#belligerent crockery

[honourablejester]

Homebrew Magic Item: The Troublesome Teapot

A completely random sentient homebrew Magic Item inspired entirely by the belligerent sugar bowl from the Higitus Figitus scene in Sword in the Stone.

As you look around, you hear muffled cursing and the strange sound of rattling crockery. Your attention is drawn to a small wooden box, the sort used in fancy houses to store cruet sets and other tableware. The box is rattling quite violently. A piece of parchment has been glued crookedly to the ornate lid of the box. On this parchment, in scrawled, nearly illegible writing, is the following note:

“The Troublesome Teapot. Or, no. It’s not actually a teapot, it’s a sugar bowl. Just. Alliteration, you know? You give these sorts of things fancy names, don’t you? And sugar bowl or teapot, whatever else it might be, it’s troublesome. I may have, perhaps, had a slight incident with the Animate Objects spell and a surge of wild magic? That’s neither here nor there. The point is, the very foul-mouthed thing you can hear in this box is what I’m calling the Troublesome Teapot. Or the Troublesome Sugar Bowl, if you’ve absolutely got to be accurate about it. It’s … I’m sure there’s got to be someone it’ll get on with? Maybe that’s you! I mean, not at first, it doesn’t get on with anything at first, but you could be the person it warms up to? After a small, absolutely TINY bit of injury and mayhem. Miniscule. I’m sure you can handle it. Or someone can handle it. Just. Well. I didn’t want to destroy it? I mean, it’s an angry, hitty little thing that’s likely of no use to anyone, but …

Well. It just felt wrong. It’s hardly its fault my magic did what my magic always does. And look, if you do hold on to it and just … let it hit you for a bit, it will at least not hit you any more? And if you keep it with you, it sometimes does hit things that are mean to you. Although, most often, just whatever’s biggest around you. Which can be useful! Sometimes. On occasion.

Regardless. If you don’t want to chance it, please leave it alone? Don’t destroy it. There will eventually be someone who’ll be the companion it deserves. Or at least, that’s the hope I’m holding on to. There’s someone out there for everyone, right? Even horrible little sugar bowls who like to hit things. Well. That’s the hope, at least. And … thank you.”

THE TROUBLESOME TEAPOT (/SUGAR BOWL)

Wonderous Item (Construct), requires attunement

The Troublesome Teapot is a squat, rather ugly little blue ceramic sugar bowl, with four stubby legs, two stubby little handles/arms, a badly chipped lid, and a rather indestructible pewter teaspoon that it is violently attached to. You can attune to the Troublesome Teapot by successfully holding onto with both hands for 1 minute while it attempts to attack you. During this time the Teapot will make 10 attempted attacks on you (+8 to hit, dealing 1 bludgeoning damage on a hit). If you successfully endure all 10 without letting go of the Teapot, you have successfully attuned to it, and the Teapot will stay grumbling but acquiescent in its box until you summon it.

While attuned to the Troublesome Teapot, you can use a bonus action on your turn to summon it to your side. If initiative has not yet been rolled, the Teapot immediately makes a surprise attack on one target of its choice from among the creatures within 50ft of it, and will keep attacking that target if allowed to do so. If initiative has been rolled, roll initiative for the Teapot, and place it in the initiative order accordingly. You can use a bonus action to return the Teapot to its box at any time.

While the Teapot is active, it acts on its own turn and initiative. The Teapot does not obey your commands. Instead, it always moves to attack the strongest, most intimidating or otherwise most attractive target to fight in its vicinity. The Teapot is a tiny construct, with an AC of 18, 20 hit points, a Strength of 4 and a Dexterity of 18. It has a walking speed of 50ft.

On its turn, the Teapot can move up to its speed and use an action to make one melee attack on a creature with its spoon. It has a +8 to hit and deals 1d4 + your main ability modifier in bludgeoning damage. The Teapot can use a bonus action on its turn to take the Dash, Disengage or Dodge actions.

If the Teapot is reduced to 0 hit points, it becomes inert and must either be repaired using the mending cantrip or by spending an hour of downtime activity and 5gp to painstakingly glue it back together. After being repaired, the Teapot must be allowed a full long rest of 8 hours in its box before it can be summoned again.

Sentience. The Troublesome Teapot is a sentient, chaotic neutral construct with an Intelligence of 10, a Wisdom of 14 and a Charisma of 6. It speaks and understands Common, and has blindsense and hearing to a range of 50ft.

Personality. The Troublesome Teapot is incredibly belligerent, foul-mouthed, and inclined to insult anything and everything in its vicinity. If allowed freedom to act, it will invariably attack whatever creature in its vicinity looks like it would be the best in a fight, spouting insults the entire time. Once attuned, it will not attack the person it is attuned to, although it may continue to insult them. It is possible, although never yet successfully achieved, that the Troublesome Teapot may warm up to the person it is attuned to, to the point where it will accept commands or suggestions from them. Or at least settle for a warmer sort of insult.

