Gina returned five minutes later with two steaming mugs of tea. She sat down next to Shane and set both drinks down on the pine desk. Bernard would be livid if he knew they weren’t using coasters, but Shane couldn’t bring himself to care about such trivial things.

  “It was my daughter,” he said. “It was her.”

  Gina nodded, no sign of argument. “Are you okay?”

  “No! Not even close. How is this possible?”

  “I don’t know, Mr Mogg. It just is. I’m sorry.”

  He shook his head and stared into his tea, the condensation collecting against his forehead. “Why would she attack me? I loved Mandy. I did everything a father was supposed to do.”

  “The dead are just echoes of who they once were. Your daughter’s soul was probably in Heaven, but now she’s back here, in this place, where pain and suffering exist again. It must be like getting woken from a wonderful dream by a terrible, unrelenting din. You would lash out instinctively, I suppose.”

  “Mandy’s suffering?”

  Gina sighed. “I would love to lie to you, Mr Mogg, but the dead don’t return to soothe us and give us peace. Your daughter, like all the others brought back because of this wretched ritual, has been dragged here against her will. All she must feel is anger. Confusion, at the very least.”

  Tears spilled from Shane’s eyes, stinging the scratches on his cheeks. His teeth locked together, and he struggled to part them. “Y-you were a nun?”

  “A lifetime ago.”

  He didn’t mean to, but he snarled at her. “How can you believe in a god that would make this possible? My daughter is innocent. Just like she was innocent when God took her and her mother away from me.”

  Gina looked at him, her eyes rheumy yet wise. As she exhaled, she asked him what happened. “Share your pain with me. Talk it out.”

  “I can’t share it. It’s mine.”

  “Well, tell me anyway, dear.”

  He shook his head and looked away. “What is there to tell? I grew up being a good little Christian boy – did exactly what my mother told me. Went to church three times a week, never swore, never took the Lord’s name in vain, and I certainly never spent any time with the opposite sex. Ha! If I even so much as thought about girls in that way, I would beat myself up for days afterwards.” He huffed, feeling the spite rise inside of him. “I never even dared masturbate till I was seventeen, in case I damned my soul to Hell. I wept afterwards.”

  Gina grimaced, but she didn’t interrupt him.

  So he went on. “One time, when I was about nine or ten, I argued with my mother about God. I’d been learning about other religions at school, and I became convinced there were lots of different gods in Heaven. It just made sense to me. My mum didn’t appreciate my new beliefs though, so she poured a bag of dried rice on the floor and had me kneel on it for hours while I prayed. You know, sometimes, when it’s cold, my knees still ache from it.” He sighed. “I don’t know, maybe the pain’s just in my head.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Gina, swallowing, and licking at her thin gossamer lips. “Your mother had no right to punish you for childhood curiosity.”

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. The only reason I’m telling you this is so you know I did everything I was supposed to do. I fell in love, married a girl from my church, and then we had a child. That’s how you honour God, right? Raise a family, teach them the Bible, repeat the cycle?”

  “I believe family is God’s true Church.”

  He rose in his seat, fists clenched on top of his knees. “Then why the fuck did God take them from me? I did everything I could to please the holy fucking Lord. Emily and Mandy were innocent. Why did He take them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He moves in mysterious ways, right? Isn’t that the company line for questions that can’t be answered?”

  Gina shrugged, offering him the slightest of smiles. “I understand your anger, Mr Mogg. I lost a child too.”

  “Y-you did?”

  She shrugged. “So long ago now, but the pain is still with me. My David and I tried for a family several times. I had two miscarriages first, but eventually I had a pregnancy that took. Unfortunately, that one ended up stillborn. We named her Marie and had a little funeral for her. After that, we never wanted to try again. For whatever reason, David and I were never supposed to be parents.”

  Shane couldn’t look her in the eye. He didn’t know who had suffered worse. He and Emily had had two years with Mandy, but that made the loss hurt even worse.

  But would I give up those two years?

