Free Fear No Evil by Debbie Johnson

it does. Sorry – didn’t realise there was a dress code. Nice office, by the way. Pretty old, isn’t it? What was this building used for originally?’
    He gazed around, taking in the high ceilings, original coving, and the enormous picture window. Parquet flooring, dating back to the days when it was fashionable first time round; filing cabinets tucked away in an alcove that looked like it could originally have been home to a Roman bust or a priceless oil painting. Everything coated liberally with cobwebs to give it exactly the shabby chic air I was going for. Honest.

    ‘Oh, don’t start with that crap, we’ve got work to do,’ I said, bustling things around on my desk. I really didn’t want to have that conversation. When I arrived at the office that morning, I felt nervous, which in turn made me a bit pissed off.
    I’d opened the door, found my desk drawer sticking out, as usual. The pencils were out of the pot and scattered on the surface. The files all looked in place, but when I went in to the loo, the toilet brush was submerged in the toilet.
    ‘Okay, you fucker,’ I’d said, to the four walls and empty air and potential ghost, ‘stop messing me around. I am going to put my keys here, safely, next to the phone. And they are going to stay there Or Else – do you understand me?’
    I’d used my very best kick-ass voice, but couldn’t help feeling stupid. I wasn’t just talking to myself, I was shouting at myself. Things could go rapidly downhill from here. I’d be one of those people you avoid sitting next to on the bus, carrying a plastic bag full of documents and wearing my dinner.
    ‘All right, Little Miss Bossy,’ said Dan, apparently and annoyingly finding me amusing, ‘let’s do some work. Have you got the diary?’
    I pointed at a brown-paper wrapped package perched on the corner of the desk. It had come special delivery earlier that morning, but I’d been too busy to open it. Actually, that wasn’t strictly true. I felt a reluctance to open it, if I was honest. Something was throwing me slightly off balance – Dodgy Bobby’s tale of terror; Father Dan’s assertion that the world wasn’t quite what I thought it was; the fact that my bloody office appeared to be haunted. Every time I’d reached out to tear off the packaging, my fingers had snatched themselves away and got busy with something else. Like my hands and the diary were two magnets, repelling each other.

    I felt embarrassed and ashamed about my reaction. That diary was a crucial piece of evidence in a case I was working on. I should be desperate to read it, not finding excuses to avoid it. I also had the full police file on Joy, snaffled from Corky Corcoran, to get through – but somehow that, with its safe science and familiar terminology and photos of a battered and bleeding teenaged body, felt less daunting.
    Dan was staring at me, his ice blue eyes slightly narrowed.
    ‘Do you want me to open it?’ he asked. I nodded in return, and he picked the package up.
    ‘Don’t worry. You’re a lot more sensitive to this stuff than you want to admit. Do you feel edgy, like you don’t want to touch it?’
    ‘Don’t be stupid!’ I snapped, getting up to do some dusting. It urgently needed doing – that bookshelf was an absolute disgrace. I used my shirt sleeve to wipe the top of it over, buying myself a minute to Get A Fucking Grip. I took a deep breath, and went back to sit down. I pulled out the police file, reassuring in all its manila-foldered glory, and started from scratch. I was aware of Dan unwrapping the diary, and frowning as he flicked through the pages.
    We both worked silently, with me occasionally sneaking a peek at him as he read. His face didn’t give much away, but for all I knew, he wasn’t at the juicy bits yet. Maybe he was reading about Joy’s nights at the local wine bar or her trips to the cinema with cute boys from the medical school.
    I, on the other hand, was reading about how she was seen