Ghostcatcher

by Sophie Green

  Naomi made another three pancakes for herself and then picked up a fork in one hand and her plate in the other and ate them leaning against the counter.

  ‘How about you?’ said Lil. ‘What are you working on?’

  ‘Something’s going on out at Bun Hill, at the orphanage there.’

  Lil and Nedly exchanged alarmed glances.

  ‘The Hawks Memorial Orphanage! I know it,’ said Lil. Nedly had lived there all his life. ‘What do they say?’

  ‘It sounds like someone has poisoned their garden. All the winter vegetables have perished and all the grass around it, right down to the road.’

  ‘No!’ said Lil. ‘Who would have done that?’

  ‘Well, I’m not jumping to any conclusions. It might just be a natural occurrence. The land gets worked pretty hard out there. The caretaker –’ she pulled her notebook out of her back pocket and flipped through it – ‘Mr Kolchak, says there’s something in the soil. Could be some kind of disease but maybe it’s something else. I’ll see if I can get a sample tested. If it’s suspicious, then we can run a story on it. If we exert some pressure on City Hall, maybe they’ll investigate.’ She sounded doubtful.

  The pancakes weighed heavily in Lil’s belly. ‘Have the orphans got enough to eat?’

  ‘We should check it out,’ Nedly urged her.

  ‘People are dropping off food when they can spare it. They’ve got enough in storage to get them through the rest of winter but if whatever it is in the soil is still causing trouble come spring, things will be tough.’

  ‘I know some of the folk up there. I’d like to help.’

  Naomi’s face brightened. ‘If nothing much is brewing with Ghostcatcher, why not talk to Logan, see if you can get a swap? It would be nice to work together on something.’

  Lil stared at her empty plate. Working on a story with her mother was her dream, but Lil didn’t speak until she could trust herself to give the right answer, not the one she wanted to give. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Nedly nodding encouragingly, but Lil shook her head. ‘No, I think I better stick with Ghostcatcher for now. I want to stay on it, see it through.’

  Nedly sighed.

  ‘But keep me posted, OK?’ she added.

  ‘No problem.’ Naomi put the plate down, gave Lil a quick smile, picked up the coffee and drank it quickly. She winced. ‘Eurgh! This is lukewarm! So, do you want to tag along to the orphanage after work anyway?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nedly.

  ‘I can’t,’ Lil insisted. ‘I’ve got something on.’

  ‘Are you seeing the mysterious Nedly?’

  Lil hesitated and then said, ‘Yep.’

  Naomi pushed the last bite of pancake around the plate, trying to chase it onto the fork. ‘I’m still waiting to meet him.’

  Nedly turned his bushbaby eyes on Lil.

  ‘You will. You definitely will. I promise.’ Nedly blinked hopefully at her and she gulped. ‘At some point.’ He flickered and then wilted like a leaky balloon, sinking through the kitchen chair until he was sitting half buried in the lino. Lil’s heart sank with him.

  ‘OK.’ Naomi gave her a curious look. ‘Well, I’ll look forward to it.’

  By late morning a haze of smog hung over Peligan City. Lil, Nedly, Abe and Margaret approached the hot dog cart, stepping through the steam coming off the grill.

  Abe tipped his hat. ‘How’s it going, Minnie?’

  Minnie returned the greeting with a crooked smile. ‘Same as always, detective. What can I get you?’ Her freckled face was surrounded by the hood of her anorak, which she had zipped right up over her jacket and cloth money belt. She had strung her greasy apron round it all and wiped her hands there before she picked up the bag of finger rolls.

  Abe shuffled further under the canopy of the cart. ‘I’ll take one with the works as usual. Lil?’

  Lil eyed up the sausages that were rolling back and forth under Minnie’s slice, trying to weigh up whether she could physically fit a hot dog in her pancake-stuffed belly, while the sweet smell of frying onions suggested that she should give it a go. ‘I’m not sure …’ she stalled.

  Abe cut in. ‘It’s my treat.’ And he got out a couple of notes from his wallet to show he meant business.

  Minnie nodded approvingly. ‘Gumshoe work finally paying off, detective?’

  ‘I can’t complain.’ Abe shrugged as he yanked the prosthetic hand off with a pop and pulled out the hot dog holder attachment, ready to take delivery.

  ‘It’s about time your luck changed.’

