Catherine Latimer removed the dark cigarette from her ivory holder and stubbed it out in an ash-tray shaped like a lung. She made no move to light another. She sat in her chair, thinking. She didn’t look particularly surprised or even shocked; but she was quite definitely thinking.
“I gave no such order,” she said finally. “The fact that someone was able to use my name and falsify my authority, in such a way that no-one even questioned it. . is interesting. I shall have to look into that. Makes me wonder what else might have been done in my name that I don’t know about. .”
“Did you know about the piece of The Flesh Undying that had been gifted to the Acquisitions Section?” said JC.
“Of course I know!” said the Boss. “I arranged for it to be put there, in a safe location, as far as possible from the Institute itself. Tell me you haven’t damaged it!”
“More like. . muzzled it,” said Happy, smiling unpleasantly.
Catherine Latimer shook her head slowly. “He worries me; he really does. .”
“You’re doing it again!”
“This is what I’m talking about!” said Catherine Latimer. “Disobeying orders, blundering around, interfering in things you don’t understand!”
“Only because you won’t explain them to us!” said JC.
“You’ve all been making too much noise,” said the Boss. “Drawing too much attention to yourselves. And that. . is getting in the way of my investigations. So I’m sending you away for a while. To deal with a haunted inn, down in the south-west.”
JC, Melody, and Happy all sat up straight in their chairs. They looked at each other, then back at Catherine Latimer.
“What?” said Happy.
“You’re. . sending us away?” said JC. “With everything that’s going on here, after all we’ve uncovered. .”
“That’s why you’re going,” Latimer said firmly.
“What if we don’t want to go?” said Melody. “We’re getting close to some real answers! I can feel it!”
“You’re making waves,” said Latimer. “And that’s not what I need right now. So off to the West Country with you. It’s standard stuff, practically a text-book haunting, nothing too difficult. Not really worthy of an A team, but it’ll do to keep you occupied, and out of the spotlight, until the interest in you dies down.”
“Interest?” said Happy. “What interest? Who’s interested in us?”
“You don’t need to know,” said Catherine Latimer.
“Story of my life,” muttered Happy.
“Treated like mushrooms,” Melody said harshly. “Kept in the dark and fed shit.”
“Go sort out the haunted inn,” Latimer said flatly. “Do a good job. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t get killed. And take your time coming back.”
Happy was up and out of his chair and heading for the slowly opening door the moment it was clear to him the meeting was over. Melody took her own sweet time getting up, to make a point, and still managed to catch up with Happy before he was out the door. JC stood up, checked that his incredible white suit was hanging properly, and only then looked at the Boss.
“So what did happen to the Empty Librarian?”
“Nothing, as far as I know,” said Catherine Latimer.
FOUR
Later that evening, following a series of railway journeys that went on that little bit longer than body and soul could easily bear, JC and Happy and Melody arrived at that old country inn, the King’s Arms, outside the small country town of Bishop’s Fording. An old farming community, of old houses in an old setting.
The three Ghost Finders disembarked at a very small station, only to find they were still some way short of their destination. They had to take a taxi ride through the town and out the other side to reach the King’s Arms. And it was raining hard. Really hard. The kind of storm that makes you want to head for the high ground and build an ark. Chucking it down, with malice aforethought, adding an extra layer of misery to an already cold and desolate evening.
JC and Happy and Melody crammed themselves into the battered back seat of the only taxi-cab on duty because the driver didn’t allow anyone to sit next to him. Apparently he found this. . distracting. He didn’t even want to take them to the King’s Arms and went all sulky and silent when JC insisted. He drove his taxi through the pouring rain with great concentration, staring straight ahead, ignoring his passengers. There wasn’t really room for three people in the back seat, especially when two of them were ostentatiously not talking to each other. Happy and Melody sat jammed shoulder to shoulder and still managed to find two completely different directions to look in. They’d had a loud and emotionally messy argument on the train coming down, about any number of things, but always coming back to Happy’s return to supportive chemical maintenance. So now there was a frosty silence in the back of the taxi to match the sullen silence up front.
JC stared straight ahead, peering past the driver to look through the windscreen because it was better than getting involved. He studied the town as they passed quickly through it: squat dark buildings with brightly lit windows and absolutely no-one out and about in the streets. Hardly surprising, he supposed, on a night like this. And it was late, heading out of evening and into night. The town fell suddenly behind them, and the taxi shot down a long, narrow road into the countryside beyond. Tall trees with heavy foliage lined both sides of the road, their heavy tops leaning out and forward, to form a dark canopy overhead; so it seemed they were travelling through a long, dark green tunnel. There were no street-lights outside the town, and with the moonlight cut off, all JC could see was the road directly ahead. Water splashed up around the taxi, thrown up by the taxi’s progress through the flooded road, the waters pouring in from the saturated fields beyond the trees. And still the rain came down, shining in the headlights.
The great green tunnel suddenly disappeared, the trees falling away behind them. The taxi slowed down even though there was clearly still some way to go. At first, JC thought it was because the flooding had grown worse, but then he saw the driver’s face in the rear-view mirror and knew it was nothing to do with the flooding. The man’s face was pale and sweaty, the eyes wide and staring. And JC realised the driver was genuinely scared.
“Is everything all right?” he said carefully.
“You wanted the King’s Arms,” said the driver. “Don’t distract me. I need to keep my eyes on the road.”
Everything was not all right. JC could hear it in the driver’s voice. And they hadn’t even reached the inn yet.
* * *
The taxi finally slammed to a halt right at the edge of the King’s Arms car park. The driver couldn’t get any closer because the wide-open area was packed with parked vehicles, crammed together from one low stone boundary wall to the other, with hardly a space left in between. Everything from family runabouts to Land Rovers to expensive muscle cars. As though the whole community were waiting at the inn to welcome them. The taxi-driver sniffed loudly and peered out through the windscreen. He addressed his passengers without looking around, without taking his eyes off the view before him. As though to do so might be dangerous. .
“This is it. King’s Arms. Close as I can get. That’ll be eight pounds. Please.”
He said the last word as though it were part of some foreign language he didn’t normally use.
“Get the baggage out of the boot,” JC said firmly. “And don’t bang it about if you expect any kind of tip.”
He pushed his door open and got out, hunching his shoulders against the pouring rain. Happy and Melody got out different sides of the cab, then came forward to join him; and the three of them stood close together, scrunching up their eyes as water trickled down their faces. None of them had thought to bring an umbrella because the weather reports for the area hadn’t even mentioned the likelihood of even a gentle shower. JC glared about him. Shimmering blue-white moonlight reflected back from the rain-soaked open fields, filling the car park with an eerie, uncertain light.