by Sophie Green
Naomi recovered at last. ‘We should go,’ she whispered. ‘Before they start asking us awkward questions.’ She nodded to the exit.
Where the door and window had once been there was now just a lot of broken glass, shattered wood and the van the jumpsuits had arrived in. As they edged their way towards it one of the jumpsuits put out a hand to indicate that they should stop. Lil could hear the hiss of radio static as he communicated with one of the others, and then the jumpsuit with the hair-dryer device came over and passed it over each of their bodies.
He scanned them with no more interest than he had anything else. The only time he hesitated was with Lil, when he ran the scanner over her twice, and then reached out a scientific finger and prodded her on the forehead with it, before tapping the machine against his gloved palm to fix whatever problem had caused the rogue reading. Then he moved on, following some wave of activity elsewhere.
Another jumpsuit approached, unclipped their helmet and pulled off the hood beneath, revealing a sharp-featured woman with flushed cheeks and strong eyebrows. Strands of her long grey hair were plastered sweatily against her neck.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked them.
The three nodded mutely.
Then Lil started to explain, ‘There’s a man outside, in the snow –’
But the woman cut her off. ‘That’s not our responsibility. You need to clear the area.’
Lil, Abe and Naomi exchanged confused glances. Then one of the team come over, his orange visor reflecting the woman’s face back at her, and reported in his nasal radio voice: ‘We’ve picked up another reading, Virgil.’
The woman called Virgil gave him a curt nod. ‘We’re not done here yet.’ She replaced her own helmet. The next time she spoke it was in a tinny radio voice. ‘Exit at the front. Stay away from the van,’ she warned, and then turned and strode off.
Abe put Margaret down and she trotted purposefully to the pile of broken doll parts that were banked up against the shelves and started digging, burrowing down until she found what she was looking for: the bead-eyed poppet. She nipped hold of it with her little front teeth, carried it over to where Lil stood and dutifully sat down.
‘Good idea,’ said Lil. ‘Just in case.’ She took hold of the creepy poppet with her fingers over the bell to keep it from ringing out.
‘I’ve just got to take care of something,’ she whispered to Abe and took two steps backwards, into the darkness, away through the back room and down the stairs. She climbed through the smashed-in doorway, picking her way past broken plasterboard, and finally walking over the fallen door like a drawbridge.
Once inside, she opened the furnace and threw Mr Grip’s poppet into the flames. Its sack-cloth body ignited instantly; light burst briefly in its chest as the flammable stuffing went up, the thread mouth curled to ash and the plastic bead eyes melted into slick black tears. Within seconds it was no more than a topknot and a white-hot bell.
Chapter 28
An Early Breakfast
They stumbled over the collapsed shopfront and out into the snow.
Lil pulled her notebook out of her back pocket as they squeezed past what turned out to be a silver transit van and paused to scribble down the lettering on the side, which read ‘Ghostcatcher Inc’.
Naomi nodded at it. ‘Gordian said she had a plan to deal with the so-called hauntings. I guess they are it.’
Abe, who had to do more squeezing than the others, was the last to emerge onto the street. He nodded at the van and said ‘Big news!’ in a voice that was short on breath.
Naomi agreed. ‘Whatever this is, it’s going to make some story.’ She turned to Lil, who felt her heart lifting for a moment at the thought of working with her mother on the scoop. ‘Where’s the nearest phone box?’
Lil’s heart sank again. Reluctantly she pointed down Bead Street. ‘About a block that way. Can I come too?’
Naomi gave her a rueful look. ‘Not this time. Wait for me at the Picture House.’ She turned to go.
‘Mum?’ Lil slipped her rucksack off her shoulders and rummaged around inside. She pulled out her report on the Cornelius Gallows/Alector Lankin situation and offered it up. ‘You better take this too. Gallows is behind all this and someone better break the story about him being holed up in the prison before he escapes again.’
Naomi took hold of the papers and Lil let them go.
