Dan and the Dead (5 page)

The man's like a digging machine, and all I can do is sit on a fallen stone angel and watch, and hope that all Lugubrian's whining about his ‘apparatus' isn't just bull.

It's nearly an hour before we hear the spade ‘thunk' into something hard, and I know I'm about to find out.

Bagport stands next to the hole and shines the torch down. For a moment I think I can escape while both men are distracted, but Bagport must think the same thing, because he grabs me.

‘Ringpull, get up here!' he says, and before I know it I'm being sent down the hole myself. The spade's still there. In the dry earth at the bottom there's a hole, though what the hole's really in is a wooden panel.

It's the lid of a coffin.

‘Get it clear, kid, and get the loot out,' comes Bagsy's voice from above. ‘But I warn you, if you've been wasting my time, Ringpull will start chucking the earth back in.”

Ringpull grunts.

The idea of being buried alive in the grave of Silas Lugubrian is not one of the highlights of the evening. Simon's standing at the graveside too, his hands clamped firmly on the old magician's ghostly shoulders, but he can't send Lugubrian away now, not from his own patch. In any case, there's nothing Si can do to stop the magician's head from floating down to join me.

‘All these years!' says the head, bobbing about. ‘All that waiting… finally! Go gently, boy. Oh, my poor old bones! Take the apparatus gently.'

I expose the lid a bit more. Ringpull takes a few more pictures, and I'm imagining what would happen if those shots of yours truly robbing a Victorian tomb ever got shown round the school. Yeah, it'd
be a scandal, but you know what? No one'd be too surprised.

‘Get on with it!' shouts Bagport.

I smack the spade down on the brittle wood, and a great split spreads down the coffin lid. Inside it's dark, but I can only open the split wood a little way, there's too much earth.

‘Put your hand in,' says the sickly voice of Lugubrian. He's enjoying this far too much. ‘I
dare
you.'

No freakin' way.

I whack the spade down again and again, and the lip collapses a bit more.

Inside I can see bones. It's the skeleton of Silas Lugubrian, the top half anyway, exposed after well over a century. But there's no sign of anything else buried there, and something's not quite right.

His skull is missing.

Lugubrian's ghostly head looks shocked for a moment, before swooping into the coffin and down towards his own bony feet, which are still out of sight. Then it comes zooming out again, roaring with indignation.

‘Blackguards!' Lugubrian shouts. ‘The infamy of it!'

Oh, crapsticks
, I'm thinking.
There's nothing here after all!

‘Where's your stupid apparatus?' I shout at the head. ‘You said it'd be here!' Up at the graveside there's a stony silence as the two men look down at me, their pistols glinting in the torchlight.

‘It
is
there, you dolt!' says the ghost. ‘Down by my feet, but – '

But I don't want his ‘but', I just want out of this stinking hole, so I take a deep breath and reach down into the black of the coffin. I close my hand over a cold metal something, and heave at it with all my strength. For a moment nothing happens, but then, with a crash-splatter of dry earth and wood, I fall back, and the something lands on top of me. It's a mouldy old metal cage thing, about a foot square, with a rusted spring and a lever, all dark green with age and fungus. And there's something inside.

Yup. It's Lugubrian's skull.

It's one in the morning when I get in, and my parents are furious. Apparently they almost called the police, which might have been a very good thing, though given what I've been up to, perhaps not. I manage to get away in the end and have a shower – I can't think straight with Lugubrian's grave muck under my fingernails. Afterwards, I'm pretty tired, but when I get back to my room, they're standing there, all three of them, waiting for an explanation.

‘What?' I say to Si. His arms are folded. So are Em's. The ghost of Silas Lugubrian is fuming with rage and his head has gone into indignant orbit round my light bulb. You'd think he at least would be happy, but instead he's whinging on and on.

‘Such an insult! Burying my head at my feet! But I'll have the last laugh. We'll see how they like it when – '

‘Oh, be quiet!' Simon shouts, and he bats the head across the room. It vanishes through the wall. The ectoplasm is puffing out of the hole in Si's head again.

‘So, you're working for him now?' says Ems, in a voice so controlled it's dangerous. ‘Bagport. You're one of his kids. I came to you for help and you've betrayed me.'

Can't they give me a break? I'm in my dressing gown, for crying out loud. But it seems they're not going to let it go till I give a little speech. You know, to rally the troops.

‘It's cool,' I say. ‘I'm getting close to Bagport. When he lets his guard down, I'll sort him. Then you'll be free, Ems. And Lugubrian, at least you've got part of what you wanted so you can leave me alone now. I doubt I'll get a smile from you, Si, but I'm used to that.'

The magician's head swoops back in and snarls at me from near my ankles, like a whiskery bloodhound.

‘You will perform the trick at your school show?'

‘Nope,' I say.

‘But, Daniel!' cries Simon. ‘How can you get close to Bagport? Now he thinks you can find treasure in coffins, he's expecting to go back to the cemetery tonight. I told you, I cannot help you locate treasure there. You happened to know about Lugubrian's apparatus, but what will you tell Bagport next time? What can you possibly dig up tonight?'

‘And what's he doing with my priceless apparatus anyway?' barks the head.

‘How could you join him? A man like that?' says Ems.

I give up. I switch the light off, climb into bed, and pull the covers over my head.

* * *

The next day's Friday and I slink off to school without a word to anyone. I sit at the back and keep my head down, because I've got a lot of thinking to do. I can tell Si's still annoyed with me, so I give him
the day off. He'll catch up with me tonight, but first I've got to work a few things out.

Si needs to learn to trust me.

