Displeasure Island

by Alice Bell

Genres: Ghost; General Fiction; Mystery; Amateur Sleuth; Cozy Mystery

Synopsis

In the hilarious follow-up to Grave Expectations, Claire and the gang are back, getting their timbers shivered by a mystery involving feuding ghost pirates, buried treasure, and murder...

Claire Hendricks can see ghosts, but she can't see herself having a fun vacation. Yet when her new friends/found family, Basher and Alex, insist, Claire and her dead BFF, Sophie, pack themselves off to a remote Irish island. This tempest-tossed isle is indeed full of noises: not only is the hotel where the gang is staying double booked with a posh private party, the island's crumbling old fort is being fought over by rival ghost pirates. In death, as in life, they're vying over a legendary stash of loot, supposedly hidden somewhere on the island or in the surrounding rough seas...

...which, inevitably, are whipped up into a terrific storm, stranding everyone—living and dead—on the island. Claire is already fighting off anxious And Then There Were None vibes before one of the other guests turns up murdered. With Basher distracted by a handsome Irish seaman and Sophie stretching the limits of her tether to flirt with a dead pirate with dubious intentions, it's up to Claire to solve the mystery of three-hundred-year-old buried treasure and figure out who's picking off party guests—before the whole gang meets a grim, Agatha Christie-like fate.

Release date: September 3, 2024

Publisher: Vintage

Print pages: 320

Sample

1A Crime Scene

The exhaust fan whirred with gentle insistence. Claire peered into the bathroom from the doorway, leaning a bit awkwardly to avoid stepping over the threshold. It was a shocking sight. The bathroom was tiled in white over all four walls, the ceiling, and the floor. Claire had always hated the claustrophobic design: it made her feel like she was inside a giant tooth.

But today every shining white surface was spattered with red. There were small dots, smeary streaks, little bits of spray that looked like they came from an aerosol can. There were even long, elegant, looping lines that dripped down, like you’d see on the more lurid kind of police procedural show (which was obviously Claire’s favorite kind). There were red spots on the bottles of shampoo and conditioner, on the white shower curtain pulled halfway around the bath, and on the narrow mirror reflecting the scene back double. Everywhere you looked you saw more. The taps, the hand towel, the soap. Like noticing an ant on a paving slab, and, as you relax your eyes, suddenly becoming aware of dozens of them over the entire pavement. All the spatter in a bright, deep arterial red.

A body was lying half in and half out of the bath. Legs and a skinny bum in similarly skinny—and offensively lime green—jeans were hanging out over the side and partially splayed over the fluffy white bath mat, while the head, wedged against the bottom of the bath, and torso were slumped on the inside.

There was a rush of cool air as Sophie, Claire’s closest friend and constant companion for more than fifteen years, stepped past Claire and into the room. She whistled.

“I’m impressed,” she said. “This mess is, like, comprehensive. LOL.” Sophie pronounced it el-oh-el. She looked around the bathroom with interest, the action setting the chestnut curls of her hair dancing in their tight, high ponytail. She wore a turquoise velour tracksuit of the kind that was popular among teenage girls in the early-to-mid noughties, and the acid brightness of the color against the white walls, the green legs, and the red splatter made Claire wince. She’d finished off a bottle of white wine the night before, plowing on despite the fact that it had started to go a bit vinegary. It wasn’t really an ideal morning to confront…this.

“You need some of those little crime scene booties. Come and have a look, weirdo,” said Soph, beckoning her in.

Claire stepped gingerly around the sticky marks on the floor. It was a small room and there was barely enough space for them both to fit around the legs that cut across most of it. Claire looked into the tub and saw that the inside was almost completely red, turning rosy at the sides as it faded out against the white of the bath. A bottle of vodka was turned over next to a lifeless, pale pink hand.

Basher was still standing in the doorway. He had been a fairly seasoned police officer, a detective and everything, before quitting a couple of years ago. Now he held his hand over his mouth.

“It is…just…barbaric,” he murmured in his peculiarly deep, soft voice. “I cannot even conceive of how this happened. The white will never be properly white again.”

