The Ministry of Ghosts

by Alex Shearer

  They agreed, as they had been unsuccessful in their quest, to return at least a portion of their wages to Mr Copperstone – after deducting a small amount for travelling expenses and snacks.

  But Mr Copperstone would not hear of it.

  They were all assembled in his office: Thruppence and Tim and Mr Copperstone himself, and Miss Rolly and Mr Gibbings and, of course, Mrs Scant, and – on this occasion – even Boddington the cat was present, curled up and asleep under a chair.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Copperstone,’ Tim began. ‘But Thruppence and I feel that we’ve let you down.’

  ‘Oh, no, no. No, no, no.’

  ‘Even with the extra week’s grace, we’ve not been able to find a ghost for you –’

  ‘But you tried, you did try.’

  ‘We just wanted to warn you that, no doubt, that Beeston bloke will soon find out the jar he was fobbed off with is empty, and then, well … ’

  ‘Yes. He’ll be back – and the Ministry will be at an end.’

  A heavy silence filled the room, as heavy as those old Persian carpets, lying on the floor; as heavy as the ancient filing cabinets, stacked against the wall.

  ‘What will become of us?’ Mrs Scant murmured. ‘Where shall we go?’

  ‘The Ministry … ’ Mr Gibbings began, and he was barely able to complete the phrase, ‘of Sewage … ’

  Thruppence looked at them. They all seemed so sad. For things to come to an end like this, for there to be such a parting of the ways … And then, yes, just then, as her eyes roamed around the room, taking in the wood panelling, the heavy flock wallpaper, the mirror on the wall, the dark paintings of illustrious forebears who had held Mr Copperstone’s job before him, the framed certificates in italic handwriting, the Japanese screen in a corner, the pencils, the pens, the old inkwell, the stack of parchment paper …

  Her eyes swivelled. Then they swivelled back.

  Her heart seemed to stop. Her whole body grew cold. Her mind filled with horror and terror. And she reached out, unnoticed by Mr Copperstone, Mrs Scant, Miss Rolly or Mr Gibbings, and she seized Tim Legge’s hand, and she held it so tight that her nails dug into his flesh.

  ‘Thruppence –’

  ‘Tim, I think we ought to go now –’

  ‘Must you? So soon?’ Mr Copperstone said.

  ‘You’ve not had any tea,’ Mrs Scant said.

  ‘You’ve only just arrived,’ Mr Gibbings said.

  ‘Aren’t we going to try and make another plan?’ Miss Rolly said.

  Thruppence’s fear abated. She swallowed and she forced herself to talk normally, as if nothing were amiss and everything was as it had always been.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘We’ll make another plan. Tim and I will make another plan, and we’ll be back to see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Yeah, but … ’ Tim began. But Thruppence squeezed his hand again, and Tim knew that something was up – only what? – and he fell silent.

  ‘We’ll be back tomorrow,’ Thruppence said again. ‘And I think we’re going to have some news for you. Yes, I really think we are. So come on, Tim, let’s go now.’

  Before Tim could object, they were away, out of the office and hurrying down the stairs.

  Mr Copperstone looked somewhat perplexed.

  ‘Why did they rush off so suddenly?’ he said. ‘Does anyone know?’

  But nobody seemed to.

  The door of the Ministry closed behind them and they were out on the street, in the cool afternoon air.

  ‘Thruppence –’

  ‘Not here. Keep walking. Quickly. Round the corner. We can stop and I’ll tell you then.’

  ‘Thruppence … ’

  She all but ran and Tim hurried to keep up with her. Then, safely at the end of Bric-a-Brac Street, and around the corner into Nick-Nack Street, Thruppence stopped by a lamp post to get her breath and Tim caught her up.

  ‘Thruppence, why did you leave like that? And why did you almost pull my hand off? What’s the matter with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘I have,’ Thruppence said. ‘And so have you.’

  ‘No, I haven’t. When?’

  ‘You have, Tim. We’ve both been seeing them. We’ve been seeing them for a long time. We just didn’t realise.’

  ‘What? What are you on about? What ghost?’

  ‘It’s not one ghost, Tim. It’s four.’

  ‘Four? What do you mean?’

