by Sophie Green
‘What?’ Lil looked up at Nedly, confused, her cheeks puffed out with incredulity.
Winter always hits Peligan City hard, but the Klaxon has been handed startling information that this time it’s not the snow that’s killing off our citizens, but something much more sinister.
Earlier this week the Herald boasted that homelessness in Peligan City was on the decline. For once they were right: there are fewer people on the streets now than there were a month ago. But the reason for the downturn? Those people are now all dead. The winter death toll in Peligan City has more than octupled lately, according to sources in the Peligan City Police Department, but what is the cause?
The official explanation is exposure, but we have been given access to documents in a body of evidence known as the ‘Fright File’, which contains the post-mortem reports for at least twenty deaths over the last month. The victims in the file were all ascertained to have died not from exposure but from sudden heart failure, and in all cases the victims’ hair had turned white and their expressions were frozen in terror.
One of the deaths has even been recorded on film. Leaked CCTV footage provides the most compelling evidence yet. The recording is from the multi-storey car park on the night of Governor Minos’s murder earlier this week. The footage is low quality but it captures the moment when Minos’s driver, Chris Manchurian, dies – you can’t see what he is seeing but you can see the effect it has on him. His hair literally turns white as he opens his mouth to scream – and then he freezes. Within seconds Manchurian is stone dead.
The question on everyone’s lips down at Klaxon HQ is: what did Manchurian see? What, or who, is stalking the streets of the city, frightening people to death?
Irving Starkey believes he knows. His theory is that Peligan City is under siege from dangerous spectres, ghosts that are invisible to the naked eye but are able to walk through walls, and terrify the life out of people.
There was an interview with Starkey on the next page, complete with a photograph of the man himself, looking into the middle distance in his hooded poncho, like a wacky revolutionary leader.
Does Starkey’s theory hold any weight? Have the dead risen from the grave to plague the living? It’s hard to swallow but the facts remain as follows:
There was a list of the recent deaths, their locations and headlines from the post-mortem reports, and what investigations, if any, had been carried out so far. It was a comprehensive piece with lots of convincing facts and figures that neither Lil nor Nedly read. They didn’t need to.
Lil felt the pavement tilt slightly below her feet. It was the story she thought could never be printed, the one that no one would have believed, here in black and white.
Her fingers numbed with cold, she started reading the editorial comment:
If Starkey’s theory is true, it may shed light on another mystery of our times: the increasing number of crimes perpetrated where no forensic evidence or witnesses of any kind have been found – crimes that for all intents and purposes look like murder by an invisible killer. More on this in our next edition.
If the city really is being plagued by spectres two questions remain: what do they want, and how can we stop them?
There are no answers at City Hall. Acting Mayor Gordian has declined to comment.
Lil and Nedly stood shoulder to shoulder as they read. Neither one spoke but when they had finished they turned slowly, like mirror images, to face each other, their eyes wide.
Lil raised the Klaxon to face height and under the cover of the small newsprint screen she hissed to Nedly, ‘They broke the story, the biggest one there’s ever been. I had that story and I sat on it and now Quake has the scoop.’
Nedly peered round the paper and shivered. ‘They know, all these people know the truth, about the ghosts. Look at their faces.’
Lil was too busy fuming. ‘At least it explains what happened to the Fright File. Monbatsu was right: it was stolen.’ She grimaced. ‘I bet that’s what Weasel handed Starkey at the Paranormal Society Meeting. The proof that his crackpot theory is true.’
She screwed up the article and kicked it at a bin. It missed and she had to go and retrieve it and drop it in properly. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t have the guts to go for the scoop earlier. I knew more about this story than anyone. It was my chance and I blew it.’ She kicked at a pile of snow, stubbing her toe on whatever hard metal object it had gathered around. ‘Ow!’ she whined painfully, and hung her head down, muttering, ‘I just can’t believe it!’
