Page 86 of Dead Serious Case 5 Madame Vivienne
Fortunately, I managed to convince Chan not to come with us. Not only do I want him someplace safe, I’m worried that Nick and Aidan, having been newly inducted into our band of weirdness, may take it upon themselves to join our little search and rescue mission. I cannot have any of them getting hurt. So Chan has taken the boys back to our flat to wait for us while Danny, Sam, Dusty, and I set out to find Harrison and save him from the murderous relative that I’m pretty sure he didn’t know he had.
“Are you sure we’re in the right place, Dusty?” I whisper, looking around the small courtyard packed with junk. “I didn’t even know the bookshop had a back entrance.”
“No one ever uses it,” Dusty says.
“I wonder why,” Sam mutters as he eyes a rusted Edwardian-era pram. “Creepy.”
“What are you wearing?” I squint at Dusty in the darkness. “And why do you look like Catwoman?”
“What? It’s my stealth mode outfit.” She looks down at the skintight black latex catsuit and the matching utility belt settled on her hips.
She’s wearing thigh-high patent stiletto boots and her signature huge blonde Dolly wig, but what really sets it all off is the black mask covering her eyes and highlighting her glossy blood-red lips.
“I couldn’t fit the balaclava over my wig,” she adds, wrinkling her nose, “and it would have smudged my makeup anyway.”
“Fine, whatever.” I shake my head with an eye roll.
“Just head to the back door,” Dusty says. “I’ll unlock it from the other side for you and do some recon.”
Before I can say anything, she’s disappeared.
“What now?” Danny says.
“Dusty says she’ll unlock the door for us,” I tell him in a hushed tone. “Then she’s going to snoop about and report back.”
“Okay.” He nods, then turns to look at the piles of junk between us and the back of the building. “Christ, it’s like a scrapyard edition ofThe Labyrinth.”
“Bet David Bowie’s not hiding in there with skintight leggings on, though,” I mutter.
“Shame,” Sam and Danny both chorus.
Slowly, we edge around decades of random stuff. A stack of rotten wooden chairs, a bookcase with all the shelves broken, a bicycle with no wheels. A ceramic toilet bowl and several broken picture frames. And those are just the big items. I don’t want to think about what might be living in the old bags of rubbish and rotten boxes which have been halfway torn open, their dark, murky contents spilling onto the ground.
“Jesus.” Danny gags at the smell as we approach the door. “Harrison is going to have his work cut out for him with this place.”
For a moment, I pause; all the ramifications of Harrison being Viv’s biological son have yet to sink in. But the truth is, he’ll inherit this property and the one adjoining it, and part of me feels a bit bad for him. It’s obviously something he’s trying his hardest to avoid for some reason, and I have a feeling that, although his inheritance comes with a healthy bank balance, that perk will be drowned out by all the supernatural shit that comes with owning this place. To be honest, I’m kinda glad it’s not me.
“What’s the bet that Chan will be all over Harrison about those boxes of clothes up there?”
I chuckle as we finally arrive at the door. “That’s a bet I’m not taking.”
Danny reaches out and turns the handle. It’s stiff but it unlatches. He tries to shove the door open as quietly as possible, but the wood is swollen and slightly rotten, making it stick. He and Sam both brace their weight against it until it grinds openenough for us to slip through. I wince at the sound, hoping no one heard.
We find ourselves at the back of the house in a room I’ve never seen. It may have originally been a kitchen but like the rest of the place, it’s now filled with boxes and junk. What is it with the Crawshanks family and hoarding?
“We should probably wait for Dusty,” Danny says. “We don’t know what we’re going to be walking into, and we don’t want to put Harrison in more danger.”
Sam nods, and I’ve never seen him look so anxious. Fortunately, we only have to wait a few moments before Dusty reappears, this time with Bruce at her side.
“What’s going on, Private Ryan?” I ask, eyeing her new outfit. She’s now dressed in a camo jumpsuit, with a WW2 helmet and a pair of binoculars hanging around her neck. You’d think all the outfit changes in the middle of a supernatural crisis would indicate she’s not taking this very seriously, but honestly? At this point, I don’t even think she realises she’s doing it. It’s just Dusty.
“Okay,” Dusty reports in. “So, the giant glowy circle thingy is back, and Harrison is dangling from his tied wrists in the centre of it, hung on a hook kinda thing.” She makes a weird gesture I can’t even begin to decipher. “There’s also a sinister-looking guy in a hood. Oh, and he’s half naked.”
“The guy in the hood?” I ask in confusion.
“No, Harrison,” she corrects.
“Harrison.” Sam’s eyes blaze dangerously. “Why is Harrison half naked?”