The Haunting of Peligan City

by Sophie Green

  ‘Too risky. This “epidemic” can’t go on for ever; sooner or later someone will get wise. The Klaxon are already investigating – these pictures are proof of that – and if his cover gets blown and he has to flee, he can’t risk leaving the spooks behind – he’d never get them back.

  ‘He will have thought through every eventuality; like when we turned up at the asylum, he had already claimed Lankin’s identity and engineered his place at the prison so he could take over there as soon as Mr Glimmer killed Dr Carvel. If there’s one thing we’ve come to know about Cornelius Gallows, it’s that he’s always one step ahead of the game.’

  Nedly nodded knowingly. ‘And he’s really patient.’

  ‘Yes.’ Lil had to concede that one. ‘They’re the two things we’ve come to know.’

  ‘And extremely cold and calculating,’ Nedly added. Lil nodded, a little less enthusiastically. ‘And he’s a genius.’

  When he opened his mouth to speak again Lil cut him off. ‘I suppose when we really think about it we know quite a lot about Gallows.’ She raised her eyebrow cryptically. ‘And we’re going to need every bit of that knowledge if we’re going to put a stop to him. For good this time.’

  She crumpled the paper serviette into her fist. ‘So, as soon as the new owner leaves for the night, we’re going to break into the doll hospital and find the haunted objects.’

  Nedly slid down off the bin. ‘What if he doesn’t leave? Or what if he comes back?’ He gave her an earnest look. ‘We’re going to need some help.’

  Lil let the eyebrow collapse as she opened the bin and threw the balled-up serviette away with a sigh. ‘I know.’

  Chapter 20

  The Bird Can Sing

  Standing in front of the mirror Hench kept his eyes fixed on his own face and away from the dusty glass cabinet that was reflected over his shoulder. He knotted his yellow silk tie in a fat Windsor.

  ‘You ain’t going to spook me tonight, boys. I’ve got a couple of hours before I’ve got to make my delivery and I’m going to enjoy myself.’ He looked at the drawstring bag, which was hanging on the wall filled with the next batch of poppets destined for the Needle. ‘I’m going to get me down to the Golden Loop, maybe play a couple of spins on the wheel.’ He gave himself a winner’s smile. ‘Why, you might ask? Because old Henchie deserves a bit of a break, that why. He’s been working hard and not getting any praise for it, and the boss thinks staying here keeping watch on you freaks is no great shakes but it gets to you. Right here.’ He jabbed a finger towards his temple and then tried to straighten his hat into a more upstanding position but it slipped on his oily hair and went back to its original perch.

  Without his permission his reflection glanced nervously at the cabinet. The hair on the back of his neck rose with a prickle and he wiped a clammy palm to flatten it.

  ‘Ha! The old heebie-jeebies! Nice try, boys, but Hench doesn’t scare that easily. Am I right?’ He asked his reflection.

  His reflection wasn’t sure.

  His eyes darted again. The door to the cabinet looked like it was slightly ajar. Hench whipped his head round to look at it. It was definitely open, but had it been before?

  He cleared his throat and began a song; he knew how to beat the creeps. He’d beaten them before. ‘Ta-dum, ta-dum, ta-doodah-dum.’ His voice was getting sticky. He loosened his tie a bit and dabbed the sweat off his face with his spotted handkerchief.

  ‘Dah-doo, dah-doo, tah-ah –’ The last word stuck in his throat as tight as a walnut in its shell.

  Across the room a music box snapped open and the little crooked ballerina inside twirled lopsidedly to the same invented tune that he had just been singing. Hench moved over to it, his hand shaking. He pushed the lid closed. Behind him a clockwork monkey began to tick quietly.

  Soft and silent, the door to the cabinet swung fully open and Hench watched, horror-struck, as one of the small figures inside fell forward and slipped from its shelf with a tinkling of bells.

  He gasped, then pulled himself together. ‘What did I tell you, Mr Grip?’ He huffed his way to the poppet that was sprawled across the dirty floorboards and gingerly picked the limp body up.

  ‘You got warned, Mr Grip. If I get any more trouble it will be the furnace for you, my boy. I don’t care what the boss says.’

  He hadn’t mean to shake the poppet, but he had, and there it was: a sound like a shot from a pop gun, and then something knocked him out cold face down in the sawdust.