  “I’m sorry, Gina. It’s not every day I meet someone who’s had a shittier life than me.”

  “I’ve had a wonderful life,” she said. “But part of life is being in pain. It’s unavoidable.”

  “That doesn’t make it any easier.”

  “How did they die? Your family?”

  It surprised him that she dared ask. His anger must have been clear on his face, yet she prodded him instead of appeased him. “A car crash,” he said. “What a cliche, huh? Emily was driving over a bridge, coming back from the supermarket with Mandy in the back of the car, when a bunch of joyriding kids swerved across the road. She had to steer to avoid them. Car flipped over the barricade and into the River Peck below. They drowned with their seatbelts on. Safety first, right?”

  A tear spilled from Gina’s eye. The sight of it shocked Shane, filling him with a furious rage, but also a desperate sadness. It was his pain, and she had no right to feel it, and yet…

  “It’s not your fault,” he said, lifting his hands and warming them around his mug. “Just how it is. Things happen in a godless world.”

  She reached out and placed a hand on his wrist. Her fingers were ice cold. “This isn’t a godless world, Mr Mogg. Has today not shown you that?”

  “God didn’t bring back the dead. It’s the other guy, right? The Devil?”

  She did the sign of the cross but didn’t cease looking him in the eye. “You can’t have one without the other. Joy only exists in the absence of pain. God is the same way. Perhaps it was his counterpart who took your family from you. Maybe God had nothing to do with it. You wanted to believe once that there were multiple forces in Heaven. Perhaps you were right.”

  “Wouldn’t that make God a bit useless?”

  “Or maybe God can only do so much, like any of us. Perhaps He has regrets of His own.”

  Shane rubbed his face, spreading the warmth from his palms. He felt drunk, despite not having had a drop in over twenty-four hours. “This is real, isn’t it? I mean, ghosts are attacking people. My daughter came back from the dead to hurt me.”

  Gina sighed. “It’s real, Mr Mogg, and we need to stop it. Every naïve young fool who did the ritual is now in danger. If they haven’t been attacked already, they will be soon. And it won’t stop until they’re dead.”

  Shane nodded. He finally understood.

  That nothing made sense.

  Chapter Nine

  “I’m sorry for doubting you,” Shane told Gina as they sipped their tea. He wasn’t sure what to do next. How exactly were you meant to function after experiencing something like what had just happened to him? As well as being mentally obliterated, he was also bleeding from a dozen shallow cuts. His hip was bruised from bashing against the sink. The pain made it hard to think.

  All he knew was that he didn’t want to be alone. Nor did he want to fully contemplate what had just happened. He needed to distract himself, or he would lose what was left of his mind. It was all he could do just to keep from quivering like a jelly, and he had to clutch both hands in his lap to keep them still. If he had been a smoker, now would have been the moment to light up.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I suppose this entire thing is hard to believe. The girls at bingo would have me sectioned if they knew I was here with you now, trying to stop a bunch of ghosts.”

  Shane chuckled, making a sound that was brittle and on edge. “I’m glad you’re here. You’re a fount of knowledge.”

  “I’m just old.”

  “Hey, not many people your age are on Clip Switch. Even less willing to do what you’re doing now.”

  “It’s nice to be useful. Older I get, the more it feels like the world has little need of me. It’s felt that way since my David died.”

  “Tell me about him. You said he was an opera singer?”

  Just talk to me and keep me calm. Please!

  “He was a tenor. My David could reach right inside you with his voice. Like a force of nature, he was. Sometimes, I sit and listen to his old CDs and it’s like he never left.”

  “He must have been very talented. How did you meet?”

  “He was touring Europe with a ballet company. I had left Sicily by then and was living in Turin, working as a cleaner at a little theatre named La Scintilla. David was performing there for two weeks, and during that time I often tidied up his dressing room. Most performers looked down their noses at theatre staff, but David was different. He was this warm, loving man who showed an interest in everyone around him.” She winked. “But me most of all.”