  ‘Up in Mr Copperstone’s office just now. I happened to glance in the mirror. I saw you, I saw me … the others – they don’t have reflections. They’re ghosts, Tim. Mr Copperstone, Mrs Scant, Miss Rolly and Mr Gibbings – every single one of them, they’re ghosts.’

  Tim stood, open-mouthed, staring at her.

  ‘Oh my … We could have been … You mean we … ? But what are we going to do, Thruppence? What are we going to do?’

  But that was a question to which there was no easy or immediate answer.

  22

  Names and Dates

  They sat together in the churchyard of St Bindle’s. It seemed like an appropriate place to go somehow – quiet, out of the way, a place they were unlikely to be disturbed. They perched on the edge of an old grave, which had a stone surround framing it as if it were some horizontal picture.

  ‘It explains it all, of course, doesn’t it?’ Thruppence said.

  ‘Does it?’ Tim answered, looking doubtful.

  ‘Well, it explains a lot.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Their clothes, for one thing. They’re so old fashioned.’

  ‘And what about the cat?’ Tim said.

  ‘I think the cat’s a ghost too.’

  ‘Can you have ghostly cats?’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’

  ‘Well, I suppose you don’t have to worry about cat litter.’

  ‘No, Tim. Though I would have thought that would be the least of your worries.’

  ‘I wonder why they never moved on,’ Tim said. ‘I wonder why they’re all still hanging around, haunting the Ministry.’

  ‘Only they know that,’ Thruppence said. ‘If anyone. But even if they do know, that doesn’t mean they’ll tell us. I don’t even know if they realise they are ghosts.’

  ‘You don’t think they know?’

  ‘Or they do know – or suspect – but they won’t face up to it.’

  Tim stretched out his legs. He was starting to feel quite at home in the small cemetery, in some ways. It had become one of his favourite places.

  ‘They all must have worked there, I suppose.’

  ‘Of course,’ Thruppence said. ‘But it must have been at least a hundred years ago. Even more.’

  ‘Those clothes,’ Tim said. ‘The old pens on the desks.’

  ‘That ancient typewriter.’

  ‘And no computers.’

  ‘And those telephones. You never see telephones like that now.’

  ‘And the dusty windows.’

  ‘And that old brass plate, all smudged and nearly invisible –’

  ‘Until I polished it up,’ Thruppence reminded him, for, after all, credit where it is due.

  ‘But what I don’t understand,’ Tim said, ‘is how they do things.’

  ‘Do things?’ Thruppence repeated. ‘What things?’

  ‘Everything,’ Tim said. ‘If they’re ghosts, then they can’t pick things up, can they? They might look solid, but they’re not. Their hands should just pass through everything. So how did they open the door? How did they write the notice saying “Saturday Boy Wanted”?’

  ‘Or Saturday Girl,’ Thruppence reminded him.

  ‘Yes, well, how did they do that?’

  ‘Because ghosts can move things around, can’t they? Just by will. Because we never saw them actually open the door, did we? The door would just seem to open, and there was Mrs Scant or whoever. And it looked like they had opened the door with their hand and just released the handle. But we never actually saw them touch anything. Did we?’<
br />
  ‘No. I suppose not,’ Tim conceded. ‘But I wonder why they never moved on? What did they want to stay here for? What do they actually do all day? And what happens to them at night?’

  ‘We’ll have to ask them,’ Thruppence said. ‘That’s what we’ll have to do.’

  Tim looked at her, shocked. ‘You mean – go back there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But they’re ghosts!’

  ‘And so?’

  ‘But, they’re ghosts, Thruppence. Ghosts!’

  ‘But they’re very nice ghosts, aren’t they? And friendly. They’ve never done us any harm.’

  ‘No, maybe not but –’

  ‘And they’re not scary in the least.’

  ‘Well, no, they weren’t when we didn’t know they were ghosts, when we thought they were just a bit mad but alive. But now we do know –’

  ‘Tim, we promised to help them.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but –’

  ‘And a promise is a promise.’

  ‘Maybe so. But I don’t see –’

  ‘And if that Mr Beeston comes back once he discovers that jar is empty, well, he’ll close the place down. And then where will they go? They’ll have nowhere to haunt.’

