Colm and the Ghost's Revenge E-Book

Kieran Mark Crowley

• Herausgeber: Mercier Press
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: Colm
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Seitenzahl: 285

Beschreibung

It's been over a year since the terrifying events at the Red House Hotel and everything is back to normal, but Colm is still uneasy. He suspects there's someone evil lurking in the darkness, someone who's planning a terrible revenge. When strange things begin to happen again, he's plunged back into a world of sarcastic detectives and frightening mercenaries, awkward romance and the supernatural. Dealing with street bullies and overprotective parents is nothing compared to this. And to make matters worse, if the master criminal known as The Ghost finds the two remaining Lazarus Keys he will become extremely powerful. More powerful than anyone who has ever lived. The only people who can unravel the mystery and stop The Ghost are Colm, his annoying cousin, The Brute, and a pretty American teenager. Time is running out and the clock is ticking. But how do you stop what you can't see?

Leseprobe

Praise for Colm & the Lazarus Key

Shortlisted for the Bisto Book of the Year Award 2010

Colm & the Lazarus Key from Kieran Mark Crowley heralds a serious new player in the Irish fiction market for children … Moves effortlessly between laugh-out-loud comedy and hide behind the sofa scariness. Three concurrent plot-lines, each equally engaging.

Inis Magazine

A funny, laugh-out-loud book.

The Irish Examiner

A lively fantasy adventure.

Irish Independent

A cracking debut novel.

Books Ireland

A rip-roaring adventure story … a real page turner.

Verbal Magazine

Kieran Mark Crowley

Colm & The Ghost’s Revenge

MERCIER PRESS 3B Oak House, Bessboro Rd Blackrock, Cork, Ireland

www.mercierpress.ie

http://twitter.com/IrishPublisher

http://www.facebook.com/mercier.press

© Kieran Mark Crowley, 2012

ISBN: 978 1 85635 997 9 Epub ISBN: 978 1 78117 094 6 Mobi ISBN: 978 1 78117 095 3

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

All characters, locations and events in this book are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, which may occur inadvertently is completely unintentional.

For Adam

and for Jessica, Isobel, Cormac, Hugh, JJ and Luke.

Special thanks to the Borrisoleigh Aunties, a terrifying force of nature,

and to all my cousins spying in the bookshops.

Contents

The Book of Dread

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty–One

Twenty–Two

Twenty–Three

Twenty–Four

Twenty–Five

Twenty–Six

Twenty–Seven

The Book of Dread

My name is Colm. I’m eleven years old and I live on the northside of Dublin. As I write this, it’s two in the morning and the city is asleep. Except for those who love the night, burglars and me. I don’t sleep much any more. When I do, the things I dream about are terrible. But I’m not writing this to tell you about my nightmares. These words are to warn someone who may one day be as unlucky as I was. For those of you who think your lives are normal and boring and that there’s nothing exciting out there for you, you’re wrong. There is. And if you’re not careful it will kill you.

There are only ten people in the world who know what I know. Two of them are dead. Of the survivors, one refuses to talk to me, the location of some of the others is unknown and the remainder live at least three thousand miles away. If someone had told me six weeks ago that I would be writing about strange and disturbing events for an ancient journal I would have thought they were mad. Now I think that I might be the one who’s mad. I can hardly believe what I’ve been through. When I first read ‘The Book of Dread’ I was shocked by the tale the author told. I never imagined that I would be the one to write the next chapter of this horrible book. But I have no choice. It’s my destiny.

All that happened seems unreal now that I’m here in my bedroom, surrounded by my books and games and clothes. Everything looks the same as it always did. I hear my mother snoring in the room next door, my father getting up to go to the toilet for the second time tonight. It’s all so familiar and on the surface life goes on as it always has. Sleep. Eat. School. Homework. But in my head, the world has changed.

Eighty-three days ago The Incident occurred. The thing that changed my life. It began when my parents, myself and my cousin Michael (I call him The Brute) decided to stay in the Red House Hotel, an old country house in the middle of nowhere. And when I say nowhere, I mean nowhere. You couldn’t even hear a car passing it was so far from the main road, and it was surrounded by this huge, dark forest, so thick that it hid the hotel from the rest of the world. We were the only guests staying there. I won’t lie – it was creepy. The only other people around were the owner, a cranky old woman called Mrs McMahon, her daughter Marie, Marie’s American daughter Lauryn (The Brute kind of went weird when he was around her) and their friend, the tall, thin Professor Drake.