  Shane smiled. “I bet you were a looker.”

  “More than I am now, that’s for sure. Anyway, David spoke a little Italian thanks to his years studying and performing opera, so we got to chatting. This was his third tour of the country, and he always loved visiting, but he wanted to see more than just the same old tourist spots. So I offered to show him parts of the city he’d never been to, like the Palazzo Falletti di Barolo and the Colline del Po. The real Turin. By the end of the week, we couldn’t bear to be apart, and I accompanied him for the rest of his European tour. When it ended six months later in Monte Carlo, David took me home to Cardiff and married me.”

  “Wow. Didn’t you miss home?”

  “Every day, but I would’ve missed David more. Anyway, he toured Italy six more times in our years together, so I had plenty of chances to go home. It never felt out of reach. As for family” – she shrugged – “I had none. My father died in the early days of the Second World War and my mother died while I was in the convent. By the time I left Italy, I had no one.”

  Shane folded his hands in his lap, wondering what such a life would be like. To follow love across borders, to throw caution to the wind. To live by the whims of one’s heartstrings. “Why did you leave the convent? You never said.”

  “Lust.”

  “Wait, you didn’t fool around at the monastery, did you?”

  Gina smiled, a twinkle in her eye. For a moment, she seemed twenty years younger. “Brother Antonio. A Venetian rogue who came late to God’s grace. He was a novice, yet well into his thirties after a lifetime of drifting from one place to another, working odd jobs and joining the crews of various merchant ships. He’d travelled the entire Mediterranean by the time he came to us. Oh, the stories he could tell. And his body…” She grinned. “Hardened by a life of adventure.”

  Amused, Shane said, “I’m assuming romantic affairs were banned in the monastery?”

  “Absolutely forbidden. But even servants of God are human, and humans are built a certain way. After a year of midnight meet-ups and secret dalliances, the abbot finally caught Antonio and I canoodling in the chapter house. He had walked in with the town mayor, about to hold a meeting, but he found us both naked beneath the table. Humiliated isn’t even the word for it. I’ve never seen a man turn so red.”

  Shane cringed as he imagined the panic she must have felt. “So what happened?”

  “What do you think? The abbot branded me a harlot for tempting Brother Antonio.”

  “Were you punished?”

  “Of course. Antonio was given a month of the lowliest duties as punishment for his weakness, but I was whipped bloody and given a six-month vow of silence. Every monk in the monastery was told to avert their gaze in my presence until my penance was over. The worst part was that even Brother Antonio ignored me after that, as if he hadn’t professed his love to me a hundred times before.”

  Shane sneered. “Bastard.”

  “Calm down, dear. I survived, didn’t I? In fact, it was only a week later I absconded under the cover of darkness on a path that would eventually lead me to find my David. If they’d caught me, there would’ve been hell to pay, but I convinced a local boat captain to take me to Capua on the mainland. He thought having a nun onboard would bring him good luck.” She picked up her mug and took a sip of tea. “I never went back to Sicily ever again, but I often think about Antonio. He’d be an old man now, if he still lives. Eighty, I’d say.” She let out a sigh and laced her gnarled fingers together on the table. “After my David died, I thought about tracking him down – to tell him what a wonderful life I’ve lived, and how I came far closer to God than I ever would have within the walls of that wretched monastery.” She turned slightly in her seat and lifted her blouse. Scars crisscrossed the pale flesh of her back. “This isn’t God’s work.”

  Shane swore. The world often felt like a rotten place, so it was easy to forget that there had once been a time when things had been even worse. To whip a woman like Gina for daring to love a man… “I’m sorry that happened to you. I’m surprised you kept your faith.”

  “Why would I blame God for the actions of men? The Lord kept me safe and allowed me to escape to the mainland so that I could one day find real love. Hardships are necessary to appreciate the good things in our lives.” She grabbed the glittery cross on her breast. “For instance, I robbed this from the abbot’s secret stash before I did a midnight flit. Thing’s probably worth a fortune.”

