Ghostcatcher Read online

  Lil pursed her lips at Abe. ‘You said nothing much was happening.’

  He carried on looking defiantly into the lenses.

  ‘I only want to look through for a second.’

  ‘I’ll tell you if I see anything important.’

  ‘Just for a second.’

  ‘It would take too long for me to let go of them.’

  ‘Fine.’ Lil paused and then added, ‘Now what’s happening?’

  Abe gave a bull-like snort and clenched his jaw. He painstakingly unscrewed the small vice that held the binoculars and offered them to Lil. ‘Two minutes, and then I’m taking them back.’ Lil took hold of one side but Abe didn’t let go of the other. ‘And I want to know exactly what you see.’

  ‘Fine. I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal of it. They’re only binoculars.’

  ‘My binoculars,’ Abe corrected her.

  Lil refocused them and scanned to the left where a smart black Austin Cambridge had pulled up. ‘There’s another car.’

  A single man got out, wearing a grey felt homburg with the brim pulled down low and a dark wool overcoat. Lil squinted through the lens. ‘Looks like an official someone. He’s talking to one of the dockers; he’s showing him a clipboard.’ She dipped the binoculars. ‘Maybe he’s the harbourmaster?’

  Abe held his hand out. ‘Let me see.’

  ‘I still have a minute and a half.’

  ‘Hand them over.’ Abe held out his hand again. Reluctantly Lil handed them over.

  Abe spent a minute retightening the vice round the binoculars so that he could lift them and then another minute groaning about how hard it was to get the focus back.

  They watched as a man in a chequered wool cap approached the man in the suit. The two men stood and talked beneath one of the white dock lights, where the mist from the river was picked out like a cone of swirling light.

  Abe touched the focus wheel again. ‘I’ll bet the chequered cap is the head stevedore. The guy in the suit looks like the buyer come to check on the goods.’

  Lil looked at Nedly and nodded to one side. He looked back and shook his head. Lil nodded hers again, more firmly this time. A dangerous gleam came into her eye.

  Abe continued, ‘Now the suit is asking the cap a question and the cap is shrugging and the suit is looking at his watch. Now he’s holding out his hand for the paperwork.’

  The suit finished reading through the papers on the clipboard and then pointed at one of the crates. The head stevedore disappeared from view and then returned with a menacing-looking crowbar.

  ‘What the …?’ Abe let the binoculars drop an inch and then he refocused them quickly and breathed out a sigh of relief. The stevedore was levering open the lid of one of the crates. ‘I thought we were going to witness a murder! OK, so he’s levering open one of the crates and the suit is putting on a white glove and then he’s reaching in and pulling out a small cloth bag and tipping the contents into his palm. It looks like … little chips of coal? I don’t know what that is.’ He paused; something yellow flitted across the foreground of his field of vision. Abe caught his breath, let the binoculars drop from his eyes and then quickly picked them up again and scanned across until he picked up Lil, crouch-running down to the warehouse.

  He shook his head despairingly, ground his teeth and then muttered, ‘Looks like it’s just me and you now, kid.’ He paused for a deep sigh. ‘Maybe you should go down there and keep an eye on her. If needs be, we can cause a distraction.’ He looked down at an old discarded chocolate wrapper. ‘If you agree, move that wrapper to the left.’ The wrapper remained caught in the grass. ‘If you disagree, move it to the right.’ No movement.

  ‘He’s gone too, hasn’t he? How do you like that?’ He paused, checked the view through the binoculars again and then took his eyes away to look down at Margaret. The space under the wagon was empty. Abe shook his head wearily and went back to the binoculars. ‘I’m just talking to myself.’

  Down on the dockside, Lil peered round the side of the warehouse. The bitumen-stained doors were warped by the salt in the air and instead of lying flat they curved enough to cast a shadow for her to hide in.

  Nedly stood opposite her. They were close enough to the Amore Mio to see the frothy yellow scum that carpeted the water round her prow, along with rubbish and an oil spill that reflected a rainbow.

  The man in the suit had pulled out what looked like a jeweller’s eyeglass and was peering at the lumps of coal with it. Lil gave Nedly a shrug that meant, What is that stuff? and then rolled her eyes towards it in a way that meant, Can you get a closer look at the label on the bag?