I found ‘The Book of Dread’ when I was nosing around the hotel library. When I saw it for the first time, I felt like the book was calling out to me, as if it wanted to be read. I couldn’t help myself. I reached for it, but just as my fingers brushed its spine, Lauryn showed up and said that the book was cursed and anyone who touched it died within twenty-four hours. When I heard that, I pretended I hadn’t gone near it and that everything was cool, but to be honest, it freaked me out. I really didn’t want to die. Especially when there was still a week left of the summer holidays. Of course afterwards, when I thought about it, the whole idea of it seemed stupid. Why would anyone keep a book that killed people in the library of a hotel? Half the guests would be dead before the weekend was over. That would have to be bad for business.

I found out afterwards that Lauryn had made up the story about the book being cursed. She just wanted to get me and my family out of there as quickly as possible because the hotel contained a much darker secret than a cursed book. She didn’t realise it would take more than the possible death of his only child to scare my dad away. He’s not the most generous man – if you got my pocket money you’d understand – and since he’d already paid for the rooms, there was no way we weren’t going to stay in that hotel for the night, even if we found out that all the staff were axe-wielding, child-hating maniacs.

The secret Lauryn was trying to protect us from was a mystical object called the Lazarus Key. There was a guy who had lived in the hotel about a million years ago. His name was Hugh DeLancey-O’Brien. Turns out he’d stolen this Lazarus Key (it wasn’t literally a key, it was a diamond with a tiny skull inside) from a secret society in Boston back in the 1800s. The key was supposed to give the person who held it eternal life, but only if it was used correctly. Of course old Hugh didn’t have the instruction manual, so instead of living happily ever after he ended up half-dead in a tomb buried deep in the forest. He must have been there for over a century, barely moving, his body decaying, his brain turning to mush, just waiting for a victim to come along and steal the key. That’s what he wanted. You see, whoever took the key would give their life force to DeLancey-O’Brien. He’d steal their youth and they’d end up all withered and dead while he’d be young again. Everyone was safe as long as they stayed away from the tomb. Of course, then The Brute went barging into the forest, found the tomb and took the key. Nice one, Brute.

So now we had this zombie creature coming after us, which was scary enough, but then we found out that this really tough criminal – number one on the FBI’s Most Wanted List – was after the key too. This guy was so devious, so fiendishly clever, that no one knew his real identity. Even the FBI called him The Ghost. To cut a long story short, after some kidnapping (my parents), followed by some more kidnapping (me and The Brute), I ended up with the key. It was awful. That little diamond made my blood run cold. It made me weak and sick and brought me closer to death than I want to be for at least another seventy years.

Later, after escaping, I managed to trick The Ghost into swallowing the Lazarus Key. The key was destroyed and the creature that was once Hugh DeLancey-O’Brien, who also almost killed me (it was that sort of night), wasn’t able to survive in the sunlight. It died thanks to the help of an overweight man who mysteriously turned up in the middle of everything with his girlfriend. The man said their names were Bill and Jill and that they were tourists, but I didn’t believe him. I think they must have had something to do with the key.

Now you know my story. Since then I have spent every spare moment researching the key, so that anyone who reads this book can protect themselves if a similar thing ever happens to them. This is what I have learned so far:

There were originally three keys. One key has been destroyed. By me. Two remain. A single key can resurrect the dead by drawing the life from any living person who holds it in his or her hand. The living person will end up in a coffin if too much of the life force is taken, but things can go badly wrong for the dead person too. They can end up in a half-life for hundreds of years. Especially when the key isn’t used properly. And no one I’ve met seems to know how to use it properly.If the three keys are used together by one who understands the ancient ceremony known as Abbatage, then they will make the user immortal and almost unbelievably powerful. This requires all the keys and a willing participant. Can’t think why anyone would want to participate in that kind of madness. Abbatage, I think, would be a very bad thing for humanity, so I’m glad there are only two keys left.The remaining keys are believed to be in Eastern Europe and Asia, buried with some ancient warriors who tried to become immortal, but messed things up and ended up being buried with their keys.A key can be destroyed by hydrochloric acid (yeah, the stuff in your stomach). Some say that running water and ice can also have an impact on it, although when I tried that with the key I found it had no effect. Another tale explains that the power of the keys can be wrecked by someone who disrupts the Abbatage ceremony, but the interrupter will almost certainly die, which is why this solution doesn’t seem to have been that popular.There was once a vicious gang in Boston known as the Sign of Lazarus. I don’t know if they still exist, but they worshipped the key and used the one they had to control the city. They were among the most ruthless people ever to walk the earth. You can recognise them by their tattoos. Each one should have a skull inside a diamond shape inked either on the tip of a finger or the inside of an arm.The dead can be commanded by the holder of the key, but if the holder uses it improperly he can become one of the drifting dead – alive only in the darkness. Light is his enemy, powerful UV light can destroy him.If you ever hear anyone mention the Lazarus Key, then you should turn around and run away immediately. It is a horrible thing and will only ruin your life.I’m serious. Run.

