Free Ghost Music by Graham Masterton Page B

there was an old-fashioned wooden bed with a high headboard and a multicolored patchwork quilt. Beside it was a wooden chest with heaps of dolls sitting on top of it, most of them homemade rag dolls with mad grinning faces. A single candle was flickering in a glass bowl, almost down to the end of its wick.
    A royal blue dressing gown had been thrown across the end of the bed, but there was no sign of its owner, nor anybody else. No crying girl. In fact, no girl at all.
    I ducked down sideways and looked under the bed. Nobody. Then I went across to the painted wooden clothes closet. I hesitated for a moment or two, and then opened it. Nobody in there either.
    If there
had
been a crying girl in here, she must have climbed out of the window. I went to look out. The window was bolted top and bottom, from the inside, and the window ledge outside was only a couple of inches wide, and covered in rotten lead. Apart from that, it was a sheer drop down to a very narrow alleyway, with nothing at all that anybody could have clung onto. Thirty feet below I could see people jostling their way up and down the alleyway with woolly hats on, and scarves wound round their necks. It was dark out there, and growing colder all the time.
    I blew out the candle before I left the bedroom. Then I went back to the living room. I might as well watch some TV before Kate showed up. Maybe I could catch up with some Swedish news, and even practice a few words of the language. I had bought a Swedish phrasebook at Newark airport, and tried to familiarize myself with “good morning” and “good evening” and “where can I get beaten with birch twigs?” but I had discovered from my first few minutes on Swedish soil that the Swedes don’t pronounce their language anything like they spell it. I had said
“talar du engelska?”
to the female customs officer at Arlanda and she had said, coldly, “Sorry, sir, I do not speak Greek.”
    I went back to the kitchen to see if I could find myself a beer. I was sure that the Westerlunds wouldn’t begrudge me one bottle of Pripps. There was a huge old-fashioned Electrolux fridge in the corner of the kitchen, but when I opened it, I found that it was completely empty. Not even a bottle of mineral water.
    I checked my watch. Maybe I should venture out and find myself a bar. But then Kate should be here at any moment, and I didn’t really relish the idea of drinking in an unfamiliar city on my own, like some lonely salesman.
    It seemed strange, though, that the Westerlunds should have nothing in their refrigerator at all. Even if you eat in restaurants every single night of the week, you always have
something
in the refrigerator, even if it’s nothing more than a few shriveled tomatoes and a triangle of moldy Kraft cheese.
    I settled for a mug of water, from the kitchen faucet. It was very cold and very clear, and made my teeth ache. Then I went back into the living room.
    As soon as I walked through the door, I stopped dead. Two young girls were sitting at the walnut table, playing chess together.

Twelve
    Both girls were blonde, although one of them had slightly darker hair than the other. One was about eleven years old, I would have guessed, and the other was maybe nine. The older one wore jeans and a scarlet cable-knit sweater. The younger one was wearing a dark blue woolen dress, and dark blue knitted leggings.
    â€œHi, there,” I said. They didn’t seem to hear me, so I walked across to them, and stood beside the table.
    â€œHi, there. My name’s Gideon. I’ve come to stay for a few days.”
    Still they didn’t seem to hear me. They didn’t even look up, so I began to think that maybe they couldn’t see me either.
    Eventually, I said, “Which one of you is Felicia?”
    At last the younger one lifted her face and stared at me. She was very white, almost anemic, and her hair was cut in the straightest of pageboys. Her eyes were