The Ghoul of Christmas Past

and he was cold enough now to happily head for home. Walking to the car, Mary reminded him about all the things he still needed to do before they could go out tonight – they wouldn’t want to do it when they got home from the performance and they wouldn’t have time in the morning.
Michael kept quiet while she berated him. That is until she asked, ‘What is that on your coat? It looks like makeup.’
He tried to follow where her eyes were looking, turning his head around to the right but she was indicating a point on the back of his arm in line with his shoulder blade.
‘Hold still,’ Mary insisted as she came in close to grab his sleeve. Pulling at it, she scraped with her fingernail and held it up. ‘No, it’s not makeup, at least, not a woman’s. I don’t know what it is, but you have a line of it along your sleeve like you wiped it on something. You’ll have to take it off before you get in the car.’
He was already cold; taking his coat off did not appeal, but there was no option that Michael could see. Inside the car, he used the coat as a blanket over his legs and lower half since the lining was warm from his body heat. It also meant the back of his coat now faced him, and he could inspect the ‘makeup’ for himself.
It was a creamy thick paste like coloured Vaseline. There wasn’t much of it, just a thin line but it would have marked the car’s upholstery as Mary said.
Traffic flowing over the bridge into Strood was slow but moving, unlike the traffic going the other way which did not look to be moving much at all. The journey took double the time it normally would, but still only about ten minutes. It was long enough for Michael to ponder what he had seen so far today.
Once home, he dutifully set about packing a small suitcase before Mary had a chance to remind him to do so. She was downstairs in her usual chair, knitting and singing along to more God-awful Cliff Richard. That she tended to play it loud helped in many ways because it drowned out her singing, however today it had an added bonus – she wouldn’t be able to hear him making phone calls.
The suitcase was on the bed, shorts and socks thrown in haphazardly because the task was performed at speed. Sitting next to it, he fished out the pages printed at the library and shuffled them until he got to the shareholders. He called Elizabeth Cudmore first, and ran through what he wanted to say while it rang.
‘Hello?’ the voice that answered the phone was female, middle-aged and posh. Elizabeth Cudmore was in the habit of pronouncing her words correctly, thank you very much.
Michael took a breath and started speaking. ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Cudmore. First let me please assure you that I am not calling to sell you anything. My name is Michael Michaels, and I am an investigator.’
A beat of silence followed while downstairs Cliff warbled about mistletoe and wine, and Michael thought the lady might be about to hang up. ‘What is it that you are investigating, Mr Michaels?’ Mrs Cudmore asked.
Okay, he’d made it past the awkward cold call introduction. ‘Mrs Cudmore are you aware that Ronald Norton recently went missing?’
‘Yes, what of it?’ She wasn’t exactly short with him, but she made it clear she wanted him to get to the point.
That made it easier. ‘Ronald Norton is missing, items have been stolen from the Dickens Museum for which you are still a shareholder, and Richard Glaagard had a prowler at his house just a short while ago.’ He made the point about the prowler last on purpose. ‘I have reason to believe that you and the other shareholders may be in some danger.’
‘Danger?’ Mrs Cudmore’s voice did not contain any sign of concern, if anything, she sounded as if she wanted to laugh at the idea. ‘Why would we be in any danger? Who from?’
‘That I do not yet know, Mrs Cudmore,’ Michael admitted reluctantly. ‘I wish I did, but the circumstances of Ronald Norton’s disappearance are such that I am led to believe he was taken. I was with Mr Glaagard earlier and caught a glimpse of the prowler so I can assure you the danger is real.’
‘So you called to warn me?’ she concluded.
Michael sucked on his teeth for a second. ‘That and to check that you were unharmed at this time. Also, I hoped to ask you some questions.’
Mrs Cudmore tutted. ‘You’ll have to make it quick, Mr Michaels, I have my family here and we are all getting ready to go to the castle. There is a big open-air play there tonight.’
Michael didn’t mention that he was going as well, instead doing as instructed and getting to the questions. He quizzed her about animosity between the shareholders, whether there were any employees who took the park closing personally or voiced a grudge at the time. Had people been paid or were the staff still owed wages when they were released. She took afront to the suggestion that the theme park owners might have skipped out owing pay to the employees, and he apologised, but he was learning fast now. Unfortunately, what he was learning didn’t get him anywhere.
When Mrs Cudmore insisted she had to go, Michael knew she had been generous with her time and thanked her genuinely. The call ended and he tried Mason Sabre, the next shareholder on the list. However, his phone came up as ‘caller busy’. Michael wasn’t entirely clear on how the new mobile phones worked but had seen people on television shows put one call on hold to answer another. If Mason Sabre knew how to do that, he was choosing