(Optional) Waning Magic. The more often the Troublesome Teapot is damaged, the less it holds on to its magic. If the Teapot is reduced to 0 HP and repaired more than five times, it begins to get noticeably more listless and less lively. Its insults become more lackluster and less enthusiastic, and it begins to slow down in combat, reducing its movement speed to 30ft. After the eighth time it is destroyed and repaired, it can no long use bonus actions in combat. After the tenth time, it can no longer be summoned at all, and can only rattle sadly in its box. Once the Teapot has reached this stage, it has 2d20 days before it loses its magic entirely and ‘dies’/becomes nonmagical. The Teapot will be aware of and may understand what is happening to it. At the DMs discretion, it may be possible to stop and reverse this decline, perhaps by casting a spell such as Greater Restoration on the Troublesome Teapot, or by some other means, such as bringing the Teapot to a temple of a deity of craft, knowledge or arcana and asking for their intercession.

[fandonnavyce]

Ecto-Implosion 2024

Credit to @chaseacer-ghostedition for their amazing art.Fic below

The table broke the silence with a loud complaint. With heavy groans, the table cracked in two, and the collapsed ghostling began melting on top of the broken heap; a smashed table and its splattered breakfast. Dripping flesh, spilling like tipped soup, oozed and mixed with the food, making a runny mash and green milky mess stick and stain the mansion’s expensive carpet.  

Dan leapt back to get out of the splash zone as the ghostling struggled to get up in a puddle of their own ecto, the smushed food, and broken crockery. Feeling a little homicidal about the ruined meal, Dan fired up an ecto-blast - no need to go ghost to finish off a ghost that can barely keep itself together. Dan fully aimed to turn the intruder into a burnt smear.

“No, Stop!”

Vlad shouts as he forcibly moves in-between them to block Dan. Dan rears back in sheer surprise. His ecto-blast fizzles out and a pair of red eyes stare at Vlad in wide disbelief. Dan's utterly bewildered at Vlad's vehemence in stopping him. Dan felt his lips twist into snarl. His chest ached with defensive hurt at the implied reproval and rejection in Vlad’s actions of Dan’s actions. This hurt surged when Vlad, without further word or explanation, dismisses Dan and turns his back on him in favour of giving his attention to the ghostling instead. The ghost that had so rudely and messily intruded breakfast. 

Dan watched Vlad get on his knees and, whilst skirting the disgusting mess the ghostling had made, Vlad softly approached the intruder. But the moment Vlad opened his mouth to say something, he got punched in the face. 

“I know I deserve that. But -” Vlad gets scratched on the other cheek. The man takes a deep breath. “I” and Vlad catches the third blow in his hands - that final blow had been the weakest of the three. Dan sneers at the feral behaviour. 

“The fuck? Is it rabid?” Dan calls out derisively. 

“Language,” Vlad reprimands Dan.

“Who the fuck are you calling an it?!” The ghostling snarls, wriggling and wrenching their hand free from Vlad's grasp before unsteadily pulling itself onto its feet. Vlad easily lets the ghostling go, with no reprimand for its language Dan sulkily notes. And still Vlad, now standing, continues to give it his full attention. 

“Enough. I understand that I very much deserve your wrath, but I'd rather you not waste your energy when you're so clearly not well. Let me help you,” Vlad patiently offers. Dan crossed his arms and huffed, as he rolled his eyes. Dan could not see why, after being so violently rebuffed, Vlad even still bothered.

“Over my fully dead melted body will I accept your help Vlad,” the feral ghostling snarled, “I'm going to Danny.”

“Excuse me?!” Dan pulls a face, “are you talking to me?”

The ghostling pulls her attention away from Vlad and for the first time, it properly sees Dan face to face. At first their expression (what of their face that isn’t gooey and dripping) is one of shock. Then it morphs into outrage, flickers with disgust, as it settles into a sneer. The ghostling sends Vlad a venomous look.

“I see that you've finally got the son you've always wanted,” Daniel’s failed clone snarled up at him.  

Taking a deep breath, lashing out in anger would be the wrong thing to do, Vlad then chose to speak to the failed clone in a conciliatory tone. 

“Ok I know what it looks like but it's not what it looks like,” he tries to placate. It’s unsuccessful. The failure shoots Vlad a deadpan look. Vlad barely manages to suppress a flinch.

“So he’s not a clone of Danny?” 

Vlad grimaces at the pointed and justified accusation. From behind, Dante belligerently interjects.

“No I’m not. Now who the fuck are you?” he vulgarly asked.  Vlad deeply sighs. ‘Truly this is karma’, he thinks to himself.

“This is my daughter, Danielle.” The words lie heavy on his tongue as the meaning of what he just said slowly settles in his mind. The implications and the responsibility he had so easily forgotten and discarded smacks him full force in his face. This disaster of a clone was his daughter! And she was desperately hurt.

“I beg your fucking pardon,” Dante shouts at Vlad before turning to glare Danielle. He looks at her with extreme distaste.

Danielle meets Dante’s glare with a sharp sardonic smile, her lips ready to unleash barbed words in retaliation. 

Vlad quickly looks back and forth between his two children. He feels a rising panic at his loss of control of the situation and a sinking sense of alarm at their burgeoning hostility. 

