“How’s that?”
“If Angry Annie is resident here then she will have seen everything, heard everything. As long as she’s not ‘Forgetful Annie’ then we should be able to get a good description of the Sandman.”
“Could ye not ask one of the living witnesses?” asked Doogie.
Billy cast his eyes around the room. “Which one of these gentlemen do you think would like to help the police with their enquiries?”
“Fair point,” said Doogie, over the rim of his glass. “So how do ye think ye can get a ghost to tell ye what ye want?”
“I’m going to ask her nicely,” said Billy. “And improvise.”
“That means ye don’t have a plan, doesn’t it?”
Billy didn’t get the chance to answer. A sudden gust of wind blew through the length of the pub. The candles and oil lamps spluttered, struggling to stay aflame. Doogie spun his head in the direction of the door, expecting to find a new customer standing there and letting in the draught. But the door was shut. There was no one there.
“I’m scared,” said Doogie.
“Good,” said Billy. “I’d be worried if you weren’t.”
The temperature inside the tavern began to fall. A deep unnatural coldness descended, far more bitter than the wind and rain outside. Doogie was shivering. He exhaled slowly, his breath misting the air. Then he placed his glass on the table, watching in horror as his ginger beer turned to ice.
Every conversation in the tavern stopped dead. They could all feel it; something bad was coming.
Billy saw the ghost girl standing in the darkest corner of the pub. She was small and frail, hardly more than a child. Billy wasn’t an expert on historical costumes – that was much more Charley’s field – but from the ruff around her neck and frills on her blouse, Billy knew that she had been haunting the Last Drop for a very long time.
Annie’s hair was so fair that it looked like bleached bone. It floated around her face in long tendrils as if it had a life of its own. The ghost girl stared straight at Billy. Watching. Waiting. It was as if she had been there the whole time, playing hide-and-seek. But now Annie was bored with that game.
“Can you see her too?” asked Billy.
Doogie’s eyes were screwed shut. “No,” he said.
“Before you stopped looking?”
“Aye,” said Doogie. “No…sort of. There was a glow, shaped like a wee girl.”
Billy patted Doogie’s arm. “You’re doing well, Doogie. Stay strong for me.”
Billy smiled gently at the ghost girl. “I’m your friend,” he said warmly. Waves of emotion shot back at Billy, hitting him like a slap in the face. Resentment. Shame… Sadness as deep and dark as the ocean.
The temperature continued to plummet. The candle flames dwindled and began to die, snuffing out, one by one. Even the flames in the fireplace started to splutter and fizzle. Abnormal darkness began to fill the Last Drop Tavern. A total blackness, with Angry Annie’s ghostly glow as the only light.
The barman was the first to make a run for it, leaping over his counter with surprising agility for a fat man and stumbling out into the street, apron flapping. The other drinkers were only seconds behind him. The dark and stormy night was suddenly far more appealing than another instant of this freezing terror.
Angry Annie looked straight at Billy. “I can seeee youuu,” she said in a girlish sing-song. The girl smiled at Billy and it was somehow the most terrifying thing that she could have done. The overwhelming sadness that Annie had been wearing like a cloak seemed to drop away to be replaced by spiteful glee. A new emotion struck Billy: anger, as fierce and savage as a wolf.
Annie flung out one hand in a sweeping motion and a dozen beer glasses hurled themselves to the floor. She swept her hand again and tables overturned; chairs threw themselves against the walls and splintered to pieces. Although she was tiny, probably no more than eight or nine years old when she died, this wraithlike girl possessed incredible power. This was bad. Very bad. Annie might be the most powerful ghost Billy had ever encountered. He cursed himself for coming to the tavern so unprepared. It had been a mistake to let Doogie come with him too. Charley was trained to handle this sort of situation, but Doogie was just a lad and Billy shouldn’t have dragged him into this.
And just when Billy was hoping the situation couldn’t get any worse, Angry Annie started to scream. She flew across the room in a blur of white, stopping in front of him, her face so close to his that they were nearly touching. Her eyes were huge pools of blackness in her small white face. “Get out!” she snarled, her top lip curled back like an animal. “Leave me alone.”
Billy didn’t move. “Hello, Annabel,” he said softly. Nothing in his voice betrayed the panic he felt inside. “My name is Billy and this is my friend, Doogie. I’d love to talk to you.”
“Well, I don’t want to talk to you!” Angry Annie shrieked. She gripped the table and threw it up into the air, smashing it like matchwood. Billy and Doogie fell back. Angry Annie reached for Billy with her spectral fingers. The tips touched his chest and then – terribly – pushed through Billy’s clothes, his skin, his bone. Billy’s whole body began to tremble uncontrollably as the ghostly hand wrapped around his heart, freezing him to death from the inside out.
Doogie was petrified. The candles had all gone out and the only light was the ghost-glow. Doogie could see the outline of a wee girl shining through the darkness. Billy’s hands were scrabbling at her, but passing through thin air. Doogie watched in horror as Billy’s skin turned deathly white and the veins began to show through his flesh, thin lines of black creeping up from beneath his shirt collar.
Doogie didn’t know what to do or how to help Billy. He had to do something, but how did you fight something that wasn’t there? Doogie grabbed a bar stool from where it had fallen and threw it at the ghostly glow. The stool sailed right through and shattered on the floor. Not like that then.
Billy’s entire body was shaking and Doogie could see ice crystallizing around his nostrils and across his eyelashes. The detective opened his mouth as if to scream, but the inside of his mouth was frozen too – tongue, cheeks, lips – everything that was soft and wet inside Billy’s mouth was covered with jagged spikes of ice.
That awful sight snapped Doogie back to his senses and he remembered the bag that Billy had given him. He pulled out the bell. He gave it a vigorous shake. No sound came. Doogie shook it again and then realized that the brass clapper was frozen to the inside of the bell! Doogie banged the bell on the table, trying to jolt the clapper free.
Billy’s back arched and long icicles began to erupt from his body, like the spines of a hedgehog…
Time was running out; Doogie smashed the bell down, turning his fear into brute strength – and the clapper broke loose! With a sense of triumph, Doogie rang the bell for all he was worth. It made a beautiful sound, although he couldn’t understand how it could be a weapon. He rang it again, louder and harder.
Somehow it did the trick. The ice started to thaw, the icicles shrunk.
“The book,” Billy gasped. “Open it, then slam it shut.”
That made even less sense, but Doogie did as he was told. He took out the prayer book, opened it at the middle, and then snapped it shut as hard as he could. It closed with a bang! as solid and heavy as a prison door being slammed. Doogie could feel the vibrations it sent out and when the sound hit Billy, the effect was instantaneous. The last of the icicles which had impaled the detective melted away and Billy slumped to the floor.