Page 57 of Unalive On Air

Again, Peter’s eyes dart towards us, begging for help we can’t give him. “Yes, yes. It was brought down from the honeymoon suite yesterday and left in my office, but there isn’t really any space, so I thought I’d just put it with the rest of the storage things in case Sergeant Davies needs it.”

Helga doesn’t question the reasoning. She hums to herself instead and secures the rubber strap pad on her shoulder. When we reach the trophy room, she opens the door, dumps the bag inside, and then closes it again.

“Thank you,” Peter says.

“No problem.” Helga smiles expectantly at Peter—at Franny, actually. “Callum said they’re running out of robes in the spa and asked if you could put an order in with the embroiderers for him.”

“Uh . . .” Peter nods. “Sure.”

“Can you find out exactly what they need? He said they’re especially low on XL sizes . . .”

“Okay . . .”

Helga’s hands land on her hips. “Okay, then . . .”

It dawns on Peter that she expects immediate action. “Righty-ho!” He spares us one last withering glance before he turns to leave, but then spins around again. “Hels?”

As a group, we collectively hold our breath. What’s he going to do? Is he about to give the game away?

Peter grimaces. “I . . . forgive you too.” Then he’s off. Helga waits outside the trophy room door until Franny’s clunky footsteps have retreated.

“Weird,” she says to herself, but doesn’t follow Franny for clarification or open the door to check the contents of the bag.

It’s almost twenty minutes before Peter comes back. We wait inside the trophy room. The ghosts who know how to sit are showing off by lounging on the chaise longue and the various chairs dotted about the place, while Camille and I sort of hang about, and I try my hardest not to wander over to the Trystan shrine and drool over his photos.

“I’m still not great at sitting,” Camille says with a shrug. “Lying, I’m the best at, but sitting . . . Who knew that would be so difficult?”

“Right?” I say. “Can’t believe how I used to take it for grant—”

BANG!

Something smashes heavily into the door. Seconds later, it swings wide open and Peter walks in, massaging Franny’s forehead.

“Fucking forgot I can’t pass through closed doors any more, didn’t I?” he groans. “Also forgot how horrible physical pain is. Sorry, Franny doll, but there’ll be a nasty egg on your head in the morning. Where are you guys?”

“Over here,” Stove shouts from the chaise longue.

Peter picks up the bag again. “Where do you want it?”

“Bureau,” I say, and Stove copies me with a shout.

“Bureau!”

Peter opens the swooshy bit—no idea what it’s called—of the antique writing desk and heaves the bag onto a nearby chair. He pulls out objects and places them on the desk top.

“Tell him to connect the control board to the laptop,” I say to Stove, who repeats my words.

“How do I do that?” Peter asks.

“With this cable.”

Via Stove, I give Peter step-by-step instructions on setting up my equipment, making sure we leave space for Josh’s phone should we need it, and Stove’s mic.

“What now?” Peter says, stepping back and staring at the jumble of recording apparatus as though it fell off a spacecraft.

“We need him to turn the laptop on, log in, and connect to the Wi-Fi,” I say.

“Turn the laptop on!” Stove yells.