“Yes,” agreed Sophie. “It’s going to leave some stubborn stains, for sure.”

“Yeah, this tooth…has got some serious gum disease,” said Claire.

The other two stared

at her.

“Because…because the room is like…Er. Never mind.”

“Ohmigod. Every day I question the decision to let you out in public, weirdo,” said Sophie.

“Well. Um. Anyway,” said Claire. “Why did you call, Bash?”

“Because,” said Basher. He paused to sigh and rub his eyes in frustration. This was a habitual gesture, Claire had noted, as he spent much of his life frustrated in one way or another. “Because I tried a couple of times, but it seems I am not up to moving a dead weight by myself. Being completely honest, I found them slumped on the floor. They are only in the bath because I dropped them. You are the only person I could think of to call for help who would not be…”

“Judgey?” suggested Soph.

“Too sensible to say no?” said Claire.

“You have to admit that this is not the strangest thing that we have dealt with together,” Basher said. Claire noted that there were dark hollows under his gray eyes. He looked more tired than usual.

“Can’t we just leave them there?” she asked. She was not a fan of physical activity, and this sounded suspiciously like it would require a lot of effort. Plus, she didn’t want to get red on her clothes. She was wearing the first new jumper she’d bought in ages and it was a pale sage color that wouldn’t do well, given the circumstances.

“We cannot. Because that would be incredibly irresponsible. If you help me you can have a cup of tea and a custard cream.”

“Ugh. Two cups of tea and at least four custard creams.”

“One cup of tea and two chocolate digestives.”

“…Yeah, all right. But I’m taking the legs.”

“That seems fair.”

Claire and Basher maneuvered around one another, so he could grab the body in the bath under the armpits and she could hoist up the ankles. In this way they managed to roll the body over and out of the bath, and then carry it down the hall, where Basher nudged a door open with his foot to reveal a room that was possibly a bedroom and possibly an explosion at a charity shop.

They alley-ooped the body onto the heap of clothes that was covering the bed. The body rolled over onto its side and started snoring.

Basher, quite tenderly,

smoothed away the damp strings of newly red hair, revealing the pale, delicate features of Alex. Basher was Alex’s uncle, but had been in theoretical loco parentis since Alex had moved in with him in lieu of going to university. The position had been recently solidified, owing to the fact that almost all of the rest of their family, the Wellington-Forges, had been arrested on suspicion of murder about six months before. Basher and Alex had started going by the last name Forge to disassociate themselves from the whole thing, which was understandable.

Alex was only nineteen but had inherited the fine, high-cheeked bone structure that ran in their family, and the soft gray eyes their maternal great-grandmother had also given to Basher. Alex, who still had a bit of growing to do, was already cultivating the kind of good looks that could be described by modeling agents as “ethereal.” The good looks were only partially diminished by open-mouthed hangover drooling. Owing to Alex’s teenage propensity to get blackout drunk and dye their hair whatever color they wanted sometime around 3:00 a.m., they could also easily be pigeonholed as “alternative.”

Claire eyed Alex with a little concern. “Er. Do we need to put them in the recovery position or something?”

“I don’t think so,” said Basher. He leaned over and jabbed Alex in the side a couple of times. They made a noise that sounded like “geafucffzs” and rolled onto their other side. “I think it would be all right to leave them be. I will check on them later.”

“Okay. You owe me some biscuits.”

Basher raised his hands in a gesture of defeat, then stuffed them into the front pocket of his faded blue hoodie and sauntered off to the kitchen. Alex loved color and unusual combinations in their clothes, but Basher dressed to disappear into the background, all sun-faded hoodies and tattered jeans. Claire’s own vibe was, she self-assessed, sort of scene kid in ’06 trying to fit in at the office: badly maintained bottle-black hair with about two inches of roots at all times, old boots, skinny jeans ripped at the knees, but amorphous sensible jumpers on top. She had a lot of warm jumpers.

Claire followed Basher, after beckoning Sophie away from peering at the new odds and ends on Alex’s desk. Their room was like a tidal pool for general art stuff, with new things appearing and disappearing all the time—although they stuck most faithfully to embroidery and altering clothes.

