Anne Billson - Stiff Lips

'When was it you lived here?'

'End of the Sixties,' he said. 'Those were the days.'

I squinted at him afresh. 'You haven't by any chance heard of a rock group called the Drunken Boats?'

'Heard of them?' For a horrible moment I thought he was going to kiss me. 'My love, you are talking to one of them. Jeremy Idlewild, at your service.'

My heart stopped in mid-beat. I'd walked right into it. First Arthur Mowbray, now this. I took a step back, trying to ward him off. 'I knew you'd turn up. I just knew it.'

'I can't believe you've heard of us,' Jeremy Idlewild said in his poncey voice. 'You don't look old enough.'

I made myself count slowly to ten. For a dead person, he wasn't so very pale. Certainly not as pasty-faced as poor Arthur Mowbray. But then Jeremy Idlewild didn't look much like my idea of a pop star either. For a start, he looked at least forty-five.

Which is round about the age he would have been had he lived. I could have kicked myself.

'You're not a ghost at all, are you,' I said.

'Only in the metaphorical sense.'

'What about the others? They're dead, right?'

'Hey, we weren't that bad. We're all alive and kicking, except poor old Marky, who succumbed to the Big C last year.'

'So let me get this straight. You didn't die of an overdose? Hugo Baudelaire didn't cover himself in petrol and set light to it?'

'Baudelaire? Do you know, I'd quite forgotten Hughie used to call himself that.'

'Ralph Ergstrom wasn't decapitated in a car crash?'

Jeremy Idlewild tittered nervously. 'Is this some kind of joke? Because I'm not sure I find it funny.'

'I'm sorry,' I said. 'It's just that someone's been telling porky pies. Listen, did you know they've got your album here on tape?'

Jeremy Idlewild scuttled away from me and over to the tape deck with a haste that was positively hurtful.

I stood at the open windows with the Drunken Boats thudding against my back. Outside, the street was abnormally deserted for a Saturday night, as though everyone else had heard about an imminent nuclear attack and scarpered. As though this were destined to be the last party in the world. But I'd made it. It was past midnight, and nothing had happened. I was still here, and so was Sophie. Walter Cheeseman had got it wrong.

From somewhere behind me, there was a mighty shout of 'Apple bobbing!' and the sound of a minor stampede. I looked back to see the last of Sophie's fan club scurrying from the room. Sophie herself had stopped dancing and was now spoiling for a fight. She strode up to me and launched straight into it, without preamble.

'It's always the same, and I'm fed up with it. You suck up to my face, and slag me off behind my back.'

'That's not true,' I said, wondering what I'd done to deserve this latest outburst.

'I can't believe you're such a creep,' she said. 'Did it never occur to you that my friends only tolerate you as a favour to me? You must have realized that Miles always thought you were a joke.'

This was a malicious lie. I tried not to rise to the bait, but it was irresistible. 'Evidently not that much of a joke, or he would never have gone to bed with me as many times as he did.'

It was worth it. Sophie looked as though she'd been slapped in the face with a wet fish. I decided to ram my advantage home. 'He shagged Carolyn as well, did you know that? Miles would shag anything in a skirt.'

'You're such a…' said Sophie, but all of a sudden I noticed she wasn't giving me the hundred per cent attention I thought warranted by such disclosures. She was gazing past me, down into the street.

I followed her gaze, and found myself with that frozen chicken feeling all over again. Robert Jamieson was standing in the middle of the road, looking up at us and smiling the smile that was not at all reassuring. In the lamplight he cast a long shadow, one that stretched off into infinity.

'Oh no,' I said.

Even from this distance, and even though I wasn't wearing my glasses, I found I was able to read his lips. He was saying, It's make your mind up time . And he started to move towards the house — not walking, but drifting.

I could feel the blood draining out of my face.

'Oh my God,' I said. 'He's coming up.'

Sophie ignored me. She was still gazing over my shoulder — like Miles, like Carolyn, like everyone did when they spotted someone more interesting they wanted to talk to. Her eyes were shining, lips slightly parted, and I wondered if she'd seen Robert at all, or had simply gone into a drunken trance. I had to wave my hand in front of her face before she snapped out of it.

'He's on his way up,' I said. 'Robert Jamieson .'

Sophie chose to hear only the second half of what I'd said. 'That's typical,' she said. 'Just because I had a good thing going with Robert, you've got to pretend you're seeing him too. But he wasn't interested in you, and you know why? You have no class, Clare, you're a stone and a half overweight, and your sense of style is even worse than Marsha Carter-Brown's.'

She'd asked for it. I'd been saving the best till last. I said, 'At least I'm not going to die.'

That stopped her in her tracks. 'Who said anything about dying?'

'It wasn't a ghost you saw, Sophie, it was a premonition. You're going to fall out of those windows…' I looked at my watch. 'Any minute now.'

'I have absolutely no intention of falling anywhere,' said Sophie.

'Well, something's got to give. And I'm damned if it's going to be me.'

Sophie's expression shifted gear. She was looking past me again, but this time into the empty room.

Or perhaps it wasn't so empty after all.

'He's here, isn't he?' I whispered.

'I can't hear you above this frigging music.'

I shouted as loudly as I could, 'There's a dead man behind me .' Now I understood. She'd been keeping me talking, giving Robert Jamieson a chance to sneak up while my attention was distracted. They'd been plotting it from the beginning. They were in it together.

Sophie's gaze hardly wavered. She was good, I had to give her that. 'There's nobody behind you, Clare,' she said, looking past me all the time. 'The only dead men are on the dance floor downstairs.'

'I'm not going to fall for it,' I said.

'You're really cracked,' said Sophie. 'First the sleepwalking, and now this. You should see a doctor.'

'It's you who should see the doctor,' I said.

'Oh, cut it out,' said Sophie. 'Get a life.'

I said, 'That's exactly what I intend to do.'

Which was when I felt myself moving. It was as if someone had positioned a giant magnet just outside the windows and I was being drawn towards it, inch by inch, my heels making squeaking sounds as I dug them in and they dragged against the floor. I tried to pull back, but it was no good — it was a tug of war, and I was on the losing side. My feet were on the point of losing contact with the ground altogether when I lashed out in a panic, trying to grab something — anything — that would put the brakes on my involuntary progress.

I'd drawn level with Sophie. 'What are you doing' she squeaked, as I grabbed a fistful of her voluminous skirt. She tried to brush my fingers away, but I'd fastened on to the material with a grip like rigor mortis.

'You don't want to bother with me,' I said.

'You can say that again,' said Sophie.

'Sophie's got more talent in her little finger than I've got in my entire body.'

'I'm glad we've sorted that one out,' said Sophie.

'I'm fat and ugly and my fashion sense is even worse than Marsha Carter-Brown's.'

'Hear hear,' said Sophie.

And, miraculously, I felt the pressure ease off. I was able to step back from the windows and relax my grip on Sophie's skirt. She immediately stooped to examine it, as though my fingers might have left a slimy deposit.