It takes Venn a full five minutes to finally exhaust the dramatic potential of a fallen keyring. And he’s good, I’ll give him that. By the time he’s finished, Tim is a nervous wreck, and the rest of them are pretty spooked too. Venn wraps up the scene, gives Tim an encouraging pat on the shoulder, and asks him to lead us round to the lift.
‘Why’s it so dark everywhere?’ I ask when we reach the gleaming doors to the elevator.
‘Power problems,’ Tim says, opening a security panel beside the lift with a shaking hand and inserting a key. ‘It comes and goes. Been happening since… well, since all this weirdness started.’
‘Power problems?’ I ask. ‘How are we going to use the lift if there’s something wrong with the electricity?’
‘We’re on the emergency generator,’ says Tim, as the doors slide open to reveal a mirrored interior.
‘Oh.’ I glance at Si. Suddenly I’m not so sure about getting into this lift.
‘Is it safe?’ asks Stacey’s mum, pulling her daughter close.
‘Yes, dear lady.’ Venn steps into the lift. ‘There is no danger while you are with me. Come, please do not be afraid.’
I look at Stacey’s mum, half expecting this to be the moment she comes to her senses, but under the glare of the camera – and the sickly smile of Venn Specter – she just gives a shrug and steers Stacey into the lift.
‘Is the weirdy boy with the funny glasses coming too?’ Stacey asks her mum, pointing at me.
Everyone stares at yours truly.
Ah, this is nuts. I shove my hands in my pockets, and get into the lift. The door slides shut, and we start to climb. But by the way my stomach is pressed down, it feels more like ‘take off’ than a gentle ascent – it’s so fast!
‘The Shard is the tallest skyscraper in Western Europe,’ says Tim, who seems to have slipped into tour guide mode. ‘It is 310 metres tall, and this lift travels at six metres per second. The windows are cleaned by professional mountaineers, who abseil down from the summit. We hope you enjoy your visit to the Shard today.’
Then the doors open, and we’re out. But this isn’t the end of the journey. The Shard is so tall, that you have to change elevators half way up. Fortunately, Tim forgets to give us any more tourist stuff as we rocket up to our final destination: the summit of the Shard.
The lift doors swish open onto a darkened corridor. The only light is from emergency strips set just above the floor.
‘We have arrived.’ Venn breathes the words into Ned’s camera, turning the torch onto his face again. ‘We must keep our wits about us. For I sense the powerful presence of a paranormal entity.’
I can’t help giving a snort. The only thing I can sense is the powerful presence of Venn’s cheesy lines and naff delivery. I step out of the lift first, and throw a smile to Stacey. I’m pleased to see she’s apparently unfazed by Venn’s attempts to scare us. Shame I can’t say the same for her mother and Tim.
‘Stay close to me, darling,’ Stacey’s mum says in a quavering voice as they follow me out.
Around a corner are some stairs up to the viewing level. I take them three at a time, eager to see what’s up there. Then I skid to a stop, my mouth falling open as I come face to face with the view from the Shard.
‘’Tis wondrous!’ gasps Si, floating up behind me, and staring out through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
And it is. London at night spreads beneath us like a carpet of gleaming jewels, divided by a ribbon of velvety black that can only be the Thames. The lit dome of St Paul’s Cathedral shines silver-white, amidst tiny stacks of bright office windows. I see the pods of the London Eye like gleaming pearls on a necklace. I see the distant face of Big Ben like a pocket watch of gold. The red and white sparkle of traffic flows throughout it all.
‘Ooh, pretty!’ says Stacey, as the others arrive beside me.
‘It is, sweetheart,’ says her mum, and even Venn stops yabbering for a moment to goggle at the sight of London glittering in the night.
‘Nearly as pretty as the pretty lady,’ says Stacey.
There’s a long pause. I think we’re all so amazed by the view that we don’t realise at first what Stacey has just said.
‘What pretty lady?’ says her mum.
‘That one,’ Stacey says, pointing into the dark behind us. The air is suddenly freezing.
We all turn where we stand.
Slowly.
Even I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when we see that no one’s there.
‘Oh, she’s gone now,’ says Stacey. ‘Pretty lady? Pretty lady, come back!’
She starts to run to the stairs, but her mother grabs her. Tim makes a whimpering sound and clutches Ned’s arm. I raise my eyebrow at Si.
‘I saw nothing,’ he says. ‘But there is… something here. Can you sense it, Daniel?’
