Beyond Dead Read online

  I disagreed resoundingly with that last comment, but his reluctance to talk about it prevented me from asking. Did he mean the rest of things they dealt with or the answers to my other questions?

  We headed out of the double doors at the end of the office into a square room twice the size of the interrogation room with pale green walls, a white ceiling and dimmed lighting. The word “Arrivals" was painted in black capital letters on the right hand wall. On the dark green floor beneath it ran two rows of eight white circles, each circle just over a foot in diameter. The left side of the room was set up the same except that wall had "Departures" painted on it.

  A man in his early twenties with short blond hair and a navy tie appeared on one of the circles to the right.

  “Evening, Herb,” he said with a nod to the constable as he passed us.

  “I was hoping we could take a taxi. Or maybe walk?” I said, staring at the circle the man had appeared on. I’d done this transporting thing twice, once from Afterlife Arrivals and once to here. It had not gone well either time.

  “I’ll be gentle,” the constable promised, moving to a circle on the departures side and offering me his hand.

  Reluctantly, I moved towards him. “Where are we going?”

  “Your GA meeting.”

  “Oh, er, look, Officer. I’m not a gambler, so I’m good to go straight home.” Wherever that was.

  They had a police station so surely they had living quarters. A vision of a long ago school trip where all the girls slept in a large dormitory with only two showers reared its incredibly unwelcome head. I shivered. Never again. Things might be different now I was dead, but I still had standards.

  “Call me Herb. And your GA meeting is your Ghostly Acclimatisation meeting.” Taking my hand, he positioned me close to the little white circle he was standing on. “Nothing to do with gambling.”

  “Oh.” Right. Of course. Something else that wasn’t in the induction.

  His eyes twinkled at me. “It’ll be good for you. I know you have a lot of questions.” He clasped both my hands in his. “Ready?”

  “Not really.”

  Pressure bore down on me from all sides. When I didn’t think I could take anymore, the world blurred and tossed me around like a rag doll in a tumble dryer. My stomach was seriously considering an evacuation plan when the turbulence stopped as abruptly as it had started and I landed hard on my bottom.

  “Phew, that was a tough one. I’m sorry, I forgot it was rush hour.” Herb leaned over and looked into my spinning pupils. “Are you okay?”

  I would have answered but the concept of trying to think of several words and then place them in any coherent order was temporarily beyond me. At least I hadn’t thrown up that time. Silver lining.

  Herb sat down next to me on the grass. The summer sun was still warm, and for a moment I could close my eyes and pretend I was lazing in Regent’s Park with Michael, the ex-fiancé. Thoughts of that cheating scumbag brought me out of that daydream quick smart. To distract myself from the last indelicate image I had of him, I looked around and was surprised to recognise the view below. It’d been nearly ten years since I’d been home, but the harbour, the curve of the beach and the row on row of townhouses inching back from the sea were exactly as I remembered.

  I knew without looking that the hill fort would be directly behind me, and off to the left would be the brick outlined ruins of the rest of the castle. I knew on both sides and to my back that the only view would be of the sea, and if I looked directly down from our grassy knoll I’d have a clear view of the tree-lined steep hill that led up to the fort. I also knew I’d be able to pick out the tree I’d carved my name into many moons ago, even from this distance.

  I inhaled a deep breath and felt the salty air tickle my throat. “We’re in Scarborough.”

  Herb smiled and nodded. “My wife and I used to holiday here every summer.”

  There was such a wistfulness to his voice I almost asked when she had passed away before I realised he was the one who’d died. This was going to take some getting used to.

  “I grew up here.” The boats that dotted the horizon, the sea salt on the breeze, the crying seagulls, the specks on the beach that I knew were donkeys, all comfortingly familiar.

  “Then you should feel right at home.” Herb handed me a silver hip flask and a hankie. “Before you go on in.”

  “Oh, that’s very kind.” I smiled, grateful for the offer of the alcohol if slightly confused about the hankie. “But I’m more of a martini type of girl. Whisky goes straight to my head.”

