Free Haunt Dead Wrong by Curtis Jobling Page B

a waste. This vehicle was a collector’s piece. With a bit of TLC the Bentley could be returned to its former
glory. What better project to bring father and son together again? In that moment I set my mind to the task. I’d have words with Dougie, sow the seed that this was something they could enjoy.
How could Mr Hancock resist? The old car would be the perfect catalyst for good. As the Bentley was brought back to life, so too would Mr Hancock return to his splendour. I could see it now. I
clapped my hands like a giddy schoolgirl fixing friends up on a date. I’d be their fairy godmother!
    I made a mental note of what needed doing. I was out of the door and inspecting the exterior bodywork, carrying out a ghostly MOT. It was mostly cosmetic, spit and polish needed here and there.
Beneath the dust, the car was in as fine a shape as ever. I lingered at the boot, blanching as I recalled the time Dougie had accidentally locked himself in there. We were nine years old and
playing hide and seek, my friend ducking into the Bentley in search of the perfect hiding place. It had been an hour until I found him, and I’d been unable to spring the lock. Mr Hancock had
been furious to discover his son trapped. That taught us two things that day. Firstly, never climb inside anything mechanical when playing hide and seek. Ever. Secondly, leave Mr Hancock’s
car alone. Always. Since then, the garage had been strictly off limits to Dougie.
    I drifted around the car, almost completing my circuit. I wondered if Dougie was out of the shower yet, how he would take to my suggestion of them working on the Bentley together. I was back
around the passenger’s side now, approaching the front wing. Perhaps we could take it for a spin again, hit the road once more. The car hadn’t left the garage in months. Thinking about
it for a moment, I couldn’t recall an occasion I’d seen it in daylight since I’d been a ghost. Not since I’d become a ghost.
    It hit me all at once, creeping up from nowhere, taking me by surprise. The crack in the windscreen was the first clue, but blissfully, perhaps willingly, ignored. My spirits had been soaring
seconds ago, but now a sickness washed over me in a tidal wave. As I looked down at the passenger’s wing of the Bentley, the world tilted. My vision was screwed, everything fractured, as if
viewed through a kaleidoscope. I tried to blink the confusion away, regain my balance, but it was hopeless. I stared at the car in horror.
    The Bentley’s bodywork was in fine shape, no doubt, all except that wing and the very front of the car. There was the crack in the glass, a jagged lightning bolt that tore through the
windscreen. A great dint had battered the bonnet out of shape, the sheet metal staved in. The panel around the wheel arch was bent and buckled, paint scuffed and peeling. I fell to my knees,
shuddering, refusing to make sense of the damning evidence before my eyes. If I could’ve vomited, I would have. If I wasn’t dead, I could’ve died all over again.
    Flakes of electric blue were caught within the Bentley’s black paint, shining like sparks in the darkness. The electric blue of my mountain bike; unmissable, unmistakable. I tried to
scramble away, but I was drawn to the car like a ghoul to a crash. I had no heart, no blood, no veins or arteries, yet my head thundered, great booms shaking my soul to its core. Beyond that storm,
the
Coronation Street
theme tune played, distant, drab and discordant. He was in there watching his television, drinking his booze, drowning his sorrows. He was in there.
    My friend’s father.
    My killer.

THIRTEEN
Cornettos and Conundrums
    I said nothing to Dougie. I mean, really; what
could
I possibly say?
    He met up with Lucy that night and, as ever, I drifted along in silence behind them. They went to the usual haunts, if you’ll pardon the pun – the playground, the canal, the old
school field – and I kept my distance, lost in my dark thoughts. I