“Oh no, did you think you were an only child?” Danielle asks with saccharine sweet venom. Her eyes glint with malice. “Nah Vlad’s made lots of us clones.” She cocks her head and faux-lightly asks, “I wonder how many failures lie between me and you?” 

Her words were initially directed at his son to hurt him, but Dani then switched targets. She aims her rage onto Vlad and stares him down. Vlad is bereft of speech, guilt and shame had seized his tongue. From behind, Vlad hears Dante sputter back an answer. 

“No, I mean yes, I mean shut up.” Rage and confusion has clearly deadened his son’s usual eloquence.

Dante moves out from behind Vlad and into his line of sight. He excludes Dani by pointedly turning his back on her, thus also entirely blocking Vlad’s view of Danielle. Dante locks in full direct eye contact with Vlad.  

“You have a daughter ?! Is that thing,” Dante blindly points, “supposed to be my sister?!” he whines with teenage entitlement. Blasely lounging on the floor behind Dante in a gooey puddle of her own ectoplasm, Danielle interrupts. 

“Don’t worry, Vlad’s not my father,” she reassures Dante in a relaxed tone between attempts to mop and squeegee her melting body back together. “I disowned him the day he left me to die because I wasn’t Danny’s perfect clone son,” she seethes.

Dante silently waits for Vlad to give his side of the story.

“Do I have a daughter? In a manner of speaking, yes.” Vlad tentatively admits. “After all, I am responsible for her creation. But as you can see our familial ties have been severed. That being said,” Vlad moves forward so that speak to his daughter over Dante’s shoulder, “Danielle please, will you let me help you? You are quite literally dissolving before my eyes.”

Danielle loudly scoffed, “You never cared before.”

“And I apologise for that. My previous behaviour, especially towards you, has been shameful.”

Danielle freezes and looks up at Vlad, truly gobsmacked. 

“Who even are you?” Danielle gasps. “Are you a clone?”

Vlad flinches. “No I’m not a clone,” he denies. He finds himself surprisingly hurt by her derisive disbelief. But it was understandable. Danielle, was the child that he had for a time raised like a daughter, and he had betrayed her. For the single act of not being a perfect copy of Daniel, he had not even wanted to save her. Why would she believe that he cared about her physical distress now when he had so callously proven that he had “never cared before”? Why wouldn’t she logically deduce that such an offer couldn’t possibly come from him? Now Danielle was staring up at him with utter revulsion. 

From the floor Dani stared up at Vlad, who had just apologised and then denied being a clone, and wished she was anywhere but here, doing anything but this. She wished at least she had Danny there with her whilst she was dissolving into a puddle of goo. Danny, even if he didn’t have any Ecto-Dejecto on him, would at least be more helpful and reassuring, than Vlad and his awful, moody, perfect clone son.

It had all gone so wrong, so quickly. One minute she was fine, the next she realised she was feeling really faint. By the time she realised it was because she was destabilising again it was already a race against time and she was losing. Badly. Being in a whole different state, flying took energy she couldn’t afford to lose but, if she was somehow going to make it to Danny, not flying would take time she couldn’t afford to waste. It had been exhausting. Both mentally and physically taxing to balance out her limited time of existence against her remaining distance and stamina. But she had almost made it. She had made it to Amity Park. All she had left to do was to find Danny. Or at least one of his friends, or even Valerie, or Danny’s sister Jazz. They hadn’t met before but she was still an option, a better option. But no. Instead when her powers guttered, and glitched, and she was free-falling to Earth, unable to restart her powers and go ghost, it was Vlad’s fucking mansion she fell through the roof of. This was a nightmare. She needed to leave. But her powers were out of reach, and her body was struggling to remain solid. 

Meanwhile that manipulative, heartless, piece of shit was pretending that he wanted to help her. As if she couldn’t see Danny’s shitty perfect clone standing angrily right there in front of her. Therefore Vlad was, evidently , still on his bullshit. So no, she wasn’t going to believe his nice words and promises, never again. She wasn’t going to be tricked, or used, or manipulated to somehow hurt Danny. Even if Vlad finally got his perfect clone son, there was no way he was done being a total bastard.         

“I only wish to redeem myself,” Vlad lies. He looks so apologetic and honest and genuine. Dani wants to scream in his face. It couldn’t be real . This was all lies. Vlad was just, once again , lying and trying to trick and manipulate her. Just like he had done to her, just like he had done to Valerie. 

Dani flings herself forward, heat seething beneath her skin, as she fires up an ecto-blast. Her fist is raised but before can she fires a shot, goo squelches between her clenched fingers.

Like a deflated balloon, Dani lets her anger go - her anger is causing her to destabilise faster. Defeated by her own body, Dani miserably watches her arm turns to liquid. She calmly pats her flesh back into shape like it’s soft clay. When she is done she’s surprised to find Vlad staring silently at her with a concerned and worried look on his face.

She asks squint-eyed, “Are you Ok? Are you like possessed? Have you been brainwashed, or like are you under magical influence or?”

“I'm sincere.”

