“I’m mostly getting all sorts of ordinary,” she said grimly. “Nothing out of place, no unnatural phenomena or weird occurrences, down here or upstairs. Normal and everyday, right across the boards. But I don’t think I trust these readings. It’s like they’re too normal, too ordinary. Almost text-book conditions. And you never get that, out in the real world. It’s as though Something is interfering with my instruments, trying to hide the true state of affairs from me. Suppressing the evidence and distorting the data. Which I would have said was impossible before this . . .”
“Are we talking about the same Something that’s shutting down Happy’s E.S.P.?” said JC.
“Probably,” said Melody.
“I am still here, you know!” Happy said loudly.
“Only just,” said Melody.
“Would you care to make an educated guess as to what this Something might be?” said JC.
“Something very powerful,” said Melody. She scowled at her monitor screens as though they’d let her down. “We’d have to be talking about a really Big Bad, and nasty with it. Powerful enough to hide every trace of its presence and true nature from us.”
“If it’s that powerful . . .” said Happy, “why does it need to hide from us?”
“Good question,” said JC. “Melody?”
“I could elaborate further, but I’m already seriously worried,” said Melody. “If we can’t trust Happy’s E.S.P., or my machines, or even our own senses . . . There’s only one thing it can be. This isn’t any standard haunting, or any of the expected phenomena. We’re dealing with a Beast.”
“Oh bloody hell,” said Happy. “Not another one.”
Melody was still looking steadily at JC. “Are you sure the Boss thought this was only another case? She didn’t say anything to you?”
“No,” said JC. “Not a damned thing. I am starting to wonder, though . . . She did say she didn’t trust the people around her any more.”
“So there is the possibility that she’s being played, as well as us?” said Melody. “That all of this is bait to lure us into a trap?”
“Does feel that way, doesn’t it?” said JC.
“I want to go home,” said Happy. “Seriously. Right now.”
“Life was so much simpler when you were merely paranoid,” said Melody. “I could cope with that. Now it really does feel like the whole universe is out to get us.”
“I should feel vindicated, or even triumphant,” said Happy. “Oddly, it doesn’t feel nearly as good as I thought it would.”
“Let’s concentrate on the job, people!” JC said sharply. “It’s a bit early to be panicking when we’re not even sure what’s going on yet.”
“It’s never too early to panic!” said Happy.
“You’re taking too many pills, Happy,” JC said coldly. “Or not enough.” He turned to Melody and gave her his full attention. “What can you tell me, Mel? There must be something . . .”
“I’m monitoring Radio Free Albion’s output,” said Melody. “And so far, all their transmissions seem normal enough. Not a single intruding voice. Here; listen.”
She turned on the speakers built into her array, so they could all hear what the radio station was putting out. Captain Sunshine was wrapping up his show, his voice calm and professional and unhurried. He wished his audience love and peace, reminded them that flower power was still groovy, then handed over to Tom Foreman.
Tom introduced himself and launched straight into the Traffic News Update. Compared to the experienced Captain Sunshine, he sounded like an amateur. It quickly became clear he was simply reading from a prepared script, with no attempt to sound spontaneous or witty, or engage with his audience at all. He put no effort into it. None of the Traffic News sounded in the least interesting, let alone urgent. He finally ran out of things to say, introduced Felicity Legrand making a trailer for her show, and got off the air with almost indecent speed.
Probably because he could tell he didn’t belong there.
Felicity’s voice was a pleasant relief: warm and soothing and almost confidential, as though she were talking directly to every individual member of her listening audience. She sounded friendly and inviting, a completely different personality to the woman JC and Happy had met in the upstairs lounge.
“Stay tuned, everyone, for a very special show!” said the dulcet tones of the on-air Felicity. “I have some really exciting guests lined up for the interview segment of my show, and you’re not going to want to miss a single moment. Joining us shortly will be three of those famous, fabulous, ghost-busting types: JC Chance, Melody Chambers, and Happy Jack Palmer! Of the internationally renowned and only slightly secretive Carnacki Institute! Ghosts R Us; and all that. They’ve promised to shed a new and hopefully revealing light on the strange things that have been plaguing us here at Radio Free Albion; and you can be sure I’ll be asking them all kinds of probing and pointed questions.
“And I’m sure they’ll be only too happy to answer any questions you have! So put on your thinking caps, ring the regular number, and be ready to press them hard for the answers that satisfy! We’ll be taking your calls, sharing your opinions, and talking about the things that concern you . . . And we won’t give up till we’ve got some answers! I know you have some fascinating questions to put to our three Ghost Finders, so stand by your phones! Now back to Tom for the Weather.”
“She’s setting us up to take a fall,” said JC. “Embarrass us with awkward questions she doesn’t believe we can answer.”
“How much can we say?” said Melody. “I mean, the truth is out of the question. Isn’t it?”
“Unless we want to start a mass panic, I would think so,” said JC.
“I did not sign up to do public relations,” said Melody.
“Don’t want to go on her programme,” Happy said sulkily. “I thought we’d agreed I don’t have to do interviews?”
“It’ll be fun!” said JC.
“No it won’t,” said Happy.
