Ghostfinders 03 -Ghost of a Dream

failing that, it doesn’t want anyone here when it does.”
    He broke off; and they all looked around at the wedged-open main door and the platform beyond. Slow, steady footsteps were advancing down the platform from the far end, heading straight for them. Heavy, regular footsteps, not hurrying, taking their time. As though whoever was responsible wanted them to be heard, for the people hearing them to have a chance to get away. There was something off, something not quite right, about the footsteps. Too loud and too heavy for any single man to make; and each and every echoing tread seemed to linger that little bit too long, as though every step had something of eternity in it. A sound that was always there, even when you couldn’t hear it.
    A dark figure walked past the window. It looked like a man, but its movements were wrong. It took too long to make its movements, as though the body wasn’t affected by things like gravity or inertia any more, as though it accepted no authority but its own. A human shape, broken free of the ties of this world. And though everyone in the room only saw the dark shape at the window for amoment, they all thought the same thing.
There’s something wrong with its head…
It passed by the window, then, after a heart-stoppingly tense moment, it came in through the door, and stopped there, facing them. The ghost of Bradleigh Halt.
    It looked like a man, standing tall and slender and proud, dressed like a proper gentleman of Victorian times. A smart, even elegant, outfit, but…hard worn, as though it had been put to use for much longer than it should have. A middle-aged man, with a grey, sad face and fixed, staring eyes. His arms hung unmoving at his sides, the pale, long-fingered hands twitching slightly. For all his stillness and silence, there was a dreadful urgency to the man. You couldn’t not look at him; by being there, he weighed so heavily on the world that he drew all the attention in the room. Because simply by being there, he was the most important thing in it.
    “See?” Laurie said quietly. “The head. Look at his head.”
    They looked, and they saw. The top part of the ghost’s head was gone. Missing. As though someone had sawn the top of his head right off, directly above the bushy eyebrows. A very neat cut, with not a single jagged edge; a very professional job indeed.
    JC moved slowly forward, and the ghost didn’t react. It stood there, glaring at them all. Step by cautious step, JC walked right up to the ghost, until he was face-to-face with it. JC’s breath steamed thickly on the bitter cold air, but no breath moved from the ghost’s lips. JC lifted himself up onto his tiptoes, and looked down intothe ghost’s cut-open head. And then he stood down again and carefully backed away from the ghost, never taking his eyes off it.
    “Well?” said Happy.
    “Well,” said JC. “That’s…really quite interesting, actually. There’s nothing inside his head. His brain has been removed.”

TWO

LAST CALL FOR THE DEAD
    “Removed?” said Melody. “You mean surgically?”
    “Could be,” said JC. “Or it’s the most extreme case of trepanation I’ve ever seen.”
    “What?” said Laurie.
    “Where you drill a hole in your head to make yourself smarter,” said Happy. “Trust me, it doesn’t work.”
    “Hold everything, shout halleluiah,” said Melody. “I think I know who that is. I’ve seen that face before…in an old photograph. Nothing to do with this case…another case altogether…Yes! Got it! People, we are looking at someone who used to be very famous indeed. This is all that remains of that great Victorian medium and spiritualist, Dr. Emil Todd!”
    “You never forget anything, do you?” said Happy, admiringly.
    “The name rings a vague bell,” said JC, which was hisway of saying he’d never heard of the man but was willing to admit that Melody had. “Still, a dead Victorian medium, and a missing Victorian train. Has to be a connection. But why is he here now?”
    “Ask him,” said Happy.
    “You ask him,” said JC. “You’re the team telepath. Look inside his mind and see what this is all about.”
    “I can’t,” said Happy, frowning. “And not because there’s a whole bunch of fresh air where his grey matter used to be. This is a really powerful manifestation, and it’s very powerfully shielded. I wouldn’t even know this ghost was here if I couldn’t see it standing there scowling at me, and I do wish it would stop