As she jogged away down the road, Abe gave Lil a grim smile. ‘Sorry we got separated back there, kiddo.’
Lil shrugged. ‘It’s OK. I wasn’t alone.’
‘You two did all right.’ He looked meaningfully at a bit of empty space by Lil.
‘It’s just me here,’ she said. ‘But, yeah, we did OK, until Mr Grip showed up. Thanks for sending Margaret by the way; she was a big help.’
‘That was your mother’s idea.’
‘I’ll bet,’ said Lil. ‘I better go and find Nedly.’ She indicated the alleyway that ran alongside the doll hospital. ‘Catch up with you in a minute.’
Lil slowly made her way towards the back of the building, running her hand along the brickwork, trying to find a spot that was colder than the rest, where Nedly had passed through, or was hiding. ‘Nedly, are you in there?’ she whispered every couple of feet.
She was just past the bins when a small voice replied, ‘I’m here.’ He was leaning against the opposite wall, almost invisible in the darkness.
‘Phew!’ said Lil. ‘You’re OK.’ She studied him for a moment; he was flickering slightly. ‘Are you OK?’
Nedly shrugged. ‘I’m just glad you got out of there all right. I wasn’t sure …’ They heard a noise from beyond the wall, someone pushing aside toppled shelving units by the sound of it. ‘Ghostcatcher?’ Nedly peered up the alley where the rear of the van could be seen – its lights illuminating the surrounding snow.
Lil nodded enthusiastically. ‘You should have seen the laser thing they netted Grip with. It was a-mazing. I’m not sure what it did exactly but it looked really cool. He didn’t stand a chance; it was all over in a few seconds. They just got him fixed in this, like, cage of green light and then – squerp! Sucked him out of the room!’ Nedly’s already pale face turned paler and he shuddered. ‘But I torched his poppet anyway,’ Lil assured him. ‘Just in case.’
They headed off out of the alleyway and around the corner towards the cinema. Lil lowered her voice as they neared the bricked-up fire exit at the back of the doll hospital.
She pointed at the man sleeping soundly in the doorway, in the pitch that had once belonged to Delilah. ‘I can’t believe he slept through all that.’
‘What makes you think I’m asleep?’ His voice cut through the air. ‘The dead themselves couldn’t rest with that racket going on in there.’
It took Lil a moment to get over the start he’d given her. ‘Sorry. But you had your eyes closed again so …’
‘I can close my eyes whenever I like,’ he fired back. ‘You can thank your stars I was awake. Who do you think called the number?’
‘What number?’
He rummaged in a bag filled with old newspapers, pulled out a leaflet and held it out to her. It was the Haunting Hotline flyer.
Lil stared at it in disbelief. ‘This thing is real?’
‘You’re holding it, aren’t you?’ The man snatched the flyer back out of her hands. ‘I figured you all needed some help in there; you were making enough noise about it.’
Lil tried to smile at him through her gritted teeth. ‘OK, well, thanks, I suppose.’
‘You suppose right,’ he huffed back, and then with a shake of his head he pulled his sleeping bag up over his shoulder and hunkered down into his cardboard nest.
‘You asked me to go for help.’ Nedly grimaced. ‘He was it.’
They crossed the road at the corner, and as soon as they were out of earshot Lil said, ‘Where did you find the flyer?’
‘They’re everywhere,’ he told her. ‘Someone must have dropped a load over the city while w
e were in the doll hospital. I had to blow it at him a few times and put the frighteners on him a bit before he sat up and took notice, but eventually he got the message.’
‘You did all right, Nedly.’ She looked serious for a moment, thinking how she had never really believed that he would leave her and how scared she had been when he did. In the end she just said, ‘I knew you would think of something.’
Abe and Margaret had taken shelter under the marquee of the Limelight Picture House while they waited for the Potkins to catch up. Lil and Nedly joined them, sitting in a row along the top step where the snow was held off by the awning.
