When we entered the Secret Room, Rani was sifting through the documents at the desk, where Tanja had last set herself up.

‘Was Tanja behaving normally the last time you saw her, Leon?’ she asked. ‘How badly do you think her time in the Elsewhere has affected her?’

‘She’s traumatised. And, being Tanja, she’s trying not to show it.’ He took a seat. ‘I wish I knew more about that place. It was a specialty of hers, and one that didn’t concern me. When she disappeared, I had to become familiar with the practicalities of ghost hunting and dispatching, for you, Anton. Once ghosts leave to go on, that was enough for me.’

Suspicions are like salted peanuts, you can’t stop at just one. Dad confessing a lack of curiosity? That didn’t ring true – what was he hiding? Aargh! Why couldn’t people have transparent heads so we could see what was inside them? Yes, I know, we’d only see squishy brains, but I’d put up with that if we could know what someone else was thinking because it would be really, really, handy.

As long as they didn’t know what I was thinking, of course.

‘Your sister’s in no fit state to be out and about,’ Rani said.

‘She always was strong-willed,’ Dad replied. ‘If she felt it necessary to go out to do something, she wouldn’t let her physical condition stop her.’

‘Tell Rani everything, Leon,’ I said. ‘Rip off that Peppa Pig and get it out in the open.’

He did. Very seriously, he explained how Tanja wanted to raise the status of the Marin family by destroying the Company of the Righteous. Allying herself with the Ragged Sisters to achieve this wasn’t out of the question.

‘The trouble is,’ a miserable Dad concluded, ‘that even if she’s not successful the chaos could ruin us all.’

‘What if Tanja’s reappearance wasn’t an accident?’ Rani said. ‘What if instead of simply seeing an opportunity and making the most of it, she’s been in league with the Ragged Sisters all along?’

‘While she was in Elsewhere?’ I felt queasy at the way Rani had spoken aloud what I’d been thinking. ‘That’s a whole new level of whoa. Of course, it means that she’s been lying to us.’

‘Hypothetically,’ Dad pointed out. ‘We have no proof of any of this.’

‘She’s been very interested in the Ragged Sisters since she came back,’ Rani said. ‘In some ways, they’ve been her foremost concern.’

‘Okay,’ I replied. ‘That’s true, but that doesn’t prove she’s cosied up to them. As long as we treat Bao’s little bit of gossip as fake news.’

‘Find the Ragged Sisters and we could find Tanja,’ Rani said. ‘In some ways, it doesn’t matter if she’s allied with them or not. If she’s not with them, at least we can put an end to their menace.’

‘Kill one bird with one stone,’ I said.

‘A difficult task,’ Dad said. ‘I don’t think I need to point out how elusive they’ve been so far.’

‘I’m pinning my hopes on Bec and her research,’ I said. ‘Has she left any notes, Rani?’

Rani went to the table where Bec had been hard at work.

‘Perhaps we should talk to Bao,’ Dad suggested. ‘She was the one who saw them first, no?’

‘Ah. I have some extra info for you there, Leon. Sit down. You’re not going to like it.’

He sat at the long table with me, at the other end from where Rani was searching. ‘So much news these last few days. I’m wishing that the good news/bad news ratio would tip in our favour.’

‘Can’t help you there.’ I fiddled with a pen for a while. ‘What would you say if I told you that one of our ghost spotters has been betraying us to the Ragged Sisters?’

Dad made a face as if he’d bitten into a lemon, and then found it to be rotten as well as sour. ‘It was only a matter of time, I suppose. Some of them live on so little that a chance to make some money would be attractive.’

‘Come on, Leon! No swearing? No throwing things around and promising to get even?’

Dad sighed. ‘Don’t get mad, get disappointed. And you have an idea who this could be, this traitor?’

‘It looks like it’s Bao.’

I put the details in front of him. Lobbing something like that on someone is almost like slapping them. It’s a form of assault – emotional assault – and I regretted it, even though he needed to know. While he gathered his thoughts, he played with the coffee cups, sliding them in formation on the tabletop as if he was running a shell game. Eventually, he waved a hand in a gesture that was both helpless and woeful. ‘Some of the others wouldn’t think twice, if there was money in it, but not Bao. But threatening one’s family …’

‘It doesn’t matter. She’s betrayed us and she’s put a whole lot of people in danger.’

Dad sighed and waved a hand. ‘I know, I know, but family …’

We each finished his sentence in our own ways. For a second or two I had to find something interesting on one of the shelves.

I thumped my chest. ‘Let’s accept that certain things are important and that’s all right because we’d be lost without them. When we get through this – and we will – it’ll be because we have those things. Now, Rani and I have to go and save this city.’