Ghost of a Dream

  “Are you the…experts?” said the woman, in a rich clear voice.

  JC gave them both his best professional smile. “We are, indeed, the experts. Allow me to introduce your team for tonight. I am JC Chance, ghost finder extraordinaire, exorcist without portfolio, and leader of the pack. Despite everything I can do to get out of it. The short sulky thing on my left is Happy Jack Palmer; team telepath, portable psychic, and general pain in the arse. Feel free to ignore him or throw things. We do. Finally, this sweet and very dangerous young lady is Melody Chambers, geek girl nerd technician and Take That fan. Don’t get too close, she bites. Do not be fooled by the way we look; we are in fact very experienced and very efficient.”

  “So…ghosts don’t scare you?” said the man, in a mellifluous, carrying voice.

  JC grinned. “Hell no…ghosts are scared of us.”

  “I’m not sure whether that makes me feel any safer, or not,” said the woman.

  “Lot of people say that,” said Happy.

  “Only because they know us,” said Melody.

  “I’m Benjamin Darke,” said the man, a bit grandly. “And this is my wife, Elizabeth de Fries.”

  They both stood a little taller, clearly expecting to be recognised. When it became clear that wasn’t going to happen, Benjamin announced their names again, a little louder and more distinctly, as though that might make a difference.

  “Oh come on!” said Elizabeth. “You must have heard of us! We’ve been jobbing actors for twenty years now! We’ve been in everything, both stage and screen!”

  “Exactly!” said Benjamin. “We’ve done everything, from soaps to period dramas, police procedurals to sitcoms! I was in a Doctor Who and she was in a Sherlock Holmes! Recently!”

  “Sorry,” said JC. “We’re usually out working, of an evening. Our business is with the dead, not the living.”

  Benjamin and Elizabeth looked at each other. Their shoulders slumped, and they stood more closely together, as though they could only depend on each other.

  Benjamin Darke was tall and stocky, with a certain physical presence. He dressed well, if not actually expensively, with a smart sweater and slacks under a navy blue blazer, and a white silk cravat at his throat. He carried himself with a certain youthful vigour, through sheer force of will, and long stage training showed in his every disciplined movement. He was still handsome, in a severe sort of way, though middle age had clearly got a grip on him. His receding hair was suspiciously jet-black. He smiled a lot, a bright, professional smile that probably fooled most people.

  Elizabeth de Fries was short and well-made, showing off her perfectly preserved figure in a carefully cut pale blue dress and very high heels. Up close she was clearly into her forties, but with the right makeup and camera lens, she could still knock ten years off that. She had a pleasantly pretty face under a mop of tight blonde curls, and sparkling blue eyes. She still had charm, as opposed to Benjamin’s practiced presence.

  And then Happy had to go and spoil it all by walking right up to them and prodding them both hard in the chest with his forefinger. Benjamin’s eyes widened, and Elizabeth let out a brief squeak of surprise. Happy looked them both over carefully, nodded quickly, and went back to JC and Melody. The two actors looked at each other, then at JC and Melody for an explanation. They didn’t get one. JC tried hard to look solemn. Melody didn’t even try.

  “Just making sure,” said Happy. “After what happened with Roland Laurie…Still can’t believe I didn’t spot him…Don’t get fooled again, that’s my motto.”

  “He prodded me in the bosom!” Elizabeth said loudly. “And…he didn’t even say please!”

  “I did notice, darling,” said Benjamin.

  “Then don’t just stand there, darling, do something!”

  “Like what? Go over there and prod him back? I wouldn’t lower myself.”

  “You never did have any spine, darling,” said Elizabeth.

  And then they all jumped a little and looked around, as the main doors crashed open again as a bright-eyed girl in her late teens came striding in. She stopped, accepted everyone staring at her as her right, and smiled happily about her.

  “Hi!” she said cheerfully. “I’m Lissa Parr! It’s Melissa, actually, but everyone calls me Lissa. Sorry I’m a bit late.”