‘I don’t believe it either!’ The sudden interruption of a passing woman in a thick knitted bobble hat and muffler made Lil jump. ‘It’s put the wind up everyone. I mean, ghosts!’ She grinned incredulously. ‘Whatever will they say next?’ Then she looked down the road as if she felt something, a whisper on the back of her neck, the raising of goose pimples deep inside her wool coat, and the smile dropped from her face. She left them without a word.
Nedly looked after her in dismay. ‘I gave that lady the creeps.’
‘No you didn’t,’ Lil snorted. ‘She gave them to herself. Come on, let’s see what they’re up to.’
A knot of people had gathered on the roadside. They were watching a shop window full of TVs broadcasting a live newsfeed from City Hall. Nedly shook his head. ‘You go. I’m just making things worse.’
‘Get over yourself – you’re not that scary.’ She gave him a reassuring smile. ‘Come on!’
The crowd parted as Lil and Nedly drew near. People clutched their coats closer and looked fearfully at each other and then one by one they peeled away, leaving the two children standing alone.
Nedly frowned at Lil and she returned it with a helpless shrug. He was right – the atmosphere was thick with fear; a small scare caused a ripple, the ripple became a wave and soon the air around Peligan City was churning with it. A creak on the stair, a whisper of cold breath, and the ghostly presence of an unassuming eleven-year-old boy.
Acting Mayor Pam Gordian’s muffled voice could just be heard behind the glass, telling people that an irresponsible and illegal news pamphlet had been spreading stories and had caused a civil panic. She advised the public not to be alarmed, and maintained that City Hall had everything in hand.
‘Yeah right, they do!’ Lil took out a pencil and started twiddling it agitatedly. ‘I don’t get it. These ghosts have been haunting Peligan City for weeks – why are people only acting like this now?
‘They probably thought it was all in their heads before, but here it is in black and white. They’re being terrorised by invisible forces and no one knows how to stop them.’
Lil brightened. ‘We do.’ She tapped her pencil on the side of her nose with confidence. ‘Come on, let’s go to the library and have this out. This is all on Quake. She went to press without all the facts. We have to put them straight. If they knew one of the ghosts was on their side, then they wouldn’t be so afraid.’ She set off at a pace, crushing the snow underfoot.
Nedly called after her. ‘I don’t think this is the right time!’
Lil skidded to a halt as though a lightning bolt had struck her path, and whipped round. ‘What? You’re always saying that you want people to know about you.’
‘I did, but now I think I’d rather no one knew what I am.’
‘What you are?’ She walked back towards him. ‘Why are you talking like that? You’re a ghost too, but so what? You’re a good person, you’re brave and you save people – Abe, me, you even tried to save Leonard Owl, and you beat Mr Grip. Most people would have run a mile but you didn’t.’
Nedly looked away.
‘The Klaxon only has half the story. Come on, it’s up to us to put it right.’
‘Can’t we just go back home?
‘You’ve got as much right to be in this city as anyone.’
Nedly bent over like he had a stomach ache. ‘I just want to go home. I don’t want to scare anyone else.’
Lil locked him eye to eye. ‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself
; we’ve got work to do. Now, I’m going to knock on a locked door, and I’m not going away until somebody opens it.’
Chapter 16
Exposé
Lil hammered on the door of the Librarian’s Office. After a couple of minutes Logan flung it open, a furious look in her eye.
‘I want to speak to Marsha Quake!’ Lil demanded.
Logan pursed her lips and shrugged a ‘Who?’
Lil narrowed her eyes into the Penetrating Squint. ‘You know who.’
The librarian gave her a hard but considered look and then began closing the door, but Lil stuck her foot in it. ‘Not this time.’
Logan shook her head firmly.
‘No way!’ Lil shoved her shoulder between the door and the frame and tried unsuccessfully to lever it open with her body. ‘You’re not shutting me out,’ she yelled into the office.
Her weight still braced against the door, Logan looked back over her shoulder at something Lil couldn’t see. Then she sighed and took her hand off the door.