  Herb gestured to my face. “It’s the closest thing I’ve got to a mirror. Thought you might want to tidy yourself up a bit. Can’t let this be their first impression of you.”

  Remembering the horror staring back at me from the interrogation room mirror, I accepted the flask. Despite my distorted reflection I could still make out the clumps of hair that had worked their way out of the neat chignon, the smudged black eyes, and I’d managed to get a streak of lip gloss on my chin.

  “How do I look?” I turned to Herb after frantically smoothing my hair over and wiping away as much of the mascara from under my eyes as possible.

  “Beautiful.” He smiled and returned the hip flask to his inside jacket pocket before pulling me to my feet. “Now in you go before they class you as late. Mr Salier will be waiting out here to collect you when the meeting’s over.”

  “Who’s Mr Salier?” I very much felt like I was being passed from pillar to post, and neither really wanted me.

  “He’ll be your … guardian, so you just wait for him, you hear?” He raised his grey eyebrows in warning.

  I pouted. I couldn’t help it. It was like getting told off by my grandpa. “I’m not going to go wandering off into trouble.”

  Herb smiled widely and shook his head. “Ah, Miss Sway. You strike me as the type of child that’s never out of trouble.”

  Chapter Two

  I stood in front of the entrance to the fort and stared up at its sheer face. Every year there had been a school trip to the fort and harbour. By the time I’d graduated I could’ve told you more about Scarborough than most history books and processed a catch as well as any fisherman on the docks.

  The fort was even more impressive than I remembered. It still carried the yellow-orange tinge of the local stone used to build it but not the ridges of wear on the steps up to the side door. Or graffiti gouged into the stone. Or the missing wall and a half. The National Trust had done an amazing job of reconstructing it; it looked like a brand-new old fort.

  “Hello and welcome!” A short, older lady with a neat shoulder-length grey bob and greyer eyes gently shook my hand as I stepped through the open doors into the vestibule. Her accent was deep American South. “I’m glad to have you. What’s your name, sweetie?”

  “I’m Bridget.”

  “Bridget, Bridget.” She scanned down a list on her glittery pink clipboard and ticked off my name with a flourish, the clump of pink fluff on her sliver glitter pen flouncing with the movement. “Excellent. Here … you … go.” She dragged the words out while writing my name on a sticker, then peeled it off and stuck it to my lapel before I could protest. “I’m Eleanor, your host,” she said with a smile and patted my name badge to make sure it was stuck. “Please go inside and make yourself comfortable. There’s tea and cookies on the side.”

  As soon as her back was turned I carefully eased off the sticker and checked the damage. If I was going to be in this suit for the rest of my afterlife I did not want an oblong sticker mark on my lapel. Not to mention, Christian Dior. Hello?

  The main hall was just as I remembered it from the zillion school trips. Renovation work had been completed on the floor to even out the paving stones and patch up the smaller holes in the walls, and it’d been done well because I couldn’t tell new stone from old. The tapestries hanging on the walls were in a much better condition than I remembered too. Even the weapons seemed shinier; battle axes and shields mounted
above the fireplace and helmets further up the chimney glinted in the sunlight coming through the windows. Something was different here. And it wasn’t just the smattering of sobbing people occupying the block of chairs in the middle of the great hall.

  In the front row a girl, maybe twenty, dressed for summer in yellow capri pants and a white lacy vest, was bawling her eyes out. An elderly gentleman in a threadbare burgundy towelling dressing gown and navy pyjamas tried to comfort her. I sent a silent prayer of thanks to Whomever that I hadn’t died in my sleep. In the summer I slept naked. Now that would’ve been an awkward eternity.

  Two rows behind the crying girl, whose name tag read Jenny, a soft housewife in her mid-forties was sobbing quietly to herself. In fact, of the twenty or so people filling the seats, I could only see one who wasn’t openly upset: a stony-faced man sitting in the back left corner wearing a brown suit and scowling like his afterlife depended on it. This was going to be a long night.

