After Qi left, Rima said, “Do you think that Harriet’s got something to do with that, too?”
“Of course she does,” Felix said, groaning. How much evidence would it take? “The last time we saw her, she was with Greg. Now he turns up dead? Before Harriet arrived, the biggest drama of this millennium was someone stealing my glasses. But since she arrived, awful things have been happening constantly. This has Harriet written all over it.”
“But how?” Rima asked, baffled.
“She must have used her emotion control to make Greg go outside. It’s the perfect murder. No evidence,” Felix said darkly.
“For someone who looks so innocent, you really are morbid,” Rima said, both horrified and fascinated.
The kitten crawled into his lap, rolling flat on its back and purring deeply. Cody stared fixedly at it, shifting impatiently. Felix hoped that she wasn’t going to pounce.
“He’s right,” Leah said. “That’s what I’d do, too. If someone knew something I didn’t want to get out, I mean.”
“I don’t think Harriet’s capable of this,” Rima said. “What reason does she even have to go after Greg? It’s one thing to fight with us, but she’s not a serial killer.”
There was a moment of silence. Kasper was now doing restless pull-ups on the door lintel. The lines of muscles stood out on the curves of his shoulders. He looked like he wanted to run, as far and as fast as possible.
Cody let out a rumbling noise in her chest, inching across the floor paw by paw towards the kitten.
“No!” Rima said to the fox, and then added, soft and disappointed, “We talked about this.”
Cody sat back on her haunches, licking her lips.
“It doesn’t matter what her motive is,” Felix said. “First the Shells, and now this? It’s time, like Qi said. We need to have a vote on whether to banish her before she starts manipulating our emotions, too.”
“We can’t send her down there with Rufus and Vini,” Rima insisted. “What if she’s innocent? The Tricksters made Harriet go after the Shells in the first place.”
Harriet and the Tricksters deserved each other, Felix thought.
“I agree with Felix,” Leah said. “I think we should vote on it.”
“Let’s vote,” Kasper said, to Felix’s surprise. “It can’t hurt. Just to see.”
Felix’s fingers wriggled on the kitten, pleased. Kasper was on his side. He didn’t trust Harriet, either.
“Are you really going to decide on my fate without me?” a voice said from behind them. Harriet was leaning against the windowsill, arms folded.
Felix broke out in a cold sweat. When had she come in?
“Harriet!” Rima had gone scarlet with mortification. “Hello!”
Harriet curled her lip, unimpressed. There was something misshapen about her face. The eyelashes on her right eye were dangling in a twisted, unnatural position, and leaking blood in a steady trickle down her cheek.
Taking advantage of the sudden silence, Cody pounced on the kitten spirit. It let out a feeble meow and collapsed into a cloud of energy, disintegrating for ever.
“What happened to your eye?” Leah asked.
Harriet’s hand darted to her face. “I ran into a door,” she said, not even trying to make the lie sound believable. “Will it heal?”
Rima shook her head. She was trying very hard not to gape at Harriet. “No.” Her voice came out shrill. “We don’t heal, if we’re injured.”
Harriet hummed. She didn’t sound particularly disappointed.
Rima cleared her throat. “Actually, you can’t bruise yourself on a door. You’d walk straight through it. Only another ghost can hurt a ghost.”
Harriet shrugged. “I had a little disagreement with the Tricksters. Rufus has a strange intimidation style. He apparently decided that keeping hold of my eyelid would be a good souvenir.”
Felix blanched. She should probably try and get that skin back, at some point. There was a lot that could be done with part of a ghost’s body, especially by someone like Rufus. What had she been fighting with them about? Had Greg been involved? Is that why he’d left the building?
There was an excruciating silence. Rima looked desperately at Felix for support. He shrugged helplessly. He couldn’t help – he created awkward silences just by breathing.
Kasper was twisting his hands back and forth, back and forth, bending his interlinked fingers at impossible, violent angles. Carefully, Felix pressed his shoulder against his.
“So,” Harriet said, sounding unaffected. She looked out of the window. She was facing away from them. “What happens next, in these votes of yours? Does the defendant have a chance to speak before or after they are banished for eternity?”
“We wouldn’t have…” Rima said, horrified.
Harriet blew out a breath through her nose. “Don’t worry, Rima, I understand. You have to do what’s best for the hall. If I’m a danger, you need to get rid of me.” She paused, and ran one carefully manicured finger along her bottom lip. Rima was frozen, watching her unblinkingly. “It’s interesting, you see, because I wasn’t aware that you four were in charge of making decisions for the entire building.”
“We aren’t,” Felix said, when it seemed like no one else was going to. “If we think that you should be punished, then we’ll call a general meeting. The whole building will vote.”
“Very democratic.” Harriet’s expression turned disinterested, but there was something that contradicted her sudden boredom. “Surely what I did doesn’t deserve that, though? I made a mistake. I won’t do it again.”
“What happened to you?” Rima’s lip trembled. “The Tricksters did something to you, didn’t they? That’s why your hair has turned white! This isn’t really you.”
Harriet’s fingers pressed lightly against the white strands like she’d forgotten about it. “The Tricksters did nothing to me except actually answer my questions.”
Rima swallowed. “But – I thought you were like us. We got on, didn’t we? We had fun.”
There was a vulnerable expression on Harriet’s face for a moment, and then it disappeared and hardened into something new.
