Simon Green: Ghost of a Dream

“No,” said Melody, caught up in the discussion despite herself. “That’s not it. The ghost put on a really scary show, but it’s clear no-one was ever supposed to get hurt…”

“Old Tom was a mask,” said Happy. “A disguise, for Alistair Gravel. A dead actor, playing a part.”

“I always said that caretaker was too broad a character,” said Elizabeth.

“The moustache didn’t help,” said Benjamin. “Alistair always was too fond of the make-up box.”

“So this has all been about Alistair Gravel,” said JC. “Watching us, as Old Tom. I understand everything, now.”

“Well, not everything,” said Lissa.

They all turned to look at her, and she smiled at them dazzlingly.

“Nothing in this theatre is necessarily what it seems,” she said sweetly. “And not everyone is who they appear to be.”

And she slowly and silently faded away.

The living men and women stood close together on the Haybarn Theatre stage, staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the spot where Lissa had been standing. Or, at least, at where the thing they thought had been Lissa had been standing. They moved instinctively closer to each other, feeling the need for mutual support. Real people doing real human things, in the face of something long dead and only pretending to be human. A basic need for human warmth and human presence, to counter the cold of the grave and a close encounter with mortality. They needed to look into each other’s eyes and see someone they knew looking back. Actors might be used to dealing with people who aren’t who they appear to be, and Ghost Finders might be used to dealing with things that aren’t what they seem to be; but that only makes it that much harder to handle, knowing how completely you’ve been fooled.

Not all that surprisingly, JC was the first to get his mental feet back under him.

“Happy!” he said sharply, and the telepath jumped and gave JC his full attention.

“Yes, boss?”

“Is everyone else here real? Really real?”

“Way ahead of you,” said Happy. “I scanned everyone still on this stage the moment after Lissa did her disappearing act. Everyone left is who they appear to be. As far as I can tell. Something in this theatre has been messing with my head, and my abilities, ever since I got here.”

“How can we be sure about you?” Elizabeth said bluntly.

“Oh, trust me,” said JC. “No-one else could be that annoying.”

“You want me to prod you with a finger?” said Happy.

“Later, dear,” said Melody.

JC looked steadily at Benjamin and Elizabeth. “You knew Lissa. And you never suspected anything?”

“We never met her before!” said Elizabeth, immediately. “Not in the flesh…”

“I talked to her on the telephone a few times,” said Benjamin. “We knew her work, obviously, that’s why we hired her. But most of our contacts went through her agent. So when she turned up here, early, but looking exactly the way we expected her to, well…We never thought! Why would we?”

“So that was never the real Lissa,” said Happy. “All this time we’ve had two ghosts walking around with us, pretending to be people…And I never suspected anything!”

“My machines didn’t detect anything, either,” said Melody. “But then, I never knew the right questions to ask them. If it walks like a person and talks like a person…”

“We should have been on our guard,” said Happy. “Especially after what happened at the railway station…”

“Don’t be too hard on yourselves,” said JC, cutting in quickly before Benjamin and Elizabeth could start asking awkward questions about the railway station and really confuse the issue. “I’m the one with the special all-seeing eyes, and I didn’t see a damned thing I wasn’t supposed to…But to be able to manifest that strongly, to walk around like one of us, or rather two of us, Lissa and Old Tom…there must be something in this theatre, some unusual source of power, to make these ghosts so much stronger than they had any right to be.”

The lights dimmed suddenly all across the stage. Dark shadows gathered. And then a single spotlight stabbed down from above, marking out one small part of the stage in a circle of shimmering light. And from out of the darkness and into the spotlight walked the ghost girl, Kim. She took up her position in the pool of brilliant light, standing tall and proud and serene, and smiled dazzlingly at everyone. She looked exactly the same as she had before, dressed in exactly the same way as when she’d been murdered, down in Oxford Circus Tube Station…when JC first met her. He started toward her, then made himself stop. He looked fiercely at the others.

“You can all see her this time?”

“Certainly looks like her,” said Happy. “But…I’m not getting anything from her, JC. I can’t even sense her presence, never mind her personality. And normally, she blazes in my mind like a balefire at midnight. Are you sure this isn’t another illusion?”

“You haven’t been picking up much of anything recently, Happy,” said JC, not unkindly.

“Don’t think I hadn’t noticed,” growled Happy. “Something, or more probably Someone, has been deliberately blocking me. And so thoroughly, and so subtly, I didn’t even notice. Until now. After what happened here, I thought it was Alistair Gravel who’d been misdirecting me with his scary visions, so I wouldn’t see through the Old Tom disguise he was wearing…but now I’m not so sure. This Faust you met, Melody; how long has he been here? How much of what we’ve seen and experienced could be down to him? And if he can make things, physical things like the Phantom, then maybe…”

“That looks like our Kim,” said Melody. “But why isn’t she saying anything? Normally, you can’t shut her up.”

“Could Alistair Gravel be behind her?” said Happy.

“How would he know about her?” said Melody.

“He’s dead!” said Happy. “The dead know all kinds of things they’re not supposed to!”

“Or maybe, just maybe, she really is my guardian-angel ghost,” said JC. “Come to save us all in our hour of need.”

He moved slowly forward, his footsteps loud and clear and echoing on the open stage. Kim smiled happily at him but made no move to leave the spotlight and come to him. JC stopped, carefully, right at the edge of the shimmering light. It was her face, every detail exactly right. He should know. He’d spent enough time staring at it. He spoke softly to Kim, doing his best to be persuasive without pressuring her.

“Why are you here, Kim? Can you tell me? Can you tell me anything? Something, anything, so I can be sure this is you.”

But she looked at him, smiling sadly, her eyes fixed on his, saying nothing. JC reached out a hand to her, and Kim immediately fell back a step. Her smile disappeared, and she looked at him warningly, admonishingly. JC stayed where he was. He wanted it to be her. Needed it to be her. But he didn’t trust anything in the Haybarn Theatre any more. Not even himself. He raised a hand to his sunglasses, to take them off and look at her directly with his altered eyes, then he stopped and spun round as the swing doors at the back of the auditorium smashed open, and the Phantom of the Haybarn came crashing through them.

Everyone turned to look. Both swing doors were blasted right off their hinges, thrown away to either side, by the sheer force of the Phantom’s arrival. He struck a pose in front of the great dark gap he’d made, letting everyone on the stage get a good look at him. Stooped, half-crouching like an animal, resplendent in Victorian finery and a night-dark opera cape with blood-red lining. He should have looked like a gentleman, like a civilised man from a civilised time; instead he looked more like some creature from the wild places, a beast that had been raised up to walk like a man but left none of its savagery behind. Murder was in his every move, death in his smile, horror in his rotting half-face and grubby half-mask. He laughed silently at them all, like some terrible predator from the jungle night.