  A second later his eyes opened cautiously, only this time it wasn’t Hench looking through them. It was Mr Grip.

  Hench’s hand took a careful hold of the poppet on the floor and carried it to the workbench. His legs stumbled and jerked as though they were asleep; a couple of times they didn’t plant right and he went down on his knees, bumping his head when his hands didn’t shoot out to save him, but it didn’t seem to bother him. When he reached the workbench he sat down, first on the floor with a jolt then he hauled himself up and sat on the stool.

  Hench switched on the lamp, swiped all the tools onto the floor with a hand that collected splinters like a pin cushion collects pins, and then laid the poppet carefully on the bench. Smiling dopily at it, he gave it another gentle shake.

  As the tiny bell rung Hench’s ear pricked up. He opened his mouth a couple of times like a fish gulping for air and then whispered Grip’s instructions to the poppet.

  Hench’s expression changed again: a broad smile broke out on his face and then vanished and like a puppet with cut strings he slumped forward onto the hard worktop fast enough to give himself a nose bleed.

  The temperature in the room plummeted and the shadows lengthened. A spell of frost crept over the fur of the teddy bears as the malicious presence of Mr Grip left the body of Vassal Hench, seeped across the workshop and then exited through the front window without making a sound.

  A few seconds later, when Hench woke up, he looked at the poppet and it stared right back up at him. Its black beaded eyes were blank. He felt a warm trickle on his upper lip, touched his fingers to it and found that there was blood; he upturned his palms and saw that they were speckled with splinters.

  Hench’s heart beat so loudly he could hear it, a deafening thump that filled his ears, a drumming that got louder until he snatched the poppet off the workbench by its bell and stomped off to a pile of crates that were stacked in the back room.

  ‘No more mischief for you,’ he whispered shakily.

  He opened up one of the boxes and pulled out the red synthetic toy fur that was inside, laid the poppet at the very bottom, replaced the fur, then pressed the lid down hard. ‘Let’s see you get yourself out of there.’ Then he stacked three more boxes on top of the crate and tapped the top one smugly.

  Hench carefully closed the door of the cabinet that held the other poppets and then he put on his thick astrakhan coat, switched off the lights and locked the front door behind him.

  From a doorway across the street, Lil and Nedly watched as the lights went out in the old doll hospital. They saw the new owner disappear round the corner. The temperature had fallen with the night, soft and deadly, and the streets were eerily quiet. Moments later a shiny maroon Alvis pulled out of a side road, its lights sweeping the snow-covered road in a yellow arc. They waited until the glow of the back lights had disappeared and then they emerged from the shadows and set off for 154c Wilderness Lane.

  When they arrived at the third-floor landing, they could hear a conversation coming from inside the office.

  ‘He has a visitor,’ Lil murmured. She inched her way towards the door, putting up a finger to warn Nedly to hang back, which he exchanged for a look that reminded her that he was invisible.

  Lil drew nearer. It was her mother’s voice.

  ‘Her shift finished two hours ago.’

  ‘Maybe she’s gone to the pictures?’

  ‘The cinema is shut; everything closes early with the curfew – everywhere but the library and the Nite Jar, and she’s not
at either one. Yoshi said she left at five.’

  ‘Maybe you missed her.’

  Lil pulled a face at Nedly and shuffled closer.

  ‘Lil, wait!’ he hissed.

  ‘Shhh!’ she replied. ‘I can’t hear.’

  Her mother’s voice dropped even lower. ‘I know I’m putting you in an awkward position, Abe, maybe even asking you to break a promise, but I’m worried. She’s my daughter and I need to know she’s OK.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask her yourself?’ Abe pulled open the door and Lil nearly fell through it. ‘You know that’s frosted glass, right?’

  Lil managed to get the grim smile out just in time. ‘I was about to knock.’

  ‘Hey,’ Naomi said, relief shining from her face. ‘I was wondering where you were.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Lil, not really sounding sorry.

  Abe held the door open for enough time for anyone else who might have been on the landing to walk through it and then closed it again with a shiver.

  Lil dumped her rucksack on the desk. ‘I’ve got to talk to Abe about a case we’re working on.’ She paused. ‘It’s private.’

  ‘I can keep a secret.’

  Lil hardened her heart. ‘We don’t want the press involved at this point. If there’s a story in it, we’ll let you know.’