  Nedly nodded confidently. ‘I’m on it!’

  Lil watched him jog to the front of the warehouse and then step out onto the quayside and walk up to the man in the suit. He was rolling the coal back into the bag and sealing it. Nedly craned, ducked and dived round him trying to read what was written there. The suit got spooked and started darting looks all around. He threw the bag back into the crate and Nedly plunged his head in after. Lil shuddered as the lid was closed on him; it looked like a bad beheading.

  The suit shouted at the head stevedore and he sprang into action, hammering the lid back on the crate. Nedly extricated himself from it and queasily staggered back towards the man in the suit who was scribbling things on the clipboard. As Nedly moved in to see what was written there the suit looked up suddenly and shivered. He whipped his head round and then barked at everyone to get a move on, his eyes nervously scanning the darkness beyond the dockside.

  The stevedore looked haggard and edgy, like he would rather be anywhere else but there. The man in the suit finished writing, tore off the top sheet and then slapped the clipboard against the stevedore’s stomach by way of passing it to him. Clutching his own copy of the paperwork he strode off towards the warehouse with Nedly running alongside him, head bent to one side, still trying to see what was written there.

  Lil pinned herself more closely to the wall. She breathed in and held it. The man in the suit stopped suddenly, and then took another slower step forward. Lil slunk backwards as quickly as she could, but stepped on a twig, which snapped. She froze.

  A sharp bark cut through the air. The suit pulled out a torch and shone it across the embankment. He stared out at its beam for a minute and then jerked his thumb impatiently at the waiting truck driver who jumped into the cab. A tarpaulin was rolled out over the back of the truck, the sides were bolted up and the cargo was tied down. The engine sputtered into life.

  Lil tried to trickle her breath out nice and slowly. Nedly flew round the side of the warehouse to join her and Margaret scampered down the path towards them from the other side. Lil bent down to give her a grateful rub on the head and straightened quickly again as headlights burst across the darkness and trawled the scrub ahead of them. As the truck backed up Lil made a note of the number plate. They waited until the red tail lights were far enough away, then they all ran after it.

  Chapter 5

  A Familiar Road

  ‘Come on!’ Lil urged Abe when they reached the wagon. ‘The truck is leaving!’

  Abe had only been able to crank himself to half-bent knees. ‘Don’t wait for me!’ he gasped.

  Lil nodded quickly and then, keeping low, sprinted up the hill and over the wasteland to the lane where the Zodiac was parked. She swung open the passenger door with the busted lock and shot into the seat, Nedly nosedived expertly through the closed back window and landed behind her and Margaret leapt onto Lil’s lap. Lil clicked her seat belt in. Then they waited.

  From the track that led to the docks two cylinders of light appeared, blinking once at a bend, then growing larger. They heard the crackle of gravel under wheels as the headlights neared, skimming the verges like a trawl net. Lil ducked down as it passed and then all three turned to see the hulking shadow of Abe lumbering over the ridge towards them. The truck lights illuminated the junction at the end of the lane just as he reached the Zodiac and flumped down
behind the wheel to catch his breath.

  Lil held the ignition key out to him in readiness while Abe turned the tiny screw that loosened the vice round the binoculars as quickly as he could. Lil bored her eyes into it but it didn’t get any looser any faster.

  ‘Can’t you –?’ she started.

  ‘Don’t say it!’ He shook his head at her and carried on twiddling until finally the binoculars came loose.

  Lil drummed her feet on the footwell as Abe selected his driving attachment and accepted the key Lil offered him. She sat on her hands and stared pointedly ahead but couldn’t resist a mumble through gritted teeth that sounded a lot like finally! when he got the engine running.

  The Zodiac strained into life and swung out of the track, wheels churning mud and throwing up gravel. They hurtled down the lane, bouncing off the verges like a giant turquoise pinball. Abe winced as the car juddered over a pothole but he kept his foot on the accelerator. As soon as they were close enough to use the truck’s tail lights to navigate by, he dropped his speed and killed the Zodiac’s headlights, and they became a shadow, prowling from a safe distance behind.

