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  “What do migration engineers and overseers do?” I asked, watching as matching colours grouped together for lunch.

  “The migration engineers engineer migration and the overseers oversee,” Pete said.

  “Great. Thanks for the insight,” I said when I realised he wasn’t going to elaborate further.

  “How was your first day?” Charlie asked with a gentle eye roll almost apologising for Pete.

  “It was …” – I thought of the guy who’d walked through me and the immense pain that followed, Fenton’s ability to evaluate exactly what haunting response was needed in each situation, Madame Zorina, Jim and the shadow that was supposedly now hanging over me – “… confusing.”

  Charlie smiled. “It’s your first day. It’ll get easier.”

  I doubted it, but I smiled politely. I didn’t want to be rude to someone I didn’t know and who hadn’t provoked me. “Do facilitators always work alone?”

  Charlie nodded. “It depends. Usually they do, though. You’ll have a trainer who’ll help you with your area then you’re on your own.”

  “An area?” I directed my question to Charlie since he was more forthcoming than Pete. “Like a geographical area that I’m responsible for?”

  Pete laughed. “You have to love those inductions. So in-depth, really let you know what to expect from your afterlife.”

  Charlie ignored Pete’s sarcasm. “Yes. The country is divided up into small chunks for us facilitators and we each deal with any assignments in those areas.”

  “The country? Are these the facilitators for the whole country?” I glanced around the canteen. There didn’t seem enough people to take care of the haunting needs of an entire country. How the hell big was my area?

  Pete spoke around his mouthful. “Where did you think they were for?”

  I shrugged. “Scarborough, I guess.”

  Pete laughed. “Scarborough’s just not that big.”

  “I guess not. Where are we right now?” For the first time I noticed there were no windows in the canteen. Come to think of it, I’d not seen any in the building at all.

  “This is why the newbies go off the rails.” Pete sighed and pointed to me but spoke to Charlie. “They have no information.”

  “Her not knowing where we are right now is not enough to make her go off the rails,” said Charlie.

  “No, but it’s enough to make her wonder what else she doesn’t know.” Pete savaged a bread roll and shook his head when Charlie went to say something else. This was clearly an old argument.

  “Do you know who had my area before me?” Both men paused and I pretended not to notice. I desperately needed more info on Jim if I were heading for the same shadowy fate. “I just thought maybe I could chat to them, see if they have any advice about the area.” Ask who bludgeoned them to death.

  “Jim, the guy who had your area before you, died recently. That was who you found in your locker,” Charlie said gently.

  “Oh.” I did my best surprised face, though it was only half faked. I hadn’t known people would’ve been able to identify me on sight as the girl who found the dead dead body in her locker. “Well, that’s an odd coincidence.”

  “Isn’t it?” Pete stared at me, face devoid of emotion.

  Charlie shot Pete a warning glance before turning back to me. “I have to run but just stick a message in the chute if you have questions, okay?”

  “The chute? What, like an internal postal system?”

  “Yep.” Charlie pointed to the narrow tubes circling the perimeter of the canteen ceiling. “There are message cards and chute directory at reception. Address it to Charlie 2828 and it’ll get to me. Usually before the end of the day. Stay out of trouble now.” He winked before heading across the canteen to dispose of his tray.

  Why did everyone keep saying that to me? “So what do you know about this Jim?” I loaded up my fork while asking in the hope my question seemed more like casual interest than a desperation to know.

  “I know Jim’s area is highly sought after. So you finding the body then getting his area? Don’t be surprised if you struggle making friends. And watch your back. You guys don’t last long.”

  “What do you mean ‘don’t last long’?” I asked, since he seemed so forthcoming with the doom and gloom. “They’re reassigned? Retire?” A shadow does away with them?

  “They die.”

  Yep, this day was just getting better and better. “Of old age?”

  Pete snorted gently. “Come on, Bridget, you don’t strike me as the naïve type. That area has had four changes of facilitator in the past three years. You’re the fifth.”

