Page 47 of Crazy Spooky Love

I’ve parked Babs farther down the street so that she’s not the first thing visible to whoever opens the door.

I think we all look pretty normal this morning, although there’s no getting away from the fact that we probably seem like a bunch of dodgy door-to-door salespeople at first sight.

Artie couldn’t look blander in his jeans and Doctor Who T-shirt; Marina’s nipped-in jacket, skinnies-and-heels look is a chic mixture of business and nightclub; and I’ve matched my sneakers with the red, white, and blue of Captain America’s shield emblazoned across my chest. If nothing else, we look cool and unthreatening.

These people should just be glad it’s not Leo and the creepy twins delivering this news, because opening the door and finding those three brooding and glamorous creatures on their doorstep would probably feel similar to being paid a visit by the Devil and his handmaidens.

“Ring the bell,” Marina says through clenched teeth behindme.

“I’m going to, I’m just psyching myself up for it,” I whisper, rolling my shoulders. I’ve hovered my finger over the bell once already then chickened out and scratched my nose instead. I can feel myself starting to get all hot and bothered.

“Should we go and have a coffee in that café round the corner first?” I ask, and in answer Marina reaches over my shoulder and pushes the bell. I slap at her arm with both hands, and she flicks my earlobe as she retracts her wrist.

“I don’t know where you’d be without me, Bittersweet,” she says.

“In the café around the corner drinking coffee,” Artie says, and I can’t help but laugh under my breath, which is why Isaac’s grandson finds me grinning like an idiot when he swings the door open several seconds later.

I know without needing to ask that he’s Isaac’s grandson, because he’s the absolute spitting image of him.

Facially anyway, but where Isaac favors the traditional, neat, cardigan-and-slacks look, his grandson is…

how can I put this? He’s avant-garde. His shock of white hair is held back by a red bandana, and his cheesecloth grandad-shirt is loose and paint-splattered.

His faded jeans are similarly daubed, and he’s barefoot.

He looks like a man who’s lived, and from the looks of his leathery suntan, I’d say he’s lived in warmer places than England.

“Mr. Henson, I presume?” I frame it as a question even though I know the answer.

“Too Sherlock Holmes,” Marina mutters, and I just keep smiling and ignore her.

“Yes,” he says, eyeing us with curious, and it has to be said, suspicious eyes.

“My name’s Melody, Mr. Henson. Melody Bittersweet, and this is Marina Malone and Artie Elliott.”

He glances at each of us in turn. Marina nods and Artie bobs his hand up at the mention of his name like a schoolboy answering the roll call.

“I’m probably not going to buy whatever it is you’re trying to sell me,” he says mildly. God, I hope he’s wrong.

“Oh, we’re not here to sell you anything,” I insist. “We’ve driven all the way up here from Shropshire this morning just to see you.”

His brow creases, telling me that I’ve just made us sound sinister, so I backpedal hastily.

“I mean, it wasn’t all that far really, and we had a decent picnic thanks to Marina’s grandmother, so I’m not complaining…” Shitballs, I’ve gone off on a tangent and now he looks less like a friendly bohemian artist and more like an alarmed, slightly pissed-off pensioner about to cut us off.

“Look, I don’t mean to be rude but I’m rather busy,” he says, and I start to panic because he’s closing the door. I don’t know what I can say to make him listen, and Marina jumps into the breach.

“This is going to sound weird, but please listen. We need to speak to you urgently about your grandfather Isaac Scarborough.”

The almost-closed door slowly swings open again.

“Did you say Scarborough?” he says, his expression cautious.

We nod in unison like those bobble-headed dogs people stick in the back window of their cars. I’m not above sitting and begging if it gets me through this door.

He stares at us, and I can see he’s weighing up whether to let us in or not.

“You’ve got five minutes,” he says, swinging the door wide after an age, and I’m so relieved that it feels as if someone just deflated a balloon in my chest. “But only because you’re a Doctor Who fan,” Henson adds, pointing to Artie.

I’m mildly offended that he isn’t more impressed by my Captain America T-shirt, but the expression of pure joy on Artie’s face is enough to stem my annoyance.

“We come in peace?” I say, trying to sound like I’m a Doctor Who fan too.

Artie shakes his head. “Wrong show.”

“Exterminate?” Marina has ago.