“All right, it’ll be interesting,” said JC. “You have to be there, Happy, now she’s named you. Or she’ll say we’re trying to hide something.”
“We are!” said Happy.
“Yes, but we don’t want everyone else to know that,” JC said patiently. “It’s bad enough that Felicity is throwing the name of the Carnacki Institute around so casually; we can’t have people taking too much of an interest in us. So we go on her show, spout a whole bunch of boring platitudes, speak a lot without actually saying much, and shut Miss Clever Mouth down. We don’t need the publicity.”
“Better let me and JC do most of the talking, Happy,” said Melody.
“Suits me,” said Happy.
Melody cut Felicity Legrand off in mid sentence, and a peaceful quiet settled over the reception area. She came back out to study the cardboard box again. JC had a look in the box, too, to keep her company. It did seem very full.
“How long will it take you, to work your way through all these recordings?” he said finally.
“God knows how many hours there are in this box,” said Melody. “Maybe even days . . . But I think we can do better than that.”
She flourished a long data wand and waved it briskly over the box. Then she went back behind her instruments, checked a few readings, and smiled smugly.
“There! Every single file is now stored in my marvellous machines. You have to love digital . . . Now I let the computers do the heavy lifting as they go through each file and sort out the wheat from the chaff, so I only need to listen to the significant material.”
“All right,” said JC. “How long is that going to take?”
“Depends,” said Melody, not giving an inch.
“You don’t know, do you?” said Happy.
“I’ve never actually tried this before, okay?” said Melody. She realised she was still holding the data wand and tossed it casually to one side. “It’s new software. The theory is sound, but . . .”
“I always hate it when she says but
,” said Happy. “Don’t you always hate it when she says but, JC?”
“Always,” JC said solemnly.
Melody glared at both of them. “My computers are currently digging through mountains of detailed information, looking for hidden layers and levels, messages within messages, audio palimpsests . . . All the seriously weird shit that normal searches wouldn’t pick up on.”
“While they’re doing all that,” JC said calmly, “what do your highly experienced instruments have to tell us, about our current surroundings? Anything?”
“There are no suspicious gaps in the data,” said Melody, peering dubiously from one monitor screen to another. “Nothing that should be there but isn’t. All my sensor readings are well within acceptable ranges. The only thing I have found, that I didn’t even think to look for at first because you so rarely encounter them out in the field . . . I’m picking up the occasional burst of tachyon radiations.”
Happy blinked at her. “Okay, I have heard you use that word before, but . . .”
“You never listen when I talk, do you?” said Melody.
“I listen!” said Happy. “I just don’t always understand every single word . . .”
“Tachyons!” Melody said loudly, “are theoretical particles that can’t travel any slower than the speed of light. Often associated with temporal anomalies.”
“If they’re only theoretical,” said JC, “how are you picking them up?”
“Because they’re not really tachyons!”
“Back away slowly,” Happy said to JC. “Try not to show fear.”
“Look!” said Melody. “I am dumbing this right down, for the technically deficient and the scientifically illiterate. We call this tachyon radiation because it often appears when there’s some kind of . . . disruption, in the flow of local Time.”
JC and Happy looked at each other and shrugged pretty much simultaneously.
“Still not getting it,” said JC.
“Something is very wrong with Time in Murdock House,” said Melody.
“Yes,” said Happy. “Got that. But what does it mean?”
“I don’t know!” said Melody. “Not as yet . . . I’m looking into it, all right? You asked me if there was anything different or unusual here, JC, and that’s what I’ve got!”
“Let me know if it starts to mean anything,” said JC.
Happy walked away. He slumped heavily into the chair behind the reception desk and started searching through his many pockets. He produced a whole series of pill boxes, bottles, and phials and set them out on the desk-top before him. Some were labelled in his obsessively neat handwriting; some were colour-coded with bright stickers; and a few had been left ominously blank. He lined them all up in neat rows before him without opening any of them, then moved them back and forth, arranging them in groups and patterns that presumably meant something to him. Then he looked at them and set about rearranging them. As though searching for some particularly significant combination.
JC watched him do it; and said nothing.
After a while, Melody came quietly out from behind her machines and walked over to the reception desk. She dragged a chair into place beside Happy, sat down, and without looking at Happy or JC, she began sorting through the pill boxes and bottles. Putting some in front of Happy, and discarding others. Happy sat back in his chair and let her do it.
“How long has this been going on?” JC said finally. “When did you decide to become his nurse and his junkie muse, Melody?”
“I’m only sorting out what he needs to keep himself sharp,” said Melody, not looking up. “The right mixtures and dosages, to keep him focused on the job. While still keeping him . . . balanced.”
Happy nodded. He didn’t interfere with any of her selections. He trusted her to know what he needed. What was best for him.
“I work out the proper doses for each pill, now,” said Melody. “My computers calculate the exact combinations to give him what he needs, what his body can stand. Because at least this way I have some measure of control over what he’s doing to himself. Chemicals are science. I can do science.”
