Haunters (9780545502542)

by Taylor, Thomas

  So, how had David known where he’d be?

  Eddie flattened out his notebook, took a pencil from his pocket, and hunched down to write.

  Dear Mother …

  He paused, surprised. Where had that come from? He hadn’t set out to write a letter. But perhaps that was the right thing to do. After all, his mother must be wondering where he’d got to. He chewed his pencil until he remembered what Kat had said about his mother being worried about him. Yes, perhaps he should have written before.

  I am well. I will join you as soon as I can, but …

  It was a brief letter, giving only the barest facts. The train Eddie had wanted to catch had been canceled, despite what it said on the timetable. A porter had told him it was being used to move evacuees instead, and said he’d have to wait a few days. Eddie had held the timetable up and pointed to where the times were clearly printed for anyone to see, but the porter had got angry with him then. It was shortly after that that David had appeared. But Eddie didn’t want to mention this.

  When the letter was finished, Eddie tore it out. Then he folded another page into a makeshift envelope with the help of his glue pot. He licked a stamp carefully — it tasted of the inside of his satchel — and pressed it firmly and squarely in place. Then he wrote his aunt’s address.

  The afternoon was already growing chilly by the time Eddie slipped out of the park. Would Kat be pleased to see him again? Surely she couldn’t blame him for going back — he had tried to catch a train. And where else could he go now, anyway? But he’d have to keep quiet about one thing: There was no way he could tell Kat and her angry-eyed brother that David — the ghost who wanted him dead — was still after him.

  The part of London where the theater stood was narrow and crowded, with a run-down air made shabbier still by fire and destruction. It wasn’t like the leafy avenues and squares Eddie was used to seeing from his window, but then he remembered that the white walls and broad trees of his own street existed only in his memory now. It was a place he could never get back to, no matter how much he dreamed of it. He stared blankly at the heap of rubble and split planks of a bombed-out house and then hurried on, eager again for the warmth and company of the theater attic.

  As he went, Eddie had the strangest feeling that he was being watched. He kept to the road when he could, despite the occasional motorcar, and tried to pick up his pace, one eye always open for a letterbox. It was just as he spotted that familiar Post Office red that someone grabbed his arm.

  “Back again, are we?” said Tomkin, propelling Eddie in a new direction. “Changed your mind about that train, eh? Best not catch cold, though. Keep your collar up, there’s a good man.”

  “Tomkin, what are you doing?”

  “You haven’t been quite on the level with us, have you, Eddie?”

  “What do you mean?” It was all Eddie could do not to trip.

  “Not here,” Tomkin said, his voice low and hard now. They didn’t stop until they were once again in the shadows beside the theater. Tomkin had obviously been busy, because instead of making for the rope, he turned to the side door. The planks were newly loosened, and he wrenched them back with a grunt.

  “After you, squire.”

  Eddie ducked to enter, but Tomkin shoved him through, before grabbing his arm again and pushing him toward the stage. The dark was almost total there, except for a little brown light that filtered in through the boards above.

  As they reached the ladder to the attic, Tomkin froze. A scraping sound came from the doorway behind them. Someone else was pulling back the planks.

  Tomkin swore and shoved Eddie behind some scenery flats that leaned against the wall. In the silence that fell, they peered around at the wings as someone appeared there in a halo of yellow light.

  But it was only Kat, carrying a candle.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Eddie shook Tomkin off. “You’re acting strangely.”

  “Eddie!” Kat stopped short. “But … why are you still here?”

  “I’m acting strange?” said Tomkin. “Blooming cheek! Anyway, how’d you expect me to act after discovering that someone’s after us? Or rather, after you. Little Lord Creepy here has been telling us whoppers, Kat.”

  “Who’s after me?” said Eddie, trying not to think of David. “My mother?”

  “Er, no, Eddie, old son,” said Tomkin. “I’m sure your ma doesn’t know the dodgy geezer who was handing out these.” And he shoved a crumpled piece of paper at Eddie’s chest. Eddie held it up in the glow of Kat’s candle. On the paper was a quick but accurately sketched portrait.

