‘The Company has answers for all of those questions. First, we go to an afterlife that is appropriate to the life we’ve lived and the belief system we followed. Second, ghosts are impressions left on this world by deaths that are traumatic – an echo, if you like. Third, see Answer Two.’
‘But you’re not convinced?’
She shook her head sharply. ‘For some time I’ve thought that the official stance on ghosts was too straightforward. The more I read, the more it seemed as if the Company was wilfully ignoring the complexities that others were concerned about.’ She took her hands from her pockets and rubbed them together slowly. ‘So, where do you think ghosts go after you release them?’
‘Okay, there’s the official Marin family line and then there’s the Anton line.’
‘So where do ghosts go according to the Marin family?’
‘We don’t know.’
‘I see. So how about according to Anton?’
‘I don’t know either, but I’m not as certain about that as the family is.’
‘That’s not very helpful.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Anton, the Company doesn’t encourage us to think too deeply about ghosts.’
‘Well, if you’re set on destroying something, it’s better to think that it isn’t really very important. Or very human. Lessons of history.’
‘Lessons of history?’
‘The way it’s easier for soldiers to butcher an enemy if they’re convinced the enemy is less than human? Something like that.’
‘And what if ghosts are part of something? What if they’ve been left behind and the original can’t pass on without being complete? What if your work not only allows a ghost a chance at peace but allows a lost soul a chance of reunification and peace? And what if all my crusading work destroying ghosts has denied some this chance?’
Her voice broke at this. She put a hand to her face and sobbed.
I took a deep breath and went to give her a hug, but she backed away.
Okay, so that was clear. I couldn’t do anything for Rani in her distress, or not the right thing anyway, and I wanted to. My hands were suddenly useless objects on the ends of my arms. I straightened my jacket, brushed my sleeves, rubbed my hands together, and studied the sky as my blush flared and slowly receded.
After some time, I said, as if nothing had happened, ‘You know, you’ve put your finger on questions that have been much discussed in the Marin family for a long, long time.’
‘I have?’ Her voice was muffled, but then she took her hands away from her face. She found a tissue and used it. ‘I thought you said the Marin family didn’t know the answer to any of this.’
‘That doesn’t mean it hasn’t been argued over. No conclusions reached, but my Aunt Tanja thought that helping was better than destroying, if at all possible, and I trust her opinion.’
‘If you mention this to any of the Company of the Righteous, I’ll deny it.’
‘Of course. No tears, no doubts, no nothing.’
‘Exactly. So what have you found here?’
‘An interesting photograph.’
A happy family. I shone the torch on it so we could see it in full colour. Mum, Dad, three kids, for sure. The kids were all primary-school young. ‘Sad. A whole family wiped out, by the looks of it. Judging by the flowers and tributes, it must have hit a community hard.’
Rani touched it with a finger, and rubbed away a speck of dirt. ‘No doubt, but I don’t think the whole family was wiped out.’
‘No? Why not?’
‘The mother. That’s the woman we saw in Grender’s flat.’
CHAPTER 13
As we churned down the highway, I was in one of those click-click-click modes where a whole lot of pieces move into place. This meant much reading between the lines, but I could do that, especially if there was plenty of room between the lines so I could fit my stuff in.
I’d used my phone to take a photo of the photo on the tree. It was a lousy copy, but at least I’d have something to show Bec and Dad. After studying it for a while, and the tributes all around the site, I thought I was able to put some names to the faces.
The crash victims had apparently been the Evans family. I had names for the kids, and the father, and each match I made hurt. It was hard, looking at faces of people who were once alive but now weren’t. Georgia, Charlotte and Jack, and their dad, Scott.
Part of the issue we have with death and afterlife is the horror of coming to an end. Life being full of so much, the thought of it crashing to a complete close is shuddersome. Deep down, we’d love to know that we go on, somehow, somewhere.
Tributes for the Evans family were there from the local netball club, the footy club, two different schools, a youth orchestra and a radio-controlled plane club, all of them now with diminished membership.
While I was taking photos, Rani said she’d patrol the area for Rogues, just in case, but I noticed how, as much as possible, she avoided looking at the tributes closely, keeping her distance from the notes and the photographs in particular.
Me? I pushed on through the blurry vision.
Those kids. It was easy to tag Jack, but was Georgia the one with the curls? Was Charlotte the smilier one? Jack had to be older than the one in stripes, so he was second born, I was sure of that. A crease ran across the photo, right over Scott’s shoe. I could probably fix it with Photoshop. Or Bec could. It’d be good to do that.
Those kids. They were so small, so little.
And then there was the mother. Mrs Stacey Evans.
In the photo, she was attractive. Dark curly hair, sunglasses, a hat that she was holding on with one hand. She had an arm around her husband, Scott. The kids were blends of Scott and her. Her wide and unforced smile made me think she was laughing when the photo was taken.
She survived the crash.
After being puzzled by seeing her in the photo and her name on the floral tributes and cards after seeing her in the flesh at Grender’s flat, I figured it out. The cards on the flowers and wreaths often used phrases like ‘So sorry for your loss, Stacey’ or ‘Thinking of you, Stacey, in your grief’.
