Anne Billson - Stiff Lips

'Let me get this straight,' I said. 'You're waiting for a ghost so you can record it on film? You're doing some sort of supernatural snuff movie? '

'Ghost is rather an old-fashioned term,' frowned Walter. 'Rather Victorian, don't you think? Perhaps we should change it to something less emotive, such as immaterial essence . Or corporeally challenged entity .' He yawned and scratched the back of his head. 'So who's it to be?'

My headache was getting worse by the second. 'Sophie's the front runner, isn't she?'

'Sophie does indeed appear to be the most suitable contender. Definitely the most sensitive and creative.'

I let that go. I was starting to realize that now was not the time to play the sensitive and creative card.

'And what if I warned her?'

'You wouldn't want to do that,' said Walter. 'Not unless you were prepared to take her place. But she fits. She's beautiful, talented, and she has a big streak of dark side.'

'Not as dark as all that ,' I said.

'And,' said Walter, 'she's had sex with ghosts.'

I stopped pacing and turned to face him. 'What?'

'She has, hasn't she? We know she's had carnal relations with at least one of them.'

'That's one of the requirements?'

'The single most important requirement,' said Walter. 'Though I believe there was a bit of a hiccup back in 1956 when Maurice Defryss exhibited a preference for young men, and the young man in question fumbled the baton, as it were. He fled, but too late. He still ended up back here.'

'That must have been Arthur,' I said. 'Who passed it on to Ann-Marie.'

Walter was looking thoughtful. 'You say Sophie saw Ann-Marie?'

I nodded. 'After she'd fallen out of the window.'

'But Ann-Marie didn't fall,' said Walter. 'You've seen my film. She took an overdose.'

Suddenly I understood, or thought I did. 'It wasn't a ghost she saw. It had nothing to do with Ann-Marie. What if it was… a premonition ?'

Walter nodded slowly, overcome by the wonder of it all. 'Past, present, future,' he marvelled. 'Like cable TV. Hundreds of channels. Something for all the family.'

'In that case,' I said, 'I'd better find Sophie and tell her to switch off right now.'

Walter looked amused, as though he'd just set a grand entertainment into motion. He was still filming me as I headed towards the door.

Halfway down I bumped into Lemmy, who'd shed his sheet and now seemed to be searching for somewhere to have a quiet smoke. 'Can't stop,' I panted. 'Got to find Sophie. It's really urgent.'

'Remember what the dormouse said,' said Lemmy. I kept going, but he shouted after me, 'You've got to hang in there, Clare.'

I skidded to a halt and looked back at him in astonishment. 'I can understand you,' I said, retracing my steps. Sophie or no Sophie, this was a phenomenon that needed investigating.

'So you can,' said Lemmy. He didn't seem at all surprised.

'But why? Why now?'

Lemmy shrugged. 'Maybe you've never been this far out of your skull before.'

'I have to find Sophie. There's something wrong with this house.'

'I never liked it here,' said Lemmy. 'I don't like the way it feels, and I don't like the way it makes me feel. Even back in the old days I knew there was something wrong with it.'

That reminded me. 'You never told me you were in one of Walter Cheeseman's films.'

'Yes I did,' said Lemmy.

'And you've known Walter for years,' I added.

Lemmy made a ratlike face, as though he'd sunk sensitive teeth into cold ice-cream. 'If I were you I'd steer clear of that goon.'

'Why didn't you warn me?' I wailed.

'But I did,' said Lemmy. 'I told you dozens of times. I told you to go back to Hackney and stay there.'

I stopped wailing. Back to Hackney? There were limits. I preferred to take my chances. 'It's not that I'm scared ,' I said. 'It's not that I'm in any danger .'

But Lemmy was looking me up and down, as though he'd only just seen what I was wearing. 'What are you supposed to be?'

'Morticia.'

Without warning, he dipped forward and plucked the spectacles from my face. 'Then you don't need these. They make you look like Nana Mouskouri.' I think he put them in his pocket, but I wasn't sure of anything any more, because my already hazy worldview had been reduced to a total blur.

'But I can't see.'

'It's time to go with the flow,' said Lemmy. 'Missa lingua pangolin. Lipatti lammermoor twingo bondarchuk.'

I groaned with frustration. 'You're talking rubbish again.'

Lemmy gave me a helpless shrug. 'Mukhadev capistrano binoche.'

I smiled weakly, and turned to grope my way downstairs.

'Frug with the slug!' Lemmy called after me.

Perhaps Lemmy had known what he was doing when he confiscated my spectacles, because I spotted Sophie as soon as I walked back into her living-room. It wasn't nearly as jam-packed as before, but she'd still managed to round up a small cluster of male admirers and was holding court, peering at their palms.

As far as I could see, there weren't any undertakers in the vicinity, but I moved in for a closer squint all the same. Sophie had gone completely native. She was dressed in a crinkly plum-coloured velvet skirt and white cheesecloth blouse through which nipples were clearly visible. As soon as she saw me she dropped the palm she was reading and rounded on me, hands on hips. 'Who the hell do you think you are, turning everyone against me? Carolyn and Charlotte aren't speaking to me.'

'Carolyn and Charlotte aren't speaking to each other,' I said, but Sophie pointedly turned her back on me and began to talk to one of her admirers. I was about to tap her on the shoulder and explain about Charlotte and Grenville when I caught sight of Mr Bones and his camcorder on the other side of the room.

He was pointing it straight at Sophie. No, past Sophie — towards the cluster of men slobbering in unison behind her: Frankenstein's Monster, a Killer Robot, a brace of Count Draculas, and a balding man in striped knee-breeches.

I placed my hand on her arm. 'Look, Soph,' I said quietly. 'Why don't we…'

'Oh, bugger off,' said Sophie, 'I'm dancing.' She grabbed one of the Draculas and whirled him around the room in a mutant hybrid of polka and pogo. I stood and stared helplessly as her skirt flew up and exposed her stocking-tops. I'd done my best. Could anyone have expected more?

The balding man shuffled up and offered me a glass of wine. 'You look like you need a drink, Tish.' His accent was unfeasibly posh, like a Conservative politician who'd been taking elocution lessons.

'My name's not Tish,' I said, but gladly accepted the wine and gulped a large mouthful of it down. The only way to handle all that was happening was to get a lot drunker than I was already. That much I knew.

I looked gratefully at the balding man, but couldn't help noticing that his few remaining strands of hair were scraped back into a naff ponytail, his frilly shirt failed to conceal the cantaloupe-sized paunch resting on his belt, and his shiny buckled shoes weren't half as shiny as his face, with its small piggy eyes sunk into the surrounding flesh.

He mistook my expression of revulsion for one of inquiry. 'I'm a Sadistic Hellfire Squire,' he said, drawing a bundle of woolly sausages from one of his pockets. 'And this is my wig.' He balanced the sausages on his head for all of two seconds before whipping them off and stuffing them back into his pocket. 'But it's too darn hot in here.'

'You're right there,' I said, thankful I had at last found someone who agreed with me about the temperature.

'Funny,' he said. 'I used to own this building. Years ago, when it was a bit of a slum. Pity I didn't hang on to the freehold. Property prices gone through the roof since then, haven't they? Even with the recession, they're still a lot higher than they were.'