“Oh yes; it’s all very scientific now,” said Happy. “Or so she assures me. I hardly ever get muscle cramps or cold sweats these days. I used to follow my instincts, with a whole bunch of trial and error thrown in. I hardly ever collapse, now, or sit crying in the corner for hours. I’m doing so much better now she’s here to help.”
“Really?” said JC.
“Who can tell?” said Happy. “My body has become an alchemical work of art. I should be on display, in a Museum for the Terminally Strange. My brain cells are so soaked in experimental medicines, I’m amazed they’re still talking to each other. But it’s what I need—to stay sane. To keep the world out, to hold the supernatural at bay, so there’s no-one inside my head but me. Never be a junkie, JC; it’s hard work.”
Melody finally assembled a richly coloured assortment of pills, mustered them into a neat pile, and set them before Happy. He sat up straight in his chair and looked at the drugs for a long moment, not even reaching out to touch them.
“Don’t you want them?” Melody said carefully.
“You know I do,” said Happy. “But given all the troubles I’m having with my E.S.P. right now; will they help?” He smiled briefly at Melody. “I should know better than to ask questions like that, shouldn’t I? You know everything about the pills except what it feels like to take them. I can’t live with them, can’t function without them . . . Oh hell, girl. We all do what we have to do, when all the other options are worse.”
Melody handed him a plastic bottle of water, and Happy knocked the pills back, one after the other. His hands were perfectly steady. Melody pushed back her chair and strode over to her array of instruments. So she wouldn’t have to watch. JC let her get back into position, then strolled over to stand opposite her.
“You know that stuff is killing him by inches,” he said quietly.
“Of course I know,” she said. “But it’s necessary. Sometimes, all that’s left is to hold someone’s hand while they put the gun to their head. You never cared before . . .”
“Of course I care,” said JC. “He’s no use to me dead.”
Kim walked into the reception area, through the left-hand wall. She looked solid and real and not at all ghostly. She smiled sweetly at everyone.
“I’m dead, and I’m useful!” she said brightly. “Hello, everyone! Isn’t it an absolutely super day? Hello, JC! How’s my sweetie?”
JC smiled back at her and felt some of the tension ease out of him for the first time since he’d arrived at Murdock House. He walked over to the ghost girl, and the two of them stood face-to-face, as close as they could get without actually touching, so as not to spoil the illusion. In the background, Happy was singing quietly.
“Where do I begin, to tell the story . . .”
“Shut up, Happy,” said JC.
Melody looked up from her instruments and glowered at Kim. “You’re late!”
“Of course I’m late,” Kim said cheerfully. “I’m the late Kim Sterling!” She smiled demurely at JC. “Sorry it took me so long to get here, darling. I came by the low road; but I took the scenic route.”
“I’m not even going to ask,” said JC.
“Best not to,” Kim agreed.
JC lowered his voice. “More private work for the Boss?”
“Don’t,” said Kim, quietly. “Don’t even go there.”
“What?” said JC. “I’m not even allowed to ask?”
“No,” said Kim. “Because it’s safer that way, for both of us. I am doing this for us, remember? So we can be together? I can’t go on like this, being a ghost. There’s no future in it—for me, or for you. It’s not only the . . . not being able to touch each other. You’re going to grow old, JC, and I’m not. You’re going to die and move on; and I won’t be able to go with you.”
“Ah!” said Melody. “That’s interesting . . .”
They all turned to look
at her, then drifted across the room to join her.
“What?” said Happy, slouching even more than usual. His eyes were bright, his complexion decidedly unhealthy. “What’s interesting? Do I really want to know; and if so, is it headed my way? Should I be looking round for the nearest escape route? Can any of you hear a cloister bell ringing?”
“Steady,” said JC.
“None of my instruments detected Kim approaching,” said Melody. “And they should have. A ghost anywhere in the vicinity is one of the first things my machines are calibrated to look out for, above and beyond anything else. But Kim isn’t showing up on any of my very special sensors. Proof, if proof were needed, that Something is very definitely screwing around with my machines. Hiding from us in plain sight, behind a manifested appearance of normality.”
“I love it when she talks dirty,” said Happy.
Kim looked carefully around her. “I don’t see anything . . .”
“Neither do I!” said Happy. “And I am so buzzed right now, I should be able to see dust motes gang-banging each other.”
“Concentrate on the voice recordings, Melody,” said JC. “They’re the only hard evidence we’ve got to work with. Have your machines digested them all yet?”
“Oh yes,” said Melody. “Ages ago. Let’s see. Hmmm . . .”
“Oh God,” said Happy. “I hate it when she goes Hmmm . . . It’s even worse than when she says but . . . What have you found now, Melody, and can I please hide behind you?”
“For once, I think I’m with Happy,” said JC. “He may be a junkie and a paranoid depressive; but his self-preservation instincts are second to none.”
“Thank you, JC,” said Happy. “Nicest thing you’ve ever said about me.”
“What have your computers found, Melody?” JC said patiently.
“They have been scrutinising the recordings with an intense scrute,” said Melody. “Sifting through the voices, contrasting and comparing them, searching for anything that might help us understand their true nature. From the very first basic sounds, to the most recent conversations. And it seems they all have one thing in common. None of them have an identifiable source.”