  “Accidents happen,” I offered.

  Pete sighed and laid down his fork. “People don’t accidentally cave their own skulls in.”

  “Maybe Jim had enemies. Surely there were people he didn’t get on with? People he argued with?”

  Pete raised his eyes from his plate and gave me a measuring look. “Everyone loved Jim.”

  “Clearly not everyone,” I pointed out.

  Pete nodded. “That’s fair. I wonder if the police have any suspects.”

  “I wonder,” I echoed, holding his gaze.

  “Like maybe his ward.” Pete stared right back at me.

  “What’s a ward?” A suspect? Woop! Sabrina was going to be so proud.

  “It’s their livie. The alive person they watch over. You know how the guardianship works?” Pete asked.

  “The guardian angel watches over their person and then when they die they take care of them over here?” I said, grateful Oz had at least explained that to me.

  “There’re a few more rules to it.” Pete rolled his eyes and gave a dismissive wave of his hand, which told me when he said “a few” he really meant “a lot”. “But basically, yes.”

  “Okay, but how could an alive person murder a dead person?” I was looking for a simple answer since I was more into Metafit than metaphysics.

  “Sometimes people don’t take too well to dying.”

  “I hear that.” I nodded. Being recently deceased myself, I found that incredibly understandable.

  “How’s your relationship with your guardian, Bridget?” Pete was watching me carefully.

  I shrugged. “It’s fine. He’s bossy but I’ll soon knock that out of him.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” Pete said with a huge dollop of subtext that I couldn’t quite translate.

  He stared pointedly at me while chewing, and a horrible thought occurred to me. Hadn’t Oz said I’d been reassigned to him? And Jim had died roughly about the time I’d arrived? And there’d been a hiccup with my paperwork. Had Jim been my guardian? That would explain why Johnson was so disinclined to believe I’d never met him. Wow, he really did think I’d killed him.

  Well, damn.

  Chapter Five

  “See. I told you,” Sabrina hissed.

  We were sitting at the back of the block of chairs in the main hall of the fort and catching the warm breeze from the open doors while the other members of the GA group mingled, complaining about the heat. I’d filled Sabrina in on the whole Madame Zorina escapade and ultimately my lack of knowledge on Jim while we waited for the rest of our group to show up.

  “No, you said we should investigate so I wouldn’t be arrested for murder.” I adjusted my chair to face the door so I could catch more of the breeze. “Not so I wouldn’t be murdered.”

  “Well, neither’s a desirable outcome.” Sabrina widened her jumpsuit collar and fanned herself with her hand. “Did this Madame Zorina give you any useful info about whose shadow it was? When or how it would make its move? Anything we could use to find your killer?”

  “I’m not dead yet!” I exclaimed, a little too loudly. Several group members turned to stare at me. I held up a finger in warning to Sabrina. “Not a word.”

  Sabrina raised her hands in surrender but smiled. “Wasn’t going to say a thing.”

  After a frustratingly long afternoon of watching Fenton haunt
people in a variety of odd ways, he’d tunnelled me to the fort and left without so much as a fare thee well. He’d not let me attempt anymore haunting assignments either, which made me wonder why he’d let me loose on Madame Zorina in the first place. He kept asking me to assess each situation and summarise the correct response. I’d guessed two out of what felt like a million and, despite what I’d told him, those had been blind luck.

  “There was one thing about Jim.” I’d hesitated in telling Sabrina because I wasn’t absolutely sure it was true.

  Sabrina’s eyes zoomed in on me despite my attempt at a conversational tone. “Oh?”

  I dusted some imaginary dirt from the thighs of my jumpsuit. “He may or may not have been my original guardian angel.”

  Sabrina’s eyebrows shot all the way up to her hairline. “How did you find that out?”

  “I kind of pieced it together, and it’s based on assumptions, so it might not be true. But I’m just not that lucky lately.”

  “Well, at least now we know why the detective likes you for Jim’s murder. I found something interesting too.” Sabrina lowered her voice but smiled widely as if we were chatting about anything but a murder investigation. “I couldn’t find out anything about Jim. Nothing at all.”