She survived and now she was now into some heavy phasmaturgy.
So now we knew who’d killed Grender, and, roughly, how. It was the why that was baffling. She’d survived a car crash that wiped out the family she loved, and not long after (six months or so, according to the dates someone had carved into the tree) she was working dark ghost magic and using it to kill a fringe dweller in the shadow world a country accountant should have no idea about.
What was she thinking? Had grief driven her mad? Loss and survivor guilt could be a powerful package for change, and not in a good way.
She murdered Grender, and probably set a Rogue on me, but I felt so, so sorry for her.
‘You’re crying,’ Rani said.
‘Sad things do that to me,’ I muttered, and I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. Be professional, Anton. ‘Look. I think we need more info about Stacey Evans if we’re going to get anywhere.’
‘Bec might be useful here. We have some names now, and the photo of the photo. She might be able to track down more information.’
I made a noise of agreement, and the headlights carved their way through the night. We hit the gentle ups and downs that mark the dribbly end of the Great Dividing Range, bypassing Kilmore. In my mind, it always marks inland Victoria from the south.
A kilometre or so further on, Rani spoke up again. ‘I’d been having some doubts about the Company before I left London, you know.’
‘Uh huh. Its antiquated dress sense, something like that?’
‘The attitude to ghosts, among other matters. I’m now wondering if they’re deliberately keeping information from us, or if they simply refuse to believe that there is more to know.’
We were coming through Kalkallo. Lots of trucks.
‘That’s a sort of scary attitude to have, especially for such an old and rich organisation.’ I frowned. �
��By the way, just how rich is the Company of the Righteous?’
‘Very,’ Rani said. ‘As a novice operative, I’m entitled to eighty thousand of your dollars per year, plus the back-up and facilities of the Company.’
‘Booyah.’ My head spun. ‘And you’re, like, a junior employee?’
‘Something like that.’
‘You’re telling me that there’s that much money in the ghost-hunting business?’
She glanced at me sidelong. ‘Property investments. Long-time members of the Company are very well off, financially. The chief operative in Tasmania has two private jets, apparently.’
‘It wouldn’t be recruiting, would it?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Your firm makes the Marin family business look small time,’ I said. ‘Hold on a second, we are small time, but I keep hearing politicians say that small business is the backbone of our economy.’
‘So you’re not only keeping society safe from the scourge of ghosts, you’re helping the Gross National Product?’
‘We would if anyone paid us for taking care of ghosts.’ Something had been nagging at me. ‘You said you’ve just moved here to Melbourne.’
‘The posting opened up and I saw it as an opportunity.’ She snapped the indicator on and surged around a slow-moving Lada. ‘Once I was appointed, the Company found Mum and Dad places at the university, but they had no real say in the relocation.’
‘Ouch. Were they upset?’
‘They were, but who were they going to complain to?’
‘Like that, was it?’
‘Very much like that. Anyway, I liked London, but I didn’t have so many friends that it was a wrench. Besides, Australia!’
‘You lucky devil,’ I said. ‘But I can’t help wondering – and that’s something I’m doing a lot of lately – why the posting opened up here. Do they need you here, or did they need you out of London?’
She frowned. ‘Nothing was ever said, not outright, but I got the impression that there was some need here. I was adding to the ranks.’
‘There are other Company ninjas here?’
‘I’ve only met one, a semi-retired fellow, but he mentioned others.’
‘Wow. I had no idea.’
‘We move in mysterious ways.’
‘Apparently. You do, that’s for sure. Are you sure you don’t dance?’
‘I’ve never learned.’
‘I bet you’re a natural.’
‘Maybe you’ll find out, one day.’
‘Where’s my diary? I’ll make an appointment now.’
‘I’d rather be spontaneous.’
‘That’s okay, I can schedule spontaneity.’
‘I’m quite sure you can.’
‘So, new to Melbourne then.’
‘A month or so. It’s a lovely place.’
‘Apart from the supernatural murders and the Rogue ghosts, it’s the most liveable city in the world.’
‘Really?’
‘That’s what they say, whoever they are.’
‘And you’ve lived here all your life?’
‘I’m a Melburnian, all right. And pro tip, it’s “Melburnian”, not “Melbournite”. It’s an amateur mistake.’
‘Noted.’ She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel for a while. ‘Along those lines, if I’m going to fit in here and do my job properly, it could help if I had someone to introduce me to the city.’
‘You want a Melbourne guide?’
‘If you’re not too busy deciding whether you want to hunt ghosts or not.’
‘Me? Well, sure, I’m happy to. I mean, I know my way around and all. Born here as a little kid, mostly.’
‘That’s a yes?’
‘Yes.’
So that’s how we ended up taking the long way home. Yeah, I know that there was a deadly ghost-commanding magician type on the loose and we really needed to stop her, but sometimes sidetracks present themselves and you just can’t help taking them.
We didn’t use the Ring Road, but instead took the long, suburban Sydney Road route right through Craigieburn, Campbellfield and Fawkner. Then, in the quiet of the middle of the night, we made it to Coburg and Brunswick, closer in and much cooler. We curved around Royal Park and the playing fields. That got me started on the great sporting obsessions of Melbourne.
