Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death by M B Vincent

Author:M B Vincent [Vincent, M.B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

Chapter 17

POOL PARTY

Still Thursday 26 May

‘This is where you want to talk?’

Jess saw the neglected pool through her visitor’s eyes. ‘It’ll be fun,’ she said, sombrely. She’d been sombre since she laid eyes on Max standing in front of the drawing room fireplace. Twenty years her senior. Smallish. Neat. Beginnings of a tum. Salt-and-pepper hair. So familiar, and so very unwelcome.

That was unfair; Max was a nice man. It was the mirror he held up to Jess’s behaviour that she didn’t like.

‘Fun,’ repeated Max, negotiating the metal ladder down into the cracked blue pool with his glass of wine.

At fifty-odd, Max couldn’t sit cross-legged like Jess. He lounged against the tiled wall. He gazed around as he might at an archaeological site. ‘You ought to use this pool.’

Okay, small talk first, thought Jess. She was happy to acquiesce. ‘I learnt to swim here. Stephen used to dunk me.’ She hid her face in her wine. The small talk had turned out to be not so small after all. The dream claimed her for a moment, and departed.

‘That’s what big brothers are for.’ Max savoured his wine. ‘Nice of James to have me stay for dinner. There aren’t many houses as comfortable as yours, Jess.’

Was that a reprimand? A suggestion that she count her blessings? ‘Max, look at this.’ Jess never went anywhere without the printed symbols in one of her numberless pockets. ‘First, do you agree with my translation of the Ogham?’ It would be a crime to have one of the country’s foremost minds on the subject in her home and not exploit him.

Max scanned the page. ‘Yup. “Eyes”.’ He looked up. ‘What’s this? Where’s it from?’

‘I’d like to tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. To do with a murder investigation.’

‘Not the Rustic Ripper?’

‘I’m helping the police. There are traces of mysticism to the killings. A hint of Hecate.’

Footfall along the covered path to the pool. Jess felt Max tense up; she did the same. It was only Moose, desperate to join them.

The dog slithered to the deep end, alongside his favourite woman.

‘Better keep Moose away from Hecate,’ laughed Max. ‘You know her track record with dogs.’

‘Only on Deiphon.’ Jess put the giant dog in a headlock. He loved that. ‘On the night of Deiphon, Moosey, Hecate asks a lot of her followers. They have to do all the little chores they’ve been putting off, and they have to leave a snack out for her. Not your kind of snack. She prefers garlic and raw eggs and stuff. It has to be left at a crossroads or she gets proper miffed. And then they invite a stray dog into the house. They all pat it and love and snuggle it, and then they slaughter it. Because, you see, they transferred all their sins to the dog and Hecate will forgive them if the sins are disposed of.’

‘She’s a hard woman.’

‘Hard but fair.’ Jess reconsidered. ‘Actually, hard but pretty unfair.’

‘About time for the matriarchy to reassert itself,’ said Max, looking up at the moon.

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