  I frowned at her. “You couldn’t find out anything about him?”

  She shook her head with a smug smile and fanned herself with her hand again. “Nope.”

  “Okay.” I turned away from the door. The breeze curled around my neck and ruffled the end of my ponytail. “I don’t know how it worked when you were alive but when you find nothing, you can’t call that ‘something interesting’ because it’s nothing.”

  “You’re missing the point.” Sabrina inclined her head at an older lady who walked past us from the refreshment table. “Lovely evening.”

  The lady’s face twitched as if she was about to cry and I felt Sabrina tense beside me. The lady managed to hold onto her smile and silently kept walking.

  “I really don’t understand what all these people are so upset about.” Sabrina gestured around the hall. The majority of the group had arrived, but of those twenty or so people only about ten per cent were wearing a smile, and I was pretty sure they were forced. “They’re only dead. It’s not the end of the world. This type of mindset is exactly why I don’t get involved with groups.”

  “Sooooo.” I called her attention back to me. “Do you want to explain the point to me?”

  “Oh, yes.” Sabrina’s eyes twinkled and she leaned closer to me to whisper. “I think I couldn’t find anything out about him because he was undercover.”

  I gave a slow nod. Undercover. Right. “Or, maybe, you were just looking in the wrong place. You are new to the job.”

  Sabrina’s mouth flattened into a straight line. “I might be new to the job but I’m not inept.” She got up and walked to the refreshment table and I followed. “I know how to sneak and gather information and I’m telling you, there is no information to gather on your doubly dead Jim.” She downed a small cup of orange cordial as if it were whisky and grabbed two more, offering me one.

  I took it because she looked like she might throw it over me if I didn’t. Guess I’d hurt her feelings. “To be clear, he’s not my Jim, and how do you go from ‘no information’ to ‘undercover’?”

  “Have you never seen any crime shows?” Sabrina’s brow wrinkled and she squinted at me. “No info means undercover.”

  “You’re basing your theory on fictional programmes written with artistic license and dramatic flair?” I grabbed a handful of custard creams and walked back to our seats. I settled back in the hard plastic chair in the path of the breeze.

  She nodded and sat back down next to me. “Pretty much.”

  “Right.” I sipped my juice. And this was the woman I was counting on to help me beat a murder rap. Great.

  Sabrina turned the custard cream over in her hand, tossed it in the air and then caught it. “It makes sense.”

  “In what world does it make sense?”

  “You said you were the fifth facilitator for your area in three years. And that the previous four died in suspicious circumstances—”

  “No.” I held up my hand to halt her. “Pete said that. And call a spade a spade. They died in homicidal circumstances.”

  “Okay. I just didn’t want to make you unnecessarily anxious.”

  “I’m about to be murdered by a shadow.” I glanced over my shoulder, nearly spilling my juice in the abrupt motion. “I feel my anxiety is justified.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not going to be murdered.”

  “Interesting you decided that was the ridiculous part,” I said.

  “Be quiet, you’re pulling me off topic. My point was that maybe Jim’s murderer and your ‘shadow’ are one in the same. We find out who killed Jim, we solve that murder and we save you.”

  “I have to be honest.” I stared at Sabrina’s content expression. “I don’t like how happy you seem about all this.”

  Sabrina shrugged. “You’ve already died once this week. What are the odds it’ll happen twice in the same week?”

  “Probably about the same as getting hit by a bus. And look how that turned out.” I arched an eyebrow at her and she sighed. I held my hands up in surrender. “Fine. What do I need to do?”

  “Same thing as today. Find out as much as you can about Jim. I’ll try and find out what I can about your predecessors and whether Jim actually was your guardian and we’ll go from there.”

  Eleanor tapped the side of the podium sharply. “Good evening, all. Now we have a lot to get through tonight. I know last night was very stressful and confusing for you all, but this evening it’s going to be plain sailing all the way.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Sabrina mumbled. “She’s just jinxed us.”

