“YOU’RE RIGHT – THE NEWSPAPERS WERE full of stuff about Benton Furlock and the other mayoral election candidates,” Lowry told Molly as they sat on a bench outside Howlfair Library in the breezy sunshine. “But this is the best one. A whole article about him in the Ethelhael Panopticon.”
“Bingo!” said Molly, taking the photocopy and wrinkling her nose at the picture of Benton Furlock’s younger but still cadaverous face.
“Did you just say bingo?”
“Lowry, this is perfect!” She scanned the article. “He and some guy called Preston Halfstar used to have a property-surveying business: Furlock and Halfstar.”
“I can’t believe you said bingo.”
“Then Preston Halfstar got ill and died,” Molly went on. “Furlock became depressed …”
“That explains his face. Like a goat with stomach ache.”
“… and he felt he couldn’t carry on with the business, even though it was very successful. Eventually he decided that Preston Halfstar, his lifelong friend and business partner, wouldn’t have wanted him to wallow in misery. So he sold the company and spent the money setting up a foundation for good works.”
“I bet Furlock killed his business partner so he could get the money, the filthy murderer.”
“But why would he kill someone for money, and then spend the money doing good deeds?”
“Maybe he felt guilty.”
“Maybe.” Molly looked at the other clippings Lowry had provided. “Ooh – here’s one from just after the elections.” She paused to cast her eye over it. “Apparently Furlock came close to winning. But it looks like the people from the Howlfair Workers’ Union decided to vote against him after he said something rude about their leader, and they tipped the vote in Mr de Ville’s favour.” She checked her watch and slipped the photocopies into her satchel. “Let’s get going – I’ll finish reading these tonight.” She stood up and faced the library grounds’ west gate.
“I thought we were going to Wetherill’s to find Carl,” said Lowry.
“I thought we’d take a scenic route.”
“You want to go past Loonchance Manor, don’t you?”
“Bingo.”
Situated on one of Howlfair’s two roundabouts, accessed perilously by an ill-advised zebra crossing, Loonchance Manor was a ghastly wooden ghost-house, tall and crooked, neighboured by a giant yew tree towards which it leaned as though sharing a sinister secret.
“Dad says it’s tacky, but I think it looks super-scary,” said Lowry, staring past the roundabout traffic at the looming manor. “Much better than any of the tourist board’s attractions. I wish we were old enough to go in. You already know the legend, don’t you? Of Loonchance Manor?”
“’Course I know it,” said Molly. “Don’t you?”
Lowry shrugged. “Something about a girl called Daphne? And some … ghouls?”
“The youngest Loonchance girl, Daphne, fell in love with a poor gravedigger called Tom Taffler and they secretly got engaged. When Daphne’s family found out about the engagement, they had Tom murdered. But Tom had already told Daphne an old family secret: how to control the ghouls in Howlfair Cemetery. Daphne used the secret to summon the ghouls, and she got revenge on her family.”
“Ooh, I do relish a good revenge story.”
“Daphne’s best friend died around the time of Tom’s death. Daphne acted like this was the last straw, and she faked her own suicide. Once her relatives had assembled in the family crypt after the funeral, Daphne jumped out of the coffin. One aunt died of fright on the spot. And then the other funeral guests arrived…”
“The ghouls?”
“Yep. They ate the guests. Daphne ran away through the tunnel up to the house, but the tunnel wall gave way and something fell on her.”
“A spider! Yuck.”
“It was Tom’s corpse.”
“Even more yuck!”
“The Loonchance family had buried him in the tunnel wall. The ghouls were mad with blood-lust by this point, and they ate Tom and Daphne on their way up to the house. They ran out onto the streets of Howlfair, causing havoc, and it took a year for the mayor to bring the ghoul problem under control.”
“Is it true that you get to see Daphne’s diary if you go on the Ghoul Tour?”
“Well, it’s just a copy,” said Molly. “The real one’s in Howlfair Museum. But the most important page is missing.”
“The page where she wrote down the secret of controlling ghouls.”
“Yeah.” She checked her watch. “Enough sightseeing. Let’s go to Wetherill’s.”
They began to walk. “Just so you know, I’m not going inside the shop with you.”
“What? Why?”
“Because Mr Wetherill supposedly comes from a long line of werewolf hunters, and I possibly come from a long line of lycanthropes. My kind doesn’t associate with his kind, Molly.”
Molly tutted. “Oh, stop being a drama queen.”
“Drama? Queen? You’re the one who told me that Wetherill probably has real weapons hidden in the back of his shop! Pistols loaded with silver bullets!”
“But I don’t remember saying he’d use them to shoot twelve-year-old attention-seekers who want to be werewolves.”
Lowry stopped, upset. “You think I’m an attention-seeker?”
Molly sighed. “I didn’t mean that.”
“What did you mean, exactly?”
“Nothing, Lowry. I meant that Mr Wetherill would probably think you were attention-seeking if he heard you talking about being a werewolf.”
“That’s not what you meant at all. You meant that you think I’m an attention-seeker.”
“Lowry, I’m sorry – just forget it. Look, here’s the shop.” Molly walked on, blushing guiltily. She stopped at the shop window with its rows of sharpened stakes and harpoon guns and silver bullets. “Hurry up, wolf-girl. At least come in and play with the toys while I scare Carl into answering my questions.”
Sulky-faced, Lowry followed.