Ghost of a Smile Read Free

more alive than some people. Did I pass? Please tell me I didn’t, and I can go home.”
    â€œGold stars for everyone!” said JC. “And honey for tea. It’s quiet here because all the natural things are afraid of the factory.”
    â€œIf they’ve got the good sense to stay out of there, maybe we should, too,” said Happy. “No? I’m sure I used to have survival instincts, before I joined this team. Can’t we start a nice accidental fire and burn the whole building down?”
    JC ignored Happy, launched himself at the police tapes, and broke through them with a series of ostentatious karate chops. He strode into the factory, and the others followed him. The temperature plummeted the moment they stepped out of the sunlight and into the gloom. JC shuddered briefly. Walking into the factory felt like diving into a cool dark sea. The only light fell in through the high windows, illuminating the long, dark interior with a series of bright shafts of sunlight, stabbing down from on high. JC and Happy and Melody moved slowly forward, trying to look everywhere at once, their footsteps echoing strangely hollow on the concrete floor. The trolley’s wheels creaked loudly. The huge interior of the factory seemed to swallow up the sounds immediately, making them seem small and insignificant.
    The long interior stretched away before them, a massive open space, like a museum wing with no exhibits. Everything of value, everything that mattered, had been removed long ago, and the factory was an empty shell. JC looked interestedly about him. Despite the heavy gloom, he still hadn’t taken off his sunglasses. Melody stopped abruptly, slamming to a halt, and Happy jumped despite himself. He glared about him while JC looked at Melody and raised a single elegant eyebrow.
    â€œThis is where the body was found,” said Melody.
    They all looked down. There was a dark stain on the rough grey floor that might have been human-shaped if seriously horrid things had been done to a human body. Melody set about assembling her own specially designed workstation, supporting various usual items of scientific equipment. Some of it so up-to-date that so far no-one had even realised she’d stolen it from the Institute’s research laboratories. JC and Happy didn’t have a clue what half of it was, or what it was for, but they trusted Melody’s high tech to come up with answers to questions they wouldn’t even have considered. Melody ran through the details of the murder as she worked, confident that, as usual, she’d been the only one to pay proper attention during the original briefing.
    JC always said details got in the way of seeing the Big Picture, and Happy’s attention tended to wander a lot.
    â€œThe victim,” said Melody, “was one Albert Winter, main shareholder of the very successful and influential Winter Group of companies. Interestingly, no-one seems to know what he was doing here; though given that this factory was once a part of Winter Industries, we could probably take that as a clue. If you like that sort of thing. Anyway, the rest of the Winter Group’s board were not at all happy with the results of the original police investigation. Mainly because there weren’t any. They couldn’t explain why Albert Winter had come here, or how he died, or what killed him. Except that it must have been a really nasty death. The state of the body was so bad, even hardened policemen had to run outside to puke up things they hadn’t even eaten yet. Anyway, the Winter Group made its displeasure known and put the pressure on, which eventually filtered down to us. The Carnacki Institute does so love a mystery. Particularly when there’s a chance to get in the good books of a rich and powerful company. I did mention this is a Budget Review Year, didn’t I?”
    â€œYour cynicism wounds me,” murmured JC, kneeling down beside the large dark