“Sounds fake.”

“Why?!” 

Dani drags her judgemental gaze over to look side-long at the other clone in the room. She silently lets that make her argument for her. Vlad had the good grace to at least look sheepish.  

Dani looks Sad Vlad up and down. She internally groans at what she is considering doing. She looks Sad Vlad up and down again. Dani gustily sighs.

“Ok Vlad, if this isn't a trick AND you're not brainwashed AND you do want to help me then take me to Danny” demanded Dani. Vlad agrees suspiciously quickly. “I'm also going to need a bucket,” Dani orders. From her shoulder, a blob of flesh drips and stains Vlad’s expensive carpet.

Danny’s shitty perfect clone pulls a face, “Ew.”

The End

[agapaic]

tianshan drabble. 💞 on behalf of an anonymous donation to the BLMUK organisation, this was created (with permission) for Eylül @eed752. if you would like to donate to an organisation supporting black lives in return for a drabble, please see here for more information. 🌸

tags: chef!guan shan, media exec! he tian, reality TV. tw: non-consensual kissing

///

‘I don’t need your fuckin’ help,’ Guan Shan says, teeth gritted. ‘I didn’t ask for it.’

On the other side of the resaurant’s foyer, Zhengxi lowers the camera. He’s familiar with Guan Shan’s belligerence, and he knows when to stop rolling without waiting for anyone’s call. He turns to He Tian, who’s already making his way over to Guan Shan while he rolls up the cuffs on his shirt sleeves. His smile is tight.

‘Do you want to say that off camera, hm?’ he says quietly, when he’s only a few feet away. There’s something sharp beneath his words that makes Guan Shan’s spine straighten. ‘Stop being a prima donna because you don’t want to follow my suggestions. You and I both know you couldn’t do this without the show.’

Guan Shan looks away. This. His father’s old restaurant had been an empty husk until he bought it, the inside like walking into a warzone. There was graffitti on the walls, smashed crockery covering the floor, burst pipes in the bathrooms and kitchen, some scene from an apocalypse movie. 

The PAP had done nothing with it since they seized the property fifteen years ago; when it came to auction, Guan Shan bought it without thinking, emptying the savings he’d been stockpiling from his job as a waiter. He’d planned to give half to his mom and pay off her mortgage.

He doesn’t have the money to rennovate now, or to repair. He barely has the strength not to revisit the memory of the raid each time he walks through the restaurant doors, bile burning his throat, nausea rolling through him as if he’s at sea. Sometimes, it feels like it, the earth unsteady beneath his feet, his surroundings beginning to spin, a high-pitched ringing starting to keen in his ears—

‘Hey,’ He Tian says, brows drawn in. ‘Hey, did you hear me?’

Guan Shan mumbles something, and his expression must throw He Tian enough because he calls out for a break in the shooting. The crew lower their cameras and mic booms—Take five! someone shouts—and a caterers rolls out a trolley with cans of soft drinks and snacks. 

Guan Shan doesn’t go to it; nor does he collapse into the fold-up chair that has his name printed across the back. Instead, He Tian grips him by the elbow and steers him, not ungently, out of the main restaurant and towards the kitchen.

It’s a building site still, most everything covered in sheets of plastic and a dusty layer of concrete residue. They’ll start filming this part of the show in a couple of weeks, and use a demo kitchen for now while they work on the recipes for the menu. It’s the nature of the show—Overhaul, it’s called, building someone’s business quite literally from the ground up. 

You couldn’t do this without the show, He Tian had said. He’s right. Guan Shan couldn’t have afforded anything on the scale that He Tian is giving him. That’s the whole point of this fucking venture. The furniture, the esteemed clientelle, a Shanghai-based HR agency to find the staff. Some chef from SHIC will help him with the menu, and his contract promises the review of a Black Pearl critic who will visit a year after opening. The restaurant will be a success, by default of He Tian’s purview. He’ll allow nothing else to damage his name.

When the kitchen doors swing to a close behind them, He Tian releases Guan Shan and leans against an old counter with his arms folded. He’s frowning. In here, with the dust and the absence of windows, Guan Shan finds it difficult to breathe. He rubs at his chest, easing a pressure that refuses to dissipate. He’s trying to imagine himself running this place one day, cooking in here, where his father used to—and he fails. 

‘You asked for my help,’ says He Tian, slowly. ‘You went to Jian Yi, who came to me. You signed the contract. You agreed to this.’

‘I know what I fuckin’ agreed to,’ Guan Shan mutters.

He Tian is unimpressed, and Guan Shan realises he hasn’t brought him away from the eyes of the crew because he pities him. He’s just making an attempt not to air any dirty laundry. He’s being professional. 

He says, ‘Then you can stop with the chip on your shoulder and stop being a bitch to the rest of the crew. They’re not your enemy. Neither am I.’

