‘Daniel, you aren’t serious?’ Si’s skeletal jaw nearly falls off his face.
‘Why not?’ I say. ‘Mrs Binns got me into the Shard in the first place. I reckon she can help me get to the top of it now.’
‘You got yourself in here.’ Si looks really angry now. ‘All that old woman did was set you on the right track.’
‘Exactly,’ I say. ‘Mrs Binns has a way of making you look at things again, of turning problems into opportunities. And frankly, Si, the only vibe I’m getting off you right now is frilly negativity and gloom.’
‘Daniel!’ Si bristles. ‘That is most unfair.’ But I’m already heading off into the less trashed parts of the flat, searching around.
‘It is my job to see you are safe and protected…’ Si goes on, catching up with me in the bathroom. But I hold up my hand for silence.
There, in the corner of the bathroom, beneath a platinum toilet roll holder, is the object I seek.
A small, steel pedal bin.
‘And what, pray, do you expect to find in that?’ Simon couldn’t sound more scathing if he tried. I glare back at him.
‘A little can-do attitude,’ I say. ‘Even if it is trashcan-do.’
Si snorts and folds his arms.
I put my hand on the lid of the bin.
‘Show me what to do, Mrs Binns,’ I whisper.
Then I open the lid, and shine the ghost-shaped torch inside.
There’s a white plastic bin bag with a used disposable razor in it. There’s also an empty and curling toothpaste tube, a used sticking plaster, several screwed-up bits of tissue I really don’t want to touch, and a lot of toenail clippings. I close the lid, then open it again, but nothing changes.
‘Well?’ I can almost hear the triumphant puffs of ectoplasm from Simon’s head as he stares down behind me. ‘What have you found? A grappling hook? A magic carpet? A pair of angel wings to whisk you into the sky?’
‘Shut up, Si, I’m trying to think.’
‘Think?’ Simon blazes spookily at me. ‘You’re looking for a plan in a dustbin! That’s not thinking at all, that’s just desperate.’
‘Shut up, Si!’
‘No! Daniel, we have to leave. This case is too big for us, Mary is too far gone. There’s nothing we can do now but get you away from here, away to safety…’
I chuck the bin at Si’s head. Well, I’m fed up with all his whining, aren’t I? Of course, the bin just flies through him harmlessly, and bangs off the wall, but he still deserves it. The bag of crud falls out, and spills onto the floor.
‘That’s all the thanks I get?’ Simon gasps. ‘After all I’ve done to help you? A bin bag in the face?’
‘Yeah, well, maybe I’m fed up with your help,’ I shout back. Outside, the thunder and lightning make the building boom. At least it’s a good backdrop for an argument. ‘And being told to run away by a useless old dead guy with a pony tail is no help at all.’
‘Oh, fine!’ Si draws himself up to his full height. ‘Well, if sir no longer requires my help, sir can jolly well manage without it!’
‘Fine, yourself,’ I snap back. ‘Buzz off, then.’
Si gives me one last outraged sniff, and then vanishes in a puff of his most superior ectoplasm.
I’m alone in the bathroom, the storm still raging outside. The ruined pedal bin rolls around at my feet.
Ah, crapsticks.
‘Si?’ I say. But there’s no reply.
I kick the bin as hard as I can, then slump in despair on the tiles.
Then I hear a baggy rustling sound.
I look up.
The bag from the pedal bin, now that it’s empty, is hovering in the air above me, as if caught on a breeze. I shine the torch up at it. Maybe it’s the dark or my imagination, I don’t know, but for a moment – just a fleeting moment – I see a face in the folds of that bin bag. The gap-toothed and grinning face of someone I know.
‘Mrs Binns?’
The bag rolls in the air as wind from the storm outside seizes it. Then it zips out through the bathroom door. In a moment, I’m on my feet and running after it.
‘Mrs Binns!’