  Lissa was a tall, slender brunette, with flat, shoulder-length hair and a heavy dark fringe falling right down to her penciled-on eyebrows. She wore tight blue jeans, and an even tighter white T-shirt, the better to show off her marvellous figure. Happy took a step forward, then stopped when Melody glared at him.

  “Are you sure?” he said. “You might thank me, later.”

  “You go anywhere near her bosom, and I’ll tie your finger in a knot,” said Melody.

  The three actors took it in turns to kiss the air somewhere near each other’s cheeks, then stepped back to look each other over in a professional kind of way. None of them offered to kiss any of the Ghost Finders, which was probably just as well.

  Lissa was very pretty, perhaps despite rather than because of all the character in her face. Her lips were very red and very thin, but her constant smile looked real enough. Her eyes were dark and full of humour, with a hell of a lot of blue eye make-up. She still had as if by right what Elizabeth was fighting to hang on to. Which was probably why Elizabeth was the only one not mesmerised by her. The young actress stood happily in her favourite loose-limbed pose, basking in the attention she was still young enough to take for granted. It was clear she’d been taught to stand that way in public if there was even a chance of a photographer…drilled into her until it was second nature; but she still managed it unconsciously and unselfconsciously. She threw in the charm at no extra cost, without even realising she was doing it.

  “Sorry,” said JC, and actually sounded like he meant it, “but who are you, exactly? Are you another name we’re supposed to recognise?”

  Lissa’s smile slipped for a moment. “You really don’t know me? Damn. I am clearly not getting my money’s worth out of that new publicist. Look, I was in that controversial indie film, Jesus and Satan Go Jogging in the Desert. And that big disaster movie, Werewolf on the Titanic.”

  “Oh, I remember that one!” said Happy. “Not even a little bit accurate.”

  “We weren’t expecting you until next week, darling,” said Elizabeth, with a hint of chill in her voice. “The theatre isn’t nearly ready yet.”

  “You know her?” said JC.

  “Of course we know her; we hired her!” said Benjamin. “She’s going to star in our play! As our female lead. But, as Elizabeth was saying…”

  Lissa shrugged prettily. “Don’t blame me, sweeties; I got a phone call from my agent, saying drop everything and get straight round to the Haybarn, they need you. So here I am! You are glad to see me, aren’t you?”

  “Of course we are, Lissa,” said Benjamin, shooting Elizabeth a quick warning glance. “It’s simply that the renovators have encountered some…unexpected difficulties.”

  “Oh, I know all about that, sweetie,” said Lissa. “My agent couldn’t wait to tell me!”

  “How very helpful of him,” said Elizabeth. “It would seem word has got out…”

  “Ghosts and ghoulies and things that go Booyah! in the night! How terribly thrilling!” Lissa looked at JC and his team with new interest. “Are you the experts?”

  “I do wish people would stop using that word, in that particular tone of voice,” said Happy. “Yes, we are quite definitely experts; we are the Ghost Finders! Hauntings a speciality, no spook left unturned. We are very expert! Very!”

  “Gosh,” said Lissa, completely unmoved by Happy’s histrionics. “What larks, eh?” She looked around the lobby, and some of her natural exuberance fell away. “Bit of a dump, isn’t it, sweeties?”

  “It wasn’t always like this,” said Elizabeth, frostily. “Back in its heyday, the Haybarn was one of the finest theatres in the Midlands. Very smart, very elegant, very fashionable; the most pres
tigious vehicle for any up-and-coming young actors looking to make their mark. We had critics from all the broadsheets turning up on opening nights.”

  “But that was…sometime ago,” said Benjamin. “The Haybarn has been shut down and abandoned for twenty years. It’s going to take a lot of hard work to smarten the old girl up again. And we can’t do that until we can persuade the renovators to return.”

  “Why has it been left empty for so long?” said Lissa.

  Benjamin and Elizabeth looked at each other, then at the Ghost Finders. “It was to have been our greatest triumph,” said Benjamin. “The play that would change all our lives.”

