Chapter Two #2
She snaps her mouth shut and then starts to count him out with her fingers like a boxing referee, clearly amused with herself.
We all watch her, slack-mouthed and transfixed, and she doesn’t get past six before a tall, mahogany-tanned guy with a shock of white hair barrels out of the door and screeches to a halt beside her, his hands on his knees as he pants for air.
He’s as robustly built as his wife is fragile, and dressed as if he’s about to play tennis, except his build suggests he’s more spectator than player. It isn’t that he’s fat; he’s just tall and rangy with a gut that demonstrates he enjoys the good life.
“Barty, will you come look at this! Our ghost busters have arrived in the most fabulous little van.” Lolo lays her hand on her husband’s bent back, completely ignoring the fact he looks as if he might have a heart attack any minute.
“Did you need to yell out quite like that, honey?”
She looks surprised. “You guys, this is Lord Bartholomew Letterman I, otherwise known as plain old Barty to the likes of you and me.” Lois raises her hand to her mouth so she can speak confidentially to us, even though she speaks more than loud enough for her husband to plainly hear.
“Although I have other names I call him, depending on the circumstances, if you see where I’m heading with that.
If he’s in my good books I might call him my big, sweet turkey cock. ”
For a second we all lapse into silence and Lois and Barty just kind of look at us with their big, expectant smiles, almost as if they’re waiting for us to invite them into our castle rather than vice versa.
“Shall we?” I nod politely toward the open doors, deliberately leaving my question open-ended for Lois or Barty to pick up the baton. It does the trick, shaking them out of their turkey-cock reveries and back to the matters at hand.
“Of course! Come on in, honey.” Lolo extends her arm expansively toward the entrance for us to go on ahead of her, and I shoot Marina and Artie a quick “stay with me” look before I lead them inside the castle.
Oh my God. It’s an actual castle. I mean, I knew it was from the outside, but inside it’s the real deal.
We’re in a wide, dark-paneled vestibule, and a grand reception hall lies to the left-hand side with a formal library to the right.
The floorboards creak with age and atmosphere, and a suit of armor stands stoic in one corner.
Marina’s heels clatter against the wood and I feel her fingers twist into the back of my T-shirt the way she does sometimes when she’s unsure.
Lois ushers us sideways into the grand reception hall, where all three of us take a moment to gaze around in silent wonder.
It’s huge and double height and all of the mahogany-paneled walls are rich with carvings and inlaid glass-fronted display cases.
Chandeliers hang from the raftered ceilings, and there’s a huge, luminous oil painting in pride of place over the broad, heavily linteled fireplace.
The room has been furnished to allow for modern comforts; two deep, wood-trimmed sofas face each other across an oversized coffee table set on an Oriental rug, and the wooden shutters have been pinned back from the walk-in bay windows to allow sunlight to stream through and dapple the room.
I’m pretty sure that you could fit my entire flat into this room. It’s breathtaking.
“Oh goody. More badly dressed gawkers.”
No one takes any notice, because no one except for me can see or hear the woman staring at us moodily from beside the fireplace. I don’t reply to her, because she doesn’t realize I know she’s there and I haven’t yet figured out how Lord and Lady Letterman feel about the whole ghost issue.
I try to look her way casually, as if I’m just checking out the fascinating architectural details, but it’s incredibly hard not to stare because she’s old-school film star spectacular.
Inexplicably, she’s dressed in a cap-sleeved ivory leotard that flares at her hips with a filmy net underlayer that appears to be made from boned parachute silk.
Svelte but curvaceous, she obviously knew how to accentuate her assets when she was alive given the way the encrusted neckline and skinny belt of her leotard glitter with delicate, eye-catching rhinestones.
I deduce from the nude pink ballet slippers laced around her well-turned ankles that she was a performer of some variety, and her lustrous midnight-black hair is set into rippling, chin-length finger waves.
From the neck up she’s a decadent, carefree flapper and then a taut, lithe performer from the shoulders down; a potent combination I’m finding hard to look away from.
So much so that it takes a sharp jab in the ribs from Marina to alert me to the fact that Lois and Barty are both staring at me, expectant once again.
They must have said something, but I’m totally clueless.
