Vampire Shift - By Tim O'Rourke Page 0,18

did you know what I had for my dinner, that I hadn’t washed my sweatshirt since my last haircut, and the fact that I haven’t had a female in my car for over six months? Sadly it’s been a lot longer than that, but how did you know?”

Looking out of the passenger window and into the dark, I smiled to myself and said, “You have ketchup and egg on your tie and some down the front of your trousers, which wasn’t there last night. When you lent me your sweatshirt earlier, I noticed that around the neck there were hair clippings – which tells me that you were wearing it the last time you went to the barber, and as the hairs are still there, you couldn’t have washed it. As for the car thing? There is an oily-black thumb print on the vanity mirror in your car, probably left by the mechanic who last serviced it. If you’d had a woman in there, she would’ve wiped it off so as to check her make-up from time to time. In the foot-well of your car, along with a load of other rubbish, I noticed a receipt from the garage where you last had your car serviced – which was dated six months ago.”

“Jesus, you don’t miss a trick do you?” he said. “I can see I’m going to have to be careful around you.”

Looking at him, I said, “Why? Have you got something to hide?”

Before he could reply, Luke was slowing the car. “Here we are,” he said.

Looking through the windscreen, I could just make out the tall steeple of a church set back from the road in the middle of a graveyard. Tall leafless trees wrenched back and forth in the wind, like dark twisted limbs. Just looking at the place gave me the creeps and gooseflesh covered my back and arms.

Grabbing my cap from the back seat, I climbed from the car and out into the driving rain and howling wind. The graveyard was surrounded by an ancient-looking stone wall. Luke led me around it, and he bent forward against the wind. Reaching an old weather-beaten gate set into the wall, Luke pushed it open and we made our way through the gravestones to the front of the church. The wind was bitterly cold, and the rain jabbed at my face like needle points.

Then without warning, someone stepped from the shadows of the church and said, “Rather inclement weather we’re having.”

Without being able to stop myself, I yelped at the sudden appearance of the figure.

“I’m sorry my child. I didn’t mean to scare you,” the man said. On his head, the stranger wore a wide-brimmed black hat, and rain ran from it in constant rivulets. His face was thin and gaunt-looking as if he were sucking in his cheeks. His eyes were bright and keen and they almost seemed to twinkle in the darkness. His lips were thin and twisted upwards in a grim looking smile. Beneath the upturned lapels of his long black coat, I noticed the white markings of his priest’s collar.

“Good evening, Father,” Luke said, with an awe-like respect.

“Good evening Constable Bishop. I’m so glad that you and…?” he looked at me and gave that grim smile again.

“Constable Hudson,” I said, over the roaring wind.

“Constable Hudson,” he said, and his eyes twinkled again as he looked me up and down. “Very good.”

“Sergeant Murphy said that you’d left a message – another grave had been disturbed?’”

Nodding his head and leading us towards the back of the graveyard, he said, “Yes, sadly so, constable. God rest the poor soul. Only fifteen-years-old was poor Kristy. It doesn’t seem more than a few weeks ago that I was baptising her as a baby.”

Leading us further away from the church and into the darkest corner of the graveyard, I pulled my torch from my belt and switched it on. Weaving the beam of light before me, I could see rows and rows of gravestones, stretching out in every direction. Some lent to one side, others looked smashed or broken. The inscriptions on some had either worn away or had been covered by moss.

“This way,” Father Taylor said, leading us towards a tall tree that twisted up into the night sky like a giant ogre. As we grew near, Luke switched on his torch, and with both our beams of light, I could see a mound of disturbed earth ahead of us. With my heart racing in my chest, and my