  “Change everything,” said Elizabeth. “But it all went wrong, so horribly quickly…”

  “We were the established leads, back then,” said Benjamin. “Starred in everything the Haybarn put on, took everything in our stride, from classics to modern. The public loved us, the critics thought we could do no wrong. We had the world at our feet, and we thought it would last forever. We wrote a play together, Elizabeth and I: A Working-class Messiah Is Something to Be. Something…very different, very special. We would direct and cover the two supporting leads, and we had one of the major stars of the day committed to the lead. Frankie Hazzard.”

  Everyone nodded quickly. They all knew that name.

  “Tall, dark, and handsome,” said Melody. “Didn’t half fancy himself. He played that spy, what’s-his-name, in that film; Index Finger, Left Hand.”

  “I saw him on a chat show once,” said Happy. “So far up himself he was hanging out his own nostrils.”

  “Pushing that unfortunate mental image firmly to one side,” said JC, “perhaps we could concentrate on the matter at hand. What happened? What went wrong?”

  “The play crashed and burned,” Elizabeth said flatly. “Didn’t even make two weeks before the theatre shut it down. The critics hated it, and nobody came. The theatre’s owners had sunk considerable funding into it, and they lost all of it. They had no choice but to close the theatre.”

  “We were wiped out,” said Benjamin. “Lost everything we had.”

  “And, of course, no other theatre would touch us, after that,” said Elizabeth. “The stink of failure clings like leprosy in our profession.”

  “Our play was supposed to make everyone’s careers, and make everyone a lot of money,” said Benjamin. “But it didn’t. Not the play’s fault, though…We always said that, didn’t we, darling? Well, after all these years, we have funding again. A chance to reopen the play, right here. The play as it should have been, before Frankie Hazzard got his grubby hands on it and insisted on all those unnecessary rewrites. Our production will reopen the Haybarn, with the very talented Lissa Parr as our female lead.”

  “I’m still waiting to hear who’s going to be playing opposite me,” said Lissa, in a pretty, smiling, and very pointed way.

  “We’re still in negotiations,” Elizabeth said quickly. “We’re almost there, only a few last details to hammer out with his agent.”

  “We can’t name him yet, for obvious reasons,” said Benjamin. “But he is very enthusiastic. Loves the play…”

  Happy leaned in close beside Melody. “You think the theatre’s owners could be Catherine Latimer’s old friends?” he said quietly. “And that’s why we’re here?”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me,” said Melody.

  “So!” Lissa said brightly, turning the full force of her charm on JC. “You’re the experts. But what are you, exactly? Spookbusters? Exorcists R Us?”

  “No-one’s reported seeing any actual ghosts,” Benjamin said quickly. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, eh?”

  “It could still all turn out to be nothing,” said Elizabeth.

  “Or nothing important, anyway,” said Benjamin.

  “What exactly happened?” said JC, and something in his voice stopped Benjamin in mid flow. He looked at his wife.

  “The workers we hired to renovate this building, at very expensive rates, were all very vague about what they’d encountered here,” Elizabeth said steadily. “In fact, we couldn’t get a straight answer out of any of them. But every single one of them was out of here inside of twelve hours; and not one of them would agree to set foot inside the building again, no matter how much was offered them, until we’d agreed to Do Something…”

  “Oh, that’s us!” JC said cheerfully. “We’re great ones for Doing Something!”

  “Suddenly and violently and all over the place,” said Happy.

  “But what actually happened here?” Melody insisted. “What did the workers see, or hear…?”

  “They’d barely been in here a few hours before the problems started,” said Benjamin, reluctantly. “The men saw and heard…things, though they wouldn’t say what. There was a constant feeling of being watched, apparently, of being observed by unfriendly eyes. Things, tools, would disappear from right under their hands, then reappear somewhere else. Voices, in the dark, saying things…bad things. Someone crying who wouldn’t stop. Someone they could never find calling for help. And a constant sense of someone standing right behind you, close enough to reach out and lay a hand on your shoulder…”

  “And then they found the dead tramp,” said Elizabeth. “Right there on the main stage.”

  “And that was the end of that,” said Benjamin. “The final straw. No-one would go back in after that.”

