Free The Parliament of the Dead by T.A. Donnelly Page A

Arthur.
    “Sure,‘are,’whatever; who are you?”
    “You wouldn’t believe me.”
    “Try me,”insisted Iona. “You mean it would be harder to believe than the fact that I’m talking to a ghost?”
    “Alright,”sighed Arthur,“I was a highwayman.  I was…”
    “Don’t tell me!” Interrupted Iona,“You were‘Dick Turpin, knight of the bleedin’road!’”Iona impersonated Arthur’s passionate speech during his ghost walks when he would rhapsodise about the exploits of the highwayman.
    Arthur looked startled for a moment, then appeared to take a deep breath. “Well, to be fair young lady,”he replied with a deep sigh,“I was not quite all that I said I was.”
    Iona shot him a curious look,“You mean you lied about yourself?”
    “Well,”Arthur offered slowly,“let’s just say that the true story would not inspire my customers.”
    “So why are you telling me this?”
    Arthur tugged at his collar,“I feel I owe it to you.”
    “Owe it to me?”
    Arthur studied Iona, and once again she had the feeling that he was measuring her: weighing up her ability to hear what he was about to say. “I knew your great-great-great (I don’t know how may greats) grandfather.”
    “You mean Tom King?”
    “Yes.  It pains me to say it but Tom King was the original dandy highwayman.”
    “I thought that was you , the dashing Dick Turpin?”
    “Alright, I’ll tell you the whole story,”Arthur began,“I was born in 1706, the son of a farmer.  I was an apprentice to a butcher.  My stealing started as a joke, a bit of a lark.” He spoke with a melancholy expression. “I borrowed two oxen.”
    “Borrowed?”asked Iona.
    “Well I didn’t intend to keep them; I was playing a trick on Henry Oak, a farmer who sold my employer some rancid meat.  Well old Henry didn’t see the funny side,”Arthur continued,“and he got the Law onto me, so I went into hiding.”
    “What happened then?”
    “Well, with the Authorities after me I couldn’t make any kind of living, unless I made crime my profession.”
    “So you became a highwayman?”
    “Not quite,”Arthur looked embarrassed,“I rarely did any actual highway robberies, unless the travellers were elderly or female.”
    Iona tutted,“So much for a‘gentleman thief’or‘knight of the road.’”
    “I know, I know, but that is not the end of my shame.  I formed a gang with other undesirables.  The‘Essex Gang’they called us.”
    “The Essex Gang?” Iona butted in,“I guess you were operating in Cheshire then?”
    “Please don’t mock Iona.  I have not told anyone this story in two hundred and fifty years.”
    “OK, the Essex Gang, carry on...”
    “Well, we were all cowards, we attacked women because they had more jewellery and were less likely to carry weapons.”
    “Bloody-hell Arthur!” Iona paused. “Or should I say Dick?”
    “I prefer Arthur at the moment.”The old man said quietly before picking up his story again. “My career changed when I met your great-great-great and so  on... grandfather.”
    “Tom King!”cried Iona,“at last!”
    “Yes, he was everything I wanted to be.  A handsome, dashing and brave swashbuckler.”
    Iona grinned,“I can definitely see the family resemblance.”
    “Anyway, he would not take money from people who he felt needed it more, or from ladies he felt were too pretty.  (Of course I would nip back and rob them after Tom had gone!)”
    Despite her constant quips, Iona became increasingly horrified as Arthur’s story progressed. “You were a right nasty little git!”
    “You don't know the half of it.  I did terrible things.”
    “Why are you telling me all this?” Iona suddenly felt a flash of fear. “Arthur you’re talking like a villain in a movie who was telling the hero the whole story before trying to kill her with an overblown scheme involving laser-beams, radioactive sharks and a giant food-blender.”
    “I’m getting to the why,”Arthur looked uneasy,“but