Page 9 of Unalive On Air

There’s a muffled sound, as though Gerald’s holding his hand over the phone’s mic, then he yells, “Ted! Teddy boy! When’s the next induction day? . . . Friday? . . . Did you say Friday?” He speaks to me. “Gary Runcorn, are you still there?”

“Yes.” I wonder if Gerald may perhaps be losing his marbles.

“Top stuff! Would you like to come in Friday for training? I’ll have my secretary—”

“Personal assistant!” someone in the background yells.

“I’ll have my personal assistant email you the address.”

“Is it above the Doughlicious pizza place?” I ask, looking at the “street view” photos on Google Earth.

A shopfront with sun‑bleached stock images of pizza slices placed in the windows, an LED sign—OPEN with a faulty N—hangs by the door, and the H&S hygiene certificate is partially obscured by a mound of shredded black bin bags, though I’m willing to wager the eatery boasts half a star out of five, if that. A rat the size of a King Charles Spaniel sits atop Mount Rubbishmore, surveying its kingdom, and is that . . . someone urinating against the side of the building?

“Yes, that’s the place,” Gerald says brightly. “Shall we say a nine o’clock arrival?”

“Um . . .”

“Fantastic.” He doesn’t wait for my response. “Did you have any questions for me, Gary Runcorn?”

I minimise the image on my desktop to save my sanity. “Actually, I did. What can you tell me about The Paragon Hotel in Helzephron?”

Gerald’s quiet for so long I begin to think he hung up. “What’s it to you?” He sounds like a different person, not the jovial, whimsical chap of two minutes ago.

My internal warning siren tolls again, but I shake the thought. There’s no such thing as ghosts. This man is for all intents and purposes, a quack and a grifter.

“I will only take the role if I’m assigned the Paragon case,” I say, putting my proverbial foot down.

He’s quiet once more. Long enough for me to start planning another route into the hotel to investigate. Perhaps I could just check in as a guest? But I don’t have the money for that. Maybe I could get a job as a room attendant? But then I’d actually have to do some work, not fanny about with a pretend ghost locater.

“Are you an only child, Gary?” he asks after what must be close to two minutes.

What an odd and highly disturbing fluke question. Or maybe not a fluke.

“How did you know?” I say.

“I didn’t. Was just . . . checking something . . . and your parents, are they both still living? Do you keep in regular contact with them?”

I open my mouth, form a response, but then close it. “My parents live in Spain.” They’re ex-pat buy-to-let landlords. “And no, I don’t keep in regular contact with them.” Unless of course you count the eleven hundred pounds each month I send them for the privilege to retain that mould-infested roof over my head.

Gerald sighs. It’s as though I’ve given him an incorrect answer. “Very well,” he says, his voice laced with dejection. “I’ll see you on Friday.” And then he hangs up before I can ask any more questions about the hotel or Imogen.

I was right, the Google Maps photo had shown someone relieving themselves against the wall of the pizzeria. The entire doorway and surrounding vicinity reeks of stale piss and bin juice. Shredded lettuce, polystyrene containers, and plastic forks litter the ground. I step over a torn bag revealing a stack of yellow-labelled Tesco value range frozen pizza boxes.

I’m ninety-nine per cent certain that the takeaway premise is some kind of “front” for activities markedly more illicit than baked dough and cheese.

“Charlie?” a man in his sixties greets me as soon as I’ve ascended the dank, musty stairs of the ExorSquad building. He has a gold tooth and haunting milky blue eyes, and his raspy, smoker’s voice immediately identifies him to me as Gerald Pickett. He holds his hand out for me to shake.

“Gary, actually. You must be Gerald?”

He withdraws his hand before I can grasp it. “Ah. I thought . . . Never mind. You’re still set on The Paragon?”

“I am,” I say. I don’t offer him a reason. Intuition warns against letting anybody else know about my investigation.

But he doesn’t ask why I want that case, he only nods slowly, blinking. He wets his lips, and hums to himself as though he’s searching for the right words, but the silence stretches on and on, and still he says nothing.

Eventually Gerald sucks in a deep breath, looks over my shoulder, and exclaims, “Ah, Charlie. Yes, I remember now.”

A lanky, blonde guy—I’m guessing Charlie—pulls up beside me. “Hi?” he says, like a question. He seems aware that he’s interrupted something.