Dan and the Dead (7 page)

Quiet falls over the graveyard.

‘Thanks,' I say, as I get to my feet. ‘That was, er, more interesting than the last time I went to church.'

There's sudden light as the vicar turns the torch on me. I shield my eyes and try to picture what she must be seeing: a skinny kid with mad hair and purple glasses, and a black leather coat with death's heads Tippexed on it. A kid who's handcuffed to a golden cage with a human skull in it.

She gasps.

What can I say? I mean, somehow I don't expect ‘It's not what you think' will quite cover the situation.

I try a grin.

‘Look,' I say. ‘Let's just pretend I've come to confess.'

* * *

‘If you wanted to confess, you should've vandalized the Catholic church up the road,' says Mrs Vicar. ‘With me you're just going to need a damned good explanation!'

We're in the vicar's kitchen, and I'm hunched at the table with the cage and skull on my lap, and a dog on either side of me, growling. Well, dogs like bones, don't they? The ghosts of Si, Ems and old Lugubrian are standing behind me, looking guilty too.

Mrs Vicar's a big lady, but I should explain that. I don't mean that she's fat, and she's certainly not butch either. It's just that she's big somehow, like she fills the room, even though she's hardly taller than I am. It's weird. But there's something kind in her face, something that the fury written across it can't quite hide. I'm hoping I'm right about that because I've got some serious talking to do, especially after what she says next.

‘I have called the police. They will be here within the hour.'

Crapsticks! But then again…

‘Okey dokey,' I say. ‘That's only fair. But perhaps I can tell you my story first? I mean, I wouldn't want you thinking I was actually guilty of something.'

Mrs Vicar gives me the gimlet eye. I'm not sure I believe in God, but right here and now I almost do, especially when Mrs Vicar pulls out a newspaper and hands it to me like a judgment from upon high. Lugubrian's open grave at Highgate is still frontpage news, then, and yup, they're still looking for the skull.

‘Let me guess,' says the vicar. ‘This has something to do with you.'

I pat the cage with the skull in it and dial my grin to ‘sheepish'.

Then I launch into it, starting with my name. I tell her about Bagport and the kids he forces to work for him, the shoplifting and now the grave robbing, and about the incriminating photos he takes. I explain about Ems, only I call her a friend who got herself killed because of Bagsy, and I explain how I want to avenge her by getting Bagsy caught. Then I get to the bit about how that revenge has gone a tad wrong because the man seems to think I can find treasure in graveyards, and I give her a laugh that's supposed to say, ‘What a mad idea!'

Mrs Vicar points at the golden cage.

‘How did you know what would be in that magician's grave?'

And here's where I properly lie. I mean, I really don't feel comfortable about giving the ‘I see dead people' line in a vicar's kitchen. Behind me I can sense the ghosts cowering back too and probably inspecting their fingernails or staring at their feet. I just shrug and say, ‘Luck, I guess.'

There's a pause and the kettle comes to the boil. Despite everything, the vicar is actually making tea.

‘So if I'm to believe you, a criminal gang is behind the desecration in Highgate, and now that same gang has just opened the Tomb of Sir Pumphry de Pôville in my very own church, in search of some jewel-encrusted sword that I've certainly never heard about, only somehow you're not to blame despite that grisly object handcuffed to your wrist. Is that really the story you want to tell the police?'

‘Yeah.' The grin's probably looking a bit stupid by now, but I stick with it. ‘Only, I'd rather not tell the police anything just yet.'

‘Oh?' She plonks a mug of black tea down in front of me. She's Good Cop and Bad Cop, all rolled into one.

‘Look, see this camera?' I wave it about. ‘There's loads of pics on it, but the last two, they're the only ones you need to see. Do you have a computer?'

She nods. I was expecting ‘no' as an answer, or if ‘yes', then some old clockwork monster from the nineties, but she lifts a pile of newspapers off the table and underneath is a pretty spiffy new-looking laptop.

‘Cool,' I say, and I get the card out of the camera and slip it into the side of the machine. She comes round behind me, and the ghosts shrink back and hide in a dark corner. There's just something about this woman.

It takes me a moment, but then the pics I took are up. You can see Bagport and his cronies clear as day, and behind them the open tomb. Ringpull is actually holding a crowbar. It couldn't be better.

Mrs Vicar reaches past me, and before I can stop her she taps the back arrow a few times. The picture changes to one of me down in Gubie's dug-out grave, holding a spade. I look round at her from the corner of my eye, and to find she's staring right into me.

I swallow.

‘Right, I've seen enough,' she says. ‘Now you listen to me, young man, and I'll tell you exactly what I'm going to do with you.'

‘You're what?' I say, too stunned to believe my ears.

‘You heard,' says Mrs Vicar. ‘I'm letting you go.'

‘Cool!'

‘But only because I know you're going to be caught anyway.'

Not so cool.

‘Which is why,' she goes on, ‘you are going to hand yourself in. If the police find you here, they'll
throw the book at you. But if you go to them and turn yourself in, it will stand in your favour.'

The grin finally falls off my face and curls up to die somewhere between my feet.

‘Oh, don't look so glum,' says Mrs Vicar. ‘If what you have told me is true, the police will have all the evidence they need on the camera's memory card. Someone like this Carl Bagport will already be known to them.'