  “That’s you!” said Kat. “Eddie, what’s going on?”

  “We need to talk,” said Tomkin. He grabbed Eddie by a fistful of collar and dragged him to the ladder to the attic.

  When they reached the top, Kat put her candle to the fire she’d laid that morning. Eddie hung back, watching Tomkin warily, still clutching the sketch in one hand.

  “Where did you get that picture, Tom?” Kat asked as the kindling began to crackle alight. The temperature in the attic was already close to freezing.

  “From someone who’s hardly going to be helping an anxious mum,” Tomkin replied. “And it wasn’t the coppers neither.”

  Eddie glanced at the sketch again. He’d need to stick it in his book, worry out the answers there. He looked at Kat and shrugged.

  Tomkin shoved Eddie’s shoulder.

  “Oi, look at me, not me sister. This is my place you’re in. Got that?”

  Eddie nodded.

  “Right.” Tomkin stood over the fire. “Kat, I said yes to having Eddie here ’cause I thought he was just some nutty rich kid who might be good for a few suppers. But now it looks like there’s more to our Eddie than even you realize. It was Rob Box gave me this paper.”

  Kat’s eyes widened.

  “That can’t be right,” she said. “Eddie, why would Box and his cronies be looking for you?”

  “I don’t know,” said Eddie. “Maybe … maybe this is a drawing of someone else.”

  “Well, it certainly looks like you,” said Kat, eyeing the sketch again.

  Tomkin leaned in close.

  “See that?” he said, pointing to a smudge on the drawing. “Smell it.”

  Eddie did as he was told and noticed the telltale alcoholic tang of a chemical copier.

  “Yeah,” said Tomkin. “So that means there could be hundreds of these drawings out there, and if the likes of Rob Box is handing ’em out, they’re not going to the nice people your parents know. We’re talking gangs here, crooks.”

  “You don’t owe someone nasty any money, do you, Eddie?” Kat sat by the fire. “Heaven help you if you do, because we certainly can’t.”

  Eddie didn’t know what else he could say, so he pulled the notebook from his pocket, then fished around for a pencil.

  “Jeez, give me a break!” Tomkin looked at Eddie in disgust, raising one fist. But after a moment he relaxed, shook his head, and plonked himself down beside the fire.

  “All right, Eddie,” he said. “Something doesn’t add up here, but when I look at you I don’t exactly see a crook, so maybe it is all a mistake or something. Let’s sleep on it. But I warn you now, I don’t like the way you look at my sister, and if I find you’ve been holding out on us, so help me, I’ll brain yer. And then I’ll hand you over to Rob Box.”

  Eddie sat down quickly and took his glasses off. He picked at the crack in the lens. He was holding out on them — he was keeping quiet about David.

  “How much?” he said eventually.

  “How much what?” said Tomkin, staring into the fire.

  “Reward,” said Eddie, holding the drawing up.

  Tomkin looked at Eddie, the firelight dancing in his eyes.

  “No flies on you, are there, Eddie? All right, if you must know, they were offering a hundred pounds.”

  Kat gasped.

  “That’s how much it’s costing Kat and me to look after you, Mr. Edmund Butter-Wouldn’t-M
elt Utherwise. Just make sure you’re worth it, all right? That sort of money buys a lot of comfort for the likes of us.” And he put his arm around Kat, hugging her close.

  Eddie put his glasses back on and briefly met Tomkin’s gaze.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Tomkin waved his hand at him.

  “Ah, forget it,” he said. “They’d only beat us up and steal it back afterward,” he added, clearly looking for a change of subject. “Anyway, there’s something else I want to show you. I’ve been thinking about your ghost story, yeah, and — would you believe it? — there’s only a ghost in the evening edition. Spooky, eh?”

  Eddie took the crisp newspaper that Tomkin offered him. It was folded to page five. Under the title “The Paddington Ghost” was a picture. It showed platform one of the railway station, close to the clock and just where Eddie had been standing. Among the crowds he saw a ring of terrified faces turned toward something in the center of the shot: a vaguely human form with its arms raised. The quality of the photo was poor, but looking closely Eddie recognized the features.