The three currently conscious occupants of the flat waited for the kettle to subside, an ancient and, Claire suspected, demonically possessed machine, which spat and roared but which Basher insisted was very well made and would last for years yet if he descaled it regular

“Aw look,” said Sophie. She was watching Basher pour out two mugs of tea. “He’s using the one you got him. See, maybe he doesn’t actually think you’re the worst person in the world!”

Claire had found the mug in a charity shop. It said:

If It Be Thus to Dream, Still Let Me Sleep!!!

There was a picture of a mug of coffee underneath the quote. The little mug of coffee was smiling and blushing, and though it was clearly coffee, there was also a tea bag label hanging out of it. The label had a heart on it. The quote was from the character Sebastian, from Twelfth Night. Basher—whose actual first name was Sebastian also—loved Shakespeare, which was why Claire had bought it (and it was a very confusing mug, which was the other reason she had bought it).

“So. Er. How is the sale on the Cloisters going?” Claire asked, referring to what was technically Basher and Alex’s ancestral home, which had been left to Basher by his grandmother, skipping his parents. Because of the aforementioned murder issue, the Cloisters had become a crime scene, and Basher was not enjoying being the owner. He’d also found out that the family was property rich but cash poor, and was trying to reverse this.

“Not too terribly, I have to admit, although it was always going to take quite a long time,” said Basher. He pulled the sleeves of his hoodie down to cover most of his hands, and wrapped them around the mug. “I thought Mum might try and block a final sale, but I think they all have other things on their minds at present, so I’m clear to accept the hotel’s offer.”

“The lower one, is it?” said Claire. Basher nodded. Owing to the aforementioned crime scene status, the hotel that had initially offered to buy the estate had lowered their offer on the basis that murder goes in the column marked CONS rather than PROS. The back-and-forth had been all he’d talked about for weeks.

“So you’re having to decide whether to make a quick buck now and get it over with, or hold out for more in the long term,” summed up Sophie.

“Yes. I am a toddler with a marshmallow. I can eat it now, or wait around for the possibility of two marshmallows from someone else. But in this instance, it is a marshmallow that causes significant psychological distress the longer I go without eating it.”

“What does Alex say?” asked Claire.

“They just keep laughing and suggesting I ‘kick that sour-faced old git in the balls,’ the sour-faced old git in question being the representative of the hotel chain. I have explained that assaulting the other negotiating party is not the way to resolve a financial conflict. Or indeed any conflict.”

Claire wasn’t sure about this. She had always wondered why people didn’t do this 

more in movies or on TV. Many times in Murder Profile (her favorite TV show, in which a team of universally perky and quirky FBI agents tracked down wizened gnomes who committed weird murders, which they insisted weren’t about sex but were definitely quite a lot about sex) had an agent been locked in a life-and-death struggle with a perp over a gun. It always seemed to her that the situation would be very easily resolved by one party punching the other in the dick. Nobody cared about realism in cinema anymore.

“History is written by the victors, Basher,” she suggested. “Nobody need know you kicked him in the balls.”

“I fear it would easily be found out. And in any case, I would know. Either way, I am leaning toward taking the low offer, just to be done with it all.”

The only things Basher had rescued from the Cloisters were some Royal Doulton porcelain figurines, and a rose plant dug up from the garden. It now lived in a big pot in the corner of the living room, where it was constantly in bloom with large, preternaturally beautiful flowers.

Basher watched Claire stuff a biscuit into her mouth, sighed, and got a small plate out of a cupboard. He held it under her chin like she was a child, until eventually she rolled her eyes and took it.

Basher, much to his growing and often loudly stated chagrin, and despite the fact that Claire was a couple of years older than him, was sloping into the role of being their little group’s dad. He was just sort of naturally a middle-aged librarian: he was clean, read a lot of books, watched documentaries about art theft, had opinions about biscuits, went to great lengths to crowbar Shakespeare quotes into conversation in a way that made you want to drive a thin blade into his kidneys, and was basically a decent person. Thinking about it, there probably were a bunch of librarians who shaved their heads and dressed like nineties skaters with depression—and Basher took pills for that, from a weekly organizer Alex had made him. It was covered with diverse and lovingly sculpted penises made from polymer clay.

