Notorious by John Jones (novel books to read txt) 📕

1

Her cold, dead eyes stared up at the night sky, and the men who stood looking down at her stopped digging. They had found what they had sought. Detective Inspector Edward Stanton smiled a humourless smile. He had found the woman after five months of fruitless searching, of wild goose chases and roads to nowhere.

Here she was, decaying in a shallow grave, the method of murder as yet unknown, but murder he suspected it was. One of the men pointed a flashlight at her face, making it startlingly white. He could see marks around her neck, and he was confident that she had been strangled.

He walked to the edge of the path that led into Hale bank, South Liverpool and got into his vehicle. It was 11:04pm. A rough trail cut through sloping fields until it eventually wound its way to a Mersey River bank nature reserve. It was popular with joggers and bikers. Around ten metres from the path, beneath an overhanging oak tree, the woman’s body had been found.

With her husband being a suspect, now seemed like a good enough time as any to go and see him. He had been questioned many times while she had been missing, all the time protesting his innocence. As the house was only a ten minute drive away, he realised that his instant decision to confront the husband was taking a risk on his own. Yet, the man was not exactly Mr Universe, but he was capable, however, of strangling his wife. In the times Edward had seen him, not once had he been violent. In fact, if he was innocent, he would probably burst into tears, and that was something he could do without, being a shoulder to cry on and a tea-maker. It had to be done though, and he wanted to get it over with.

He pulled up outside the semi-detached, and saw that somebody was home. Everywhere was quiet, the moon behind wisps of cloud, a nearby street lamp casting the car in a muted orange. Edward left the vehicle and walked through the gate, up to the front door. He knocked quietly and stood back. After a few moments, the hall light came on and the door opened. The woman’s husband recognised who it was instantly.

“Detective, strange time to be calling,” said Peter Selden. Edward smiled that humourless smile again.

“We’ve found her,” he said. “She’s dead”. Peter closed his eyes, slowly breathed in through his nose, then took a few steps back. He collapsed to his knees, his face in his hands.

“Alright, alright, it was me. I killed her,” he said. Edward stared at him for a few moments. That was it, he thought. Case closed. He took from his pocket a mobile phone, and before he began the necessary procedures, there was one person he decided to call first. After a few rings, it went to an answering machine.

“Congratulations,” said Edward. “You’ve done it again”.

2

Curio Enchantment, real name Philip Harrison, played the message for the eleventh time, and it was still satisfying: ‘Congratulations, you’ve done it again’. That was all it said. He had a huge satisfied grin on his face, knowing exactly what it meant, further understanding the status and significance of his role when it came to locating missing persons.

His talent was increasingly being proven, and people knew it. This was another string to his bow, another success, another blow to the sceptics who would find it all amusing. Philip was 34 years old, and lived alone on the fifth floor of a block of flats in Widnes. He was lean, 6 foot 2 inches, mostly wore black pullovers and trousers, and had long, curly hair that reached his shoulders.

The flat was sparsely furnished when he had moved in. It had basically consisted of a table, a TV cabinet, a bed with a stained mattress, a two door alpine wardrobe, and an armchair. All were second hand, maybe fifth and sixth hand. He had bought a couple of items himself, such as a bedside cabinet, a desk and a coffee table, but not much else. He used to have a girlfriend, and had lived with her for seven years in her parent’s house. They had died of carbon monoxide poisoning in their beds, so it was left to her.

Yet, Philip’s increasing involvement with learning about supernatural activity had led him to believe that he had a ‘gift’. He had a mind like a radio. It could tune in to the spirit world. At least he thought it could. Soon his obsession had caused her to show him the door, and find a cheap flat in a threatened block. The council were always threatening to knock it down, but as is usually the case, not much ever happened at all.

It was all speculation, but Philip didn’t care. If he carried on like this, he thought, then he’d make enough money to move out of the pokey little abode and buy a proper house. At this rate, he would start making money soon, he was sure of it. That’s if his success rate kept up, which he was confident it would, because he knew his star was rising.

This was the fourth missing person he had located by psychic detection. When the police were running out of leads, they called him for help, and out of the six times they had called, four had been a success. He didn’t pinpoint exactly where they were, but it was usually within a fifty foot circumference.