‘I’m not—’

‘If you want sympathy, then play it up. Start crying. I don’t give a damn—the audience will love it.’ He Tian stares at him flatly. ‘Maybe at the end we can have a father-son reunion—’

‘Don’t you fuckin’ dare,’ Guan Shan growls. The thought sickens him. Already, he knows that his father might see this in the papers, or have access to the show on the prison’s communal TV’s. Guan Shan hasn’t told him. He hasn’t visited in over a year. By the time the show airs, He Tian’s name will be emblazoned in lights; it wasn’t written in the contract, but the restaurant will become He Tian’s has much as it has ever belonged to the Mos. 

‘You’re in the entertainment business, Mo Guan Shan,’ He Tian reminds him coldly. ‘You should take what you can get and don’t stop.’

‘Is that what you’ve done?’ Guan Shan sneers.

‘Isn’t it obvious? Look at me.’

Guan Shan is looking. He’s spent two months looking, and he could spend even longer doing so, if only for the fact that he doesn’t want to. His preocuppation with the looks of a pretentious media executive worth millions is really fucking unfortunate. He hates himself for it. 

Granted, sometimes things are good. Sometimes they joke with each other and have moments off-camera that make Guan Shan’s spine tingle. Sometimes he thinks He Tian’s hand touches him when it shouldn’t, and sometimes Guan Shan’s eyes linger longer when they shouldn’t, too. There have been no sordid, insidious rumours staining He Tian’s name as with other media execs in the industry, but that means nothing. He Tian has the money and charm to keep it quiet. Probably, He Tian plays this game with all his entreupeneurs. Probably, Guan Shan is being fucking stupid. He hates himself for that, too.

‘I don’t wanna be like you,’ Guan Shan tells him eventually. ‘You look at people like they’re ratings.’

‘Spare me,’ He Tian remarks dryly. ‘If you had enough of a moral backbone you wouldn’t be using me at all for this. You would’ve worked and worked until you had what it took to make this place work.’ He smiles, almost tenderly. ‘And even then it wouldn’t be enough.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘No, fuck you, Mo Guan Shan. You’re going to be whatever the camera makes tries to make you.’

‘You mean what you make—’

‘Shut up. Do you want to be the arrogant, angry chef with an overruling passion for food? The kid from a broken home with too-high dreams of running a business? Is this all some grand venture to repair your paternal relationship? Or maybe something else entirely. You have the opportunity of a life time. If I were you, I’d think about taking it.’

Guan Shan opens his mouth to argue, and He Tian swears—in frustration, in anger, in bemused disbelief that Guan Shan still won’t back down from the fight when he knows he’s lost. The outcome was pre-determined, and Guan Shan’s still wincing at new bruises and spitting blood onto the tarpaulin of the derelict kitchen. 

He can only stare as He Tian marches forward, and he only thinks to take a step back when He Tian is a few feet from him— In front of him now—  Grabbing his shoulders with two hands—

He Tian’s kissing him. 

He Tian doesn’t wait for Guan Shan’s too-slow reaction. He takes what he wants, pillaging the intimacy, tongue forcing itself between Guan Shan’s lips—and lets him go. Immediately after, He Tian staggers back slightly, narrowly avoiding the fist that swings in his direction. 

Guan Shan heaves. He doesn’t have the energy to try a second time. ‘You—’

‘There,’ He Tian says thickly. ‘File for harrassment. Put my name down in the mud and rebuild yourself from the ashes.’

‘You fuckin’... You...’ Words fail him. His head is reeling.

He Tian lifts his hand as if to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand, but his fingertips linger on his lips. His face is slightly flushed. 

‘I’m giving you power over me.’ 

He says it like an apology.

‘I’d never win,’ Guan Shan chokes out. ‘Me against you in court? I’m nothin’.’

‘I’d agree with your story. If nothing else, I’ll pay out a settlement fee and you can do this whole thing yourself.’

Guan Shan shakes his head. His mouth feels bruised. The worst part is that he’d imagined this before. Different. Better. He’d wanted it. No, the worst part is that he wants it still.

‘Still dirty money,’ he whispers.

‘It doesn’t have to be,’ says He Tian. Guan Shan realises he sounds a little shocked—as if he hadn’t had control over his actions. As if he hadn’t expected its consequences. Guan Shan realises: He Tian hadn’t done this with the others. ‘Make your choice, Mo Guan Shan. You can quit, you can file a claim���or we can carry on and get this thing finished.’

‘Shit,’ Guan Shan breathes, dragging a shaking hand over his face. ‘How the fuck am I gonna just... carry on after you...’

He looks to He Tian, expecting some cool answer, something stemmed from exploitative experience, but He Tian only grimaces and says, ‘The same way I’ll have to.’

///

🌸 in the footsteps of @nightfayre’s wonderful initiative, i’m filling any drabble requests following a donation to causes in support of black lives. please read here if you would like more information! ✨

[thebaconsandwichofregret]

Whispers Under Ground - The Domestic

It has been brought to my attention (by the lovely @sixth-light​) that I am the only member of the tiny fandom in possession of a copy of Whispers Under Ground with the Waterstones’ short story The Domestic. And since this is probably my favourite of all the ROL shorts I think it’s a crying shame that the rest of the tiny fandom hasn’t read it. so here, for your reading pleasure:

The Domestic by Ben Aaronovitch

The tricky thing about architectural fashion is that it’s never as demarcated as the textbooks make out. The terrace mid-way up Prince of Wales Road was doing its best to pretend it was Regency, but the sash windows, slapdash stucco and half basement all said mid-Victorian at the earliest. I gave it the once over. The paint was grubby rather than dirty and the iron railings had been maintained free of rust. First wave right-to-buy property owner, I thought, from back in the days when Camden Council still had terrace flat conversions on its books.