They went into the living room, where Basher put a coaster under Claire’s cup as she set it down. Sophie, already bored again, went to look out of the windows. They were almost floor to ceiling, and since every other flat on the street had similar ones, Sophie could easily gawp into other people’s front rooms.

“While you’re here anyway, Strange…” said Basher, watching with a slightly alarmed expression as Claire forced another digestive into her mouth like an anaconda swallowing a piglet. “There is

something else I have to ask you. Or possibly tell you.”

“Those are very different verbs,” said Claire with some difficulty.

“Yes, true.” Basher sighed. “Hmm. Where to start. So, as you know, Alex and I were left some money by our grandmother. No, wait. Let me back up further. As you are aware, almost all of mine and Alex’s family are out on bail pending a murder trial.”

“Yes.”

“Big LOLs,” added Sophie.

“You might not be aware that if pretrial is dragging on, you sometimes have to have repeat bail hearings every few months.”

“Right. And?”

“And the next bail hearing for most of them is coming up. And Alex has decided they don’t want to be anywhere near the proceedings, and that they need some time away.”

“Probably wise,” said Claire, nodding.

“Oooh, maybe he wants us to house-sit!” said Sophie.

“What? Why would he want us to house-sit?”

“Alex is nineteen years old and dealing with an ongoing, fraught emotional situation. Benders at home are fine, but I am not currently sanctioning remote benders with other nineteen-year-olds,” Basher went on, unperturbed.

“Really? I mean, Alex is technically an adult,” said Claire, aware that even if she did want to accidentally co-parent, she wouldn’t even know where to start.

“Yes, and you also just had to help me move them from my absolutely ruined bathroom and hoy them onto their bed,” replied Basher. His tone was very even. Maddeningly reasonable, in fact. “They have had weekends away before and will again. I just prefer to be with them right now. Which is where the compromise comes in.” Basher had spread his hands in supplication.

“Ohmigod,” said Sophie, who was beginning to grin. She had always been quicker on the uptake than Claire.

“So, er…What is the compromise?” Claire asked.

“The compromise is that, if Alex has to go on a trip with me, instead of four days in Greece with their friends, then they would like to invite you as well. On the basis that I am not fun, whereas you are much more fun.”

Basher looked embarrassed. Claire maintained eye contact until he looked away.

“Um. They didn’t say I was fun, did they?”

Basher sighed. “I confess that no, they did not.”

“No, they didn’t!” 

echoed Sophie, hopping from one foot to the other. She started to giggle.

“They said Sophie was fun, didn’t they?”

“Yes. Sorry.”

“People used to say that at school too,” said Sophie. She was outright laughing now.

“Ugh. Well I’m not saying yes,” Claire started to say.

“You bloody are! I’m bored off my tits!” shouted Sophie.

“Oh shut up,” Claire snapped back. “You don’t get a say.”

“Yeah technically, but you know I’ll make your life a misery if you don’t say yes.”

Basher watched Claire with one eyebrow raised, and waited patiently.

“Anyway,” she said, turning back to Basher, “I’m not saying yes, but where would we be going? I’m not up for day-long flights out of the country.” And also, she added to herself, could not afford one.

“How would you feel about hour-long flights out of the country?” asked Basher. “I assume you’ve heard of Ireland.”

Claire had. It was one of those countries that she said “oh, I’ve always wanted to go there!” about, but when it came down to it that was a lie because Ireland was right there, and the flights were so cheap and short that the plane barely had time to get in the air before it was time to land again, and yet she still hadn’t been.

Basher sorted through the mess of the coffee table, which was always a mixture of piles of books (which he was either reading, had just finished reading, or was thinking about reading, rotated in and out on an hourly to weekly basis) and small drifts of Alex-ephemera that had escaped from their room. Eventually he located a foldy-outy brochure. On the front was a glossy drone-shot of an island in a jewel-blue sea—a largely grassy place but with some trees near the bottom shoreline, and what looked like a flat, star-shaped castle in the middle. On top of this picture was printed SPIKE ISLAND WELLNESS RETREAT in a font that was sort of going for “modern” and sort of going for “rustic and/or Celtic,” and landing, as a result of this collision of influences, on “confused.” It seemed likely the graphic designer had given up on the brief after getting increasingly conflicting feedback from the client, because this was all the front of the leaflet said, though there was an inset photograph of what looked like some very small whitewashed terraced cottages. Claire flipped it open, in the spirit of inquiry. So the front had, she supposed, sort of worked.