  Nedly was looking from the grill to Margaret, who was sitting bolt upright on the pavement, shivering slightly in the rain.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Lil murmured to him. ‘She can have a bit of mine.’

  Margaret cocked her head to one side, her soulful eyes staying with Nedly; they told him ‘a bit’ wouldn’t do it.

  ‘I’ll take one with onions, ketchup. And a splash of mustard,’ Lil added daringly. She was building up to the works.

  Minnie winked. ‘My personal favourite combination.’ She handed Abe his bun laden with everything it was possible to put on a hot dog and paused over Margaret who locked in with glistening, hopeful eyes.

  ‘Don’t let her put the squeeze on you,’ Abe insisted.

  ‘Sorry, pal,’ Minnie sighed down to Margaret. ‘If you were my dog, I’d give you a sausage, but it looks like you got landed with old heart-of-stone here. Not your fault but that’s how it is. Here’s your change, detective.’ She held it out to him and he spread his hand under hers ready to take it. They stood there like that for a long moment, and then Minnie asked him: ‘Is that a new hat you’re wearing?’

  Abe narrowed his eyes. ‘The brim peeled off the other one. It got melted, remember?’

  Minnie nodded. ‘Goes really well with that new tie. Grasshoppers,’ she said admiringly. ‘Very nice. Feels good to spoil yourself once in a while, eh?’

  ‘All right, all right.’ Abe clenched his jaw and withdrew his hand. ‘You win. Give me a third dog, for the dog.’

  ‘Coming right up!’ Minnie grinned and threw the change into her money belt and started browning up a sausage.

  Abe looked down at Margaret as if to say, Satisfied? Margaret looked defiantly back at him.

  Nedly beamed. ‘I’ll do the honours.’

  Minnie chewed her gum and flipped the onions a couple of times. ‘It’s like I always say, what’s the use of money if you don’t spend it?’

  ‘You really have got big ears.’ Abe gave Minnie a reproving look. ‘I just had a couple of cases go my way, that’s all.’

  ‘Heard you’re getting quite a rep again. Back to like how things were when you helped clean up this town,’ she persisted.

  Abe gave her a bashful shrug. ‘I do OK.’

  ‘Carry on like this and I bet the Squad will want you back on the books. Only matter of time, I reckon.’ She flashed him a yellow-toothed smile. ‘That’s just what I heard.’

  Abe basked in the glow for a while but then the cold stare Lil gave him chilled it. ‘I’ve had some help,’ he confessed.

  ‘Yeah, I heard that too.’ Minnie winked at Lil and then blew a small bubble and popped it. ‘Whoever it is, they must be pretty handy to pull Mandrel Investigations out of skid row.’

  It was Nedly’s turn to look bashful and Lil grinned at him.

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ Abe replied gruffly. ‘Like, about a mysterious shipment coming in through Peligan City docks a couple of nights ago.’

  Minnie’s expression grew serious; she leant forward and murmured through tight lips, ‘One of many.’

  ‘Know what’s in it?’

  Minnie shrugged. ‘They’re shifting some kind of specialised material in large quantities. My money is on a smuggling op, organised crime, but word on the street is it’s legit.’

  ‘If it’s legit, why all the intrigue?’ Lil took the pencil out of her hair and tapped it against her nose. ‘The delivery addr
ess was a dummy and they brought it in under the cover of night.’

  ‘Beats me,’ said Minnie.

  Lil took the sausage for Margaret, then crouched down behind the cart. Nedly knelt beside her and stared intently at his hand until it started to glow fiercely. Then he laid it out flat and Lil tipped the sausage into his palm. Nedly carefully rolled it to the end of his fingers and offered it to Margaret, who proudly sat down to accept the reward like a small furry lord waiting to be knighted.

  Abe took a bite out of his hot dog and chewed it thoughtfully. ‘Any idea when the next one will be?’

  ‘Tonight. 11.55 p.m.’

  Lil clambered back to her feet. ‘Don’t suppose you know which dock?’

  ‘The one by pier seven.’

  Nedly was transfixed by the sight of Margaret chomping on the sausage like a fat cigar. ‘Lil!’ he cried gleefully. ‘Look at how she’s eating it.’ He stepped closer to watch.

