Page 38 of Unalive On Air

I test it out by scribbling in the corner of the list. For some reason, I hadn’t expected it to work, but there now sits a tiny doodle of a pentagram on the top of the page.

“Will that last? Or will it revert to its original state?” I ask no one in particular.

A few ghosts who had broken off to start their own chat spin around.

“Hmm?” Jeanie says, peering down at the slip of paper.

“I just drew a star in the corner with my . . . ghost pencil. Will the mark stay there or will it—”

“Oh, wow, look at this,” she says, summoning over every other ghost. “It’s a catalogue of everyone, when they died, and how they died.”

“Accidental stabbing my arse!” Peter snatches the note from my hand and steps away so he can scrutinize it.

“Pix, it’s got you down here as an overdose,” Stove says, yoinking the paper from Peter’s hands and passing it to Pixie.

“Let me see,” she says, her face immediately creasing into a deep frown. She looks at me and brandishes the list. “I’m not surprised, but this is wrong.”

“Did you have drugs in your system when you died?” I ask.

Pixie throws a hand to her hip, crinkling my note in the process. “Are you saying I deserved it because I was just another ‘junkie?’”

Shit, that’s not how I meant it. “No, no, no, sorry. I would never suggest such a thing, and I’m not judging you at all. What I’m trying to say is that the drugs in your blood—the existence of which will have been proven by toxicology reports—coupled with your public persona and lifestyle make the presence of drugs a very convenient cover-up story. All someone needed to do was present those two things as evidence, and the registrar, without seeing a photograph of you after death, would easily have recorded the cause as overdose.”

“Well, I didn’t take any drugs, so if there were some in my system, I never put them there,” she says. “Or somebody lied.”

“Who discovered your body?”

“Franny.”

No shit.

“And I’m assuming the principal police officer at the scene was Sergeant Davies?”

“You would be accurate in that assumption,” Jeanie says. “Though, not a sergeant at the time, only Constable Davies. He didn’t become a sergeant until after I’d died.”

“And the undertaker?” I ask, though I already know the answer.

“Angel,” Trystan says, causing my pulse to spike.

“Was Helga present at the scene? Did she ever see your body?” I’m acutely aware of Peter’s attention snapping towards me.

“She wasn’t there at the time I died,” Pixie says with a sideways glance at Jeanie. “I was found right here.” She walks over to the chaise longue under the window furthest to the left and lies spreadeagled on the ground, so that the seat is half inside her body and half out.

My hand itches to scribble this info down, but Pixie’s still holding my now crumpled sheet of paper. Instead, my fingernail finds the crooked scar tissue that splits my moustache. “Was a coroner ever involved?” If there was never a coroner, it could suggest Davies sweeping evidence under the rug once again.

As Pixie is only the second name on the list, it means there was only one possible ghost witness I can interview. I want to ask Peter if he saw Pixie’s body and what he can tell me about it, but Helga’s leaving the suite and Peter is following her out, his spectral cape flapping in his wake.

“If a coroner wasn’t involved, then at least one of those people mentioned—Franny, Davies, Angel, potentially Helga—were complicit in some base‑level deception,” I say. “It would be really interesting to know if Franny—”

Jeanie puts her hand on my shoulder, interrupting my comments and thoughts. “We’re all thrilled you’ve agreed to help us solve these mysteries, but Gary, don’t take this the wrong way, you’ve only just died. You don’t want to spend your first few moments analysing every detail from our deaths.”

“I don’t?” I say, like a question, because if given the choice, that’s probably exactly what I’d opt for.

“One doesn’t die every day,” she says simply.

“I suppose you’re right.” It’s literally a once in a lifetime experience for most folk.

“Why don’t you take a few moments to yourself to figure out what your spirit can do without the hindrance of flesh and organs and complicated bodily systems? It’s Tuesday evening, and for most people in the hotel, life goes on. Sad, but true. Why not explore the grounds, the town, choose a room that’ll be your home for the . . . foreseeable forever.”