  “David,” he said aloud, before he could stop himself.

  Tomkin gawped at him.

  “You have got to be kidding …”

  “Let me see!” Kat snatched the paper. “Lord, it could be! But what was he doing there?” She looked at Eddie, her mouth open.

  Eddie adjusted his glasses and fought back a cough. He risked a glance at Kat. She’d turned white.

  “You were at Paddington today.” She pointed at Eddie, then she jabbed at the ghost in the photo. “He was at the station because of you, wasn’t he? But if he could find you there, then …” She turned to her brother.

  “What! Come here, you mean?” It was Tomkin’s turn to go pale. “Nah, give over! Don’t wind me up, Kat, I’m not in the mood.”

  “I didn’t know he’d be there …” Eddie began, but Tomkin snatched the paper back from his sister and shoved it under Eddie’s nose.

  “This,” he said, “has been faked, so don’t go getting all creepy on us again, or I’ll sling you out right now.”

  “But, Tom …” Kat began. Her brother held up his hand.

  “I mean it,” he said, “Anyone can see it’s been faked. I only showed it to you for a laugh. It’s some kind of Christmas hoax — take our minds off the bombing or something, a government thing. Ghosts don’t exist, plain and simple. If they did, the scientists would’ve got onto them by now, wouldn’t they? There’d be proper stories about them in the paper, not fuzzy pictures like this.”

  Kat grabbed the paper again.

  “You can’t fake that!” she said impatiently. But then she added in a thoughtful tone, “Mind you, Eddie, look at him. I never saw your David ghost looking like this, all … glowing and see-through.”

  Eddie lifted his glasses onto his forehead and studied the picture closely. With his pencil, he began jotting quick notes down the side.

  “Off he goes with his pencil again.” Tomkin turned to his sister in exasperation. “The things you take under your wing, Kat. Aren’t I enough for you?”

  Kat smiled and kissed her brother on the cheek.

  “Apart from the location …” Eddie circled part of what he’d written and crossed out the rest. “… I can only see one significant difference: sunlight. I only ever saw David at night. Here … you can see it is sunny. I remember it was sunny.”

  “What!” cried Tomkin, jumping to his feet. “You remember? You mean you were actually there when they took this? When were you going to tell us that?”

  Eddie kept his head down, taking his writing off to one side and starting a new list. But he didn’t get very far, because Tomkin seized the newspaper and flung it on the fire.

  “I’ll tell you this once, and I’ll tell you this straight.” Tomkin leaned in close to Eddie and jabbed his finger into him like a knife. “If you’ve done anything — anything — to bring danger to my sister …” Then he made a slow cutting motion across Eddie’s neck, digging his nail in. “Understand? Now write that in your precious book and underline it.”

  Eddie swallowed.

  Tomkin seized a scarf and woolly hat from the pile of salvaged clothes and stomped over to the ladder.

  “I’m going out. Kat, tell your ‘friend’ he can stay tonight, but come the morning I want him gone. For good.” Then he slid down the ladder and vanished from sight.

  Eddie quickly rescued the paper from the fire. His hand was trembling.

  “You should have told us, Eddie,” Kat said.

  Eddie started to write, but then he looked up.

  “Your brother doesn’t like me.”

  “He just doesn’t like it that you’re so mysterious, that’s all,” Kat said with a sigh. She picked up the kettle. “He wants to be the interesting one, out on the streets talking to all sorts, taking his chances. He wants you to be impressed that he knows people like Rob Box, but instead you always go one better with your ghosts and the like. Tom was always the jealous type.”

  “What does Tomkin do,” Eddie said, “to know people like that?”

  “I don’t really know.” Kat sounded troubled. “He won’t tell me, but I think he’s already mixed up in a gang himself. He spends less and less time selling papers, anyway.”

  “He’s right,” said Eddie, looking at the portrait of himself.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If someone is after me, I’m making things difficult for you by staying here.”

  “Eddie, look at me.”

  Eddie kept his head down.