  Minnie shuddered suddenly and dropped the scoop of onions. ‘Sorry.’ Her hand was shaking as she picked it up again. ‘Can’t help feeling on edge with the Final Ghost still on the loose.’ She looked over her shoulder. ‘The whole town is spooked. No one knows when it’s going to strike – not even me, and I know pretty much everything.’

  Nedly backed away, embarrassed.

  ‘Maybe he’s not going to strike at all – maybe he’s gone,’ Lil ventured.

  Minnie didn’t look convinced. ‘Then why does it still feel so creepy?’ She shivered and then Abe shivered.

  ‘I don’t feel creepy,’ he insisted. ‘It’s in your head. You better stop reading the Herald; it’s giving you ideas.’

  ‘Ha!’ Minnie chuckled drily. ‘Don’t insult me! I’ve been keeping my ears open, that’s all, and word on the street is the Final Ghost is just biding its time.’ She shook the mustard bottle expertly, whiplashing her wrist to get the last of it to the top. ‘That’s why the Ghostcatcher van is out patrolling the streets every night. Word is they’re getting close too. Let’s hope they get it – and soon.’

  Nedly’s face grew stretched and thin-looking. He wrung one hand with the other and stared over his shoulder, scanning the road behind him and then turned quickly to Lil. ‘I better go. I’ll see you later. I’ve got some stuff to do.’

  ‘No, wait –!’ Lil started, but she was too late. He ran away from them, across the road, barely breaking his stride as he ploughed through the line of taxis that swerved to a stop when they felt the sudden wave of fright. The drivers pressed down their horns and shouted at each other until the creeps wore off, while Nedly vanished into the rain.

  Margaret dropped her ears and whined.

  When Lil looked back Minnie was still paused with the mustard bottle poised above the bun and a quizzical expression on her face. ‘I’ve … I’ve changed my mind, about the mustard,’ Lil faltered. ‘I’ll just have ketchup.’

  Minnie returned the mustard to the cart and then handed over the hot dog. She looked all around her and then shoved her hands in her pockets and shrugged her shoulders a few times to shake the cold out of them. ‘It’s weird; this spooky feeling just comes and goes. The air felt thick with creepiness a couple of minutes ago but I don’t feel it now – now everything feels OK.’

  ‘Actually,’ Lil murmured, looking dismally at Abe. ‘I don’t think it does.’

  Chapter 4

  The Docks

  At a quarter to midnight the docks were quiet except for the clanking of rigging. The air smelt salty and slightly rotten. In between the warehouses hurricane lamps pooled light onto the quayside, a strip of concrete that ended where the black, glittering water began.

  Further inland on higher ground, Lil was crouched behind an old wagon just beyond a disused railway siding. She stifled a yawn and stared out at the sheeting rain from beneath the hood of her yellow mac. ‘Is it nearly time yet?’ Her cold fingers gripped the edge of the wagon as she peered over it.

  ‘We’ve still got a few minutes.’ Abe winced as he tried to straighten his legs a little without standing up and breaking cover. ‘Any sign of the kid?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Lil sighed. She tried to stretch the unyielding fabric of her mac further over her knees to keep the rain off her jeans. ‘But he’ll be here. He said he would be. Any time now.’ Margaret gave a doleful whine from her shelter under the wagon.

  ‘I don’t doubt it.’ Abe cranked out a smile. He wiped the rain out of his eyes with a wet sleeve, pulled off his rubber hand and stuffed it into his mac pocket and then browsed the attachments of his Swiss Army hand and selected a miniature vice. ‘It’s a tough break. He must feel like the whole city wants him –’ Abe’s gaze dropped to his soaked and battered shoes – ‘gone.’

  Lil kept her eyes on the water. ‘He can’t help being … not alive.’

  ‘No argument here. I’d change things for him if I could.’ Abe cleared his throat gruffly and pulled a pair of binoculars out of his other pocket. Lil glanced across to see him tighten the vice round them and fiddle with the focus wheel. ‘Unfortunately,’ he continued, ‘as long as everyone – and by everyone I mean the Herald – is worrying about the Final Ghost –’

  Lil interrupted pointing at the binoculars. ‘They’re new.’

  Abe stretched the fingers of his left hand protectively over the casing. ‘I thought they might come in handy. For stake-outs,’ he added, training them on a red-and-white striped buoy bobbing in the black water, and then tracked across to pier seven. ‘What I’m saying is, it’s a distraction; while the Final Ghost is making headlines no one is paying attention to all the other stuff that’s happening, like who’s been poisoning the orphanage garden.’