Inside were photos of people laughing in a hot tub and people laughing while doing yoga at sunset and people laughing while standing in the doorway of one of the aforementioned cottages. Some more text further explained that Spike Island was a famous and very historical

prison-slash-fort, now home to a newly updated and refurbished wellness retreat.

“It is a small island, just off the coast,” said Basher. “The prison bit is a tourist attraction, and had an attached quaint village where the workers used to live with their families, which was falling into picturesque ruin. Whoever owns it sold some of those buildings, which have been refitted and rebranded as a lovely getaway, with many added relaxing activities and luxurious catering and so on.”

“Oh, cool,” said Claire, brightening up. She was currently living in a tiny flat near Brighton station that was incredibly cheap and had bills included, because it was a windowless basement underneath a newsagent and even during a housing crisis including bills was the only way the landlord could get anyone to live there. Everyone leaving the newsagent’s used her stairwell as a bin, so she had to walk through a drift of Twix wrappers and empty Fanta cans. A spa break didn’t sound the worst.

“Yes. Of course, we would be going in a couple of weeks, in the off season, when it is a small island hotel with most of the facilities shut down, for much cheaper.”

“Oh. Right,” said Claire, returning to normal luminosity. She folded out the last page in the leaflet. “An island with a dark history!” she read aloud.

“Yes, it is actually quite interesting. It has a storied past, because Cork harbor would be a very good way to invade Ireland, and Spike Island is right in the middle of it, making it an attractive strategic property. Hence: fort. Then it was a prison. Before all of that it was some species of monastery. I believe what has most interested Alex is a story that the Spanish Armada sailed all the way around Scotland and Ireland and lost a lot of ships along the way, and”—here he waved his hand vaguely—“there are rumors that maybe one was sunk near this island. Or possibly a pirate ship. Lost treasure, et cetera. They have been looking online.”

“Not sure I believe all of that,” murmured Claire, reading a story about how lamps were tied to donkeys’ arses to trick ships during storms. She squinted at a small map printed farther down the page. “I mean, I knew about the Armada but I’m not sure wherever this island is would be the right area at all for that. And most people doubt wreckers actually ever existed, anyway. There’s no contemporaneous evidence of people doing it. It’s a cool story, though.”

“I always forget you studied history,” said Basher. “Whatever the case, Alex thinks it sounds very exciting.”

“Oh right, I see,” said Soph. “I bet you a million pounds the island is still haunted by lads searching for their lost treasure, or whatever, and Alex wants us all to go on a treasure hunt without thinking that it would

in fact end in us sitting about getting rained on, on an island we can’t leave. I’m in. That sounds mega fun. Or at least, more fun than moping around Brighton with you.”

“There are apparently a lot of ghosts,” said Basher. “So perhaps one more can’t hurt?”

Claire sighed and looked at Sophie. She was standing in the sunlight beaming through the windows, so she was washed out and almost see-through—but still very clearly sticking her tongue out at Claire.

“Oh,” said Claire, “I think you’d be surprised.”

2Have Ghost, Will Travel

They took off from Gatwick at 9:25 a.m. on Tuesday morning and landed at Cork Airport a scant hour and a bit later, a short flight that was still long enough to demonstrate they were all very different fliers. Claire had only been on an airplane a couple of times in her life, and found the whole thing very exciting; Alex was the type of relaxed flier who would get to the gate a minute before it closed; and Basher was extremely nervous and sat bolt upright, fists clenched in his lap, for the entire flight. Similarly, Claire had a black-and-white checkerboard Vans rucksack, which Alex had got her as a present, and a scruffy holdall for anything that wouldn’t fit in the rucksack; Alex was lugging a suitcase with broken wheels and a zip held closed by safety pins, and which was so full it was seriously in danger of triggering an extra weight payment; while Bash had a compact, gray case that conformed exactly to flight regulations.