  Shane cackled so loud he made himself flinch, but it was short-lived as his mind quickly returned to reality and moved away from thieving nuns and their illicit love affairs. “What if you have no good things in your life?”

  “Oh, Mr Mogg, you are a negative Nelly, aren’t you? You’re a talented, compassionate individual.”

  “Not sure compassionate is a word people would use to describe me.”

  “I contacted a dozen different people to help me, but you’re the only one who gave me the time of day.”

  “Because I wanted a story, not to help you.”

  “And yet here we are, trying to put a stop to this. You and Ed have run yourselves ragged today. It hasn’t all been about getting a story.”

  Shane shifted awkwardly in his seat, hands around his mug. “I’m worried about Ed. You think I should call her?”

  “Yes! In fact, I’m surprised you’ve waited this long.”

  He put a hand up. “Okay, okay, I’ll call her. Where’s my phone?” He found it in his pocket and pulled it out. When he pressed a button, it didn’t switch on.

  “Something wrong?” asked Gina. She’d picked up her sudoku book again and looked ready to start a new page.

  “Battery’s gone. I have a charger in my office. Will you…”

  She smiled. “I’ll keep an eye on you. Don’t worry.”

  Thanking her, he stood and left the conference room, shuddering as he crossed the floor outside. The office was dim, despite several lights being on, and it was getting increasingly cold. The heating was on a timer, and these were not business hours.

  When will Mandy return?

  Is she waiting for me to be alone again?

  He glanced back to see Gina watching him through the glass window beside the conference room door. She should be able to see him enter his office, but to be sure, he left his door open.

  His charger was plugged into a strip plug beneath his desk that was a pain to get at. He fitted the thin end to his phone and waited a minute for it to juice up, glancing constantly to make sure Gina could still see him. Once he got one per cent, he switched the phone on. It took thirty seconds, but eventually the operating system loaded and the screen started responding. He tapped his contacts and was about to scroll down to Ed, when the handset vibrated in his hand. A preview of a message slid down from the top of the screen.

  He tapped the preview and opened the message.

  Just had a massive barney with my landlord. Bastard turned up on my doorstep trying to change locks. I need to cool off, so I’m going to go to my parents in Bristol for a while. Not sure I’ll be coming back. Tell Bernard I’ll call him. Take care of yourself, Shane, and be careful. Ed x.

  Shane put a hand to his forehead and groaned. After ten years of knowing each other, and hundreds of stories together, how could she just take off with only a text message? “You can’t do this to me, Ed! We were working on this story together.”

  Well, there goes my one and only almost-friend. Guess I’m well and truly alone now.

  That’s what you get for trusting people.

  Shane slumped in his chair and waited for his phone to charge a little more.

  Shane called Ed three times in quick succession, but it went straight to voicemail each time. Frustrated, he left a message.

  “Hey, Ed. I don’t understand. How can you just be leaving? We were in the middle of something and you’re running out on me? Just ring me, okay? Something happened to me at the office. It was… bad. If you hadn’t slunk away you would’ve been here for it, so thanks for that. Call me when you get this. ASAP.”

  He stormed out of his office and rejoined Gina. “Think we need to call it a night. Ed isn’t coming back, and I’m not sure where we go from here.”

  She nodded. “I agree. It’s getting late.”

  When he checked his watch, it was exactly ten pm. “Yikes, is that the time? I should get you home. Where do you even live, by the way?”

  “Right here in Redlake. I took the bus to get here.”

  “Really? Out of all the people you reached out to, the one who asked to meet just so happened to be in the same town as you?”

  She grinned. “Almost like there’re invisible forces guiding us, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Or coincidences happen every day.”

  “Is Ed okay?” she asked. “You stormed in here like you’d had a tiff.”

  “I couldn’t get through to her. She sent me a message saying she’s going to go stay with her parents. Seems like her landlord kicked her out or something. I can’t believe how selfish she’s being, running out on me like this.”

 

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