‘Yeah, but there's also – '

Mrs Vicar reaches past me again and starts tapping the keyboard. In a moment she's deleted all but the last two photos from the memory card. Though not, I see, from her hard drive. Then she ejects the card and sticks it back into the camera.

‘I'll say I found this when I disturbed the intruders. When you hand yourself in, you can say the camera is yours.'

The grin leaps back up and starts dancing under my nose.

‘But why…?'

‘Why am I doing this? Because whatever part you have played in disturbing the dead, spending the night with that skull, in contemplation of your sins, will tell you once and for all if you are guilty or not.'
And she's pointing one horrified finger at Gubie's apparatus. ‘The rest is unimportant.'

There's the sound of a car outside, and headlights flash across the kitchen window. The police! I'm on my feet in a shot, but already I can tell there's no safe way out the front.

‘You can leave by the back door,' says Mrs Vicar. ‘Here's the number of a taxi firm, and here's a twenty-pound note. The next time I see your face I expect it will be in the local paper, explaining this sorry business and donating the reward for the return of the skull to charity. Otherwise I'll just happen to find some more photos that I'm sure the police would like to see. Understand?'

I nod, and head to the back of the kitchen and freedom, even as the front doorbell rings. The three ghosts slink along behind me. I guess none of us can get out of there fast enough. Still, I turn in the door before I close it, to say thanks, but the vicar beats me to it.

‘May you find peace,' she says.

I'm about to reply when I notice she's not looking at me at all, but
past
me. I glance behind and see no one there but the three ghosts. Then a chill slides down my spine.

Is she looking at
them
?

‘You mean you can…?' I say, turning back, but Mrs Vicar is gone. I hear the distant sound of the front door opening.

‘Daniel, let us be gone from this place!' comes the voice of Simon, and I don't need telling twice. I pull the door shut and run silently across the vicar's moonlit garden.

After a night like that, even the fact that it's the weekend doesn't make the dawn any easier. All I can think about is the handcuffs and how they itch, and how I'd just love to chuck Lugubrian's stupid apparatus in the Thames, skull and all. At least his ghost has drifted off. When the Saturday morning sun finally rises, it's just me and Si and Ems, sitting in my room, staring at the telly and hardly daring to speak.

And all I can think about is what's going to happen to me when I give myself up, because somehow
not
doing what Mrs Vicar says just doesn't seem like an option, especially since if they do arrest Bagport, he's hardly going to be quiet about my name, now, is he? First, though, we're waiting for the news to come on, and I'm eating stale tortilla chips as the clock ticks round.

It's a long time before there's anything about the open tomb at the church. Then…

‘Police have confirmed that arrests have been made in connection with the Highgate incident, following a similar raid on a church last night…'

And we're all staring at the screen as Bagport's driver from the night before, as well as the man who broke the lock, are seen struggling as they're shoved into a police van outside Bagport's club. I give out a whoop of relief. Just a small one, mind, but still.

‘There you are, Emeline!' says Simon, brightening with me. ‘At least it looks like we have brought you the vengeance you wanted. Are you satisfied?'

‘Hmm,' says Ems. ‘I don't see Bagport there.'

It's true. Mr Big himself has not been shown being arrested, and then…

‘According to a police spokesman, a number of people are still being sought in this bizarre affair.'

I sigh. There's no getting away from it – the bizarre bit's mostly me. And it sounds like Bagsy's yet to be bagged.

‘If Bagport's still out there, Ems,' I say, ‘I can at least tell an ugly tale about him when they arrest me. His network of kids is over in any case.'

‘And they will find the pictures of you, Emeline,' says Si. ‘On his computator. The reason behind your death will come out and your parents will know that you were forced to lift from shops.'

Ems looks up and there's almost a smile. This is part of what she's wanted all along, after all. But the smile doesn't last long.

‘Stop trying to get out of it,' she snaps at us. ‘You said you'd bring him down, and until I see Bagport crawling in front of a judge, you two owe me a result.'

‘Truly,' admits Si. They're both looking at me. I nod slowly. I know what they're thinking. I look at my watch and see that it's nearly midday. High noon. Time to hand myself in.

I'm still dressed as I was the night before – well, I can hardly get changed with a skull chained to my wrist, can I? – so I get up and wrap Gubie's apparatus
in a plastic bag. I slip downstairs while my parents are watching the telly, shout a quick goodbye that they don't get up for, and head down to the local cop shop. Looks like Dan Dyer's about to go out of business for a bit. There isn't even time for a closing down sale.

‘Will you wait for me?' I ask Si, with a lump in my throat. ‘I mean, when they let me out, will I have to look for a new sidekick?'

‘Don't be a nincompoop, Daniel,' sniffs Si. ‘I waited two hundred and fifty years for you, I can wait a few more.'

‘Eh? What do you mean by that?'

Si looks a bit flustered.

‘I misspoke,' he said. ‘All I meant was that I would wait.'

‘Oi, cut out the luvvie duvvies, you pair of muppets!' says Ems. ‘You're not old enough to go to prison, dipstick, they'll probably just give you a hard time with questions. Maybe an ASBO for your mantelpiece. You can put all the blame on Bagport, no problem. I mean, you're hardly going to chain
yourself
to a dead magician's skull are you?'