Back in the open-plan wreck of the apartment, I just have time to see the white bag fly out through the shattered window in a flurry of snow.
It’s gone.
And now I really am all alone.
There’s yet more flashing and booming of thunder, and I imagine that Mary is, even now, trying to force her mind into little Stacey’s body so that she can live again. And there’s not a single thing I can do about it.
Perhaps I really have failed this time.
Then something catches my eye, something fluttering just outside the window. I edge forwards, trying to make it out. The carpet is covered in a thick layer of snow now, which crunches underfoot. The wind stings my eyes. I reach the ragged edge of the floor, and gasp at the sight of London spread below me, without any glass or safety rail. One unlucky gust of wind and I could be out and falling to my death in a moment. But I just need to see what’s flapping. I lean out, a little more…
It’s the bag. The little white plastic bag from the pedal bin. And it’s caught on something.
‘Ropes?’ I say aloud, staring in disbelief.
Then I remember what Tim said in the lift, about the Shard being cleaned by climbers who abseil down the side of the building. Sure enough, the bag is caught on a leather pouch attached to the rope – a pouch which still contains a ragged cloth and a ‘Mr Squirty’ bottle of cleaning fluid.
Taking firm hold of the window frame, I lean out even more and look up. The ropes rise away into the night. But in a flash of lightning, I see the silhouette of a metal frame right at the summit, the ropes reaching all the way up to it.
It’s a way to the top of the Shard.
At that moment, the bin bag dislodges itself and flies off into the dark.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I’m mad to even contemplate climbing up these ropes. And yup, I admit there are a number of negative factors against the idea. Let’s list them:
1. I’m hundreds of metres up the tallest skyscraper in Europe, with hundreds of metres still to go.
2. I’m a fourteen-year-old boy with a leather trench coat and a pair of purple specs, not Bear Grylls or James Bond or something.
3. There’s the mother of all electrical storms raging and that rope looks wet, and… well, you get the picture.
4. There is no safety net.
I think I know what Si would say if he was here now.
But he’s not here, is he? And beside, there’s something else to add to that list, something that puts a more positive spin on the rest:
5. I’m the kid who sees dead people.
And over the years, those dead people have been good at paying me back for sorting out their problems. I help them over to the Hereafter, and they give me something in return: a little piece of their memories and experience. After all, a bit of themselves is the only thing a ghost has left to pay me with. And that’s how I know how to hack computers (useful), and speak French (interesting), and solve a Rubik’s Cube (er…). And, because I once helped the ghost of a mountaineer, that’s also how I’m able to look at these ropes and not freak out of my skull at the thought of climbing up them.
I do up my coat. I dig some leather gloves out of my pocket and slip them on. I grab the ropes.
Of course, knowing how to twist those ropes around my body and lock them over my arm like a pro is one thing. Not losing my cool over the scary view down is quite another. I close my eyes and think James Bond-type thoughts, but I’m still trying to get in the zone when the wind suddenly goes crazy and sucks me right out of the window.
‘Aaagh crapsticks!’ I cry out, as I bounce along the glass exterior of the Shard. ‘I’m not in the zone, I’m not in the zone!’
The wind roars its reply in a blizzard of snow. By the time I stop bouncing, my nose is pressed up against the freezing glass, and my arms feel ready to pop out of their sockets. But the ropes are holding.
Then I look down…
‘Gnn!’
I close my eyes again, and take a few desperate breaths. Forget James Bond, I need to focus on the borrowed memories of that dead mountaineer. This is the first time I’ve had to use them, so they’re a bit hazy. Why couldn’t I have helped the ghost of a lift mechanic instead? Anyway…
I open my eyes again. The icy wind blasts at my face, forcing snow up my nose and into my ears. My woolly scarf is flying out horizontally into the night. But somehow I manage to get my rubber soles firmly planted on the glass, and my body into position. I pull the rope in a very professional way, and pay out the slack as – against all the odds – I begin to climb.