Ways to See a Ghost

had been unusually cold for the time of year.
    “That’s just some old man who died,” I said.
    Dad slapped the side of the bath. “Come
on
, Gray, you should know how to join the dots by now!” he pointed to the text. “He was cold. The police said it was natural causes.”
    “Natural causes,” said Stu, “is their way of hiding the evidence, shutting up the families and putting people off the scent. Deaths by natural causes always go in The Database. They might as well say cover-up and be done with it.”
    “Norman knew the
truth
about this world,” said Dad. “He was a target.”
    Stu the Keeper nodded, his face all pulled together. “They don’t want people knowing the truth. They’ve gotthe resources to make it look like a heart attack, but they can’t hide every trace.”
    “Trace of what?” I asked. “And who’s
they?
    “You know,” snapped Stu, but I didn’t. I couldn’t keep up with him and Dad.
They
could’ve been the government, or aliens, or the Americans, or big business, or one of the weird groups they think are controlling the world. And as for the truth ‘they’ don’t want people to know, sometimes it’s aliens, or secret government plans, or stuff being done by big business, or weird groups controlling the world. Any of that… maybe all of it.
    “Norman was one of my best customers,” said Dad. “I owe it to him to find out what really happened.”
    “But what you’ve got doesn’t prove anything,” I said. “People die all the time.”
    Stu blew out a blast of smoke.
    “People don’t just walk into their gardens and drop dead,” he said. I tried to argue, but he held up his hand. “When you’ve seen as many suspicious deaths as I have, you’ll be able to spot the cover-ups too.”
    I wanted to ask Stu how many of those suspicious deaths were on TV programs, but Dad got in first.
    “Norman may have had a heart attack,” he said darkly,“but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t murdered.”
    I didn’t argue; there wasn’t any point with those two. But now it’s obvious they were going at it all the wrong way round. I mean, Norman Welkin’s death was really weird. But it was weird because it
wasn’t
like any of the others in The Database. Nothing they found in there was the same, even if they made out it was. No one ever died like Norman had.
    Until Isis.
    Until Isis…
    Which is why I’m here, to find out what happened to her, and I think you know, don’t you? Because Stuart Bradley was right about one thing, the police will never work out something like this correctly. And I doubt he and your father will ever get to the truth either. Last time we hacked their precious database, it was full of gaps and contained nothing we didn’t already know about. You’re the key, Gray, because you’re the one she talked to.
    She never told me anything.

After an achingly slow hour and a half of waiting, Isis looked into the hallway, at the closed-off door leading to the room full of phoney psychics.
    She sighed. “What are they still talking about in there?”
    “I find out,” said Angel, floating off Isis’s lap.
    “No!” whispered Isis, waving her hands. “You promised!”
    Angel paused, a wisp by the door.
    “I not going in, only looking. I stay in the wall.”
    “No,” said Isis.
    “You can hold my hand,” said Angel, tilting her colourless head, widening her black-hole eyes. “You’ll see too.”
    “No.” said Isis. “We decided not to do that any more.”
    “You ’sided.” said Angel. “I want to!”
    “It’s spying…” said Isis, but she could hear the resolve in her voice weakening.
    Angel grinned, knowing she’d won, and ran to the far wall of the hallway, her feet a few centimetres from the floor. She pressed her fragile forehead against the solid mass of the wall and pushed. Her eyes and nose, forehead and ears disappeared into the plaster. Her curly hair, then her neck vanished next, and when her shoulders were against the paint, she stopped.
    All Isis could see was the toddler’s almost transparent, headless form leaning into the wall. A short arm swung backwards, pudgy fingers wriggling at the end of it.
    “This is very bad,” said Isis, but to herself, because Angel wasn’t listening. She crossed the hallway, took the small, weightless hand in her own, shut her eyes… and she could see.
    Chair legs, with a man’s legs and feet between them. The red velvet pillow of a woman’s bottom, overflowing from her seat. The