“Technically yes, but threatening, so very inappropriate,” Artie says, and I notice the small smile on Richard Henson’s face as he steps aside to allow us entry into his home.

Inside, Artie looks around the spacious white hallway. It’s welcoming, bright, and fresh with a huge abstract painting on one wall and a primary-colored runner on the honeyed wood floors for a splash of color. For such a narrow house, it packs quite a visual punch.

“Bigger on the inside,” Artie quips, and Richard Henson gives him a silent high-five.

“Come through,” he says, and it strikes me that not only does he look like Isaac, he has the same rich, deep tone to his voice too. I don’t say it though, because, well, you know. The ghost thing has to be approached with caution every damn time.

“Let me just go and find my daughter,” he says. “Go on through and take a seat in the lounge.”

He waves his hand toward a slightly open door. Artie goes in first then comes to such an abrupt halt that Marina and I cannon into each other behind him.

“What the…?” I say, and then I see why he stopped.

There’s a woman reclined on a chaise longue reading a novel, and by the looks of her generously wrinkled, quite naked body, I’d say she’s well into her nineties.

She looks up when we come in and slowly lowers her book and slides her glasses down her nose to peer at us over the top of them.

“Oh, fark,” she says. She makes no move to cover herself up, so Artie slaps his hands hard over his eyes instead.

“I didn’t see anything,” he squeaks, as if to assure her that her modesty is intact.

“Oh, I rather think you did, young man. From that angle you quite clearly saw my vagina,” she says robustly.

Marina chokes with laughter behind me, and we all shuffle aside as Richard Henson hurtles back into the room.

“Ah, I’m so sorry! I forgot all about Margo,” he says, rushing in and holding up a terry robe.

“We were about to start a painting.” He gestures toward the easel as Margo stands and slips into the robe.

I think we’d all assumed as much already, but it was startling all the same.

Poor Artie. Yet another thing to add to the humongous list of things he can never tell his mother he did at work.

Five minutes later, and we’re sitting in the lounge with cups of coffee and no naked pensioners.

We’ve been joined by Jojo, Richard’s daughter.

I know that she’s gone past forty because, oddly for someone you’ve never met, I’ve seen her birth certificate, but you wouldn’t guess it to look at her.

Her long dark hair hangs in two plaits tied with orange-glass hair ties, and she’s layered four or more strappy vests of various colors.

Her wrists jangle with heaped-up bracelets, and like her dad, she’s barefoot.

I expect Marina will wholeheartedly approve of her choice of leopard-skin nail art for her toes, and I’m slightly awed by the detailed floral tattoo that snakes from around her ankle all the way to her thigh and disappears into the hem of her frayed denim cut-offs.

That thing must have hurt more than childbirth; the fact that she endured it tells me that however “ethereal beach bum” she may look on the outside, she’s got balls of steel to call on when she needsto.

“So what’s this all about?” she asks, perching on the arm of her dad’s chair. They both look at us lined up on the sofa opposite them and wait with polite inquiry. Okay. This is where I have to step up and take the lead, because this is my agency and, by God, I need this business to work.

“My name’s Melody Bittersweet, and I see dead people.”

Fucking hell. Really? Now was so not the time for the “I see dead people” line.

Richard’s coffee mug stills halfway to his mouth, and Jojo’s eyes practically double in size.

“I’m sorry, that didn’t come out as I intended,” I fret.

“Well, thank goodness for that,” Richard laughs. “Because for a minute I thought you said you see dead people.”

“Oh, she does,” Artie pipes up. “All the time. It’s normal for Melody though, not spooky like you might think.

I didn’t know how I’d take to it at first if I’m honest, but dead people are just like alive ones, really.

Only they’re dead, obviously, and they’re invisible.

I watched snooker last week with someone who’s been dead for more than a hundred years.

In fact, he was…” He trails off because they’re both staring at him now instead of me, and I’m only glad he stopped himself before he got around to telling them that the person he watched snooker with was their murdered relative.

Marina reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls out two of the new glossy, black business cards embossed with our logo that Glenda ordered for us and leans forward to hand one to each of them.

I wait while they take their time reading them, turning them over to read both sides.

They’re probably wishing we had been door-to-door salespeople.

They’d probably have bought a mop or two just to get us to leave.

“I’ve never met a ghost hunter before,” Jojo says, skeptical. “You might need to prove it before I believe you.”