My domestic lived down a flight of external stairs, in the basement flat. The front door was trapped in an alcove under the steps to what would have originally been the main entrance before the house was sub-divided - the better for the unspeakably common tradesman to come and go as unobtrusively as possible. The doorbell chimed when I pressed it and habit made me step out if the confined alcove while I waited for it to open. It’s always good to have some space to manoeuvre when the door opens - just in case.

When it did open, a little old white woman stuck her head round the doorjamb and peered at me suspiciously.

“Yes,” she said. “Can I help you?”

“Mrs Eugenia Fellaman?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“My name’s Peter Grant. I’m a police officer and I wondered if I might come in and have a quick word.” I showed her my warrant card - she wasn’t impressed.

“I’ve already spoken to the other one,” she said.

“Yes Ma’am, I know,” I said. The ‘other one’ being Sergreant Bill Crosslake who had called me in.

“He asked me to talk to you. He thought I might be able to help.”

She stepped out of her front door the better to chase me back up to street level.

“Well he thought wrong,” she said, and as she came into the daylight I saw the faded purple of a bruise on her left cheek.

“Can I ask how you got that bruise?”

I watched as she carefully didn’t lift her hand to her face.

“I walked into the door didn’t I?” she said. “You get like that when you’re a bit older.”

“We both know that’s not true,” I said.

She folded her arms. She was wearing a green woollen loose-knit jumper, clean but with frayed cuffs. Her hair was grey, thinning and gathered back into a pony tail. There was a pair of red framed reading glasses hung around her neck on a black beaded cord. She had grey eyes and a good line in belligerent defiance.

“It was them upstairs that called you in,” she said. “Wasn’t it?”

Actually it had been the couple upstairs, but also the Romanian students next door and a member of the public who’d happened to be walking his dog outside. All had dialled 999 within five minutes of each other, which had prompted an India-Grade response from the area car, which arrived within three minutes. When the responding officers talked their way inside the flat, they found Mrs Fellaman and definite signs of a struggle, but no trace of another person or persons on the premises.

Mrs Fellaman claimed that she was completely alone and that she’d merely fallen against the chair, which had broken, causing her to reach out in an involuntary fashion and pull down a row of ceramic elephants and an antique ormolu clock.

Violent crime, like charity, begins at home. Twenty percent of all murders occur in the home and forty percent of all female murder victims are killed by their partner. Which is why the responding officers gently, but firmly, insisted on searching the flat. They found nobody, and Mrs Fellaman, with a certain amount of satisfaction, sent them on their way.

“We’re concerned about your safety,” I said.

“That’s nice,” she said. “But it’s my patience you should be worried about. That other one, the big one, has been round here two times already and he never found nothing either.”

The Camden response team had passed the details onto the local neighbourhood safety team which was headed by Sergeant Crosslake. He’d talked to the neighbours and confirmed their stories, made a follow up visit to Mrs Fellaman, found nothing, and in frustration sat outside, in his own car, on his own time, the next evening until he heard the argument for himself.

“There was proper rowing,” he’d told me. “And there were definitely two voices.”

But again, when he’d talked himself inside, there was just Mrs Fellaman entirely on her own.

“And there was something else,” Crosslake had said. “There was something off about the flat.”

“Third time lucky,” I told Mrs Fellaman.

“With all this crime around,” she said, “I don’t know why you bother.”

Because when we’re not ticking boxes and achieving performance targets, we actually try to prevent the occasional crime. Not to mention ‘Granny beaten to death after police visit three times - shocker!’ is not the sort of headline you want hanging over your conscience, let alone your career.

“It’s no bother,” I said.

“It is to me,” she said. “And I’m sick and tired of it. Have you got a warrant?”

I admitted that I had not.

“Then you can piss off,” she said, and locked herself back inside.

Crosslake had said there was something off about the flat.

“Your kind of weird bollocks,” he’d told me. “That’s why I called you in.”

Crosslake was career uniform and had been doing neighbourhood policing since back in the days when it was just called ‘policing’. He didn’t have ‘instincts’, he had thirty years of experience - which was much more reliable.

There was no way I was going to get a warrant because part of the Folly’s arrangement with the rest of the criminal justice system is that we don’t bother them with the weird shit and in return they occasionally look the other way when the weird shit happens. But if I was going to barge into Mrs Fellaman’s flat then I’d better make sure that there was actually some weird shit going on so that they could ignore it.

This was a job for Toby the Wonder Dog.