The latest had been located within the area only by one of the officers spotting disturbed earth, thanks to Philip for his detective work for which his reward was the kudos and esteem it would bring. When called upon to help discover the whereabouts of a missing person, Philip would be picked up by Edward Stanton, as it had always been him who called, and driven to a secluded location where he could perform his work.

Edward would always provide a personal item from the missing person, borrowed from a concerned friend, or parent. Philip required as much silence as possible. He would grasp the item in both hands, raise them to his fore-head, close his eyes, and concentrate to see if he could pick up on traumatic brain-waves emanating from that person. If the person was alive, then no energy would be detected. If, however, the person was deceased, he could locate their whereabouts by the trauma that would still pulse like radio-waves from a distressed brain. The spirit may be gone, but there was still activity, especially if the person had recently passed away. Should they have been dead for a long time, then this energy would eventually fade, and he would not have been able to pick up on any waves.

He guessed that a traumatised brain could be active for up to eight months after a person had died. When Edward could find no indications as to their whereabouts, he would call Philip, as at that point he had reached the conclusion that the person was dead. He had always been correct. They had been murdered, and upon confrontation with the suspects, they had always confessed. Philip had picked up on the traumatised brainwaves, from which the personal item acted as a tuner to the correct frequency. He could trace it to its source, and give Edward an approximate location.

Many people had asked him for this technique which he had readily given, but he knew that it was difficult to achieve, so did not mind revealing his system. If it was easy, he had thought, then everybody would be doing it. He ‘knew’ he had a unique gift, and gladly told his method to anybody who inquired.

His successes had proven him to be talented in the eyes of the believers. Of course there were sceptics. On the few occasions when he had been invited onto radio shows as a guest, he would sometimes receive calls from the public, and while most of them believed, there was always somebody who thought it was ‘a load of garbage’. However, they always rang off with their tail between their legs when Philip asked them how did he do it then, when on all four of his successes, all of them murder, the killer had soon confessed afterwards. How did he know where the bodies were? Long silence. ‘Ah, loada garbage’, click. Cue a grin from Philip. There was nothing like the satisfaction of being proved right.

His kudos had now been raised even higher, and he was sure he would be invited onto more shows now, maybe even onto local regional television. He knew he would sleep well tonight, his dreams of fame now much more realistic. His dreams could possibly now come true. Fame, celebrity status. Imagine that, he thought. Your body and soul may be gone, but your name remains forever. He wondered how long it would be before the police rang again for his help in locating another missing person.

After his third success, he had been invited onto a late-night phone-in with a local DJ who had only been in the business for nine months, and brought local people in who had had a modicum of success to discuss their work and take questions from the public. Curio’s first interview had gone well, and he saw it as the first step in the path to fame. He gave out his contact details and stated that he is not only a specialist in finding missing persons, but can give readings and predict people’s future. It was basically anything supernatural, or anything that science had not proven. Philip always believed he had

some sort of talent when it came to the unexplained, the unexplained in scientific terms anyway, things that can be deemed paranormal or supernatural. He believed in it. He knew that not everything can be explained by science, and that evidence for the unknown cannot always be wrong. He never expressed doubt. There was no need for him to question.

If he could detect where missing bodies were then it would be highly likely he could tune his mind to the spirit world, a world which was parallel to ours, according to him.

We cannot see them, but they can see us. We have freewill in reality, so there was no reason to suggest that spirits do not, or that their personalities alter after passing over. Basically, they were and are invisible, and can spy on whoever they wish, because it is their choosing. However, they cannot interact with reality. To do that, they must attain a certain power from somewhere unknown within the spirit world, and thus become a poltergeist.

Philip was gullible without doubt. His reasoning behind a lot of what he had learned was taken from books, articles, and newsletters. He thought that because it was published, because it was in a shop, for sale, then what was between the covers must be true, must have some basis in fact, not realising that a lot of it was probably self-published by the author who just had to tell people he had crossed over and came back, had an out of body experience and spoke with his long dead relatives.

He believed newspapers, even the tabloids that were aimed at the less intelligent people in society. He was a believer who rarely questioned what he read, like a devout religious person who reads their holy book and does not question what is written. It must be true, and that is that. Deep down within the person, there was a conviction that it was true.

They could ‘feel’ that it was correct. They just ‘knew’. They didn’t need proof. Philip didn’t need scepticism. What was the point when he knew ghosts existed? When