  ‘Well, they can haunt somewhere else. Like that wheely bin down the street.’

  ‘You can’t expect four ghosts and a cat to haunt a tiny, cramped, dirty old wheely bin. Not when they’re used to a whole building.’

  ‘Yeah, but wait, Thruppence, that Mr Beeston can’t close the place down now.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he said he’d close the Ministry down if they couldn’t produce a ghost. But they can. Four of them.’

  ‘Tim, I somehow don’t think he’s going to see it that way. I wonder … ’

  Thruppence suddenly got to her feet.

  ‘What are you doing? Where are you going?’ Tim said.

  ‘I have an idea. Come and help.’

  ‘To do what?’

  Thruppence was already walking among the gravestones.

  ‘You take that side, I’ll take this. Try and make out the names, and don’t miss any.’

  Thruppence was the first to find what they were looking for.

  ‘Tim! Here! Look!’

  And there it was, overgrown and covered in moss, an old, leaning memorial, with the name upon it:

  JEREMIAH JARVIS COPPERSTONE

  1839 – 1917

  HE HAS GONE UNIVERSAL

  ‘It must be him,’ Thruppence said. ‘Old Mr Copperstone. I’m sure it’s him. I’m sure.’

  ‘And look here,’ Tim said, pointing to another overgrown grave close by.

  OLIVE GLADYS SCANT

  1850 – 1920

  SHE HAS GONE TO A BETTER PLACE

  ‘Mind you, I don’t know that she ever did actually go to a better place,’ Tim said. ‘She never left the Ministry of Ghosts, did she? She just went back and got on with her job.’

  After some searching, they found two more graves, one for Virginia Petunia Rolly, and one for Arnold Peregrine Gibbings.

  The first stone said that Miss Rolly had ‘given her life in the greater cause’.

  ‘What cause was that then, I wonder?’ Tim said. But Thruppence did not know either, and just shrugged.

  While under the name of Arnold Peregrine Gibbings were his dates and then the words: HE JUST PINED AWAY.

  ‘Well, that’s weird,’ Tim said. ‘I wonder what he pined away for?’

  ‘Only one way to find out,’ Thruppence said.

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘We’ll need to go and ask him. But I think we have to be careful, Tim. Because I don’t think they fully realise they are ghosts. And if we don’t break the news to them gently … ’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The shock could easily kill them.’

  ‘Eh, Thruppence … ’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a thing we have to worry about, to be honest.’

  ‘Oh … no. Maybe not. But all the same … we have to do it with tact.’

  The results that came back from the laboratory did not put Mr Beeston in a good mood. Mr Beeston was rarely in a good mood. He had possibly forgotten what a good mood looked like. But the news was not designed to refresh his memory.

  ‘Oil of kippers!’ he said in disgust. ‘You see this report, Mrs Peeve? Nothing in that jar at all except a few drops of kipper oil. Ghosts, indeed! They tell you you’ve got a ghost in a jar, and what have you really got? Oil of kippers. Well, they’ve gone too far this time. Far too far. I am going to pay another visit to this so-called Ministry of Ghosts and tell them it’s time to pack their bags and to head for the Department of Sewage. I might even be recommending disciplinary action, for the lot of them.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Beeston,’ Mrs Peeve said, holding a file of documents she had recently obtained from the Human Resources Office. ‘The only thing is … ’

  ‘The only thing is what, Mrs Peeve? Because it seems to me that whenever I have set my course to follow some bold stroke of action, all I hear from my staff is: “The only thing is … ”’

  Mrs Peeve put the document folder down on his desk. ‘It’s the report you asked for, sir. About the four employees at the Ministry of Ghosts.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘None of them are on the payroll, sir.’

  ‘None of them?’

  ‘Not one, sir. I’ve gone back over fifty years, and not one of any of those names is at present employed by the Ministry.’

  ‘But they must be.’

  ‘There aren’t any records, sir.’

  ‘But … that’s impossible. There’s some mistake.’

  ‘Possibly, sir. But as far as Human Resources are concerned, the Ministry of Ghosts fell into disuse back in 1919. It seems that the place was then forgotten about and the premises never adapted for anything else.’