A voice called out from beyond. ‘I’m afraid that Marsha Quake isn’t here, Lil.’
‘You know me?’ Lil took a step forward, edging her way past the librarian. Nedly tried to pile in after her but got squished by the door as Logan stepped outside and closed it behind her. He melted through the wood with a ‘Gah!’ and immediately trod through Lil, who had stopped short. She gasped as the icy sensation struck her from behind and stumbled forward into the glare of a bright Anglepoise lamp that was aimed at her. Nedly darted into the corner. He sat down quickly with his hands under his legs, and tried to keep out of the way.
The person who was seated behind the lamp was no more than a shadow. Lil could just make out the shape of their head and the curve of their ears. There was something about those lines that didn’t add up.
‘Who are you?’
‘They call me Randall Collar, but that’s just an alias. You know me by a different name.’ The figure switched off the light. Lil blinked a few times, and then a few times more because she couldn’t believe what she was looking at. Even as her lips started to form the word it lodged in her throat and she had trouble making it leave her mouth.
‘Mum?’
‘Hello, Lil.’
‘You’re Randall Collar?’ Lil felt like she’d taken a kick to the guts. She staggered backwards until her heels hit the door and then she let it take her weight. ‘It’s you?’
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you.’
‘Because …?’
‘Because it was a secret.’
‘And you didn’t trust me to keep it?’ Lil didn’t need to try for the grim smile; it was on her face anyway. ‘How long have you been hanging out here on my patch at the library?’
‘The Klaxon has always been based here.’
‘So Logan is in on it too?’
Naomi laughed warmly. ‘Logan started it; the Klaxon was her idea. She’s the editor. She showed me that profile article you did on that lady, Delilah. It showed a lot of promise.’
Lil’s cheeks burnt with mixed feelings. ‘Delilah is dead – did you know that?’
‘No – I didn’t.’ Naomi got to her feet. ‘I’m sorry.’ Lil swerved her comforting hand.
They stood in silence for a moment, while Lil looked at an inky stain on the carpet, and then eventually she said: ‘So you knew A. J. McNair?’
Naomi blew her cheeks out and switched on a small kettle in the corner of the office. ‘That’s another story. One thing at a time.’
‘No!’ Lil said firmly. ‘Not one thing at a time. I want to know everything – right now.’
Naomi got two cups from the top of the filing cabinet and placed them by the kettle, which had started to make a low hissing sound, like an unspent breath being squeezed slowly from a corpse. ‘A. J. McNair wasn’t who you think he was.’
‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’
‘Here.’ Naomi took a framed picture off the wall. ‘This is the only picture we have of us all together.’
Lil stared at it. She saw her mother as a younger woman, just like in the photograph she had seen of her with Abe at the Nite Jar. She was wearing a beret, a turtleneck jumper and tortoiseshell glasses and sitting on a desk – the same desk she had been sitting behind when Lil came in. Next to her was a woman with long curly hair and a pencil skirt. Lil peered closer; standing behind them was Logan, in a checked blouse and slacks, smiling liberally with all her teeth. There were two men on either side of Logan, both wore white shirts with rolled-up sleeves, waistcoats and ties that hung loose.
‘Which one is he?’
Naomi took the picture from her and gazed at it sadly. ‘Lil, A. J. McNair isn’t a person at all. It was a code name used by a group of undercover reporters so that we could speak the truth without fear of reprisals.’ She turned the photograph towards Lil and pointed to each face in turn. ‘Roland Selznick, me, Logan Mackay, Jessica Coltrane and Idris Canto.
‘We had to create A. J. McNair, a mysterious fictional reporter who stood up against corruption in Peligan City, because as the truth became more dangerous we needed some kind of shield to hide behind. McNair was that shield. But he became much more than that, he became a symbol of resistance whose very existence gave Peligan hope.’