  Lil gave him the Squint. ‘How do you know about that?’

  Abe shrugged his collar up round his neck and sank his chin into it. ‘Naomi must have mentioned it. She knew that I’d done some work for the old guy so …’ He changed the subject quickly. ‘I mean, the Golden Loop should be bringing in millions in taxes for the city: where is it all going?’

  ‘Mum’s always saying that too.’

  Abe pulled an already damp handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the rain off his face, scattering fluff to the wind. ‘Well, she makes a lot of sense.’

  There was a sound like the lid being turned on a fizzy drink, but only Lil heard it.

  Abe went back to staring through the binoculars. ‘You know, I’ve never been a popular guy –’ he paused for Lil to contradict him and then when she said nothing frowned a little and continued – ‘but it must be tough knowing that you give people the creeps – ow!’ He adjusted his position. ‘People just don’t understand. To them he’s just another murderous spook. Ow!’ He winced painfully. ‘Like something out of a nightmare. OW! Do you realise that’s my toe you keep standing on?’ He caught Lil’s glare and returned it with a rueful one that said, He’s here, isn’t he? Abe swallowed hard and then cleared his throat. ‘Hey. Good to have you back, kid.’

  Nedly shrugged. He looked bone-tired. His eyes were dull, with the sheen of a dirty window, and his skin had a hazy quality.

  ‘You OK?’ Lil furrowed her brows at him. ‘You don’t look too good.’

  ‘Thanks!’ He smiled weakly and then looked past her at the water. Lil watched his face in profile, the docks visible through his cheek.

  ‘Is that the one?’ Nedly pointed and Lil pulled her eyes away.

  ‘Here she comes!’ Abe cried.

  A boat rolled in across the water, a shadow strung with dimmed lamps. It pulled along the quayside, churning water, and then cut its engines and drifted into place in silence. Thick ropes were flung out and a gang of stevedores in plaid jackets and wool caps emerged from the warehouse to catch them and pull the boat into dock against the rubber tyres that lined the quay.

  Abe adjusted his focus as the lights reached the prow of the boat. ‘The Amore Mio,’ he breathed.

  Nedly leant over between them, sending a shiver down Lil’s spine and making Abe shudder so hard that he hit himsel
f on the nose with the binoculars. His eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Sorry!’ Nedly pulled away. ‘Will you tell him?’ he asked Lil.

  ‘Nedly says he’s sorry, if he gave you the creeps just then.’

  ‘It’s not you, kid.’ Abe squeezed his eyelids dry with a finger and thumb. ‘It’s this infernal wind and rain. You sit tight with us.’ He held the binoculars back to his eyes with a trembling hand.

  Lil smiled gratefully and then whispered to Nedly. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

  ‘Where else would I be?’ murmured Abe.

  They could hear instructions being yelled from the dockside as the arm of the gantry crane arched out over the ship, swinging a heavy chain beneath it.

  Lil could only just make out the action below; the stevedores looked no bigger than matchsticks to her naked eye. ‘What’s happening now?’

  ‘They’re getting ready to unload,’ Abe replied. The chain had disappeared into the hold and after a few moments a winch began raising the cargo. It was a pallet stacked with smaller wooden crates, like tea chests.

  A truck pulled onto the loading dock and then reversed in a semicircle towards the ship.

  Abe adjusted the focus to read the number plate. ‘That truck is one of the city fleet.’

  Lil eyed his binoculars enviously. ‘Stolen?’

  Abe shrugged and turned the focus wheel again. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Look!’ A couple of darkly dressed matchsticks had entered the scene. ‘Security guards?’ Lil guessed.

  Abe set his jaw grimly. ‘Police. Whatever they’re doing it’s official business. City business by the look of it.’

  The two police officers stood aside while stevedores started unloading, hauling the crates down from the ship on pulleys and swinging them over to the dockside and onto the base of the truck with no more sound than the rattling of rusty chains.

  ‘What’s happening now?’

  ‘Nothing much; they’re still unloading.’

  ‘Well, then can I borrow the binoculars?’ Lil persisted.

  Abe took the binoculars away from his eyes for a moment to give her a wary look. ‘I’m using them.’