  “First things first.” Eleanor tapped her notecards on the podium as if to neaten the already neat pack.

  “Eleanor?” The housewife who’d been sobbing yesterday raised her hand timidly. “I’m sorry to interrupt but I have a question about last night.”

  “I don’t think it will be helpful for us to discuss it further.” Eleanor closed the topic politely but firmly.

  “I have some questions, though.” The housewife persisted. “I thought the purpose of these acclimatisation meetings was to answer our questions and help us become accustomed to our new roles.”

  “She’s got a point.” Sabrina chimed in and the housewife rewarded her with a grateful glance.

  “What specifically counts as haunting?” the housewife asked before Eleanor could refuse again.

  “Ooooh. I know this one.” A teenager dressed in black leathers, wearing heavy black eyeliner and with an assortment of metal piercings marring his face spoke up. “Sneaking up behind someone and shouting ‘Boo!’”

  “Really?” Even I knew the definition wasn’t going to be that simple.

  “Totally.” He nodded with utter confidence. “Right, Ellie?”

  “Eleanor,” she corrected. “And not exactly, Warren, but any interaction with the living, yes, that’s classed as haunting. Now—”

  “Well that’s interesting,” I said. “Because I yodelled down an alive person’s ear today and the GBs didn’t come for me.”

  Sabrina stared at me. “Why did you yodel down someone’s ear?”

  “It was a work experiment.” I shrugged and turned back to Eleanor. “Do they have to know they’re being haunted?”

  Eleanor paused as if trying to decide what answer would end the conversation soonest. “Yes.”

  “Well, my job is to haunt people and make them believe they’re being haunted by someone else, so—”

  The goth boy spun around in his chair. “What the hell is your job?”

  I gestured to my career coloured jumpsuit. “I’m a facilitator.”

  “Stop! Stop! Stop!” Eleanor punctuated each word with a sharp slap on the podium. “We must not talk about our vocations.”

  Everyone
turned to stare at her.

  Sabrina narrowed her eyes at Eleanor. I could almost see the gears in her head working to spell out the word “conspiracy”.

  “Why not?” Sabrina asked.

  Eleanor paused. “It’s confidential.”

  “My job title is confidential?” Sabrina scoffed.

  Eleanor nodded firmly. “Yes.”

  “Really?” I gestured to my mauve jumpsuit. “How is it even possible to keep our jobs confidential when our clothing tells you what we do?”

  “It’s more that your responsibilities and duties performed are confidential,” Eleanor addressed the whole room. “But you should try not to reveal your careers to anyone.”

  “Why?” The housewife looked down at her own green jumpsuit and then around the room.

  “Because what if someone wanted you to alter documents?” Eleanor gestured to the majority of the group in the green jumpsuits of the trainee coordinators. “Or, I don’t know, pass a message to the living. They could blackmail you into doing something illegal.”

  If Sabrina had been a dog, her ears would’ve pricked up. “Does that happen a lot?”

  “So, please, don’t tell anyone. Think of it as a precautionary measure,” Eleanor said ignoring Sabrina’s question.

  “Since everyone here already knows what I do now, can you explain how the GBs differentiate between me doing my job and someone else randomly haunting?”

  “I don’t know.” Eleanor tried to pat down the ensuing questions. “But please can everyone remember all haunting is illegal. If asked to do it, even as part of your job, you should question it. Now, onto tonight’s schedule.”

  Sabrina leaned towards me. “Well, that certainly warrants more investigation. Perhaps documents were being altered and Jim cottoned onto it somehow.”

  “Wasn’t he undercover a moment ago? And surely he’d have been with you guys if that was the case.”

  “Maybe.” She shrugged. “Gives us more avenues to investigate, though. And I think you’ve made a new friend.”

  “The frowny guy in the brown suit?” I asked without looking. I’d noticed him staring at me since I’d walked in, though I thought it’d been down to the horrendous jumpsuit.