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 prestigious 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:
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;
“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