That’s all I have to say. I hope no one will ever have to use this information. I hope that whoever reads this will think that I was just a boy with an overactive imagination. If they do then it means that the remaining keys have not surfaced and that the world is still safe. With luck, the man they called The Ghost will have been the last one ever to search for the key. Since he is dead hopefully no one smarter will come after it.

It has been over a year since I wrote those words and everything has been quiet and boring. Until today. I found this in a newspaper my father was reading across the breakfast table:

The robbery of the priceless Destiny Diamond bore all the hallmarks of the man whose true identity is unknown to those in law enforcement. Some call him the ‘Napoleon of Crime’, but most, including the FBI, know him simply as The Ghost. It was believed that The Ghost had perished in a freak accident in Ireland eighteen months ago, but a spokesman for the FBI today revealed that there have been developments recently which suggested that the dead man may, in fact, have only been an accomplice of the master criminal. The spokesman also admitted that they are no closer to apprehending him than they have been at any time in the last twenty years. The Ghost is believed to be responsible for over two hundred high-profile robberies and the deaths of forty-seven people, in addition to the disappearance of seventy-nine others, who are presumed to be dead.

If the real Ghost is still alive, then the rat-faced criminal who died in the woods probably just worked for him. I’m sure The Ghost won’t come here though. Why would he? The Lazarus Key was destroyed. But if he does come, I hope he doesn’t cross my path. Or yours. By the time you know it’s him it will be too late for you to save yourself, so there is no point worrying about what he might do.

But I’m still scared.

One

Fintan Wickerly was a deeply unpleasant man who had grown increasingly mean with every passing day. He had been a postman for twenty-seven years and he’d hated every single second of it. So had the people who’d been unfortunate enough to have their letters and packages delivered by him. And the neighbourhood pets weren’t exactly fond of him either. Especially the dogs. In an unusual turn of events, the dogs on Fintan’s route were afraid of the postman. There was something about the man that transformed them from happy-go-lucky cat botherers into twitching, nervous wrecks. It wasn’t just the angry set of his jaw, his booming voice or his general rudeness. It was more than that. They seemed to sense that he was someone you should keep away from. Not a single dog had ever bared its teeth or dared to bark at Fintan. It was unheard of for one of them to growl when he was within a fifty metre radius. As for nipping at his ankles, well, only a pooch with a serious death wish would consider that.

Every morning, when they heard the squeak of his bicycle wheel or the hacking sound as he cleared his throat and spat on the ground, most of them would run around the back of their owner’s house and cower there until he’d left. Others would hide under cars, duck beneath a hedge, or, in the case of Nigel, an elderly springer spaniel, stand completely still and hope the postman would mistake him for an extremely lifelike statue.

Of course, it wasn’t just animals that had a problem with Fintan Wickerly. His fellow postmen weren’t happy at having to spend time with him either. They said that to know him was to hate him, and it was true. Everyone hated him, even his own mother, and let’s be honest, you have to be a spectacularly horrible person to be despised by your own mammy. Fintan had often been surprised to discover Mother Wickerly wasn’t at home when he called to borrow some money and drop off his dirty washing. Especially since she was eighty-three-and-a-half years old, particularly feeble and very, very rarely left the house. He didn’t realise that every time he banged his fist on the red front door and shouted her name she actually was at home. Just like the dogs, she hid too. She’d throw herself from her wheelchair onto the carpet, then crawl on her wrinkled, blue-veined hands and arthritic knees until finally she was behind the couch and out of sight. She’d rather risk months in hospital with two broken hips than spend a single second of the remaining years of her life in the company of her boorish son.

Luckily for his mother, Fintan Wickerly wasn’t anywhere near her home on the day his rental car rattled twice, belched an enormous plume of black smoke and spluttered to a stop.

