Simon Green: Ghost of a Smile

“What did they do here?” said Melody, practical as always. “What did the factory make?”

“Apparently, machine parts for other factories,” said JC. “And when the orders dried up, the jobs disappeared. Lot of that about, in the eighties.”

“Maggie bloody Thatcher,” growled Happy. “When that woman is dead, I will piss on her grave. I don’t care how long I have to queue.”

“Get to the local legends,” Melody said to JC. “You know you’re dying to get to the local legends.”

“Yeah,” said Happy. “All the weird shit that no-one believes but everyone talks about.”

“Know thine enemy,” murmured JC. He flipped through the pages. “Ah yes, here we are. Ghosts, strange animal sightings, UFOs, and Men In Black, all the usual… Ah! This is more like it. There are local legends of Big Black Dogges, going back centuries, chasing people down deserted lanes, hunting people at night. And that’s Dogges spelled the demon way, in case you wondered.”

“Big?” sad Happy. “How big?”

“Says here, twice the size of a man,” JC said cheerfully. “Always black, appearing and disappearing, and some of them have no head. Definitely not your average Rottweiler.”

Happy sniggered suddenly. “No head? How do they smell?”

“Don’t even go there,” said Melody. “Exactly how dangerous are these Dogges, JC?”

“Reading between the lines, very,” said JC. “A lot of local disappearances have been put down to the Dogges, down the years. Apparently it’s bad luck even to see one. There’s also mention of big cats, attacking sheep at night.”

“Cats and dogs? Wonderful,” said Happy. “Maybe we can set them on each other.”

“Enough talk; time for action!” said JC. He tossed the guide-book carelessly over his shoulder and strode determinedly towards the open doors to the factory. “Time to stare Evil in the face and pull its nose! Give me danger and excitement, Lord, that I might smite the ungodly and send them crying home to their mothers!”

“There’s something seriously wrong with you, JC,” said Happy, trudging sullenly after him.

“And don’t anybody feel they have to help me shift all this equipment!” said Melody, bringing up the rear with her weighed-down trolley.

“It’s good healthy exercise,” Happy said callously. “And you know you don’t like us touching your stuff.”

“That’s because you always break it!” snapped Melody. “You could break an anvil just by looking at it.”

Happy smirked. “It’s a gift.”

“I’m glad you didn’t pay for it,” said Melody.

“Children, children,” murmured JC. “If we could please all concentrate on the very dangerous and possibly horribly haunted deserted factory before us…”

Melody snorted loudly and made a point of striding ahead of JC and Happy, hauling her trolley behind her. JC let her get a fair distance ahead, so he could talk quietly with Happy.

“So,” he said brightly. “You and Melody are an item now. How’s that working out?”

“I don’t know whether we’re an item, or friends with benefits, or ships that have crashed into each other in the night,” said Happy. “We’re having lots and lots of sex, if that means anything. I used to take all kinds of useful little pills, to help make sure the only voice inside my head was mine, and to give me a more positive outlook on things, but these days I seem to be living mostly on bathtub speed and multi-vitamins, just to keep up with her. God, that woman’s got an appetite.”

“Are you still scared of her?” said JC.

“Hell yes,” said Happy.

Melody had almost reached the yellow police tapes when JC called out sharply for her to stop. She did so immediately, looking quickly about her, while JC and Happy hurried to catch up. The three of them stood together, the huge open doors of the factory holding secrets within. Looking into the gloom inside was like looking into a bottomless pit, where the dark fell away forever and ever. JC abruptly turned his back on the dark and looked back over the empty car park.

“Notice anything, oh my children?” he said. “Listen. Listen to the quiet… No birds singing, or even flying anywhere near. No insects buzzing, even in this dying dog day of summer. The air is heavy, like a storm that’s right on the edge of breaking but never does. This.. . is an unnatural quiet because Nature has withdrawn from this place. This bad place. And what do we know about bad places, my esteemed colleagues?”

“Bad places make ghosts,” said Melody. “Hauntings are as much an expression of places as people.”

“Genius loci,” said Happy. “The spirit of the place because some places are more alive than some people. Did I pass? Please tell me I didn’t, and I can go home.”

“Gold stars for everyone!” said JC. “And honey for tea. It’s quiet here because all the natural things are afraid of the factory.”

“If they’ve got the good sense to stay out of there, maybe we should, too,” said Happy. “No? I’m sure I used to have survival instincts, before I joined this team. Can’t we start a nice accidental fire and burn the whole building down?”

JC ignored Happy, launched himself at the police tapes, and broke through them with a series of ostentatious karate chops. He strode into the factory, and the others followed him. The temperature plummeted the moment they stepped out of the sunlight and into the gloom. JC shuddered briefly. Walking into the factory felt like diving into a cool dark sea. The only light fell in through the high windows, illuminating the long, dark interior with a series of bright shafts of sunlight, stabbing down from on high. JC and Happy and Melody moved slowly forward, trying to look everywhere at once, their footsteps echoing strangely hollow on the concrete floor. The trolley’s wheels creaked loudly. The huge interior of the factory seemed to swallow up the sounds immediately, making them seem small and insignificant.

The long interior stretched away before them, a massive open space, like a museum wing with no exhibits. Everything of value, everything that mattered, had been removed long ago, and the factory was an empty shell. JC looked interestedly about him. Despite the heavy gloom, he still hadn’t taken off his sunglasses. Melody stopped abruptly, slamming to a halt, and Happy jumped despite himself. He glared about him while JC looked at Melody and raised a single elegant eyebrow.

“This is where the body was found,” said Melody.

They all looked down. There was a dark stain on the rough grey floor that might have been human-shaped if seriously horrid things had been done to a human body. Melody set about assembling her own specially designed workstation, supporting various usual items of scientific equipment. Some of it so up-to-date that so far no-one had even realised she’d stolen it from the Institute’s research laboratories. JC and Happy didn’t have a clue what half of it was, or what it was for, but they trusted Melody’s high tech to come up with answers to questions they wouldn’t even have considered. Melody ran through the details of the murder as she worked, confident that, as usual, she’d been the only one to pay proper attention during the original briefing.

JC always said details got in the way of seeing the Big Picture, and Happy’s attention tended to wander a lot.

“The victim,” said Melody, “was one Albert Winter, main shareholder of the very successful and influential Winter Group of companies. Interestingly, no-one seems to know what he was doing here; though given that this factory was once a part of Winter Industries, we could probably take that as a clue. If you like that sort of thing. Anyway, the rest of the Winter Group’s board were not at all happy with the results of the original police investigation. Mainly because there weren’t any. They couldn’t explain why Albert Winter had come here, or how he died, or what killed him. Except that it must have been a really nasty death. The state of the body was so bad, even hardened policemen had to run outside to puke up things they hadn’t even eaten yet. Anyway, the Winter Group made its displeasure known and put the pressure on, which eventually filtered down to us. The Carnacki Institute does so love a mystery. Particularly when there’s a chance to get in the good books of a rich and powerful company. I did mention this is a Budget Review Year, didn’t I?”