Abe took off his hat and tapped the rubble out of the crease. Margaret left his side and trotted round to where Nedly was sitting. She didn’t exactly sit next to him, but she was voluntarily closer than she had ever been.
‘Oh, it’s like that, is it?’ Abe sighed at the inevitability of it all, sank back onto the pavement and buried his chin in his collar.
Lil winked at Nedly. ‘Looks like you’ve got company.’
‘You did a great job in there, Margaret.’ Nedly reached out a hand to stroke her but she growled and he retracted it. Then the little dog wrinkled her forehead and peeled back her lips. It was a mixed-up expression, but not unlike a smile.
‘That’s a pretty creepy face, Margaret,’ Lil said, but Nedly was grinning.
Nobody spoke for a while after that. Lil was tired and her eyes were watering with the plaster dust she had rubbed into them. She wiped the tears away, leaving her cheeks slightly cleaner than the rest of her face.
Naomi waved as she rounded the corner, the streetlight throwing her shadow out across the snow as if she were a giant.
Abe replaced the slightly cleaner hat on his dusty head and called out to her. ‘That didn’t take long.’
‘I put a call in to the office. Quake is on her way. I left the file for her.’ Naomi climbed the steps up to where they were sitting.
Lil kept her eyes on her boots. ‘Aren’t you going back to the scene for the scoop?’
‘Nah, I’ve got better things to do tonight.’ She sat down beside Lil who glanced across and noticed the thin trickle of blood running down the bridge of her mother’s nose and her cracked glasses.
‘Are you all right, Mum?’
Naomi gingerly touched two fingers to the cut. ‘Some doll kicked me in the head, but I’ll live.’ She paused to give Lil a look-over too. ‘How about you? Are you OK?’
Lil nodded shakily.
‘What about the other kid? The one who went for help. Are they still around?’
‘He’s here somewhere.’ Lil looked across at Nedly and her eye flickered in a wink.
‘Well, the cavalry, or whatever that was, arrived just in time, so I’d like to thank him.’
‘I’ll let him know, if I see him.’
‘You should have gone to get help too, you know?’
Lil dug her boot into the snow and forged a crescent. ‘I didn’t want to leave you down there. Anyway, the goon was in the way; one of us had to distract him.’
‘Well, it was stupid and brave to stick around.’
Lil snorted off the half-compliment. ‘It’s fair to say I was petrified the whole time.’ She thought for a moment and then added, ‘Weren’t you?’
Naomi nodded. ‘More scared than I’ve ever been in my life. You were up there, and I was trapped in the cellar. I couldn’t see how to get to you …’
Lil gave her a lopsided smile. ‘You completely destroyed that door.’
Naomi smiled back. ‘Abe helped.’
They sat in silence for a minute or two and then Lil tried again. ‘I meant in the workshop. Weren’t you scared then?’
‘You mean of the ghost?’ Naomi crooked her fingers around the word ‘ghost’ in a that-made-up-thing-that-isn’t-real way. ‘The laser show was good but sure as eggs are eggs I didn’t see anything I would call supernatural.’
Lil looked past her mother at Nedly. He was talking animatedly to Margaret, saying, ‘I know you weren’t keen on the ball but I’ve been thinking maybe I got that wrong, maybe you’re more of a stick dog. I can do that – I’ll just need a bit of practice. And a stick.’
Naomi tilted her head to catch Lil’s eye again and then reached out to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. ‘I know I don’t say it often, but I am proud of you, kiddo.’
Lil couldn’t stop the reflex shrug that came whenever anyone said something that she had no reply for, but then she bit her lip and managed to whisper, almost loud enough for Naomi to hear, ‘I’m proud of you too, Mum.’
It had been a long night. Behind the street lamps the sky was still as black as pitch, but Lil suddenly had the hopeful feeling that somewhere in the world the sun was rising.
‘So,’ she said, ‘what now?’