He was deep in the heart of America.

More specifically, he was on a little dirt road that wound its way through a forest which sat in the shadow of the magnificent Blue Ridge Mountains – a little dirt road that earlier in the journey he’d hoped would take him to Lynchburg, but which now appeared to lead to the middle of nowhere. He popped the bonnet with a sigh, got out of the car and stared at the engine. When that didn’t fix things, he gave up. He felt like kicking something, preferably something small and furry, but there was nothing fitting that description within reach of his foot so he kicked the wheel instead. That was a mistake. Pain shot through his big toe (which had been home to a particularly nasty bunion since the morning of his forty-sixth birthday) and he hopped around for a while swearing inventively until the agony faded into mild discomfort.

It was turning into a really rotten holiday.

All he’d wanted to do was to drive a car around America for a month. A road trip like he’d seen in the movies. He’d planned to eat in diners. Wear a cowboy hat. Watch baseball. Stay in motels. Cut across the country and see Hollywood. But things hadn’t gone according to plan. His airline had accidentally sent his luggage to Azerbaijan. The Ford Mustang convertible he’d booked hadn’t been available and he’d been given a little yellow hatchback as a replacement. He’d lost his mobile phone after a fight in a biker bar. And now this. Why did his car have to break down? And if it had to do so, why did it have to be here, just as it was beginning to get dark? The dark in America wasn’t like the dark in Ireland. There were dangerous things out there.

‘Why do bad things always happen to good people like me?’ he shouted in frustration as the rain which had been threatening all afternoon began to fall. Fat drops rolled down his neck and under the collar of his Munster rugby shirt. He got back into the driver’s seat and waited there, listening to the radio, hoping that someone would eventually see him and stop to help fix his car.

Waiting and listening.

As the rain pounded on the car.

And no truck or car passed by.

Waiting and listening.

As darkness fell.

And the night took hold.

And still no vehicle passed by.

Until finally, the car’s battery died.

And Fintan Wickerly began to worry.

It was time to make a decision. He was either going to spend the night freezing in the car with no blankets or food – and his stomach had already begun to rumble – or else he was going to have to get out and seek some other form of shelter. He couldn’t remember passing a house in the last few kilometres of his journey, but there had to be one somewhere up ahead, hadn’t there? They don’t just build roads to nowhere, he told himself, as he climbed out of the car for the second and last time.

Fintan had been striding down the middle of the road, as purposefully as his bunion would allow, for what felt like hours and he still hadn’t come across any sign of civilisation. Without a torch or the moon to guide him, he’d occasionally wandered off the track, but then his eyes had adjusted to the night and he’d become more confident. For a while. The purposeful striding was downgraded to a hearty walk and then a sullen trudge as tiredness began to take hold. The rain eased off, not that he cared very much. He was already soaked through. He knew he needed to find shelter quickly. He was wondering how long it would take to die of hypothermia when he heard a howl coming from the woods.

‘Probably longer than it would take to be eaten by a wild animal,’ he muttered.

He wasn’t sure what sort of creature could produce such a howl. A coyote? A cougar? A bear? Did bears even howl? It hardly mattered. What was important was whether or not he could outrun any of them if they caught his scent. He was a forty-seven-year-old burger-loving postman and whatever lurked in the night was a wild animal that survived because of its speed, strength and stealth. The odds weren’t exactly stacked in his favour.

Then he saw a light up ahead. A tiny pinprick in the distance, but a light all the same. He felt adrenaline surge through his body. His legs and arms might not be ripped off after all. He might live. He picked up the pace. Another hundred metres farther on and he could see a blurry, dark shape beneath the light. A contrast to the trees. Was it a house? He was almost sprinting now, his bunion pain a distant memory. No sign of any creature from the woods either. Half a kilometre later and Fintan Wickerly smiled for the first time in six months. It was a house. Of sorts. More like a cabin.

Sweet relief.

Surely whoever was in there couldn’t refuse him shelter. Even if they did, Fintan decided that it wouldn’t stop him. He was going in there no matter what they said. They could give him a meal. And a bed for the night. A hot shower would be nice too. Yes, he’d be their guest. They’d have to treat him right. He left the road, cut through the trees and up a slight incline until he reached the log cabin. It was pretty basic and probably charming in some sort of rustic way, but he didn’t care. All he wanted was some place safe. A refuge from nature. He pounded on the door with his fists.

No answer.

