Tinsel Fish

By Harper Fox

Part 2 of the Tyack & Frayne Mysteries. Christmas in a Cornish seaside town, bright lights and a hot new romance to ward off the winter storms... What could be finer? But Gideon and Lee’s first festive season together is shockingly interrupted when Lee tries to rid a client’s home of a malevolent presence. The ritual goes wrong, and in its aftermath Lee is strangely altered. As well as dealing with the changes in his lover, Gideon has a sinister thread to follow, linking the haunted house with disappearances among the homeless people of Falmouth.
Can love withstand what looks like a case of possession? As the darkest night of the year comes down, Gideon finds himself locked in a battle to restore his lover’s soul.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harper Fox
• Release date: Mar 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781910224038

Harper Fox

Harper Fox is the author of many critically acclaimed M/M Romance novels, including Stonewall Book Award-nominated Scrap Metal and Brothers Of The Wild North Sea, Publishers Weekly Best Book 2013. Her novels and novellas are powerfully sensual, with a dynamic of strongly developed characters finding love and a forever future – after an appropriate degree of turmoil. She loves to show the romance implicit in everyday life, and she writes a sharp action scene too.

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Tinsel Fish

Harper Fox

Copyright Harper Fox 2014

Published by FoxTales at Smashwords

Tinsel Fish

Revised edition, December 2013

Copyright © December 2013 by Harper Fox

Cover art by Harper Fox

Cover photo licensed through Shutterstock

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from FoxTales.

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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Tinsel Fish

Harper Fox

Chapter One

Five days before Christmas, the ancient seaside town was lit up with every bulb and bauble the Council could afford. Strings of lights picked out the line of the harbour and crisscrossed the narrow cobbled main street that followed the waterfront. A romantic place, if you could ignore the icy gale, and as full of magic and sorrow as any other human settlement at this time of the year...

Spare us the price of a cuppa, mate?

Gideon turned, raising the collar of his coat against the wind. An old man with young, vacant eyes had made himself a shelter at the foot of the marina steps. It would be a short-lived one: the Falmouth constabulary wouldn’t long tolerate a fish-crate cottage on their bright new harbour, with its flagship maritime museum and Rick Stein’s fantastical reinvention of the local chippy. Gideon couldn’t blame the coppers for needing to move the old guy on. As constable of his own little village high up on Bodmin Moor, he’d have had to do the same, find somewhere – God knew where, this close to Christmas – to take him in.

But the old man wasn’t his problem. For the first time in years, Gideon had pushed for Christmas leave. He wouldn’t get the week itself, of course – relief cover then would be nonexistent – but his DI in Truro, perhaps mindful of services rendered earlier that year, had readily granted him the week before. Gideon was on holiday. Therefore all he had to do was tell the old guy to hang on for a minute, make his way over to the van parked on the plaza, and order chips and gravy to go with the tea. No point in handing over cash. His policeman’s eye had caught the kids selling lethal white cider from the boot of a car parked by the roundabout. It wasn’t for Gideon to be sanctimonious on someone else’s behalf, but he also didn’t want to put the final nail in the old man’s liver. The tramp took his offerings with ill grace, then began to tuck in. Not bad. Ta.

Not exactly Dickens, but you’re welcome. You could try the shelter on Trelawney Road.

You must be joking. Booked up for weeks, that place is. I’m all right. Reckon if I stay out long enough, I might disappear like the rest of ’em. Have you come looking for Harry?

Gideon leaned on the promenade rail. In the dark water, wind-rocked masts and rigging were making their weird music in the gale. From here he could see the lights of the waterfront flats across the harbour, and he was sure, almost sure... No. I’m just here to see a friend. Do many of you disappear?

Harry did. Or maybe it was Baz. I can’t fucking remember. Both, maybe. It was two fucking years ago. Fuckloads of us vanish.

Gideon considered this well-peppered statement. The old guy was right. Fuckloads vanished, fuckloads poured in to replace them. Sometimes lost children were found, and sometimes not. Human life was bright and fragile as the fractured glitter on the harbour waves. With sudden, deep urgency, Gideon wanted to be sure that one spark of it was still there. I’ve got to be going, he said. Give that shelter a try anyway. Don’t you go and disappear.