  “Eddie! Will you look me in the eye and promise me you never told David how to find this place?”

  Eddie adjusted his glasses. It was nice to be able to give a clear and honest answer. He looked up.

  “I never told him, Kat. I promise.”

  Kat clicked her tongue for a moment before speaking again.

  “I’ll talk to Tom. I think you should hide up here for a bit — with those burns and that singed hair you’ll stick out like a scarecrow, even around here. Maybe Tom will find out something, and I’ll try to get in touch with your ma. But it’d be best not to show yourself for a while, all right? People don’t hand out leaflets like that for nothing.”

  Eddie nodded. He carefully tore the photo of the ghost out of the newspaper and pasted it on a clean page of his notebook, positioning it squarely. He could tell Kat was still watching him, but he didn’t know what to say to her, so he said nothing. Instead he looked at the image of David again, strangely lit and translucent, and wondered for the millionth time what it all meant.

  In Spurlington’s Shipping Agency — at the late Mr. Spurlington’s mahogany desk — an anxious Charlie Grinn sat absentmindedly spearing a singed notebook with his knife, while the whole building shook.

  The telephone hadn’t rung for nearly an hour. An air raid had been in progress for almost two.

  “Bring me another,” he yelled, pointing to the empty whiskey bottle that wobbled by the phone. Tater, who was standing behind the desk with a brow covered in cold sweat, sloped off into the gloom. The room was lit only by a small, sulfurous coal burner. In the corner a copying machine stood among split packets of paper. The smell of the spirits it used hung heavy in the dusty air. Outside, the distant wail of the sirens could barely be heard beyond the crash and rumble of the bombs.

  Grinn wasn’t happy. After the bizarre turn of events at Paddington — another ghost, for goodness’ sake! — Adam had been furious. Grinn, though, had just been desperate to get as far away as possible from the sensation and the police who came with it, and was ready to give up the whole cursed affair as too risky. But Adam had other ideas. Grinn shuddered as he remembered the boy’s reappearance in this very office that afternoon. He’d been terrifying and impossible to refuse. This whole business with Adam was becoming a nightmare, but by now there seemed to be only one way out for Charlie Grinn. Find this Eddie kid and stick a knife in him.

  So far, the only clue was this ha
lf-burned notebook found in the ruins of Edmund Utherwise’s house. At least, Adam claimed it was a clue. All Grinn could see in it were smudges and crossings-out, and what good was that meant to be? He jabbed his blade into it again.

  Adam would return at midnight. And it had been clear from his tone that he expected to find the boy waiting for him, bound and gagged and ready to be killed. But even Grinn couldn’t produce that kind of result, not in just a few hours. As it was, he was using all the contacts he had, calling in every favor, making the rashest of promises to some very dangerous people. Word had seeped throughout the underworld that Grinn was offering serious money to locate a lost boy, and every gang in London probably had someone out on the job, taking advantage of the raid and the empty streets. It was only a matter of time. But how much time?

  “Tell me again what they said,” Grinn snapped as Tater came back with the whiskey. “Could it be the boy we’re after?”

  “Can’t say, guv,” said the man as he poured his boss a glass. He splashed a little over the side as something exploded nearby. “It’s just some kid they know. They say he’s been lying to them. Thought you’d like to ask him yourself. They’re sending their man straight over.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Rob Box, guv.”

  “Box …” Grinn drained his glass and looked at the clock on the wall. “… is an insect. He really the best lead we have?”

  Tater shrugged. He and the other minder were also looking at the clock, and the atmosphere in the room was growing tense.

  Midnight struck.

  “Well, Mr. Grinn,” said an unmistakable voice. “Is it done? Is it seen to?”

  Charlie Grinn remained composed. He’d already shown fear in front of his men because of Adam, and he had no intention of doing something so foolhardy again. He deliberately stayed in his chair, even as his minders fell back. Something moved in the shadows. Adam’s face appeared first, pale and handsome, then the rest of him emerged from the gloom.

  “Good evening, Mr. Adam,” said Grinn. “Whiskey?”

  “Don’t waste my time, Grinn. What news?”