  Naomi held her hands up in surrender. ‘OK, leave me out of it. That’s fine. I’m just glad you’re all right.’ She waited but Lil stayed silent, so eventually she backed over towards the sofa. ‘I’ll just wait in the corner. You won’t even know I’m here.’

  Lil rolled her eyes. She unzipped the rucksack and pulled out the copies she had made of the newspaper articles about the executed prisoners, laying them all out on the desk for Abe to look over.

  Lil sat watching him as he took it all in. He was a careful reader and she could see his eyes scanning back and forth, like a shuttle on a loom as he tried to weave this new information into what he knew already. Every now and then he rubbed his chin. When he’d finished he muttered grimly, ‘So this is who we’re up against. It adds up with Montbatsu’s theory, though I wish it didn’t. What I can’t see is how is he getting to them?’ He dropped his voice to a mumble. ‘Gallows, I mean. How does he know when they’re going to croak?’

  ‘Read on.’ Lil passed him the stolen file.

  Naomi piped up from the arm of the sofa. ‘I wondered where that had gone.’

  ‘I just borrowed it,’ said Lil, manoeuvring to block her mother’s view.

  ‘See anyone you know?’ Lil asked Abe, her eyes gleaming.

  Abe analysed the photo. ‘That –’ he stuck his finger against the pudgy face in the hooded raincoat – ‘is Vassal Hench. I put him away fifteen years ago for armed robbery.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ Lil nodded. ‘But actually I wasn’t talking about him and anyway, he’s out now. What’s more, he’s the new owner of the doll hospital out on Hen Road.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Abe growled, glaring at the picture, daring it to agree with him.

  Naomi called over. ‘He’s the one that’s been breaching security. That picture was taken only three days ago.’

  Lil gave her mother a warning glance and then turned back to Abe. ‘He’s working with Cornelius Gallows; he can get in and out of the Secure Wing whenever he wants.’

  Abe looked sceptical. ‘Why would he risk it – doesn’t he know about the epidemic?’

  Lil flashed her eyes at him. ‘There isn’t one. Gallows is executing the prisoners.’

  Abe slapped his forehead with his rubber palm, catching himself in the eye with one of the bendy fingers.

  Naomi edged out from the corner. ‘Are you talking about Cornelius Gallows? Ramon LeTeef’s old partner in crime?’

  ‘The very same.’

  ‘Didn’t Gallows die in the fire at Rorschach?’

  Lil gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Look, this is a complicated story and we don’t really have time to explain.’

  Abe was winking fitfully as he tried to focus on the photo while wiping away tears. ‘But how is Gallows getting into the prison – the same way as Hench?’

  ‘He’s already there. He has been for months. Look.’ She tried again, pointing to Gallows.

  Abe held the picture up under the Anglepoise lamp, closed his injured eye and glared with his good one. ‘Is that Lankin?’

  ‘No!’ Lil and Nedly cried out at the same time. Lil rummaged around in her rucksack until she found the older article and put it under Abe’s nose. ‘This is Alector Lankin, taken thirteen years ago, at Rorschach Asylum.’ She put the surveillance picture beside it. ‘And this is him now. Notice anything different?’

  Lil, Abe and Nedly all crowded around the desk lamp to stare at the photograph, while Naomi hovered behind.

  Abe pondered it. ‘He hasn’t aged well.’ Nedly leant over his shoulder, causing goose pimples to spike on Abe’s neck as the creeps set in. ‘Do you mind giving me a bit of space here?’ he growled.

  ‘Sorry.’ Naomi backed away. ‘I wasn’t trying to pry.’

  ‘I didn’t mean –’ Abe started but then didn’t know how to finish. He turned back to the photograph. ‘He looks thinner.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Lil, casting Nedly a vexed look. ‘But also, if you look closely, you’ll see that he’s managed to grow half a foot taller, and his face is completely different.’

  Abe placed a rubber fingertip over the older Lankin’s curly hair. ‘Hey!’ he exclaimed suddenly. ‘Cornelius Gallows, as I live and breathe! So that’s where he’s been hiding, pretending to be Lankin, all this time.’ He looked up at Lil, his jaw set in steel, the fires of justice burning in his eyes. ‘I’ll tell you something, I bet the real Dr Lankin never even escaped the original fire at the asylum.’ Lil looked patiently back at him and the light in his eyes guttered. ‘You guessed that already?’