The rain started up again, splattering onto the dirt path that had been made by successive footprints. He tried the handle. To his surprise the thumb latch clicked. He pushed the door open.

‘Hello,’ he called out.

There was no reply. The cabin was small and not very well decorated, but all he focused on were the orange flames flickering in the stone fireplace, bathing the room in a warm, welcoming glow.

‘Hello,’ he shouted again. ‘My car broke down and I need to use your phone. I’m coming in.’

Still no reply. He stepped inside. Ah, he thought, the heat’s the job. He crossed the room, rubbed his hands together and warmed them by the fire before easing himself into the armchair with a satisfied grunt. He slipped out of his shoes, peeled off his stinking socks and laid them on the hearth to dry.

He took another look around the room. Now that he noticed it, there weren’t any homely touches: no flowers or plants, no paintings or photos, nothing to indicate the owner had any family or friends. Just like me, Wickerly thought. He didn’t have friends because he thought most people were boring eejits and why would you want to waste your life hanging out with boring eejits?

As for his family, well, most of them hadn’t spoken to him since he’d tripped over a poorly positioned nephew in his sister’s house and broken his leg. They’d got annoyed with him just because he’d sued them. Why shouldn’t I have sued them, he thought. Stupid child lying in the middle of the floor drooling like a puppy. He’d won the case and the compensation money they’d been forced to give him had paid for his holiday to America. Of course, it also meant his sister and her husband had to sell their house to pay the legal bills, and now there were seven of them living in a rented two-bedroom flat, but that’d teach them to control their children rather than let them run wild around the place like a congress of baboons.

When his feet were toasty and the rest of him had dried out, he decided it was time to locate a telephone and a directory. He had to find a mechanic if he was going to get his car sorted and get back to his holiday. There was another reason too. Even though he wouldn’t admit it to anyone, and didn’t want to admit it to himself, there was a gnawing feeling of doubt at the back of his mind. The bravado he’d felt when he first arrived was fading. Maybe being here wasn’t the greatest idea he’d ever had. The owner would be back soon if that fire was anything to go by, and even though any reasonable person wouldn’t mind someone in trouble warming themselves by the fire, perhaps the owner wasn’t a reasonable person. And this was America, not Ireland. They had guns here. Guns were scary. Especially in the hands of an unreasonable person. Yes, better hurry and find that phone.

He began to search the small cabin. Nothing in the kitchen. No phone in the bedroom. Or the bathroom, which was a good thing. It’d be terribly unhygienic. He turned the place upside down, but he still failed to unearth a phone. And the gnawing feeling grew stronger.

Think, Fintan, he told himself. There might not be a phone, but there had to be a computer. Everyone has a computer these days. He could get in touch with someone on the Internet and they could help him. The only thing was that there was no sign of a computer either. Aha, Fintan thought, clearly on a roll, if the man has a laptop he may have hidden it to prevent it from being stolen. Now where would you hide a laptop?

After a further ten minutes of searching, he thought he’d found it at the back of the kitchen dresser, hidden behind the cereal boxes. But he was wrong. It wasn’t a laptop. It was a long, thin wooden box with gold trim on the edges. It was held closed by a small brass clasp. No padlock though. Wickerly unhooked the clasp with his thumbnail and opened the box. His mouth dropped open when he saw what it contained. I’ve got to get out of here now, his mind screamed, as his legs buckled under him. He grabbed the dresser and steadied himself. This was bad. This was really bad. He was in so much trouble his mind was unable to take it all in.

‘I see Goldilocks hasn’t aged well.’

Fintan’s eyes widened in surprise when he heard the velvet voice of the man who was standing behind him. If he hadn’t opened them to their maximum potential at that particular moment, he’d have opened them even wider when he turned and saw the two dogs flanking the man. Rhodesian Ridgebacks. Like every good postman, Fintan Wickerly knew his dogs. This breed was big and strong, with a distinctive stripe on its back. Ridgebacks had often been used in South Africa to hunt lions. Fintan Wickerly may have been many things, but a lion wasn’t one of them. And he knew just by looking at them that, unlike the dogs back home, these two weren’t afraid of him.

He gulped. ‘I … I …’

The dogs bared their teeth and growled. Low and menacing. Fintan’s shoulders tightened and he felt knots of tension popping up at the base of his skull. He dearly wished he’d stayed in the car.

‘Easy, Keyser. Stand down, Moriarty,’ the man whispered.

