Bec eventually dragged Rani home late morning. Before they left, though, Bec propped at the front door and shook her laptop at me. ‘I definitely need to get to the bookshop and the archives if I’m going to do anything serious, but I’ve already found some hints that you really don’t want to muck around with these guys.’

‘You’re on it, though?’

‘I’m on it. Home time, Rani.’

Rani blinked. ‘Sorry?’

Bec immediately propelled her out the door. ‘Leave it with me, Anton.’

I stood at the front gate as they went off, hand in hand. I waved.

Okay, so how do I feel about this Bec and Rani thing? And is this Bec and Rani thing any of my business, anyway? It’s their business, and good luck to them I say. I suppose, though, how I feel about it is my business because my feelings are my business and I could be overthinking this already.

Bec has been my best friend ever since ever, and she’s in that rare category of friends who are so important and meaningful that when good things happen to her I don’t get all envious and gnash my teeth. When good stuff happens to her, it makes me happy. When she got into uni and got that scholarship, I celebrated with her big time. She’s special like that.

And Rani? Since she bowled into my life and blew everything up – in a good way – she’s saved my neck more than a couple of times. As a result, my feelings towards her are pretty positive, especially considering what she’s taught me about approaching ghost sites and dealing with some of the more belligerent spooks we run into. More than that, I admire her bravery and the way she stood up to the crusties of the Company of the Righteous.

So having the two of them making each other happy is a pretty good deal, to my way of thinking. Not that they need my approval. But friends are precious, and when friends are happy that’s a fine, fine thing.

And that sounds like a pretty mature and decent sort of attitude, but if I’m forced to dig deep into myself – and who enjoys doing that kind of thing? – I have to admit that there might be a touch – a teeny, tiny touch, mind you – of wistfulness. Not envy or jealousy, just wistfulness. Not wistfulness that Bec and Rani are together, but wistfulness about the whole romance thing. You see, I’m all in favour of romance. Looks like something good to me and even if I don’t have any real practical experience in the field, I’m open to offers, so to speak. From my distance, there’s something special about being that close to another human being, where you’re liked so uncompromisingly by someone else that it’s a daylight miracle.

I see Bec and Rani and how elevated they are when they’re together. I’d like to feel that.

When I woke up in the late afternoon and staggered into the kitchen after a shower, Dad was there, an espresso cup on the table in front of him and three others nearby.

Things I love about my dad No. 428: a while ago, I bounced into his study and said, ‘You wouldn’t have a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker cap I could borrow, would you? Please?’

‘I’ll get it,’ was his response. ‘And I think I have an Inverness cape, too, that you’ll be wanting.’

No questions, no fuss, no startled looks or demands for further info. Gotta love a guy like that.

‘Your aunt is still asleep,’ he said.

I gave him the old double take. ‘You left her alone with me while I was sleeping? What if she woke up while I was still in bed? She’d be all alone!’

‘I didn’t open the bookshop today. I stayed here.’

I had a quick squiz out the window to see if any pigs were flying past or if there was a blue moon in the sky, because Dad never failed to open the bookshop, apart from Christmas Day and Good Friday. It was a point of honour and he went to crackpot lengths sometimes, dragging himself in and handing flu germs out to every customer like a special bonus gift instead of lying in bed at home.

‘I don’t like to mention it, but we have a bit of a plan ready in case she doesn’t wake up.’ I fixed myself a coffee and grabbed some muesli.

‘Good, good.’ Dad rubbed his face with both hands. His eyes were very bloodshot. Waking him up in the middle of the night hadn’t done him any good, and I don’t think the shock of having a long-lost sister suddenly reappear was a wellness boost, either. ‘If it was me, and the situations were reversed, it would be so much easier. She dabbled with such matters all the time, you know. She’d know what to do or, if she didn’t, she’d know where to go for answers.’

I sat opposite him. ‘She’s family, Leon. We’ll work it out.’

‘The incredible shrinking and expanding family.’

‘Say what?’

‘There were four of us, plus your aunt. Five of us. Then there were four, then three, then only the two of us. Now we’re back up to three again.’

‘And Judith.’

‘Ah. Judith. Of course. She’s coming back from that conference in Zurich soon.’