I nod. I don’t want to start speaking out loud to my invisible sidekick, not with Stacey and her mum there, and Tim close to wetting himself. But I want Si to know that, yes, I can sense something: that faint fizzing crackle in the air when a ghost is close.
Venn raises his jade ring to his eye and begins to prowl around the viewing platform, keeping a constant running commentary going for Ned and his camera. Goodness only knows what the audience down below in the street are making of Ned’s live feed to the big screen. Not to mention the rest of the nation, glued to their not-so-big screens at home.
I wonder about asking Stacey to tell me exactly what she saw, but her mother is clutching her so close that I decide not to push it. Instead I turn to Tim.
‘Down below, when I asked you if you’d done or said anything to provoke an attack, yeah?’ I try to sound business-like and reassuring. ‘You said something about your supervisor. It sounded like you don’t like her very much.’
Tim gives me a startled look, then glances at Ned. I guess he’s making sure the camera’s mic is out of range.
‘My supervisor’s a proper tyrant.’ Tim’s whispering, but he seems pleased to steer the conversation back to everyday things. ‘She’s always bossing everyone around. No one likes her. Why do you want to know?’
‘Well, I’m just wondering if you said anything to her when she told you to tidy up. Not to her face maybe, but perhaps you muttered something under your breath?’
Tim gives a nervous smile.
‘Yeah, I might’ve done. Don’t ask me what though. She’s a right nasty old witch, that one.’
There’s a sudden, deafening sound…
… that drowns out Tim’s words. Across the window pane beside us a razor thin fracture has appeared, reaching from one side of the viewing platform to the other.
Venn comes running back.
‘The window’s broken!’ he says into the camera. ‘Are you getting this, Ned? The window’s cracked from side to side!’
‘Could it be a bird?’ Stacey’s mum’s voice is a tiny frightened squeak. ‘A pigeon flying into the window?’
‘No way,’ says Tim. ‘Even if you fired a hundred pigeons from a cannon, they wouldn’t crack this glass. It’s virtually bullet proof!’
A new sound reaches us now, on an icy breeze. It’s like some great frost giant has just breathed out over us, with a dismal moaning sigh.
‘You must be able to hear that!’ Venn says into the camera. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, something is happening in the Shard. Listen!’
The wind grows stronger, its moan growing deeper and yet more human.
‘We need to get out of here,’ I say, steering Stacey’s mum, with Stacey clinging to her coat, toward the stairs back down to the lift. Tim is already running that way with his hands over his head as if the sky is about to fall on him. I look back and see Venn hesitate, his eyes wild. I get the feeling he’s struggling to keep up his TV persona in the face of some genuinely spooky stuff.
‘We shall… withdraw.’ He shouts into the camera, above the roaring wind. ‘To assess these… extraordinary events, which… which…’
The wind grows louder, reaching a sudden shrieking crescendo. Venn Specter gives up and runs, terrified, down the stairs…
…just as the window explodes inwards behind him.
Chunks of glass the size of ice cubes rattle down the stairs around us, as the winter wind roars into the viewing platform in a blizzard of snow. We stagger to the lift, Tim scrabbling to get the key in the panel. The lift doors slide open with a ping, and we pile in.
‘Are you getting this?’ Venn gasps at Ned.
The big man turns the camera round, sees that the red light is still on, and gives a quick nod. Tim jabs the buttons of the lift, and the doors start to close.
Then they stop.
Stacey’s mum has jammed her foot between them.
‘Where’s Stacey?’ she cries. ‘Oh my God, I’ve lost Stacey!’
We look about us. It’s true – the little girl isn’t in the lift. I jump back out into the corridor again. And that’s when I hear something from back up the stairs. A little voice carrying down to us on the bitter wind.
‘Pretty lady,’ says Stacey. ‘I wish I could be pretty like you.’
Stacey’s mum screams.
I rush toward the stairs, to where Stacey must be. But I don’t even reach the first step before I’m lifted clean off my feet by an icy blast that flips me over and drives the breath from my body. I crash back down in the doorway of the lift. I try to stand again, but a second gust propels me further back, pinning me and the others to the back wall of the lift. We can only watch in horror as the doors slide shut.
Then the lift is falling. And no, I’m not exaggerating – I really do mean falling! It’s like the cable has been cut or something. We all rise up off the floor, weightless for a moment as the elevator hurtles down to earth like a plummeting stone.