I flick my eyes nervously at Marina and try to relay a silent SOS and, thankfully, she picks up on my help-me cue and fans her face with her hand as she blows her fringe out of her eyes.
“I think it might be too warm for coffee. Something cold, maybe?”
Ah, so we’re still on the formalities.
“Just water would be great, thank you,” I murmur. “Or maybe you could give us a tour of the place and explain how we can help you as we go?”
I’m keen to have the ghost-buster conversation out of earshot of foxy-leotard girl; I’d rather introduce myself to ghosts in a less-confrontational way where possible. You ghost, me ghost hunter is never an easy conversation to have.
Barty bounds forward, practically rubbing his hands together, and Lois sighs under her breath.
“You might regret asking for a tour,” she mutters. “I hope you’ve got your walking shoes on.”
She glances at my feet, then raises her eyebrows at Marina’s skyscraper heels. Marina shrugs, thoroughly unconcerned.
“Trust me, there isn’t a thing you can do in those that I can’t do in these.” She waggles her ankle delicately and nods toward Lois’s neon-green running shoes.
She isn’t lying. On our last case, she used her stilettos to pick a lock and whack an attacker.
They’re practically on the payroll. Lois crosses to the window and furls herself delicately into an armchair.
“I’ll wait on here for y’all. I’ve taken this tour pretty often now.
” She smiles, waving us away with a flash of her glittering rings.
I notice the way the woman beside the fireplace rolls her eyes, as if this is not unusual behavior on Lois’s part.
I’m beginning to suspect that beneath that turquoise velour workout gear beats the heart of a closet couch potato.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m on her team. I was always the last to be picked for hockey at school, mostly because I am openly rubbish at anything that involves coordination and speed.
“As you can see,” Barty says, already walking tall and directing our attention with his big tanned hands. He turns us to look toward the library on the opposite side of the entrance hall. “This, folks, is the library.”
Okay. So Barty likes to state the obvious.
There’s probably a thousand books lining the walls, all leather bound and clearly antique.
I ignore the slow clap from the ghost ballerina in the other room and focus my attention instead on an elderly couple playing a card game at a small table.
Their clothes and hairstyles place them around the 1920s and they exude wealth and permanence, as if they belong here.
They probably do, given that they must have died quite a few decades previously and are peacefully ignoring us and enjoying their game.
Based on my research of the castle so far, I’d hazard a guess that they must be members of the Shilling family, the clan that’d been in possession of Maplemead for centuries until the recent sale.
I tune them out and try to keep my concentration on Barty.
“To be honest with y’all, Lois and I haven’t yet pulled a book out of those shelves. We’ve been kept kind of busy, you know?”
Artie shakes his head, gawking. “My mum would go mental if she saw this. She loves history and old stuff.”
“You should bring her over, Mr….”
“I’m Artie.” Artie sticks his hand out. “Artie Elliott.”
He’s Arthur, officially, but he’s been known as Artie since Marina christened him with his first-ever nickname a few weeks back. I don’t miss the shimmer of pride in his voice as he announces himself now.
“Artie…” Barty ruminates on it. “Kind of like King Arthur, right?”
For a second Artie stares at him blankly. “My mom has a round dining table,” he says eventually.
“A round dining table,” Barty says, repeating him and nodding with a slow smile of appreciation. “You’re a sharp one, Artie Elliott. I can see we’re going to get on. You’re the boss, right?”
He spins and starts to walk away down the hall, and Artie turns his big, troubled eyes toward me.
Artie isn’t the boss of anything. He was bullied out of school, is smother-mothered at home, and he’s fourth out of four in the pecking order at the agency.
There’s me, Marina is my wing woman, and Glenda Jackson is Glenda Jackson.
Quite frankly, she might be the actual boss.
If she tells me she is, I’m not going to argue.
The only thing Artie is conceivably the boss of is Lestat and making coffee, not necessarily in that order.
“Er, Mr. Letterman,” he says as we file along the paneled, narrowing corridor.
“Hmm?” Barty turns, but his attention is immediately snagged by a carved stone inlaid into the wall behind my head.
“See this? It was laid here by the first Lord Shilling, the dude who originally had the castle built.”
We all dutifully inspect the stone, and then Marina leans in and peers closely at it.
“Randy sods back then, weren’t they?”