Elizabeth de Fries was short and well-made, showing off her perfectly preserved figure in a carefully cut pale blue dress and very high heels. Up close she was clearly into her forties, but with the right makeup and camera lens, she could still knock ten years off that. She had a pleasantly pretty face under a mop of tight blonde curls, and sparkling blue eyes. She still had charm, as opposed to Benjamin’s practiced presence.
And then Happy had to go and spoil it all by walking right up to them and prodding them both hard in the chest with his forefinger. Benjamin’s eyes widened, and Elizabeth let out a brief squeak of surprise. Happy looked them both over carefully, nodded quickly, and went back to JC and Melody. The two actors looked at each other, then at JC and Melody for an explanation. They didn’t get one. JC tried hard to look solemn. Melody didn’t even try.
“Just making sure,” said Happy. “After what happened with Roland Laurie…Still can’t believe I didn’t spot him…Don’t get fooled again, that’s my motto.”
“He prodded me in the bosom!” Elizabeth said loudly. “And…he didn’t even say please!”
“I did notice, darling,” said Benjamin.
“Then don’t just stand there, darling, do something!”
“Like what? Go over there and prod him back? I wouldn’t lower myself.”
“You never did have any spine, darling,” said Elizabeth.
And then they all jumped a little and looked around, as the main doors crashed open again as a bright-eyed girl in her late teens came striding in. She stopped, accepted everyone staring at her as her right, and smiled happily about her.
“Hi!” she said cheerfully. “I’m Lissa Parr! It’s Melissa, actually, but everyone calls me Lissa. Sorry I’m a bit late.”
Lissa was a tall, slender brunette, with flat, shoulder-length hair and a heavy dark fringe falling right down to her penciled-on eyebrows. She wore tight blue jeans, and an even tighter white T-shirt, the better to show off her marvellous figure. Happy took a step forward, then stopped when Melody glared at him.
“Are you sure?” he said. “You might thank me, later.”
“You go anywhere near her bosom, and I’ll tie your finger in a knot,” said Melody.
The three actors took it in turns to kiss the air somewhere near each other’s cheeks, then stepped back to look each other over in a professional kind of way. None of them offered to kiss any of the Ghost Finders, which was probably just as well.
Lissa was very pretty, perhaps despite rather than because of all the character in her face. Her lips were very red and very thin, but her constant smile looked real enough. Her eyes were dark and full of humour, with a hell of a lot of blue eye make-up. She still had as if by right what Elizabeth was fighting to hang on to. Which was probably why Elizabeth was the only one not mesmerised by her. The young actress stood happily in her favourite loose-limbed pose, basking in the attention she was still young enough to take for granted. It was clear she’d been taught to stand that way in public if there was even a chance of a photographer…drilled into her until it was second nature; but she still managed it unconsciously and unselfconsciously. She threw in the charm at no extra cost, without even realising she was doing it.
“Sorry,” said JC, and actually sounded like he meant it, “but who are you, exactly? Are you another name we’re supposed to recognise?”
Lissa’s smile slipped for a moment. “You really don’t know me? Damn. I am clearly not getting my money’s worth out of that new publicist. Look, I was in that controversial indie film, Jesus and Satan Go Jogging in the Desert. And that big disaster movie, Werewolf on the Titanic.”
“Oh, I remember that one!” said Happy. “Not even a little bit accurate.”
“We weren’t expecting you until next week, darling,” said Elizabeth, with a hint of chill in her voice. “The theatre isn’t nearly ready yet.”
“You know her?” said JC.
“Of course we know her; we hired her!” said Benjamin. “She’s going to star in our play! As our female lead. But, as Elizabeth was saying…”
Lissa shrugged prettily. “Don’t blame me, sweeties; I got a phone call from my agent, saying drop everything and get straight round to the Haybarn, they need you. So here I am! You are glad to see me, aren’t you?”
“Of course we are, Lissa,” said Benjamin, shooting Elizabeth a quick warning glance. “It’s simply that the renovators have encountered some…unexpected difficulties.”
“Oh, I know all about that, sweetie,” said Lissa. “My agent couldn’t wait to tell me!”
“How very helpful of him,” said Elizabeth. “It would seem word has got out…”
“Ghosts and ghoulies and things that go Booyah! in the night! How terribly thrilling!” Lissa looked at JC and his team with new interest. “Are you the experts?”
“I do wish people would stop using that word, in that particular tone of voice,” said Happy. “Yes, we are quite definitely experts; we are the Ghost Finders! Hauntings a speciality, no spook left unturned. We are very expert! Very!”
“Gosh,” said Lissa, completely unmoved by Happy’s histrionics. “What larks, eh?” She looked around the lobby, and some of her natural exuberance fell away. “Bit of a dump, isn’t it, sweeties?”
“It wasn’t always like this,” said Elizabeth, frostily. “Back in its heyday, the Haybarn was one of the finest theatres in the Midlands. Very smart, very elegant, very fashionable; the most prestigious vehicle for any up-and-coming young actors looking to make their mark. We had critics from all the broadsheets turning up on opening nights.”
“But that was…sometime ago,” said Benjamin. “The Haybarn has been shut down and abandoned for twenty years. It’s going to take a lot of hard work to smarten the old girl up again. And we can’t do that until we can persuade the renovators to return.”
“Why has it been left empty for so long?” said Lissa.
Benjamin and Elizabeth looked at each other, then at the Ghost Finders. “It was to have been our greatest triumph,” said Benjamin. “The play that would change all our lives.”
“Change everything,” said Elizabeth. “But it all went wrong, so horribly quickly…”
“We were the established leads, back then,” said Benjamin. “Starred in everything the Haybarn put on, took everything in our stride, from classics to modern. The public loved us, the critics thought we could do no wrong. We had the world at our feet, and we thought it would last forever. We wrote a play together, Elizabeth and I: A Working-class Messiah Is Something to Be. Something…very different, very special. We would direct and cover the two supporting leads, and we had one of the major stars of the day committed to the lead. Frankie Hazzard.”
Everyone nodded quickly. They all knew that name.
“Tall, dark, and handsome,” said Melody. “Didn’t half fancy himself. He played that spy, what’s-his-name, in that film; Index Finger, Left Hand.”
“I saw him on a chat show once,” said Happy. “So far up himself he was hanging out his own nostrils.”
“Pushing that unfortunate mental image firmly to one side,” said JC, “perhaps we could concentrate on the matter at hand. What happened? What went wrong?”
“The play crashed and burned,” Elizabeth said flatly. “Didn’t even make two weeks before the theatre shut it down. The critics hated it, and nobody came. The theatre’s owners had sunk considerable funding into it, and they lost all of it. They had no choice but to close the theatre.”
“We were wiped out,” said Benjamin. “Lost everything we had.”
“And, of course, no other theatre would touch us, after that,” said Elizabeth. “The stink of failure clings like leprosy in our profession.”
“Our play was supposed to make everyone’s careers, and make everyone a lot of money,” said Benjamin. “But it didn’t. Not the play’s fault, though…We always said that, didn’t we, darling? Well, after all these years, we have funding again. A chance to reopen the play, right here. The play as it should have been, before Frankie Hazzard got his grubby hands on it and insisted on all those unnecessary rewrites. Our production will reopen the Haybarn, with the very talented Lissa Parr as our female lead.”