  To their left Peligan City twinkled at them, buildings spiking the horizon like the teeth of a broken comb. As they passed the winged roofs of the mansions of Yang Guang Heights, Lil realised that they were not heading back into town at all; they were skirting the outer limits to the north.

  ‘Nedly, what did the address on the delivery form say this time?’

  ‘The same as the last one, the house in Chinatown.’

  Lil looked out of the window as the lights receded. They turned west, splashing through the puddles on the narrow lanes, until at last they came to a road that she recognised. Bun Hill.

  Up ahead the Hawks Memorial Orphanage was mostly in darkness apart from a few windows that glowed warmly through bright patterned curtains.

  Lil raised her eyebrows as she looked back at Nedly. His interested expression quickly turned grave and pinched-looking as a ruined silhouette appeared on the hill opposite.

  ‘The old asylum,’ he murmured.

  Abe slowed the Zodiac right down as they followed the truck along the eerily familiar track, under the arched canopy of crooked trees with branches that dangled like gnarled fingers. The car’s suspension groaned and the bunch of coconuts that hung from the rear-view mirror swayed uneasily.

  The truck stopped in front of the metal gates. Someone had added a row of red lights beneath the sign, illuminating the words ‘Rorschach Asylum’ and making them look demonic.

  ‘Now what?’ Abe cut the engine, and they sat there, steam coming off the bonnet.

  The driver jumped down from the cab, turning her collar up to the rain. At the gate she opened a small cabinet that was fixed to the right-hand post, picked up a telephone receiver and said something into it. There was a low warning buzzer and suddenly the lights turned an eerie green. The driver climbed back into her cab and with a shunting sound the gates swung open by themselves and the truck drove in. The gates closed quickly behind her and the light switched back to red.

  ‘That’s new,’ Lil whispered.

  They left the Zodiac parked up by the undergrowth and headed forward on foot. Lil and Abe arched their torch beams over the new set-up. The rusty iron gates had been upgraded to steel ones but the ‘Keep Out’ and ‘Danger’ signs were still there.

  Abe and Lil knew Rorschach Asylum from their first case together; it was where Cornelius Gallows had holed up after he faked his own death, executed Leonard Owl and created his first weaponised ghost, Mr Glimmer. Abe and Lil had both nearly died in the fire that Mr Glimmer had set, but there had been enough of the spirit of Owl left within Mr Glimmer to lead them to safety before freeing himself from Gallows’ clutches.

  To Nedly the asylum would always be the worst spot on earth: the place where his short life had ended. He glanced fearfully at it, his pale skin dull and filmy, his eyes dark and saucer-shaped.

  ‘Looks like they don’t like uninvited guests.’ Abe nodded at the telephone handset. ‘I wonder who picks this up at the other end.’

  Beside the gates the old chain-link perimeter fence had been replaced too, with three metre high railings, spiked iron poles only a few centimetres apart.

  Lil measured up to them. ‘We’re not getting through there.’

  She stared despondently past the gates at what was left of Rorschach Asylum. Twice-burned, the roofless ruin was jagged against the sky, blackened and rain-soaked, looking every bit the haunted house it had once been.

  ‘There can’t be much of it left now after that last fire.’ Abe eyed it grimly.

  Lil studied the pearly light emanating from behind the dark silhouette. ‘There has to be something there. Is that moonlight or …’ She looked up – no, the moon was elsewhere.

  Nedly hung back. ‘We should check it out … at the library.’

  Lil knew he didn’t want to go in, but she couldn’t pull her eyes away from the intriguing ghostly halo behind the ruins. ‘Let’s just have a quick poke around while we’re here. It might be nothing.’

  Nedly gave her a complicated look. They both knew that it definitely wouldn’t be nothing.

  Abe frowned at the fence. ‘It’s a lot of security for an old dump like this.’ He scratched under his hat with his driving attachment. ‘These bars are high; the gaps between them are narrow. The way I see it, there’s no way in, unless we can get them to open that gate for us …’ He ran out of steam as Margaret appeared suddenly on the other side of the fence, bathed in the glow of the red lights.