*

I don’t know whether it was because he was exposed to magic during the Punchinello case or whether all dogs, particularly small yappy ones, have an instinct for the uncanny, but I’ve always found Toby a pretty reliable magic detector. I’ve actually done controlled laboratory experiments that indicate he can detect magical activity up to ten metres away, although false positives can be generated by cats, other dogs and the remote possibility of a sausage.

That’s why I fed him a sausage before we started the stakeout, although that did mean I had to keep the car window open. I parked outside the flat at seven in the evening and settled in. Toby curled up on the passenger seat with his feet twitching, intermittently nudging me in the thigh, and presumably dreaming of squirrels, while I cracked open Juvenal and laboured through the last part of Book III: Flattering Your Patron Is Hard Work. It had been my set text for months and had led me to think of the Romans as a bunch of Bernard Manning wannabes with an empire. At nine fifteen Toby woke up with a start and stared about suspiciously - I put down my Latin homework. Was it going to be police work or sausage?

Toby’s head stopped swinging with his nose pointed directly at Mrs Fellaman’s flat and he started to bark, the proper watchdog bark which was what got those original wolves invited to share the fire in the first place. Not a sausage then.

I left Toby in the car and slipped down the iron stairs to the basement. I stopped at the door and listened. A raised voice, definitely Mrs Fellaman’s although I couldn’t make out the words. Then a response, younger, deeper, male. Then a crash of breaking crockery.

I banged on the door and called Mrs Fellaman’s name.

“It’s the police,” I shouted. “Open up.”

It went silent inside.

“You might as well let me in, Mrs Fellaman,” I called. “I know you’ve got a ghost in there.”

Toby stopped barking. The door opened.

“What do you know about it?” asked Mrs Fellaman.

“I have reason to believe that you are consorting with a spirit in contravention of the Act against Conjuration, Witchcraft and Dealing with Evil and Wicked Spirits 1604,” I said. The Witchcraft Act had actually been superseded in 1736 but I find quoting it helps break the ice on the doorstep.

“No I ain’t,” said Mrs Fellaman. “And in any case he ain’t wicked, he’s my husband.”

I waited until she’d figured out what she’d just said.

“Bugger,” she said, and sighed. “You;d better come in.”

I followed her into a mean little corridor which opened into a mean little living room/kitchen combination. She’d done her best, but the whole terrace had been built cheaply, and the basement had been where the Victorians had stuck the kitchen, the servants and the coal bunker. Nothing could disguise the low ceiling and permanently moist walls. I doubted it got a lot of sunshine either.

“I’d offer you a cup of tea,” said Mrs Fellaman. “But I don’t think I’ve got any cups left.”

There was a scatter of broken pottery spread across the floor.

I suggested that we sit down at the kitchen table, but she insisted that she wanted to sweep up first. I sat down and let her bustle about - I wanted her relaxed and talkative. From under the sink she produced a white enamel camping mug and the kind of plastic cup that comes as the top bit of a thermos. So she made tea after all and, even better, offered me a custard cream. It’s hard for even the most hardened criminal to maintain a belligerent tone with someone who’s eating a custard cream biscuit. Although I suppose a chocolate digestive might do in a pinch.

Once she had a cup of tea in her own hand I asked whether she was sure the ghost was her husband.

“Of course I am,” she said. “I knew him as soon as he appeared.”

“And when did he appear?” I asked.

“About three months ago,” she told me vaguely, but I pinned her down to a specific date and made a note. You never know when precise information will come in handy.

“So the ghost of your husband appears,” I said. “And you decide to have an argument with him.”

“I didn’t decide,” she said. “We always used to fight, you know, some people you just row with - I suppose that him being passed on couldn’t change that.”

“Did he hit you?”

“Don’t be stupid. How could he hit me?” asked Mrs Fellaman. “He’s a ghost.”

“So how did you get the bruise then?”

“I was a clot and ran into the wall,” she said.

“How did you manage to do that?”

Mrs Fellaman looked sheepish. “I forgot he was a ghost and he made me so angry -” She made punching motions with her right hand. “I ran right through him. Hit the wall, fell over. You know how it is, you grab the nearest thing and that was the cupboard, and that fell over and the next thing I know I’ve got the Old Bill knocking on my door.”

“And what happened tonight,” I pointed at the smashed cups with my pen.

“I was throwing them at him,” said Mrs Fellaman. “Well he makes me so cross, he always did. It was his fault, he was always so stubborn.” She gave me a defiant look.

I decided to see if we could have a word with ‘Mr Fellaman’.

“What was your husband’s name Mrs Fellaman?” I asked even though I already knew.

“His name was Victor,” she said. “His parents were a bit la-di-dah.”

“Can you summon him for me?”

“You’re joking,” she said. “He comes and goes when he wants - always did.”

I knew how to get a ghost’s attention, although I’d been hoping to get through the case without doing anything too overt. Still, Mrs Fellaman had been consorting with a ghost for at least three months so I doubted I could shock her any further.

I conjured a werelight and stuck it to the centre of the kitchen table.

Mrs Fellaman’s were round. “What’s that?” she asked.

“Ghost-nip,” I said. “This should bring your husband out.”