  ‘I – we – had a hunch,’ she confessed.

  ‘That’s pretty good investigative work,’ Abe admitted. ‘Chip off the old block, eh?’ He smiled up at Naomi but she was busy studying the map that was pinned to his wall and if she heard the comment, she didn’t let on.

  ‘So,’ Lil continued, ignoring him, ‘like you said, Monbatsu was right, the cases are connected, Gallows has been executing prisoners and then sending his gang –’ she dropped her voice to a whisper – ‘by which I mean “ghosts”, after the kingpins of Peligan City, like Minos and Ping, and Silverman, and the ones in the Fright File are those who got in their way.’

  She nodded him further out of earshot and continued. ‘But we’ve got a good idea about where he’s keeping the things that his spooks are bound to and we’re going there to destroy them. Abe, we’re up against a deadline of the deadliest kind …’ She was about to say, and we need your help when she remembered her mother was there, so instead she said, ‘And we thought you might want to come along, but it looks like you’re busy so …’

  ‘Everyone is busy tonight,’ Naomi said firmly. ‘And we need to get home. If it snows again, we might not get past the ring road. You don’t have to tell me what’s going on if it’s a big secret, but whatever it is, it can wait.’ She gave Abe a pointed look.

  ‘Lil, I’d like you and the file you borrowed from me in the car in five minutes, OK? Say your goodbyes – I’ll be waiting.’

  She made for the door with Nedly trooping behind. ‘Wait!’ Lil shouted after him. Naomi turned. Lil shuffled the photos together, and handed them over, flashing a look to Nedly that meant ‘stay put!’ ‘You might as well take this now. I’ve done with it.’

  Naomi nodded. It was a look of sad acceptance, and it stayed with her as she walked away. Lil waited until Naomi was clear and then turned to Abe. ‘So, are you coming?’

  ‘Just you try and go without me.’ He grinned and Lil grinned back at him. ‘But we’re not going to make the mistake we made last time,’ he continued. ‘This time we wait until it’s light, and then we go in. I’m not doing any more poking around in the dark in haunted houses.’


  Lil had stopped grinning. ‘But Hench will be back tomorrow!’

  ‘Let me handle Hench.’

  ‘But what about the toymaker? She might be in danger! We need to warn her.’

  ‘She’s my client; if there’s any warning to do, I’ll do it.’ Abe’s nostrils flared a couple of times with the deep breaths that blew out of them. ‘What do you think your mother would say if she knew we were going off to an old doll hospital to fight ghouls all night?’

  ‘Obviously I wasn’t going to tell her.’

  ‘Well, she’s waiting for you outside so I’d say you’re all out of options tonight.’ Abe gave her a look that held a sigh in it. ‘I’ll come by in the Zodiac first thing tomorrow and we’ll go after Hench together. I promise.’

  When Lil got to the bottom of the stairs she paused for no more than a millisecond and then took a sharp right, turning away from the front door and following the hairpin bend of the hallway towards the back of the building.

  Nedly jogged along in her wake. ‘Why are we going this way?’

  Lil found what she was looking for: the back door. ‘Because Mum’s out there waiting, and I’m not ready to go home just yet.’

  She slid the bolts across, squeezing the handle until it turned, and opened the door to the street behind. A shaft of cool lamplight stretched along the hall. Lil’s shadow sliced it in two and fell on Nedly. The road beyond was dotted with drains over which the snow had melted, like black spots on white dice.

  Lil stepped out from the doorway and the door began closing.

  Nedly hesitated. ‘We’re not going to the doll hospital on our own, are we?’ He saw Lil turn back towards him through the narrowing window of the doorway and started forward. He almost made the gap, but by then it was only a few centimetres wide, and with a shuddering ‘Yaargh!’ he spilled out onto the street and ran after Lil who was already halfway down the road.

  Up in the office Abe rubbed his palm over his jaw. It made a rasping sound like someone sandpapering a pumice stone. He walked the floor a couple of times and then paused at the map of Peligan City. His eyes traced the pattern of streets until they reached Hen Road. Burying both hands in his pockets he nodded to himself, and then looked down at Margaret. She looked back at him from under her steepled brows.