  “I wasn’t expecting a party, but this is grim,” a voice breathed beside me. A holiday-tanned woman, mid-thirties, dressed smartly in a grey skirt suit, unhappily surveyed the scene. Seeing my expression, she took a quick step back. “You’re not going to …” – she glanced at Jenny, the still bawling twenty-something on the front row – “cry or anything, are you?”

  I nodded. “Probably. In a week or so when I accept that this isn’t just a horribly vivid nightmare and I am actually dead.”

  “So, we’ve got a week to make your afterlife better than your life?” She tightened her blonde ponytail and nodded thoughtfully before extending her hand to me. “We can do that. I’m Sabrina. Drowned a week ago scuba diving in Corsica.”

  I shook her hand. “Well, Sabrina, you’re looking pretty good for a dead woman.”

  “Thank you. Healthy living,” she said with a grin.

  “Wait, if you drowned scuba diving, how come you’re wearing that?” I grabbed her arm. “Can we shop here?” Maybe everything would be all right after all.

  Sabrina frowned down at herself. “I think I must have been buried in this.”

  “So you were in a wetsuit for a week?” I grimaced. That was nearly as bad as being naked. And then I thought of something worse. My mum would be the one to dress me for my funeral. And that would be what I’d be wearing for eternity if we couldn’t shop. I did not want to contemplate what outfit she’d pick for me right now. I had enough problems for today. And I’d thought dying would be the worst thing that could happen to a person.

  “No, I’ve been in this the whole time. Why? Did you die in that?” Sabrina pointed to my suit and I nodded. She shook her head and cursed under her breath. “I goddamn hate this place. There’s just no consistency.”

  From where I stood there was plenty of reasons to hate this place, and lack of consistency would be bottom of that very long list.

  “What about you? How’d you kick it?” Sabrina asked.

  “I tripped.”

  Sabrina whistled low. “That must have been some trip.”

  “It wasn’t really the trip that killed me. It was the getting hit by the bus.”

  A sharp burst of laughter escaped before she clamped her hand over her mouth as several pairs of accusatory, watery eyes turned our way.

  “Sorry. Sorry,” she choked out loudly, addressing the group with her hands up in apology, still trying to swallow her laughter. “So when did you …?” She drew a line across her neck and made a gagging sound.

  “I want to say yesterday morning because that’s what it feels like, but apparently I spent three days in Afterlife Arrivals, so I guess four days ago.” We started slowly making our way past the rows of crying ghosts and towards the refreshment table at the back, our heels clicking on the stone floor as we went.

  Sabrina smiled with sarcastic fondness. “Ah, Afterlife Arrivals. Had a four day stint there myself. So you’ve not had the chance to get to grips with the situation yet then? The rules, regs and what not?”

  I surveyed the refreshment table. Until I saw the custard creams I hadn’t realised how hungry I was, so I loaded up my plate. “Yeah, there was some sort of hold up at Arrivals with my paperwork, so I ended up going straight to work.”

  “Oh, that’s rough.” She grimaced. Cups and saucers loaded precariously, we made for the back row of seats, as far away from everyone else as possible. “What’s your job? I’m a coordinator of pre- and post-life affairs.”

  “Sounds interesting,” I said, talking as ladylike as possible around the biscuit I’d stuffed in my mouth. Coordinator sounded more my speed. I’d have to see if I could transfer. Hopefully they’d have a better dress code.

  She shook her head and blew on her coffee. “I’m an office dogsbody. I file and photocopy.”

  Huh. Never mind then.

  I washed my biscuit down with a sip of tea. “Well, I’m a facilitator of pre- and post-life affairs.”

  Sabrina leaned back in her chair and nodded. “Wow. That sounds—”

  “I’m a messenger.”

  “Oh. At least you get to be out and about,” she offered, trying to find a slither of positivity. “What type of messages do you deliver? Get any good ones today?”

  “Didn’t get to deliver any today.” I sipped my tea, letting the warmth filter out into my limbs. The tea was good. Maybe everything would be okay after all.