  ‘This is just incompetence, Mrs Peeve,’ Mr Beeston said. ‘Not yours, plainly. It’s those people at Human Resources. Of course the Ministry is still operating. I’ve been there myself. I’ve seen the place. I’ve talked to the staff. Ridiculous. Get them to look at it again, and to research it properly this time.’

  ‘Very well, sir.’

  ‘And while they’re doing that, I shall get myself over to this Ministry, and I shall start by giving them a piece of my mind, and finish by sending them to the Sewage Department. Apart from that duffer Copperstone, who’s well past being useful. He can go on the scrapheap.’

  Fitting the deed to the word, Mr Beeston gathered up the necessary forms for the redeployment and the retiring of staff, put them into his briefcase, and headed for the door.

  23

  Hugs After All

  The bell rang, and then the knocker banged. The old clock in the hallway struck the half hour. Mrs Scant seemed to float along the corridor. She came to the door, reached out her hand, made a twisting motion, and the door swung open, perfectly silent now, with all its creaking gone.

  ‘Our intrepid ghost hunters!’ she said. ‘Do come in. Mr Copperstone is up in his office, as ever. Have you maybe brought us some good news today?’

  Tim and Thruppence looked at each other.

  ‘Well, yes … in a sense … ’ Tim said.

  ‘And in a sense, no,’ Thruppence said. ‘But we do think we may have found some ghosts.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve find some? That’s marvellous. Then we’re saved. Have you brought them with you?’ Mrs Scant said, delighted. ‘Oh, wait until I tell Mr Copperstone, and Miss Rolly and Mr Gibbings!’ She called out in a loud voice, ‘Good news, everyone! Good news! The Ministry is saved! Our hunters have found us a ghost!’

  ‘It’s not that simple, actually –’ Thruppence tried to explain. But doors were already banging, and faces were appearing. Mr Copperstone looked down from the top of the stairs.

  ‘All come up to my office,’ he said. ‘Please, everyone come up. We must all hear this marvellous news together.’
/>
  So, with heavy hearts and footsteps, Tim and Thruppence ascended the staircase, and they both noted, as they did so, that Mrs Scant’s rapid footsteps made no sound at all.

  It was weird to be walking alongside a ghost.

  ‘Come in, come in. So it’s good news then? Just in the nick of time too, I think. That Beeston fellow could return at any moment. But if we have a real live ghost to show him, well, that will prove we were right all along. Yes, that will soon send him on his way. And the Ministry can go on with its good work indefinitely. Please, sit down.’

  Tim and Thruppence sat uncomfortably on two chairs. The others stood, watching expectantly.

  ‘So … so where is it?’ Mr Copperstone asked. ‘I don’t see a jar or anything – so where did you catch it? How did you catch it? Can we get a look at it? Where is this ghost?’

  Thruppence shifted on her chair.

  ‘Go on.’ Tim nudged her. ‘You tell them.’

  ‘Well, the thing is, Mr Copperstone,’ Thruppence began, ‘is that we’re about to tell you something that may come as quite a shock to you – to all of you. So please don’t be upset.’

  ‘But why should we be upset? You’re bringing us good news, are you not? Found a ghost, you said.’

  ‘Four ghosts, actually,’ Tim said. ‘Well, five even.’

  ‘Five! Five ghosts! How splendid! How wonderful. So where are they? What are their names? It’s just, I don’t see you … carrying anything.’

  ‘Mr Copperstone … Mrs Scant … Miss Rolly … Mr Gibbings … ’ Thruppence said. ‘I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, as you plainly don’t seem to realise – or you do, but you haven’t fully accepted it – and please don’t take this the wrong way … but the ghosts are … well, they’re you.’

  ‘You and the cat,’ Tim added. ‘Makes five.’

  Silence. Cold, frozen silence. Mr Copperstone’s mouth moved, but no sound came out. Mrs Scant’s hand made a vague, kettle-pouring gesture, but what it was meant to convey, only she knew. Miss Rolly took a handkerchief – a ghost of a handkerchief – from her skirt pocket, and she held it to her eye. And Mr Gibbings, his eyes were fixed upon Miss Rolly, as if he feared for her and did not wish to see her harmed.