‘You need a footy team,’ I said. We’d stopped off Park Street, looking over the ovals towards the golf course and the zoo in the distance.
‘I need a footy team,’ she agreed. ‘Why?’
‘Australian football is the game that’s grown up in Melbourne, and sometimes it seems like the whole city revolves around it. Most people have at least some interest in it.’
‘Oh.’ She considered this. ‘And you think it’d help me fit in if I have a team.’
‘You bet. It gives people something to talk about on trams, on trains, over coffee.’
‘So who do you support?’
‘Support is good. “Barrack” is better.’
‘“Barrack”?’
‘“Who do you barrack for?” is a standard Melbourne getting-to-know-you question. It means “Who do you support?” but in an Australian way.’
‘So, who do you barrack for?’
‘Melbourne.’
‘Melbourne? You barrack for the city?’
‘Most of the original clubs grew out of Melbourne suburbs. The Melbourne Football Club is the oldest.’
‘I’m with you, then.’
‘Understand, though, that we haven’t been very successful lately. You could be in for a world of pain.’
‘That’s if I take it seriously.’
‘You never know.’
Later, after exploring the Parkville and University precincts on foot, we rolled up High Street past the Bizz Buzz hammer – I preferred it in the old days when it was on the hardware shop and lit up in neon glory every night – and pulled up in front of the bookshop at around seven in the morning.
And if that wasn’t a mixed night-time excursion I don’t know what is.
CHAPTER 14
When Dad came into the shop, I was behind the counter, doing a bit of googling. I’d already done the dishes from yesterday, the ones he’d stacked in the sink after he and Bec must have had a hundred cups of tea and/or coffee between them. I’d also made some headway on the inventory by knocking ‘Sports, Non-ball related’ on the head. I figured we could lose about half of that stock and no one would know any different. Oh, I’d also done some of the scanning that was a constant background activity these days, since I didn’t want anyone accusing me of slacking.
‘Anton,’ he said as he took off his hat and coat. His current hat was a nice flat cap in a herringbone tweed. Very snappy. ‘You have something to report? Let me get my notepad.’
I have a dream, a vision, that one day I am going to convert him to using a digital recorder. This, I believe.
He came back with the notepad and a sheaf of sticky notes. I groaned. It was going to be a nightmare getting them unstuck and into some sort of order. ‘Phone messages,’ he said, and he shook them as if they were some sort of weapon. ‘The last few days, they’ve been piling up because you haven’t been on your regular rounds. My people are worried.’
I’d thought this might be coming. ‘Things have been a bit unusual, Dad. You know that.’
He dragged a stool out from behind the counter and sat opposite me. It was a low stool, and I was on a high one near the cash register, so he had to look up to me. I’m not going to say that it was a visual metaphor about the changing-over of the business from one generation to the next, but someone else might, especially after I pointed it out to them.
‘I know, I know. These Rogues, the Company of the Righteous, and Rani.’ He eyed me carefully. ‘Do I need to give you the special father-son talk, Anton?’
‘I’ll wait for the movie,’ I said, ‘but thanks anyway.’
‘Huh. I seem to remember giving it to you a long time ago, anyway.’
/> ‘You should. How could you forget the most embarrassing three minutes of my life?’
‘Besides, the way things are in the world—’
‘If you’re going to say anything like “Young people today” I’ll disown you. Immediately.’
‘Huh. Children disowning parents. That never used to happen in my day.’
‘You’re on thin ice, Leon.’
‘Huh. You had coffee?’
‘Not enough of it.’
‘Is there ever enough? I’ll get you one from Umberto’s, a treat.’
Umberto’s coffee shop just up the road is Dad’s favourite, with good reason. The espresso machine was one of the first brought to Melbourne from Italy in the 1950s. It’s about the size of an industrial refrigerator, and it’s probably been repaired more times than a Collins class submarine, but it pumps out coffee that tastes like coffee, which is just how it should.
I went through the sticky notes while he was away. When he came back, I reported – but it was a strange report. No ghost encounters in it, for a start, and it was full of speculation. He kept jotting as I spoke, and I wondered where it would end up in his archiving system.
When I finished, he tapped his pen on his chin for a while. ‘So, the Company of the Righteous thinks that something is going on in Melbourne? Interesting.’
‘Or else something is about to go on. Hasn’t started yet.’
‘Hm.’ Dad frowned. ‘Anton, this woman, this phasmaturgist. I’ve been thinking.’
‘Stacey Evans.’
‘Maybe in this uncertain time, we should think about going to the police and letting them handle this.’
‘Say what?’
‘I know we don’t involve the civil authorities, but this is different. This is murder.’
‘Sure, but what would we say? “This woman who wrangles ghosts to do her dirty work has killed a guy who spies on ghosts for a living. Oh, and we know this because we see ghosts and stuff.”’
‘Rebecca is right. You get sarcastic when you feel edgy.’
‘I also get sarcastic at other times, like when I think someone is coming up with a plan that’s really, really stupid.’
Gap Year in Ghost Town Page 12