  “How did he die exactly?” said Melody.

  “Heart attack,” Benjamin said carefully. “That’s what the doctor put on the death certificate.”

  “It was a reporter from the local paper who claimed that the man died of fright,” said Elizabeth. “Apparently he saw a photo of the tramp’s face…Anyway, that put it on the front page of the local rag. After all, died of fright is a headline. Died of a heart attack is nothing more than filler. Page twelve, if you’re lucky.”

  “Still!” Lissa said brightly. “Paranormal encounters, eh? Isn’t it exciting?”

  JC, Melody, and Happy all looked at her in a pitying sort of way, which she entirely failed to pick up on.

  “We insisted on being here, to oversee your work,” Elizabeth said to JC. “To ensure the theatre’s interests are represented while you work out what’s going on here.”

  “What’s really going on?” Benjamin said heavily. “I’m still not convinced by any of this.”

  “You sounded pretty convinced a moment ago,” said Happy.

  “We need to get this all done and sorted!” Benjamin said stubbornly. “Nothing can be allowed to get in the way of our play’s revival!”

  “Nothing,” Elizabeth said flatly. “We’ve waited too long for this.” She looked straight at JC. “You have to get to the bottom of this, Mr. Chance. Before the theatre’s owners lose faith and whip the funding out from under us. Again.”

  Lissa looked sharply at Elizabeth and Benjamin. “Is there a problem with the funding? Is there, in fact, some doubt as to whether this play will actually go on? I turned down a really good part in a good film because my agent said this would be a good career move! I can’t afford a mis-step in my career at this point!”

  Elizabeth and Benjamin looked fondly at each other. “Doesn’t she remind you of us, at that age?” said Elizabeth.

  “Answer the question!” said Lissa, actually stamping one small but perfect foot.

  “The funding is in place and perfectly secure,” Benjamin said soothingly. “The play will go on. As soon as the experts here have put everything to rights. Which shouldn’t take too long; right, Mr. Chance?”

  “We’re not going to have to get a medium in, are we?” said Elizabeth. “They’re always so expensive…”

  “I worked with a medium, once,” said Benjamin. “Doing the knockings for him, banging a pair of tap shoes against the underside of the stage. It was all killing effective…”

  “Was that the one who used to do the cold readings?” said Elizabeth. “And then used what he knew to get the more susceptible ones into bed with him, so he
could scam their pin numbers…?”

  “Does this theatre have a history of ghosts?” asked JC, cutting in firmly.

  “Well, of course; every theatre does,” said Benjamin. “But they’re just stories. Something to pass the time backstage, when you’re not on for ages, and give the chorus line something to squeal and giggle about. No-one ever takes them seriously.”

  “What stories do you have here?” said Melody, not very patiently.

  “There’s the Lady in White,” said Elizabeth. “If you see her drifting around the dressing-rooms on opening night, that’s supposed to guarantee a good run for your show.”

  “And then there’s the Headless Panto Dame,” said Benjamin. “Nasty accident with a trap-door, back in the sixties. Traumatised a whole pack of Cub Scouts in the front row.”

  “Is she bad luck to see?” said Happy.

  “For anyone who sees him, yes,” said Elizabeth.

  “But,” said Benjamin, very firmly, “there have never been any…unexplained incidents in the theatre before this. Not one. No nasty business, nothing properly frightening, and certainly never anything bad enough to send dozens of hardened workmen running away from very well-paid work.”

  And then they all looked round sharply again as the main doors slammed shut. And there, standing before them, smiling gently, was an old man with stooped shoulders, a long brown overall, and a flat cap perched slightly off skew on his bald head. He looked to be well into his seventies, with a heavily lined face, a weak smile, and a really unfortunate attempt at a moustache. He nodded vaguely to everyone present, regarding them all with pale, watery eyes.

  “Sorry about that, ladies and gents; didn’t mean to startle anyone. I’m Old Tom; used to be caretaker here, back in the day. Called out of a well-earned retirement to give a hand with the…current situation.”