27. The End is Nigh #3
“It’s my belief that you wanted Helga to take the fall for this. You wanted her to suffer, but you didn’t count on the inanely incompetent Sergeant Davies dismissing it immediately as an accident.”
I look over at Peter for his insight into this, but his mouth stays stubbornly closed. Then I look at Trystan. My fear of accidentally finishing his unfinished business goes unfounded, as he remains solid and present by my side. Not floating off to some other realm, thank fuck.
“And at first I assumed Stove MacLeod was killed because of the investigations his production team were doing into Jeanie’s disappearance, but now I realise it had always been to cover up the original sword crime, protect your reputation, and continue gaslighting your wife from the grave.
“You possessed a member of staff, then waited on the beach with the film crew, ready to ward anyone away from the cave, but Stove MacLeod’s not exactly the type of person to heed warnings.
In fact, he’s the type of contrarian who’ll do the exact opposite of what’s asked of him simply to shove it to the man. ”
“Yeah, I will,” Stove says from the other side of the trophy room. He flips Peter off, then draws a line across his neck with his thumbnail and jerks it towards Magnus.
Peter doesn’t react.
“Now, the murder of fifteen-year-old Josh Little. Josh isn’t in the room with us at the moment. For those listening at home, don’t worry, he’s fine. He’s probably haunting the teen zone on the first floor.”
I want to say something directly to Josh’s family, tell them he misses them and thinks about them often, but it’s not my place to stir up grief amongst the living. Maybe one day, Josh and I can find a way to contact them that won’t cause further trauma.
“Peter, you said so yourself, harming a youngster is more abhorrent than killing an adult. Is that because you still feel guilty about Josh?”
Peter looks at me and slow blinks his eyes closed. His mouth stays firmly shut.
“He’s playing the silent game again, folks, so I’ll fill you in on what happened.
The year is twenty nineteen. A fifteen-year-old Josh sits in his hotel room.
His parents are in the gym, getting in an early game of badminton.
His eighteen-year-old sister has plans to meet up with that summer’s surf instructor.
Josh is alone and hungry. Instead of waiting until the agreed breakfast meet-up time, the teenager goes in search of sustenance.
But as curious adolescent minds are wont to do, he finds himself snooping about in places he shouldn’t be.
Namely, Helga’s office. Josh begins opening drawers, looking in cupboards, and checking Helga’s laptop.
“Peter, you panicked once again. Having died in the eighties, you never used a computer or learned how to use one. All you understand is that youngsters are very good with them. Years of psychological warfare on your wife had led her to start keeping lists and information relating to all the deaths and disappearances that’ve happened over the past few decades.
There’s a possibility that Josh stumbled upon this material.
Not willing to take the risk, you created an impromptu plan to kill him.
“Instead of possessing the boy himself, or another member of staff. You possessed the chocolate muffin he’d stolen from Helga’s office.”
“Ooohhh,” several of the ghosts say as they figure out the rest.
“Recently, I was informed that as a ghost, I can possess an object. Any object. Great if the urge to feel solid once more ever gets too overwhelming. Not so great if the object gets too close to living people.” I think of the tennis ball Camille exploded when a racket hit them.
“See, what happens when ghosts possess objects is that the electromagnetic frequencies we emit can get so jumbled and volatile that all it takes is for one touch, a finger, a foot, a set of teeth, to disturb those frequencies and you have yourself an incendiary device with enough localised explosive power to take a life.”
Again, Peter says nothing, but he hangs his head in shame and covers his face.
“Josh was fifteen, Pete. A child. You stole his future because you were worried about something that’d happened forty years ago.
I believe that was the turning point for Helga.
Not least because the hotel’s reputation and guest numbers were now suffering due to all these unexplained and gory deaths, but because she was finally moving on from you.
“She then hires ExorSquad to remove the ghosts. In twenty twenty-five, they send out Camille Ciel. An expert on spirits and the paranormal, Camille manages to locate the many ghosts of The Paragon Hotel, choosing to focus their energy on what they believed was a level four entity. Only, they’d found you.
“Over the decades of your ghosthood, you’ve grown and become stronger than any of us could ever fear to be.
When Camille cornered you on the east wing staircase, you pushed them down the stairs.
Using the raw power of your heightened emotions and borrowed force from the ley lines, you were able to physically shove them down the fifty or so marble steps.
Camille broke their neck, and you scarpered, letting the other ghosts discover their spirit first.
“How accurate is all of this sounding?” I ask.
Peter puffs out a breath. “I knew writing that letter to you would end in disaster. The great Gary Runcorn. The tubby loser who watched too many Miss Marples as a kid.”
“Honestly, Peter,” I say. “You’re bang on the money right there. Everything you just said is true, but . . . let’s talk about my death, shall we?”