Zurich. That’s right. I knew Dad’s wife was somewhere Swiss. Don’t get me wrong, I like Judith, it’s simply that she’s travelling so much, in demand so much, I lose track of where she is. ‘Families change,’ I said after a while.

‘But they stay the same, too,’ Dad replied. ‘See? I can do cryptic and profound as well.’

‘Get some sleep, Leon, you’re delirious.’

‘Before I go, you need to tell me what happened last night.’ He stifled a yawn. ‘Be succinct.’

I was, but he still got the whole omnishambles – Bao, Peggy Twotimes, Egon Spengler, the Krazy Kult and the blood. As I unfolded the events for him, he gradually went pale, shunting way down the Pantone chart until he was somewhere the other side of Marshmallow.

‘I need more,’ he said slowly, though the way he was unable to meet my eyes told me something was up, ‘but some of what you’ve said sounds familiar.’

‘I hope you’ve got some words of wisdom handed down from the Marins of yesteryear,’ I said. ‘We could use a chunk of ancient insight right about now.’

‘Nothing immediately springs to mind.’ He adjusted his waistcoat, wiped his hands together, scrutinised the ceiling and generally nominated himself for a Least Likely to Win the World Poker Championship award.

‘Come on, Leon, don’t you know that not sharing information at this crucial stage never ends well? I mean, most of the Winchester family problems could have been avoided if Sam and Dean simply talked to each other a bit more.’

‘I take it that’s a reference and it’s meant to emphasise your point.’

‘I guess it doesn’t work if you haven’t watched Supernatural.’

‘I’ll add it to my list of things to catch up on.’

‘Look, if this sort of thing has happened before, maybe the Mighty Marins have dealt with it in spectacularly clever ways. In the interests of efficiency, you know, I don’t want to go around reinventing the wheel. I mean, it wouldn’t take long to reinvent the wheel, really, not once you knuckle down to it, since reinventing suggests that it had been invented before so you’d have a model to work from, but that’s beside the point.’

‘I am the guy to go to for Marin history, correct?’

‘I see you more as a knowledgeable source than a go-to guy.’

‘That’s a pity, as I was going to ask Rebecca to put that on a T-shirt. “Leon Marin: Go-To Guy”.’

‘If this all ends happily, I’ll do it myself.’

‘I need to get to the archives.’ He shook his head. ‘Peggy, Egon. I should have taken better care of them. Peggy was never the most reliable, but she tried very, very hard.’

‘You’ve talked to her lately?’

‘Not for years. She was having family trouble. I gave her some money she promised to repay, but we lost touch.’

That said a lot about him, you know. Maybe it’s something about the unsettling nature of seeing ghosts, but many of our ghost spotters have trouble keeping up an ordinary, everyday life. A lot of them are unemployed loners, and plenty of them have the sort of history that makes it hard for them to find places to live. When I was little, a couple of our ghost spotters dropped into the bookshop to see Dad. They frightened me and I hid behind the counter. When Dad saw me shrinking away, he paid them well, and after they left he took me aside and explained. ‘They don’t have a lot of dignity in their lives, Anton,’ he said. ‘That’s why I treat them with respect, as valuable contributors to our noble enterprise. That, and the fact that they are fellow human beings. Remember that.’

A good man, is my dad.

‘You did what you could for her, Leon,’ I said.

‘And now someone wants to find our other ghost spotters and kill them? When they can’t find anyone with the true ghost sight like Rani and you?’

‘That’s about the size of it.’

‘This isn’t how I wanted this year to go.’

‘You wanted me to have an easygoing ghost-hunting gap year to lull me into a false sense of security? No, don’t answer that. I was being unfair.’

‘I don’t think there is such a thing as an easygoing ghost-hunting year.’

‘Could be, but there’s tough and then there’s tougher. Get some sleep, Leon. We need all your strength.’

‘Don’t you mean I need all my strength?’

‘That too.’

Before he could go the back door suffered another hammering.

‘Whoee!’ Bec announced as she bustled in. ‘Have we got news for you!’ Behind her, Rani rolled her eyes affectionately as she steered Bec forward. ‘I stayed up while Rani slept,’ Bec went on after yawning a little and flapping it away, ‘trying to get something solid on your Trespassers. It looks like we’re in giant scoops of trouble.’