  ‘She went under it,’ said Nedly. ‘There’s a gap.’

  Lil crouched down to examine the space and frowned. ‘It’s too small for me.’

  Abe rubbed his chin appraisingly. ‘Me too.’ He looked confidently but wrongly at the area between himself and Lil. ‘Nedly, how about you check it out?’

  Lil read the look on Nedly’s face. ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea – it’s getting late.’

  Confusion crossed Abe’s face. ‘I thought you said –’ Then he caught her eye and saw her head give a minute shake. He nodded grimly. ‘We’ll think of another way. There might not be anything in it anyway.’

  Nedly sighed deeply. ‘OK, I’ll go.’

  ‘You really don’t have to,’ Lil told him.

  ‘I know. But we’re here now. I’m just going to see what that glow is, then I’ll come back. I’m not going inside the building.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  Nedly began wriggling his shoulders. He turned side-on and started to squeeze himself through the railing. No sooner had his arm crossed the boundary than the long grass they were standing in started flickering. Lil looked up to see that the lights over the gate were flashing brightly.

  ‘Nedly,’ she warned him. ‘Wait a sec.’ She turned to Abe. ‘What do you think that means?’ They all paused to watch the lights.

  Lil frowned. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling.’

  Abe whistled sharply and Margaret ran back and shimmied under the fence. They began hurrying back down the lane, Abe’s binoculars thumping against his chest.

  Lil risked a glance over her shoulder. Torchlights were bouncing along the tangled grass in front of the asylum, winking and disguising whoever was carrying them. ‘Looks like we’ve got company,’ she gasped.

  They reached the Zodiac and piled in. Abe tried to choke the engine to life.

  Nedly stared back at the overgrown lawn of the asylum. ‘They do not like trespassers!’

  The outline of three figures was visible now, running with difficulty through the long grass, encumbered by their white hazmat suits and orange reflective visors.

  ‘Don’t panic!’ said Abe. ‘We’ll just say we took a wrong turn.’ He jerked the ignition key again. Nothing happened.

  Behind the torch beams another light shone through, something glowing green and winking.

  A sudden feeling of danger struck Lil. ‘Uh-oh!’ she whispered. ‘I think I know wh
ose place this is.’

  The green laser net sprang out from the winking console and stretched over the dark, tufty lawn.

  ‘Ghostcatcher!’ breathed Nedly.

  Lil shrieked, ‘GO. GO. GO!’

  Abe rammed the key round again, but the Zodiac wouldn’t go. He swiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, took off the handbrake, and then leapt from the car shouting, ‘You drive!’

  ‘What?’ Lil was confused but she slid into the seat he had just vacated. Abe planted his hands on the front bumper, put his shoulders into it and started pushing. Lil watched his face grow puce with the effort; she recognised that he was asking her to do something, but couldn’t read his lips in between his grimacing and grunting breaths.

  Suddenly Nedly yelled, ‘Put it in reverse!’ It took Lil a few goes to find the right position but she popped it just as the speed of the car outpaced the man pushing it. Abe staggered forward, the car rolling backwards. Lil heard him shout, ‘Turn the key!’

  She instinctively floored the accelerator and rammed the key clockwise, praying for the engine to turn over. She screwed her eyes shut, felt the Zodiac grumble to life and then opened them to see Abe running desperately after the car as it travelled bumpily backwards.

  ‘Slow down!’ Nedly yelled.

  Lil took her foot off the pedal and scrambled for the passenger seat as Abe caught up enough to lump in beside her and take over the wheel as he braced his other arm round the seat and the Zodiac charged backwards, reversing out into the road and right into the path of blinding headlights and the blare of a horn. They ploughed up the verge opposite and then screeched to a sliding halt as a lorry streaked by. Abe’s hand was trembling as he put the car into first and they crawled out of the long grass and back to the city.

  It was nearly two in the morning when they sputtered on to Angel Lane.

  Number ten was in darkness but for a couple of lit windows: the narrow one above the front door and Lil’s attic bedroom.

  Abe gave her a grim smile as she climbed out of the car and opened the rear door for Nedly. Lil tapped lightly on the car roof and Abe drove away.