‘You The again?’ security guard at the revolving doors of the Shard looks down and screws his brow at me. I look back at him through my trademark purple specs. Most of the rest of my face is hidden behind an enormous woolly scarf – it’s blinkin’ freezing, after all – so I’m surprised he recognises me.
‘I told you last time,’ the guard rumbles, ‘the building has been closed for…’
‘For routine maintenance, yeah.’ I finish the sentence for him. Then I lean in and raise my eyebrow. ‘But I think we both know that isn’t true.’
‘Don’t get smart with me, kid.’
I sink into shadow as the guard looms over me.
‘Okay, okay,’ I say, holding my hands up. ‘I doubt anyone would ever get smart with you.’
And then I slide back into the crowd before he can work out whether or not to be offended. There’s no point trying to get in that way, anyway – I’ve already tried. Besides, I’m here for Venn Specter and his TV spectacle.
The columned space in front of the main entrance to the Shard is packed with gawpers, cameraphone jockeys and fans of Venn. Everyone is muffled up to the nostrils against the cold, but the lights of a DazzleTV film crew throw some welcome warmth down onto us. I glance at Si, and see that he’s staring straight up, his mouth hanging open. I don’t blame him. Above us, the great glass tower of the Shard rises high into the winter sky, blazing with light.
‘Pretty cool, huh?’ I whisper.
‘’Tis folly to build so tall,’ says Si, shaking his head. ‘Folly! This is not a building, Daniel, but a monstrous great crystal monument to the pride of man.’
I roll my purple eyes – I’m not in the mood for one of Si’s lectures – and push my way into the crowd.
Beside a gaudy Christmas tree, a group of people in Charles Dickens get-up are singing Christmas carols, but no one’s interested in them, not while Venn Specter is communing with the spirit world on live TV. I push in further, trying to get near the front. And then I see him, bottle-green pullover and everything.
‘I feel a message coming through,’ Venn cries, waving his arms like they’re his psychic antennae or something. ‘Someone from the other side wants to get in touch. It’s a message from beyond the grave!’
The audience holds its breath, everyone glancing at everyone else to see who will react. Venn darts about, holding his hands out toward people, tuning in. I’m at the front now, and for a moment he looks straight at me, but one glimpse of my raised eyebrow and purple specs is enough for him, it seems, and he passes on.
‘What’s he doing?’ says Si, floating right above me in a ghastly cloud of ectoplasm. If Venn Specter was even half the psychic he claims to be, he’d be all over Si like a rash. But it’s clear he can’t see my right-hand spook any more than anyone else can.
‘They call this “cold reading”,’ I mumble in my scarf to Si, hoping no-one notices me apparently talking to myself. ‘He’s searching for clues in the way people look and behave. Then, if he guesses something right, he can pretend a ghost told him.’
Si scowls. ‘So he really is nothing but a cheap fraud?’
‘You bet. And since it’s those who’ve lost loved ones who are most attracted to Venn’s shows, he won’t have long to look.’
Sure enough, Venn Specter’s hands come to rest pointing at a little girl.
‘Oh, poor sweet child!’ Venn says, hamming it up. ‘Your darling little heart has been broken. Has someone dear to you passed away?’
The little girl – who wears a glitzy plastic tiara and a princess dress under her coat – can’t be much more than four years old. She wipes a green bogey from her nose and sniffs, her eyes as big as oceans. The crowd gives a collective gasp of concern. A woman, who must be the little girl’s mum, nudges her and says, ‘Go on, Stacey. Tell the nice man.’
‘Yes,’ blubs Venn, pursing his lips like he’s talking to a baby. ‘Tell me who you have lost, dear, sweet little girl.’
‘It’s my Pop,’ says the girl, sniffing again, and looking close to tears. ‘But he’s not lost. Pop’s dead.’
Venn turns to the crowd.
‘The little girl has lost her pop! Her father has died!’
The crowd gasps and sighs. Women clasp their gloved hands to their bosoms. A DazzleTV cameraman zooms in so close to the little girl’s face, that he’s in danger of getting snot on the lens.
Venn, clearly seeing the chance to dial up the emotional tone a point or two, crouches down beside the girl, so that they can both be in camera shot.
