Steve Walker – her grooming and her attire were all top end – but today she looked down to earth in jeans, a pale pink Hello Kitty sweatshirt, white trainers, her mane pulled back in a plastic head band and only a gentle application of make up. It didn’t make her a Plain Jane; she was still hot. Hilary looked much the same as she had last time, reminding me of a cute librarian or social worker: kind of a Miss Jean Brodie with a laptop-type.

  I made way on the settee, allowing them to sit alongside Sarah while I went and posed with one elbow propped on the fireplace. With the trio of women all eyeing me with expectancy, I felt like Charlie surrounded by his Angels, during downtime between missions. Being stared at by three lovely women made me more than self-conscious, and I could feel the warmth off my body rising out the back of my shirt collar. My mouth was gummy, and I had to take a sip of my now tepid coffee to get it working.

  ‘Anything interesting from the other night?’ I prompted.

  Brianne and Hilary looked at each other. I knew instantly they had come together for mutual support. Being Steve’s second, Brianne was the spokesperson, but Hilary had come along to offer her technical opinion, and also to offer backing to her friend. I guessed they hadn’t come to give me good news. After a short nod from Hilary, Brianne turned her attention on me, lifting both empty palms in a “Well, what can I say?” gesture.

  ‘You know what we did; we came in with an open mind and were determined to document any anomalous phenomena in order to give you some answers to what has been going on here. We placed our equipment throughout your home and conducted an extensive investigation, including various experiments.’

  It sounded as if Brianne had practiced that delivery, and had probably used a similar line on all their previous clients, but this time she sounded tongue-tied, enough that her entire statement sounded garbled to me. I got the gist of what she was saying – laying all of their cards on the table – but over it all I could detect a very large BUT coming.

  ‘You didn’t catch any evidence,’ I said.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Brianne.

  Hilary said, ‘I’ve conducted a full analysis of all of our equipment – video, digital recordings, photographs, data loggers – and except for a few subjective voices caught during the S-B seven session in the top bedroom there was not a grain of evidence on any of the other recording devices. Unfortunately there’s nothing to support a haunting in your home.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, unsure how that made me feel. I’d long been a disbeliever, but that was then. Now that I was standing there like a plum ripe for the picking, I felt somewhat defensive about everything both Sarah and I had experienced. I must have appeared ready to argue my case because Brianne quickly interjected.

  ‘We’re not suggesting that there is nothing going on here, only that during our investigation we didn’t gather any proof to support your claims of activity.’

  I glanced at Sarah and saw that she was as disappointed as me.

  ‘Sometimes it’s necessary to conduct follow up investigations,’ Hilary went on. ‘The ghosts don’t always come out on command as we warned. We’ve investigated well-known highly active locations before with negative results. But on a second or third attempt we’ve recorded some truly stunning activity.’

  ‘So you want to do it all again?’ I asked.

  Silence reigned for too long. Again the two investigators stirred to look at each other before Brianne said, ‘We’d love to, but Steve has made an executive decision: I’m afraid there will be no follow up investigation of this house.’

  Again I was left feeling dejected by the announcement. When Sarah first suggested bringing in a team of paranormal investigators I’d been less than enthused, but now they were brushing me off it came as a kick in the teeth.

  ‘So what’s his fucking problem?’ My mouth engaged before I could stop it, and my tone was bitter.

  Brianne blinked in dismay. Sarah’s mouth fell open. Hilary on the other hand dipped her chin to her collar to conceal a tiny smile.

  ‘Steve hasn’t got a problem.’ Brianne was now the defensive one, even though if she searched her heart and mind she probably knew she was lying on his behalf. ‘It’s just that we are busy, we have time constraints, and other cases demand our attention.’

  ‘Your husband made it clear when he first arrived that he suspected I was lying. I take it this “lack of evidence” only helped him make up his mind about me.’ I took out my mobile phone, was about to display the latest evidence of my haunting but caught a discrete headshake from Sarah. I pushed away my phone, sliding it along the fireplace as if that was all I’d intended. Looking directly at Brianne I asked, ‘What about you? Do you think I’m making this stuff up? Sarah has witnessed most of what I told you all about too. Do you think she’s lying?’

  ‘None of us think you’re lying, Jack,’ Brianne said.

  ‘But you’re ready to walk away and leave us to it. What happened to these supposed investigation groups helping people suffering hauntings? Don’t you do house cleansings or exorcisms or stuff like that?’

  ‘We’re a science based outfit,’ Brianne explained. ‘We don’t go into all that spiritual nonsense.’

  ‘Pseudo-science more like!’ I was gritting my teeth so hard my jaws ached. ‘You all talk a load of old bollocks if you ask me!’

  ‘Jack!’ Sarah stood bolt upright off the settee. Her face was as livid as mine, but it wasn’t aimed a
t her friends.

  ‘Well,’ I said, like a petulant child, ‘they’re just giving us the brush off and we’re supposed to take it. I allowed them to come into my house to do their investigation, but because it isn’t as interesting as the other cases “demanding their attention” then we’ve been dropped like a bag of shite. I knew all of this was a waste of bloody time and energy.’

  Sarah grasped me by an elbow. She pulled me round so I was looking directly at her. ‘It’s not their fault they found no evidence. Hilary said it: the ghosts don’t always come out on demand. They’re not saying there’s no haunting, and are not accusing us of lying. You’re being very rude, Jack. These people are my friends.’ She released me, her movements brusque as she turned to the other women. Brianne and Hilary were standing up from the settee. ‘Please, don’t be offended. Jack had some bad news earlier and isn’t acting like himself.’

  She was right. I was acting like a complete dick, but there was nothing I could do about it. When the red mist descends it plays havoc on the sensibilities. ‘You don’t have to apologise for me,’ I snapped.

  ‘No, I shouldn’t have to,’ Sarah countered. ‘You should do it yourself.’

  I wasn’t in a mood for apologizing to anyone.

  ‘Maybe we should just agree to disagree,’ I said, aiming my words at Brianne. ‘We both know what this is really about. Steve doesn’t like me and I sure as hell don’t like him. I can understand you taking your husband’s side, Brianne, but I think the rest of us know the truth. He’s a self-serving bastard. He doesn’t want to come back here because he doesn’t think there’s anything in it for him, that’s all. And he’s a coward. That’s why he didn’t come with you to tell me the bad news. He was too afraid. He sent you women along because he didn’t have the guts to come and tell me himself.’

  ‘Jack! For God’s sake!’ Sarah cried.

  ‘It’s all right, Sarah,’ Brianne told her. ‘We’re used to this kind of reaction: some people get passionate about their beliefs when we have to deliver disappointing results. We don’t take it personal.’

  Sarah wasn’t mollified. Brianne despite her words was angry, while Hilary was taking all the drama with a faint sense of amusement. As a knot the three women headed for the exit door. I was happy to let Brianne and Hilary go, but was now fearful I’d gone too far, that Sarah would follow them out the front door.