Lil’s heart felt impossibly full. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The water in the kettle started churning, bubbling up like voices all talking at once. Her mother continued the story, her voice rising to counter the sound.
‘An intrepid investigative reporter, never afraid to put his name to the truth, to bear witness to all the corruption and speak out against it. McNair was an example to everyone, and yet he was totally immune to intimidation, because he was so elusive – like a shadow.
‘And then we were proved wrong.’ The kettle clicked off and the room became suddenly very quiet. ‘We thought he was invincible – but, of course, no one is.’
Naomi poured water over the teabags, watching them sink and then bob back to the surface. ‘It was just before the election. Roland had dug up some pretty inflammatory evidence that Mayor Davious had been milking the public purse to finance his own property development company. At a press conference he popped some awkward questions, enough to get him thrown out. Davious went down a couple of points in the popularity rating after that, but Roland wasn’t around to celebrate. When he didn’t come in to work the next day we knew something was wrong.
‘A few days later his body was dragged from the Kowpye River.’ She stirred the tea slowly and then squeezed out the bags. ‘Davious’s retribution was crushing; that very day the Chronicle was closed down and in its stead the Herald was born. Its first headquarters were at City Hall.’
Naomi placed the mug of tea on the desk by Lil, sweeping aside the piles of documents and folders that were scattered there. Lil’s eyes went automatically to the pile; all these stories, all the digging, it was everything she had ever wanted. Top-secret files, research notes, scribbles in the margins; a hive of industry bringing the real news to the real people. Her gaze lingered over one file in particular – a manila folder with a red-elastic fastening.
Naomi twisted the dial on the front of the filing cabinet back and forth and then opened it, rummaged for a few moments and pulled out an old newspaper, which she handed to Lil.
‘Look.’ It was the first ever issue of the Herald and the cover story was the death of McNair. ‘We didn’t refute it. We didn’t have any means to; Peligan City had seen the last of reporters openly speaking out against City Hall. The free press was gone, Roland had been killed and we let A. J. McNair die with him. We – and Peligan City – lost hope.’
Naomi looked at her daughter with shiny eyes. ‘Roland was a great reporter. I wish you could have met him. You would have liked him. I did, I liked him a lot.’
Lil shrugged; she wasn’t really listening any more. She had heard enough. Under the cover of the old Herald she slid the manila folder out from the pile. It was labelled ‘Inquiry i
nto Fellgate Prison’.
Her mother was still staring into the past. ‘Roland died a hero but no one will ever know what he did.’ She rubbed her eyes with her fingers, while silently Lil took hold of the folder and slipped it under her yellow mackintosh.
‘As long as the only newspaper in circulation was the Herald, City Hall had the perfect tool to manipulate the citizens. We knew Roland’s death should not have been in vain, there had to be another voice … and so Logan started the Klaxon and in Roland’s memory we kept true to the spirit of McNair. Marsha Quake even wrote a fictionalised biography of McNair, McNair and the Free Press, something to inspire a new generation of journalists. Of course it was banned as soon as it was printed, but there are still copies in circulation. I used to have one.’ She flicked her eyes up at Lil. ‘Over the years the Klaxon endured, and once again the figure of McNair became a standard behind which the good people of Peligan City gathered. People like you, Lil, and people like me.
‘For a long while I stood back and let the others carry on. You see, by then I had you, I had other things to worry about closer to home, like paying the rent and getting you through school. But as time went by I saw that things weren’t getting any better, they only got worse, because things don’t change unless people change them. The trouble was, so many people were just trying to get by; they didn’t have any fight left in them by the end of the day.
‘And then eight years ago I took a job at City Hall, working in the Public Records Department. An old colleague made contact one night and told me that they were working on a story, and they needed my help. I was perfectly positioned and as long as no one ever found out I could keep copying material for the Klaxon, helping them build their case to try to wipe out corruption at the top. Before long I was filing my own stories; to protect my identity I adopted the alias Randall Collar.