‘Urgh.’ Matt wiped the gluey strands out of his hair. ‘I’ve been slimed.’
‘Yup,’ the man nodded. ‘Right on the noggin.’
Matt smiled at the word ‘noggin’. It was impossible not to. He put the clean hand out to shake. ‘And you are?’
‘Name’s Bob Hodges. And this is my wife, Joyce.’
Joyce, who hadn’t spoken yet, took his hand and held it for longer than people normally do. She leant into him and Matt saw her nostrils, and the tiny white hairs in them, quiver. She was smelling him. She quietly gazed into his eyes for a full ten seconds. Long enough for Matt to make an awkward joke.
‘Please tell me there’s not a spider in my eye,’ he said.
She laughed, then put her other hand across the top of his so that both were wrapped around it. Her fingers were dry and crackled. A lizard’s skin, but very warm. She suddenly let the hands go and smiled. ‘Well, aren’t you interesting?’
And aren’t you kooky?
‘And do you smoke, Matt?’
‘Er …’ he shook his head, ‘… does a cigar at Christmas count?’
‘No,’ she looked at his chest. ‘I thought I could smell smoke on you.’
‘I reckon that’s the Earl Grey … or my cheap deodorant.’ Matt sniffed the air then took a seat, while Joyce wrinkled her nose and shook her head, frowning. ‘So, Bob … you were at the school earlier, making notes. May I ask why?’
‘I was just trying to get to the bottom of what happened to our client yesterday.’
‘Client?’ Matt took the cup Bob was handing over. ‘Do you mean Steph Ellis?’
‘I do. We’ve known her for nigh on fifteen years. Joyce and I used to be science teachers at her secondary school. We taught Steph and her friends way back around 2000 – you know …’ he did finger quotes, ‘in ye olden days.’
Joyce crossed her legs, and patted her skirt flat against her knee. ‘But she came to see us last week. And that time it was in our … current capacity.’ She also sounded Welsh, but not quite as broad as Bob.
‘Which is?’
Bob pursed his lips before speaking. ‘We’re demonologists, Matt.’
The words dangled in the air, swinging back and forth, and the couple just sat in the breezy silence, waiting to see how Matt would respond.
‘Ever met one of our kind before?’ Joyce said.
Matt pushed his lips forward, instantly thinking of Milo Simonetti, a young guy from Swindon who he’d debated at uni last year. Milo worked on the deli counter in Tesco by day, and drove out demons by night. Matt had given the kid every chance, and been super polite on stage, but Milo had made it so easy for the crowd to mock him. Shouting ‘Harry Potter is a Spiritual Terrorist!’ was perhaps his finest misfire, and Matt could still hear the giggles and hoots from the atheist crowd as Matt dismantled the kids worldview. A hundred students shouted ‘Expelliarmus!’ and ‘Wingardium Leviosa!’, as Milo slumped off stage, amid screeches of laughter. He’d felt like a bit of a dick after that, but was kind of vindicated when Milo got arrested the following month. He’d misdiagnosed a doctor’s receptionist as being possessed by the Egyptian demon Ammit. Naturally this freaked her out. So much so that she tried to jump off a viaduct, until a doctor called to confirm that her demonic episodes were just good old-fashioned epilepsy.
‘The demon business,’ Matt said, ‘is a very dangerous game.’
Bob nodded slowly, missing the point. ‘It most certainly is, but we’re fighting the good fight.’ He pumped the air with his fist.
Joyce leaned forward. ‘We study all elements of the paranormal. Not just demons. We do angels and spirits. Hauntings, possessions, psychic phenomena. I’m a medium myself.’
Oooo, the temptation to ask if Bob was an extra large.
‘And on the demon side … are you connected with the churches?’
She laughed at that. ‘Sadly most denominations tend to either ignore this stuff … or condemn it outright. We find that Christians prefer to avoid the supernatural.’
‘Which is ruddy ironic, if you ask us,’ Bob said.
‘I see.’ Matt looked down at his tea. ‘So is there a lot of call for demonologists around here?’
‘We’re getting more and more requests these days,’ he said. ‘You’d be amazed.’
All the while, Joyce was looking at Matt intently, or rather, she now seemed to be looking around him. Just over his shoulder. Just above his head. Eyeing up the silk spider strands that were probably waving in the breeze from his hair.
‘Now, I’m more the nuts and bolts end,’ Bob said. ‘I take readings and make notes. I record any activity. I log and chart it, because Matthew, I have to be honest with you … I’m a sucker for a spreadsheet.’
Joyce’s eyes finally flicked from around Matt, to Matt. ‘He’s been known to measure the cut of his sandwiches … with a ruler.’ She laughed gently through her fingers.
‘Whereas my better half here,’ he placed a palm softly on her shoulder, and squeezed, ‘she’s the engine. She’s the medium. She connects with the ether and sifts the good – the restless souls, the dead just wanting to get peace – and the bad. The negative spirits itching to screw everybody up. Light and dark, basically. That’s our business.’
‘And there’s a lot of dark out there,’ Joyce said. ‘Bob’s building a database on metaphysical hotspots in London. He’s working on a smartphone app. We’re thinking of calling it Spirit Advisor.’
‘Though we might still go for Spoogle,’ Bob’s eyes flashed. ‘You know … like it’s a spooky version of—’
Matt snorted a laugh right into his tea, and it splashed up his nostrils, because according to his students the word spoogle meant something much more racy. Ah, the beautiful English language. He spluttered out a quick apology, ‘I’m sorry.’ He wiped his lip with the back of his hand, still smiling.