The dogs stopped growling immediately and sat back on their haunches. Wickerly said a silent prayer of thanks.

The man standing before him was tall and pale, his smooth skin almost white enough to be transparent. He was also good-looking, but in that too perfect way that gives you the creeps rather than drawing looks of admiration. There was something too symmetrical about his face. No flaw to draw the eye and make him seem human.

‘You broke into my home,’ the man said.

His voice was still calm, Wickerly noted. Too calm. Most people coming home and finding a man going through their stuff would either be terrified or furious. This man wasn’t either. A shiver decided to take a jog along Fintan’s spine.

‘Ahm, it’s like this – my car broke down and I lost my phone and it was raining and I was looking for somewhere to shelter. I didn’t know the place was occupied.’

‘I would have thought the fire in the hearth was a clear sign that someone was staying here,’ the man said, his tone only slightly south of freezing.

‘Yes, I, ah, what I meant to say was that I would …’ Fintan realised the sentence had nowhere to go. ‘I don’t want any trouble,’ he added.

‘I don’t care what you want,’ the man said, brushing a stray lock of hair from his forehead. He moved towards the wooden box. ‘What did you see?’

His body language was unreadable. Fintan wondered how he should play this. Apologise? Act tough? It would all depend on whether the man was angry, amused, bemused or concerned.

‘Me? I saw nothing.’

The man’s eyes suddenly burned with fury. Right, Fintan thought, it’s anger then.

‘Tell me.’

‘Or what?’ Fintan asked aggressively. When all else fails, try bluster.

‘They won’t find your body, you know. A single, middle-aged man. From the south of Ireland judging by your accent. A farmer? No, the hands are too soft. But you do work outdoors, you have a ruddy complexion. A postman, perhaps? Three thousand miles from home. On holiday by himself. That means no family or friends. Nobody who’d care that much anyway. You’re someone who can be disposed of very easily.’

Fintan knew he’d stepped into the wrong house at the wrong time. That was very clear now. It was just a pity it hadn’t become clear before the arrival of the terrifying man and the dogs with the crazy eyes. He decided that it would be best for him to do exactly what the man said. That way there might be a chance of surviving the night. A slim chance, but that was better than no chance at all. A million times better.

One of the dogs leaned forward and nuzzled his leg with its wet snout. He could feel its hot breath on the back of his knee. So this is what genuine terror feels like, he thought.

‘I saw a name. And … the thing. The … erm … objects.’

‘What name did you see?’ the man asked.

‘An Irish name. I … it seemed unusual. Here of all places.’

‘Don’t make me ask this question a third time. What was the name?’

‘Colm,’ said Fintan Wickerly.

‘Who sent you here?’ the man asked.

‘No one. I wasn’t lying. My car broke down.’

‘Then you’re just very, very unlucky,’ said the man they called The Ghost.

Two

The library was quieter than usual for a Saturday morning, but Colm didn’t mind. It suited him. He nodded hello to Mrs Dillon, the friendly librarian, then followed up with a ‘hi’ to Edan, the local genealogy expert, who was sitting in his usual spot surrounded by a pile of books and sheaves of papers. He passed by the old people who were poring over the daily newspapers, occasionally raising their heads to comment on the state of the world, and took his place at one of the computers, quickly getting to work.

Two hours later he leaned back and yawned, rubbing his tired eyes. The monitor was a blur. He hadn’t uncovered any new information on The Ghost or the Lazarus Keys, so he’d moved on to researching the working methods of the great detectives: Holmes, Marple, Rockford. He hoped that they might give him some idea of how to proceed with his investigation. He was aware that his interest in the master criminal and the supernatural keys was turning into an obsession, if it wasn’t one already, but he didn’t know how to stop it. All his other interests had fallen away and he’d grown distant with the few friends he had. He wanted to explain his situation to them, but he couldn’t. Having people think he was weird was one thing, allowing them to believe he was mad was another. Thinking about the situation put him in a foul humour, just as it always did.

He was only supposed to have been on the Net for thirty minutes, but when there wasn’t anyone waiting a turn Mrs Dillon allowed him to stay on the computer well past the allotted time.

‘How are you, Colm?’ she asked, leaning over his shoulder. Her hair smelled of peaches and cream.

‘Good thanks, Mrs D,’ he replied, too polite to mention his bad mood. ‘Can I get a print-out of these pages?’ he asked waving his hand in the general direction of the computer.

‘Of course. How’s the book going?’