After school I tell my parents I'm staying at a friend's house overnight, and they're so pleased I even have a friend that they go with it.

Evening arrives and I get something easy to eat and then head off for Bagport's place.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking, and yup, it's weird to just wander in there. But it turns out last night was a bit of a triumph for Mr Big and I'm the bee's knees. You'd've thought that rusty lump of metal with Gubie's head in it would be a disappointment, but Bagport was happy enough with it. Especially since it turns out the cage wasn't tarnished at all, just grubby. It's actually gold-plated.

When I get there, Si's waiting for me, with Ems. Lugubrian's there too, grinding his teeth. I've got a horrible feeling we're a team from here on in.

Great.

‘I don't suppose I can talk you out of this?' says Simon.

‘Nah. You'll just have to trust me instead.'

‘Hah!' barks Lugubrian.

I knock on the metal door behind Bagport's club,
and Ringpull opens it. He grunts, clips me round the ear and then pulls me in. We're going to have a falling out, Ringpull and me, but I let it go for now.

The corner of the storeroom has been cleared, and there's someone there I haven't seen before, a small nervous man with a goatee and no hair. He's got a toolbox open by his feet and on a tripod in front of him is Lugubrian's metal cage. You can really tell it's gold now, and Goatee Man's buffing it up and scraping gunk out of it.

He's not looking too happy, but then Gubie's skull grinning at him while he works might have something to do with that.

‘That's a nice paperweight,' I say, and the man looks at me like he doesn't know if I should be there. ‘What a lovely hobby.'

Lugubrian's head detaches from his body and circles the man and the box.

‘My apparatus!' he says. ‘What's he doing to it?'

Really, really weirdly, Goatee Man turns his head like he almost heard something, and looks confused. Then he turns to me and says, ‘I'm just cleaning it. Getting it working again. For sale,' he says.

‘You can't sell it!' Lugubrian cries. ‘It's mine!'

Goatee Man looks around again.

‘Did you hear something?'

‘Not me,' I say. ‘But if your hearing's blocked, ask Dr Ringpull to knock it clear.'

Ringpull raises his hand to box my ears again, so I dart out of the room and straight up the stairs. Goatee Man gives me a dark look as I go.

Bagport's behind his desk, smiling like the white cliffs of Dover, still wearing the horrible shiny suit.

‘Hey, there's the kid!' He waves me over. We're best mates now, it seems, though Ringpull's just behind me. ‘Chatted to any more rich dead people?'

I shrug. I honestly didn't know that Lugubrian's apparatus was gold, but I'm not complaining.

‘You want to go back there tonight, I suppose?' is all I say.

‘Well, yeah, I'd love to,' Bagsy chuckles and he gives me a ‘haven't you heard?' look. ‘There's no way we're doing that now, though, is there?'

I guess I look confused, so he points at the enormous TV screen on the wall opposite his desk and turns the volume up.

Lugubrian's open grave is all over the news. There's a smart young TV journalist in front of a crowd talking to a slightly hysterical woman who lives near the cemetery, then there's a couple of
students dressed like vampires who jabber on about the unquiet grave. (Yeah, right! What do they know?) Then after them there's a lurid bio piece about the great Silus Lugubrian and his ‘terrible end' which manages to make him sound even freakier than he really is. I'm just staring at it all, because I'm not expecting this. And the thing that's really got everyone going, the hot question on everyone's lips is, ‘Where's the skull?'

‘You've caused a media storm round Highgate.' says Bagport, ‘We'll have to go somewhere else tonight.'

‘Me?'

‘Don't forget who's in the photos, kid.'

‘But…' I don't need to be reminded of those photos. ‘But even if we do find more stuff, how can you sell it now? I mean, with all this talk of grave robbing?' I point at the screen. ‘The police'll be all over this.'

‘What do you mean, “even if”?' Bagport's giving me the murderous eye again. ‘Don't forget, kid, you're only interesting as long as you can come up with the goods. There'll be no “even if” if you know what's good for you.'

Simon gives me a meaningful look.

‘Who's the beardie downstairs?' I say.

‘That's Johnny Sparko,' says Bagsy. ‘From the Magic Circle. Up to his slap in debt to me. He'll get that gold cage thing cleaned up and working. And he won't breathe a word.'

‘They're saying there's a thousand quid reward for the return of the skull,' I say, waving at the screen.

‘Peanuts,' says Bagport. ‘There are collectors in this city who'll pay twenty grand plus for a bit of history like that, skull included and no questions asked. This magician geezer caused quite a stir in his day.'

‘Looks like he's causing quite a stir now too.'

Bagport glares at me. Maybe we're not such good chums after all. He snaps his fingers and Ringpull almost pulls my arms out of their sockets as he picks me up and dumps me in a chair. Seems I'm supposed to wait like a puppy for its master, but that's okay. I'm already seeing how to get Ems her revenge, and I'm looking forward to helping myself to some too.

After about an hour, Johnny Sparko, the magic guy, comes upstairs and says, ‘It's finished'. He's screwing one finger in his ear and looking troubled. I suddenly realize that while Lugubrian's body has
been sitting in the seat next to mine, drumming his ghostly fingers, his head has been elsewhere.

There's a wicked SSHNICK as Johnny presses the lever at the side of the apparatus and the twin blades snap together right where your neck would be if you were stupid enough to put it on.

‘I got the parts going again, like you said,' says Johnny. ‘Oiled them and such like. I changed the spring for a new one and, um, made a few small adjustments to the mechanism that, er, sort of came to me.' And he looks around warily. Just behind him, the ghost head of Silas Lugubrian winks at me.

It feels like the hand of Fate has just reached down and ruffled my hair.