Normally when you feed a ghost they drain the magic quite gently and the werelight dims slowly, but this time the ball of light darkened to a dim crimson almost instantly. I looked around quickly and found the ghost, standing by the side wall staring at me in apparent amazement.

He was young, early twenties, wearing a rather nice suit and a slim shirt with a button down collar. In the 1950s it was called the City Gent look, and my dad probably had a suit like that - at least up until my Mum got the keys to his wardrobe. That was a Mod suit.

“He’s a bit young isn’t he?” I said.

“He looks just like he did when I met him,” she said. “There’s no reason for him to look old, is there?”

Except, generally speaking, all the ghosts I’d met looked the age they did when they died. Lesley says to always check the shoes, so I did - they were old, worn, too big for his feet and an unpleasant brown colour. No Mod would have been seen dead in those shoes.

“Hello Victor,” I said. The ghost looked at me blankly.

“Talk to him, Victor,” hissed Mrs Fellaman. “He’s a policeman.”

“What do you want?” asked the ghost. His accent was wrong too, not sixties cockney but older - I recognised it. He wasn’t what he seemed, and I didn’t want to prolong the conversation and feed him magic for much longer.

“What’s your mum’s name?” I asked.

The ghost hesitated. “What do you want to know that for?”

“No reason,” I said. The hesitation had told me all I needed to know. I shut down the werelight and the ghost suddenly went transparent.

“Martha,” said the ghost in a whisper and then he was gone.

“Bring him back,” said Mrs Fellaman.

“Was Martha the name of his mother?” I asked.

Mrs Fellaman shook her head.

“He didn’t know the answer did he?”

“Well he’s dead,” she said. “You’re bound to forget stuff once you’re dead.”

“That’s true,” I said, and it was. Most of the ghosts I’ve met always give the impression that they aren’t all there mentally. My theory is that they are echoes, near-sentient imprints in the stone and concrete around them. But that’s just a theory.

“See,” she said.

“But the thing is, Eugenia,” I said, “before I knocked on the door I requested what’s known as an ‘intelligence package’ on you, and it turns out your husband left you thirty years ago and is currently living in Prestatyn, Wales, with a woman called Blodwyn.”

“I knew that,” said Mrs Fellaman. “I’d just assumed that he’d died recently, left the Welsh bint to her own devices and come back home where he belonged.”

“I had the local police call round,” I said. “He’s alive and well.”

“Pity,” she said, and slumped in her chair.

I told her to stay put while I fetched some more equipment from my car, but she barely acknowledged me. Toby was pleased to see me and I gave him the requisite amount of encouragement for being a good boy. I grabbed the little and the big hammers from the boot and went back down to see how Mrs Fellaman was doing.

She was still slumped in her chair.

“So who was I talking to?” she asked.

“Definitely a ghost,” I said. “Just not your husband.” Victorian terraces were pretty much all built with similar design features, and if you know any architectural history at all it’s fairly easy to spot when something is missing. Like the pantry alcove that should have been to the left of the bricked-up fireplace. Very close to where the ghost had materialised - I did not think that was a coincidence.

Mrs Fellaman sighed. “He did look like my Victor.”

“I believe you,” I said. “He must have changed his appearance to suit you.”

“How would he know?”

“Good question,” I said and banged the small hammer on the wall until I got a hollow noise. I swapped for the big hammer. “I’m afraid I’m about to make a bit of a mess,” I said, and got a good two-handed grip on the long shaft.

“Wait a minute,” said Mrs Fellaman, too late.

It was an awkward swing, what with the low ceiling, but the iron head of the hammer went through on the first blow. I knocked out the loose plaster around the edges, got out my key-ring torch and had a look. As I did I got a strong flash of carbolic soap and fish guts, the smell of sweat and a blast of cold that made my fingers numb. The vestigia pretty much confirmed my suspicions and so I wasn’t nearly so surprised as I might have been when the beam of the key-ring torch fell upon the empty socket of a skull. I swept the light around and thought I could make out the rest of a skeleton collapsed at the bottom of the void.

I told Mrs Fellaman that she would need to find somewhere to stay for the next couple of days.

“Whatever for?” she asked.

“Because I’m about to tell my colleagues at the Major Investigation Team that I’ve found a body and they’re going to be round here mob handed to investigate,” I said.

“What kind of body?” asked Mrs Fellaman.

One that I suspect was walled up, judging from the shoes, in the late 19th Century. Some domestic worker whose employer got a bit heavy handed one day - one of those little Victorian stories that didn’t get talked about. I looked at Mrs Fellaman who was staring morosely around her kitchen/living room area. Or perhaps there had been somebody after the first Mr Fellaman decamped to the Welsh seaside. She obviously had a temper did our Eugenia. As I said - crime often begins at home.

Fortunately that question was not my responsibility. Nine times out of ten, once the bones were gone, so was the ghost. Although I might take Toby for walkies past the house for the next couple of weeks - just to be on the safe side. I turned on my phone and keyed up Belgravia.

“I don’t suppose you’d consider leaving him in place would you?” asked Mrs Fellaman.

“What for?”

“I rather liked the company,” she said.

THE END