  “Training?” She made a sound of disgust, snapped a digestive in half and dunked it in her coffee. “I’m supposed to have it for a week. Like it takes that long to teach people to file ‘a’ under ‘a’.”

  “No.” I stared at the battle scene on the tapestry on the wall to my right, nibbling on my custard cream. I was sure there had been burn marks on it. “I found a dead dead guy in my locker this morning, so I spent the day being questioned by police.”

  “Oh. My. God.” The dunked biscuit she’d had halfway to her mouth broke, the soggy half splashing back into her coffee cup unnoticed. “We’ve been talking for five minutes. How did this not come up earlier? How was this not the very first thing you said to me?”

  “What, like,” – I gave her a finger wave and put on a ditzy voice – “‘Hi, my name’s Bridget and I found a dead dead guy today.’?”

  “Yes!” She slapped her thigh, coffee sloshing over the rim of her cup into her saucer. “Exactly like that, except without the idiot tone.” Her eyes stretched wide then narrowed almost immediately. “How did he die? He was murdered, right? The police have any suspects?”

  “Yeah.” I nibbled the edge of a custard cream, suddenly not quite as hungry. “Me.”

  “You? Really?” She looked me up and down, assessing. “You? How did he die?”

  “Looked like a blow to the head.” I might have stared at him for twenty minutes, but I hadn’t exactly been examining him.

  “Left or right side? Was there much blood? Did he look like it’d been a struggle? Was he wedged in upright or did he fall out when you opened the door?”

  I placed my half-eaten custard cream back on the saucer. “Just so you know, you’re creeping me out a little bit now.”

  “What? Oh, I’m a private investigator. And I refuse to say ‘was’. So, right or left?”

  “Left. And” – I gestured with my free hand to the back of my head – “here-ish.”

  “Okay, well, firstly women rarely attack men and come away without a scratch unless they take them by surprise, usually from behind. If you had done that, the blow would’ve been on his right because you’re right handed, not to mention you’re wearing a white suit. Hardly practical murdering attire.” Her eyebrows hooded her eyes in thought. “The police really class you as a suspect?”

  I nodded. “The detective in charge seemed inept, so probably.”

  “We should investigate. Clear your name.” Her eyes sparkled with excitement, bringing her whole demeanour back to life.

  I wasn’t sure how unclear my name was. Johnson had made a lot of guilty noises at me, but since I hadn’t killed the guy he couldn’t exactly
have any evidence against me. However, if I started investigating and he caught me, I had the feeling my possibly clear name would get murky awfully fast.

  Before I could form a polite refusal Eleanor climbed up onto the podium and clapped her hands for our attention. The room had filled up while Sabrina and I had been chatting and over thirty people were now sitting around us. Thankfully most had stopped sobbing.

  “Ladies and gentlemen. Fellow spirits. Ghosts.” Eleanor paused to glance around the room and make eye contact with everyone, her southern belle accent sounding out of place as it echoed around the Roman hall. She spread her arms wide. “Welcome.”

  I wasn’t sure what type of response she was used to getting, but I was guessing it wasn’t someone bawling at the top of their lungs. Eleanor pursed her lips at the elderly gentleman who had given up trying to console Jenny and jerked her head in the direction of the girl. With a heavy sigh he moved up two seats next to her again and patted her knee.

  “There, there,” he said in a tone that implied he no longer had any interest in her emotional or mental wellbeing and now just wanted her to be quiet. His attention, however grudgingly given, seemed to placate her.

  “The first couple of months can be difficult, adjusting to a new existence, for some more so than others.” Her eyes focused on the girl with genuine sympathy. “This group will be a safe place for you all to share your feelings, hopes, fears, triumphs and anything else on your minds. Tonight we will be discussing your new situation, highlighting certain rules, guidelines, expectations of behaviour and so on. Your guardians will help you all with these.”

  “She means your parole officer will kick your ass as soon as you step out of line,” Sabrina whispered.

  “Parole officer? We have a parole officer and guardian?”

  “They’re one and the same. I’m guessing from the disgusted expression on your face no one has explained this to you yet.”