Bec was wearing a lumpy brown jumper that looked as if it’d be perfect for a polar explorer. Rani had a rainbow scarf, her usual highlighting to take the edge off the seriousness of her standard trench coat. She handed me a parcel. ‘A courier arrived when we did so I signed for this for you. What is it? Books?’

Truly express delivery. I was amazed. ‘A secret surprise. I’ll show you later.’

Rani pursed her lips, but before she could press me, Bec couldn’t contain herself. ‘Hey, Leon,’ Bec said. ‘Anton told you about these Trespassers?’

‘Hello Rebecca, Rani.’ Dad sighed. ‘It appears as if it was quite a night last night.’

Rani slipped into a chair at the table. ‘We think we may have run into the Ragged Sisters.’

‘The Ragged Sisters,’ Dad said. ‘Of course.’

‘You hold out, Leon.’ I slid my parcel onto the bench near the microwave. ‘Trying to protect me?’

‘No, no. The description of the chains and the bloodletting rang a bell, but I couldn’t put my finger on a name.’

‘I’m a bit queasy about you not being able to remember which violent bunch fitted our description. Makes it sound as if there’s a few to choose from, which doesn’t really fill me with sunshine.’

Dad shrugged. ‘The Ragged Sisters have a reputation for barbarity, even by the standards of other Trespassers, but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. I seem to remember that some people saw them as more of a cult than a ghost-hunting organisation.’

‘A little from Column A, a little from Column B,’ I suggested.

‘You have more, Rebecca?’ Dad asked.

‘I hope you don’t mind, Leon,’ Rani said, ‘but we sent out some discreet emails, using your contacts list. We already have a few answers.’

Bec dumped her backpack on the kitchen bench and wrenched out her laptop before sitting at the table.

‘At first, no one wanted to talk about these guys, claimed not to know anything, but thanks to my subtle questioning—’

‘Dogged persistence,’ Rani corrected.

Bec grinned. ‘Don’t let Max hear you say that.’

‘Max isn’t speciesist,’ Rani said, mock affronted. ‘He’s species inclusive.’

‘Of course he is,’ Bec agreed and then ploughed ahead. ‘And thanks to my subtle questioning, they started blurting out all this juicy stuff.’

Dad frowned. ‘Juicy?’

‘Juicy,’ Bec affirmed. ‘Hey, Leon, you remember someone called Dr Zana?’

Dad blinked. ‘Zana? I haven’t heard from her in years.’ He smiled distantly. ‘Lovely dancer.’

‘She’s back home in Hungary right now. Said to say hello,’ Bec continued. ‘Then she told me that these Ragged Sisters are consummate phasmaturgists, ghost magicians. Over the centuries, they’ve experimented with controlling ghosts, shaping ghosts, destroying ghosts, using ghost essences and just about everything that any sensible ghost hunter would steer well clear of.’

‘Do not want,’ I said. ‘Very much do not want.’

‘But wait, there’s more,’ Bec said. ‘They like hunting down anyone with ghost sight because sacrificing them supercharges their rituals. Our ghost spotters would do in a pinch, but I can confirm that what they’re really after is full-on ghost hunters, because their blood gives their magic a super kickstart boost.’

Okay, so it was one thing hearing it from the leader of these Ragged Sisters in the middle of a violent midnight confrontation, and it was another hearing from Bec, a source I trusted, over the kitchen table with the distant drone of peak-hour traffic and half a flock of lorikeets arguing in the fig tree outside.

I wasn’t the only one sitting up straight at that news. Rani was nodding solemnly, no doubt already trying to work out how this datum needed to be worked into a strategy, while Dad was rubbing the side of his head and looking towards the door, in the direction of the room Tanja was in.

Oh, right. Tanja was a ghost hunter too, which made her a potential target for the Ragged Sisters. Fantastic.

Bec was watching us all. ‘Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings.’

Rani laced her hands on her stomach, leaned back and studied the ceiling. ‘I wonder why bad tidings always need a bearer. Couldn’t someone merely deliver them? Or hand them over? Uber-Tidings, perhaps?’

Bec brightened, and I saw what Rani had done there. ‘And why are tidings always plural? Can’t you just bear a tiding?’

‘You can,’ a voice came from the hall. ‘But only if you’re Old Norse.’

Aunt Tanja leaned against the doorframe, red-eyed and haggard. ‘Hey, all. Miss me?’