Sophie, of course, traveled very light, and had to sit in the aisle.

Claire was the only person who could see or hear Sophie, which was inconvenient, because it meant she had to relay everything Sophie said. Unless she decided she wanted to edit her, Claire spent a lot of time repeating Sophie so she could be involved in, for example, discussions of islands and buried treasure. Claire did not edit Sophie that often because each instance was followed by between twelve and thirty seconds of Sophie complaining about being edited, which tended to drag conversations out.

Historically, Sophie had been something of a barrier to Claire forming long-term relationships of any kind, but luckily Basher and Alex had actually caught a glimpse of Soph once. It had been during a storm and at night, though, and would have been very easy to put down to a trick of the light, so while Alex enthusiastically believed, Claire sometimes thought that Basher was humoring her when he talked to or about Soph.

Claire, however, was in no doubt that Sophie existed. She had been haunting Claire for a long time, ever since she’d disappeared when they were both seventeen, and then reappeared as a ghost only Claire could see, right in the middle of a candlelit vigil for…herself. Claire and Sophie were still the only two people who knew that she’d been murdered—well, three, including whoever had done it—but Sophie couldn’t remember any of what had happened to her. Neither of them particularly liked to think about the circumstances. (The murderer, if Claire’s favorite TV shows were any indication, probably did like to think about it, and kept Sophie’s head in a jar in the fridge, but she thought it would be in bad taste to mention this to Soph.)

Fortunately, or very unfortunately, depending on what mood Claire was in, Sophie’s return meant that Claire was suddenly able to see and hear all the ghosts hanging around everywhere. This meant she was able to become a medium. She was a mostly unpopular one, who didn’t have a slot on talk radio or a twenty-four-hour TV channel, because she was a bit too matter of fact about the whole thing and didn’t even have a crystal ball, but she did make enough to pay for rent, pasta, and cigarettes. Slightly more pasta than usual, now that Alex had persuaded Claire to move out of London and down to Brighton.

The downside, of course, was the actual seeing of ghosts. It was probably more accurate to say that Claire had to become a medium, because being able to see ghosts rendered her too weird and distracted to do

anything else.

Initially her new enforced psychic status had come with all the therapy and angst that you’d expect. When it had first started happening, Claire had told her parents, and they naturally assumed she was having some kind of grief-related breakdown. But now, after so many years, the seeing-ghosts thing was mostly very annoying. Claire found the majority of ghosts to be morose, but desperate to tell her why because they didn’t have many people to talk to; there are also more ghosts in general than people would be comfortable knowing about, so Claire was very good at avoiding eye contact. She had specific issues with Sophie just always being around, but these were different and complex and did not bear talking about. It is very hard to, for example, successfully close a date if a dead seventeen-year-old is watching you, let alone any furtive and even more private nocturnal activities. Sophie’s response would, no doubt, be that she never even got the chance, and wasn’t that a terrible thing for someone who was perpetually seventeen but also thirty-two?

Making and keeping friends was something of an unknown quantity to Claire. As soon as she said she was a medium, the people who tried to self-select into Claire’s life were quite intense. Many of them were people who claimed to be mediums as well, but the fact that they couldn’t see or hear Sophie when she was sticking the Vs up right in front of their faces meant Claire realized that they were actually liars. The people who tried to self-select out of Claire’s life assumed she was one, too.

But also, she just didn’t make great company. Claire was prone to: binge drinking cheap cider; binge drinking cheap spirits; binge watching the same police procedurals and true crime documentaries, repeatedly, in cycles; chain smoking; biting her nails; eating different kinds of instant noodles for all meals; not washing up her bowls of instant noodles; general antisocial hermitry; suppressing all intense emotion, be that negative or positive, and therefore coming across as completely detached; anxiety; and not changing her pillowcases often enough. She also talked to thin air and always had very cold hands.

Claire said that all these things and more were because of Sophie haunting her. ...