Naomi levered herself onto her feet and held out a hand. ‘How about an early breakfast?’
Lil looked at her watch. ‘It’s twenty past midnight.’
‘I know. But I bet I can get the Nite Jar to reopen.’
Abe made a show of brushing the snow off his trousers to avoid looking at anyone. ‘Well, I’ll be seeing you.’
Lil was taken aback. ‘Aren’t you coming?’
‘No,’ Abe said gruffly. ‘I’ve got some stuff to do, and I have to be somewhere else to do it.’
‘It’s the middle of the night,’ said Lil. ‘Where else would you need to be?’
‘Asleep. In bed.’ He softened slightly and shrugged. ‘You don’t really want me there. Anyway, I’m all dusty and covered in bear fur.’
Naomi hooked her own plaster-caked arm, which was sprinkled with sawdust and even some blood from a particularly bad splinter, through his. ‘So am I.’
‘Yeah, well, it suits you,’ said Abe, with a bashful smile. ‘All right then, I’m in, if you’re buying.’ Together they strolled off down Spooner Row towards the Nite Jar with Margaret trotting solemnly at their heels.
Nedly glanced back towards the alley where the Ghostcatcher van was parked. ‘You know, for a minute there I thought they were going to come after me too.’
‘Yeah,’ admitted Lil. ‘Even their high-tech equipment might not be able to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys.’
Nedly’s eyes darkened. Leaflets for the Haunting Hotline were scattered all about, lying on the wet ground, their red lettering streaking the snow like blood spots. A chilling breeze circled the road at the corner and blew the snow straight through him. ‘I better keep out of their way then,’ he murmured to himself.
Lil smiled at Nedly and said, ‘So, what do you want to do now?’
He wrinkled his nose thoughtfully. ‘When we get to the cafe, will you order an extra sausage for me? I … I was going to give it to Margaret.’
Lil grinned at him. ‘She’d like that, but I meant now that we’ve scuppered Gallows’ plan and destroyed all his poppets, what do you want to do now?’ The snow had started falling again, silently muddling the air and covering Lil’s footprints along the path. ‘Me and you together, I reckon we could do anything.’
Nedly grinned back at her, his eyes shining in the pearly glow of the streetlights. ‘Sounds good to me.’
Acknowledgements
A huge thank-you to: Emma Matthewson and Jenny Jacoby, Nick Stearn, Jeff Jamieson, Tina Mories and everyone at Piccadilly Press who has worked on Potkin and Stubbs with such passion behind the scenes.
Fellow writers Ruth Dugdall, Jane Bailey, Morag Liffen and Liz Ferretti for the workshopping, Nick Smith for the website and Graham Felce for the photography; Amanda and Neil Davidson for showing me the bright lights of the big city; Catherine Larner for all sorts of book-related advice and support, and David Schmid for an excellent online course on mystery writing and suspense.
Finally, to my family and my friends – sorry you didn’t see me very much, but thanks for the space and time, and for still being there when I resurfaced.
Sophie Green
Sophie
Green writes children’s fiction, short stories and scripts. She has a degree in zoology and an interest in folklore. She was born in Suffolk, where she works as a children’s librarian for the public library service.
Karl James Mountford
Karl James Mountford was born in Germany and is now a full-time illustrator based in Wales.
He studied illustration at Swansea College of Art and was also the artist in residence there while studying for his M.A. in Visual Communication.
He now spends most of his day illustrating all types of awesome stories and genres.
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First published in Great Britain in 2019 by
PICCADILLY PRESS
80–81 Wimpole St, London W1G 9RE
www.piccadillypress.co.uk
Text copyright © Sophie Green, 2019
Illustrations copyright © Karl James Mountford, 2019
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The right of Sophie Green and Karl James Mountford to be identified as author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-84812-764-7
Piccadilly Press is an imprint of Bonnier Books UK
www.bonnierbooks.co.uk