Happy sighed heavily. “That still doesn’t explain why we…”
“The Boss is sending us in as a personal favour for an old friend,” said JC.
“Wish she’d do one for us,” growled Happy. “Like approving my expense claims without laughing in my face.”
“Dear Catherine Latimer, our revered Boss and leader of us all, spoke to me personally about this,” said JC, and the other two immediately gave him their full attention. JC smiled faintly. “I was phoning in a preliminary report on what had gone down at Bradleigh Halt, when she broke in. Which is a bit like going to confessional and having God herself butt in. She said some very nice things about how we’d handled the mission, which should have been a warning in itself. The Boss has never been one for honeyed words when a whip and a chair are so much more effective. She said that she wants us on this case precisely because we did such a good job at Bradleigh. Which, of course, suggests to me that there must be a hell of a lot more to this theatre haunting than we are being told.”
“No good deed goes unpunished,” said Happy. He glowered at the food piled up before him and pushed it away, his appetite gone. For the moment.
“I have to wonder,” said JC, “whether Catherine Latimer, her own bad self, is deliberately keeping us busy and occupied with one case after another, so we won’t go off on our own to look for Kim.”
There was a pause then as JC looked meaningfully at Happy and Melody, and they both looked at each other so they wouldn’t have to look at him. None of them had to say anything. They’d already talked themselves hoarse on the subject and knew exactly what the others thought and believed. None of them was ready to give up their various positions.
“The Boss says she’s got all her best people investigating the infiltration of the Carnacki Institute,” Melody said finally.
“She says…” Happy said darkly.
“No,” JC said immediately. “We have to trust the Boss in that, at least. Or we’re completely on our own.”
“When you spoke to her,” Melody said carefully, “did you happen to mention seeing Kim at Bradleigh Halt?”
“No,” said JC.
“So we don’t trust her that much…” said Happy.
“When we’ve got anything worth telling her, then I’ll tell her,” said JC. “One sighting doesn’t make a summer.”
“Or one swallow make an orgy,” said Melody.
“Who knows?” said Happy. “If Kim really is your guardian angel now, guardian ghost, whatever…Maybe she’ll turn up again, at the theatre.”
“Stranger things have happened,” said Melody. “Usually to us.”
She carried on reading aloud from the briefing file, and the others pretended to listen to her. Happy leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, the better to concentrate.
A very modern taxi took the Ghost Finders straight from the railway station to the Haybarn Theatre, situated right in the middle of the city centre. It was a grey, overcast day, with lowering clouds and the threat of thunder. The taxi had Thank You For Not Smoking signs plastered all over the interior, along with half a dozen little pine-tree deodorant things, and the interior still smelled like something large and unpleasant had recently been very ill in it. The driver had a great deal to say about the immigration situation, none of it helpful, and ignored all attempts to shut him up, including Please shut up or I will have to kill you from Happy, who then had to be physically restrained by Melody and JC.
When the taxi finally arrived at its destination, Happy volunteered to pay the driver. He fumbled crumpled notes and assorted change from his pockets while Melody hauled her precious scientific equipment out of the taxi’s boot, and JC wandered over to stare thoughtfully at the exterior of the Haybarn Theatre. Happy slapped a bunch of well-worn notes into the driver’s hand and carefully added the right amount of change. The driver looked at his hand, then glared at Happy.
“What? No tip?”
“Okay,” said Happy. “Here’s a tip. Wash your mind out with soap, and try to at least slow down for the red lights. Now piss off sharpish, or I’ll set my girl-friend on you.”
“I heard that!” said Melody, slamming the taxi’s boot shut with unnecessary force. “Don’t make me come over there!”
“See what I mean?” said Happy, smiling calmly at the driver.
The taxi departed at speed. Happy wandered over to watch Melody load her assorted high tech on the collapsible trolley.
“Is that it?” he said, after a while.
“The rest of my equipment, all the really important stuff, that I specially ordered in advance, is apparently en route in a separate van,” said Melody. “Under armed guard. For insurance reasons.”
“I’m sure it’ll all turn up,” said Happy. “Eventually…”
“They’re not fooling me!” Melody said loudly. “They’re trying to see how little tech I can work with! I cannot be expected to do deep research on dead things with such limited resources! I’d have better luck catching ghosts by running after them with a bloody-big enchanted butterfly-net!”
“I think I saw one of those in the Boss’s office, one time,” said JC, not looking around. “On the wall, behind her desk, right next to the enchanted grenade-launcher.”
“I wish I thought you were joking,” said Happy.
He and Melody moved forward to stand on either side of JC, and they all took their time studying the exterior face of the Haybarn Theatre. None of them was particularly impressed. Time and the weather had not been kind to the brick and stone though it was surprisingly free of graffiti. Unlike most of the surrounding office buildings. Apart from the Haybarn’s name, still spelled out in cold grey neon tubing, above the closed main doors, there was nothing obvious to mark the old building as a theatre. All the colour and glamour had been stripped away long ago, and now it looked like any other old-fashioned building, silent and unoccupied.
“Has this place really been empty for twenty years?” JC said finally. “I mean, this is prime location, if nothing else. Right in the middle of the business section. The land alone must be worth a fortune…”
“Maybe the building has a reputation, as a bad place,” said Happy. “Last thing a developer wants is a poltergeist running wild in the lanes of his supermarket. Or restless spirits grinning out of the changing-room mirrors in a women’s fashion outlet.”
“There’s no mention of anything like that in the briefing files,” said Melody. “No trouble at all until the renovations started. Are you picking up anything yet, Happy? Any bad vibrations?”
“There’s a curry house not far away,” said Happy.
“You can’t be hungry already, not after everything you stuffed down yourself on the train!”
“Working for the Carnacki Institute is like serving in the Army,” Happy said solemnly. “Eat when you can, sleep where you can, because you never know when you might get another chance…” He sniffed loudly. “I’m not getting anything from this building, which is a bit odd. I mean, this place has to be at least a century old. I should be getting something…”
Melody looked at JC. “Do you have any idea who this important friend of Catherine Latimer’s might be, the one we’re doing this for?”
“She didn’t say anything,” said JC. “But then, she never does.”
“Are we supposed to go in through the front doors, or should we go round the back and enter through the stage door?” said Happy.
“Hell with that,” JC said firmly. “I do not use the back door. Except sometimes as an exit in times of high peril.”
Melody moved forward and tried the front doors. They both opened easily before her. “Not even locked,” she said. “That can’t be right. Not in this day and age.”
“Someone is expecting us,” said Happy.
“A sign from Above!” JC said merrily. “Inwards and onwards, my children! Danger and excitement await us!”