The Parliament of the Dead by T.A. Donnelly Read Free Book Online

swim.
    There was no blood and no damage to the Judge’s fingers.  It simply passed though him as if his body were as insubstantial as a cloud.  For a moment Iona thought the bewigged figure became a little transparent.
    “Goodness!  Mr. Todd, this is a real razor!  I hope you are not up to your old tricks!”
    A whistle sounded, echoing through the dark streets, until it met the sound of booted feet running closer and closer.
    “Mr. Todd, you give the dead a bad name.  I’d have thought being executed for murder would have taught you a lesson, but the longer you exist the less you seem to learn.  Mr. Todd, I look at you and I truly despair.  Truly despair.  Perhaps the Runners will be able to teach you lesson.”
    “Please, Judge, who are the Runners?”Iona’s thin voice sounded much weaker than she had hoped against the noise of stamping feet.
    “Are you still here?” The Judge turned to her again,“If you must know, the Bow Street Runners are the Police, or they were , and they still do a good job with the likes of him.  Run along my good little lady, this is not for your eyes.”
    The sound of feet was almost deafening.  Iona turned and ran for home, not quite feeling in full control of her legs.
    Although she shouldn’t have been able to hear it over the noise, she did.  It was not much more than a whisper in her ear as she ran:“And, young lady,”the Judge’s voice continued,“there is just one thing that Mr. Todd was correct about: don’t trust Arthur.”
     
     
    Chapter Twelve
    Morag’s Departure
     
    The lumpy chair reminded Morag of the straw bed she had once slept on as a child in her grandparents’house. “Och, he never did anybody a pinch o’harm,”she muttered to herself in the rapidly-emptying railway carriage.  She was on board the train from Edinburgh to London.  The other passengers did not want to spend the 250-mile train journey next to a mad old woman.“Blasted priests, poking their noses in, them and their shotguns.  My poor, wee, dead Harold blown to Kingdom-come without so much as a by-your-leave.”
    She was distracted for a moment by the lights of a station as the train sped past without stopping.  Her heart started beating faster: this was the furthest from home she had ever been.  Soon her thoughts returned to her late husband, and the reason for this journey.  She continued muttering to herself in her broad Scottish accent, “He was dead already; where’s the harm in helping your wife when you’re dead?”
    “E-excuse me, madam, did you say dead already?”
    Morag looked up from her grumblings to see a man dressed in a faded medieval costume, whose body was sporadically wracked with spasms.  Despite having lived with a ghost for fifteen years, Morag was shocked to see another one sitting opposite her in the train.  She felt her heart lurch uncomfortably and a shooting pain in her arm.  She clutched her chest as a numbing cold spread throughout her body.
    “Oh dear lady are you alright?  I didn’t mean to scare you madam…hgg wrrooo ndndnn idgee nooobaga!”the Mental Minstrel of Mimsgate-upon-Mudd held up his hands,“but I thought I’d overheard something about priests attacking a ghost?”
    “My poor dead Harold.”
    “Yes, I think they might be the ones who banished my agabannnn gghn d-dear friend, the Higginswaite ghost.”
    “And who might you be?”asked Morag.
    “My friends call me Gibbs.”
    “I’m Morag McClure,”replied Morag, holding out her hand, then quickly withdrawing it as she took in the minstrel’s transparent form.
    For a moment they were silent, looking at each other in mutual sympathy for their respective losses.
    “So what are you going to do n-now?”
    Morag sighed.  The chair had stopped feeling so uncomfortable; she thought her back might be going numb. “I jus’dinnae ken.  I think I overheard these bad men saying they were going to London.  I wish I knew what I’m ginna do if I meet them again, but