The old man waved a gravy-soaked chip at him by way of salute or farewell. Whatever, mate. God fuckin’ bless us, every one.

***

The cobbled alley was slippery with salt spray. This was the oldest part of the town, and no amount of heritage grants would straighten out its winding lanes or level off their treacherous plunge from the main street to the docks. Falmouth’s dark old heart beat strongly here, and it seemed an appropriate place for Lee Tyack – TV psychic, medium, bartender and, since October, Gideon Frayne’s lover – to have made his home.

He had a flat above the big marine chandlery, accessible only by this lane. The Christmas lights had made it down here too, but reflecting off the wet cobbles and the varnished paintwork of the chandlery’s two huge ship’s figureheads – staring eyes and startling bosoms – a different atmosphere prevailed, a mermaid’s idea of Christmas perhaps, ethereal and strange.

Gideon stopped for a moment, resting one hand on a figurehead’s tumble of carved curls. Yes, the lights were on in Lee’s flat. Doubts assailed Gideon, a shoal of hungry fish. Lee’s first formal visit to Gideon’s home up in Bodmin – to visit his dog, ostensibly – had been a success. His second and his third had gone so well that Gideon had had to invest in a new bedframe. A fourth, and he’d been anticipating roof repairs, but before that could happen, Lee had been called away to a conference in Holland. From there he’d gone straight to London to take part in a TV series on paranormal investigation. He’d known he’d be back sometime early this week, and so Gideon had booked his leave.

But Lee hadn’t texted him to say he was home. It had been almost six weeks. If Gideon hadn’t been a big hard-headed copper, he’d have been feeling shy.

An odd thump resounded in the lane. It shook the windows slightly in their frames, although it hadn’t been loud, more like a sudden change in pressure. Then a voice began. It was harsh and hectoring, rapidly rising to a shout.

It was coming from Lee’s flat. Gideon’s concerns about his welcome evaporated. He ran for the street door.

He took the steps of the concrete stairwell three at a time. The voice stopped as soon as his fist hit the door, and a few seconds later Lee opened up. Gideon! he said, with a kind of explosive relief, as if he’d been expecting something much worse. I’m so glad to see you. Come in.

Gideon followed him into the living room. The flat was plain and modern, open plan, and as far as he could see, it was empty. Are you okay? I thought I heard someone shouting.

You... You heard that? Lee gave himself a shake and smiled, closing the door behind them. Er, yeah. I had the radio on. He looked Gideon over. "So, if there had been someone in here shouting, you’d have come blazing in ready to thump them?"

Gideon hoped he would have spoken to them first, reminded them about noise nuisance and domestic affray, but he wasn’t sure. Lee looked pale and tired. If necessary, yes.

You’re so bloody perfect. Do you know that?

Gideon strode to meet him. Lee was an inch or so shorter than he was: strongly built but on a lighter scale, and it was no trouble to Gideon to lift him till his spine crackled, hoist him off his feet and swing him gently round in a half circle. I’ve missed you, he said, voice muffled in Lee’s hair. I was in Falmouth seeing my parents, and I saw your lights, but I wasn’t sure –

Didn’t I tell you to come here any time? I’m home sooner than I thought I’d be, or I’d have called you. He gave Gideon a breathtaking squeeze in return, pulled back far enough to kiss him. How are they – your mum and dad?

Oh, he won’t change much now, unless it’s to get worse. Gideon blinked away memories of his father’s care-home bedroom and breathed in Lee’s warm scent to drive away the smell. My ma, though – we’re talking more than we have done in years. She’s almost getting used to my casual chat about my boyfriend. He hesitated over the word. It didn’t seem quite apt, for the very adult man in his arms, but he was short on terms. My gentleman companion might have worked a century ago, but even Falmouth wasn’t that far behind the times. And partner – no, not yet, not after two intense Halloween days and three visits by a man to see his dog.

Lee didn’t seem to mind the label. He was watching Gideon – not for the first time – as if he were a source of intense satisfaction to him. "Not too casual, I hope."

Oh, no. Gideon had had to clench his fists and steady his voice every time he’d pronounced Lee’s name. Far from it, he said hoarsely. How was London?

Good. Sympathetic production crew. We covered a few private homes and a historical site or two. I had to come back early to do a stage show tonight – All Saints Hall rearranged me.