Page 89 of Dead Serious: Case 3 Mr Bruce Reyes

“Good.” He nods. “I’ve already ordered the washing machine. That’ll be here the day after tomorrow.”

“Perfect.” I turn the laptop back toward me, and pulling out my bank card, I complete the purchase.

The flat came unfurnished, which means we need the essentials, but it isn’t worth going back to the old flat to try and move Tristan’s cooker and fridge. Not only were they old and needed replacing anyway, but we were informed that when the storm picked up again last night, another section of the ceiling collapsed, this time taking out part of the kitchen. So, new items it is. Unfortunately, our savings have taken a pretty big hit, but at least we’ll be able to claim everything back on the insurance.

“Is it weird?” Tristan asks after a moment.

I shoot him an amused glance. “Weird seems to be our default setting at the moment, so you’ll have to be more specific.”

He shrugs and frowns. “The eclipse is in three days, it’s supposed to essentially be the end of the world, and we’re just sitting here picking out a new fridge. I mean, shouldn’t we be panic-buying loo rolls and digging a bunker in the communal garden?”

“No sense in panicking.”

“You’re disgustingly well-adjusted.” He toys with the edge ofCrawshanks Guide, which we eventually found last night, buried at the bottom of the very last box we checked. “The end of the world. What does that even mean, really? Death just kinda dropped it on us. I mean, are we talking total planetary annihilation, like Krypton? Or just the end of civilisation? And if it’s the latter, are we talking a post-apocalypticMad MaxorThe Walking Deadzombies? When you think about it, just saying ‘Oh, it’s going to be the end of the world’? It’s pretty ambiguous. It could just mean we’re going to be in a really miserable mood.”

“I love the way your brain works,” I tell him, feeling a ridiculous rush of warmth and love for him.

“It’s a valid question though.”

I chuckle. “You do know Krypton isn’t a real planet?”

“You know what I mean.” He rolls his eyes with a smile. “It’s not like I’m not worried—believe me, I am—but I feel my worrying would be more productive if I knew specifically what I was worrying about. Does that make sense?”

“To me, perfectly. To anyone else, probably not so much,” I reply. “But honestly? I think if Death’s counterpart comes through that doorway, then all of the above probably applies. We’ve already seen what he can do with the weather, and that’s with him stuck on the other side. All it would take is some tsunamis, tornadoes, and cyclones, and you can imagine the devastation and death toll he could bring. Rather than worry about what’s potentially coming, we should just concentrate on trying to stop him getting through the doorway in the first place.”

“I know.” Tris blows out a frustrated breath. “But I don’t think just solving Bruce’s unfinished business is going to cut it. We need to find a way to seal that door, but we can’t do that if we don’t know where it came from in the first place.”

“Still can’t find anything in the book?” I nod toward the leather-bound volume on the table in front of him.

“No.” He scrubs his hands through his hair in annoyance. “I don’t think Chan heard him right. Either that or she was too dick-drunk and the message got lost in translation. I’ve been over and over every page, and there is absolutely no mention of Cordelia Crawshanks or the doorway between worlds.”

“Want me to take a look?” I offer. “Sometimes when you’ve been staring at the same thing for a while, you can’t see the wood for the trees. It’s not that I don’t believe you, but it can’t hurt to have another set of eyes on it.”

“Be my guest.” He gives the book a little shove so it scoots over the table towards me. “Welcome to the world of Cornelius Crawshanks, the land where nothing makes sense.”

I glance across the kitchen when the doorbell echoes through the flat.

“I’ll get it,” Tris says wearily and pushes out of the chair.

A few minutes later, he returns with Sam trailing alongside him.

“Hey, Danny.” He lifts his chin in greeting and slides into another chair at the table, setting his battered leather satchel on the table in front of him. “How’s it coming along?”

“Good,” I reply. “I finally managed to track down the owner of the sports grounds.”

“Really?” He grins, nodding toward my laptop. “Because it looks like you’re buying a fridge to me.”

I huff a laugh and change screens.

“Do you want a coffee, Sam?” Tris asks, crossing the kitchen to the hot-pink kettle Brandy loaned us, and I mentally add a new kettle and a coffee machine to the list of things we need to buy. “The fridge isn’t arriving until tomorrow though, so there’s no milk.”

He shakes his head. “I’m good, thanks.”

“Danny?”

“No thanks, love,” I reply, turning my attention back to Sam and organising my notes to bring him up to speed. We’d decided it would be quicker to divide and conquer, with me concentrating on the body dump site and Sam concentrating on the rugby team. “So it turns out the sports grounds were owned by a Philip Miller. I found a few newspaper articles from the early to mid-eighties. He was generally known in the local area as ‘Big Phil.’ I managed to track down one or two people who actually knew him. He was a bit of a wheeler-dealer, if you know what I mean. Had his fingers in a lot of pies and not all of them legal.”

“Philip Miller?” Sam unbuckles his ancient satchel to pull out a stack of loose papers and a couple of well-used notepads as well as his own laptop.