‘Poor Stacey.’ He wipes a fake tear from his eye. ‘It must be so hard. Tell us about your pop.’
‘Well,’ says Stacey in a small voice. ‘He did good cuddles…’
The crowd goes ‘Aaaaw!’
‘… and he was very hairy,’ Stacey adds, with a sniff.
Venn blinks, and seems briefly at a loss to know what to say, but he recovers quickly.
‘Ah, he had a beard, did he, your pop?’
‘Yes,’ says Stacey, her bottom lip trembling. ‘Pop had a wuvely fuzzy chin.’
Well, the crowd and the film crew can’t get enough of this, can they? I even hear the cameraman say something about ‘televisual gold!’ to one of his colleagues. Venn knows he has everyone’s attention now, and starts giving poor little Stacey a heartwarming message from her dead father.
Now, ordinarily I’d be disgusted by this – Venn Specter should be thoroughly ashamed of himself – but I’ve just noticed something. Something no-one else can see except me.
There’s another ghost here.
A ghost that’s keeping very close to little Stacey. Or rather, close to Stacey’s feet. And believe me, it’s not the girl’s dad. I point it out to Si as discreetly as I can.
‘But what is that?’ says Si, squinting down. ‘It looks like a rat.’
‘Not a rat, Si,’ I say. ‘It’s a hamster.’
And it really is. A little furry, ectoplasmic hamster ghost, snuggling up to the girl’s twinkly shoes.
‘That,’ I whisper to Si, ‘must be Pop.’
‘But…’ Si clearly needs to think about this. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Oh, come on, Si!’ I hiss. ‘The hairyness, the cuddles, the “wuvely fuzzy chin”. Pop isn’t Stacey’s dad – “Pop” is the name of her pet!’
Si’s eyes go wide. One look at Stacey’s mum’s face is enough to show I’m right. She looks completely confused by what’s happening, but at the same time, she’s obviously too shy to challenge the star of Venn Specter Investigates while the cameras are rolling.
But shyness has never been my problem. Behind the scarf, an enormous grin spreads across my face. Suddenly I see a way to make Venn Specter look like a complete dufus, and on national TV too.
‘I’m going to enjoy this,’ I say.
‘Wait, Daniel…’ Si starts to protest, but I tune him out. He’s probably going to remind me why we’re really here, but I just can’t resist it. Venn Specter feeds on other people’s grief like a parasite. But not tonight. Tonight I’m going to serve him up a very public slice of humble pie.
‘Can you really see the ghost of this girl’s dad?’ I shout out to Venn, making everyone turn to face me. The cameras spin my way too.
‘Why, yes,’ says Venn, looking not too pleased at being interrupted. ‘And I was just passing on his message of hope to poor little Stacey here, so if you don’t mind…’
‘But I’d like to know,’ I go on regardless, as everyone watches me, ‘did Stacey’s Pop like going round in his little wheel?’
‘Oh, yes!’ squeals Stacey. ‘He went round and round!’
‘And did your Pop like to hide in the straw at the bottom of his cage?’
‘Yes, oh yes!’ Stacy is jumping up and down now. ‘He always did his poos in the straw. Naughty Pop and his poppy poop!’
Confused laughter ripples round the crowd. Everyone is staring at me, then at Stacey, then at Venn. Venn Specter goes suddenly pale as he realises he’s made some error. He gives me a furious look, and gets ready to launch a desperate bid to save the situation, but I call out again before he can.
‘So Pop isn’t your dad at all, is he, Stacey?’ I say. ‘He’s your pet hamster.’
‘Yes, my little fuzzy hamster.’ Stacey’s face lights up. Then it falls. ‘I miss my Pop. My little Popsy!’
She sits down on the pavement and bursts into tears.
Some of the audience are laughing out loud now. Other people are staring in disbelief at Stacey. Some are even looking imploringly at Venn, apparently waiting for him to explain how he can make such a terrible mistake. And me? Well, I’m still grinning from ear to ear. Venn Specter’s made a right chump of himself this time, hasn’t he?
Then I catch the look of ice-cold hatred on Specter’s face, and the grin slips a bit. I look to the TV crew for support but they turn their backs on me, taking the camera off into the crowds. I see Venn click his fingers. A shadow looms behind me, and a hand the size of a gorilla’s paw lands on my shoulder.