Dan and the Dead by Thomas Taylor Page A

‘Well,
can
you?’
    â€˜Woah, calm down,’ I reply, trying to sound likeit’s all under control. ‘Just take a deep breath and tell me your name. I’m here to help.’
    â€˜A deep breath? I’m dead, you moron!
Dead
!’ And then she’s off again, wailing and rolling her eyes. I’m guessing it hasn’t been very long.
    â€˜What music do you like?’ I have to ask a few times to get her attention. ‘I’m online right now. You can have anything you want. Be my guest.’
    As I thought, that hits home. The dead can’t do much for themselves, so my DJ act usually gets ’em misty-eyed and nostalgic. And quiet.
    â€˜Got any Justin Bieber?’
    I try not to pull a face – this is business, after all – and tap in the name. Bieber’s pretty-boy mug appears on the screen and I click play. The girl stops swooping around and tips her head to one side. The music (if you can call it that) picks up and I can see the girl’s remembering. Boy, am I glad ghosts can’t cry.
    â€˜Daniel, this is Emeline Parker,’ says Simon. ‘She’s only been with us a little while, but I think she’s a priority case. It appears to be murder, but I have been unable to obtain details. I’ve never seen her this calm before.’
    â€˜Hi, Ems,’ I say, keeping up the professional tone.‘Would you like to tell me? My colleague and I can sort stuff out for people in your, er, situation.’
    â€˜I’m dead.’ Ems doesn’t need to keep saying this, but they usually do. ‘And I
so
don’t want to be.’
    â€˜I know, Ems, I can tell.’ I’m genuinely sympathetic – I wouldn’t want to be dead either. ‘How did it happen?
Was
it murder?’
    â€˜Yes.
No
! Well… if you must know, I suppose it’s all my own fault.’ She looks terrible as she says this. ‘But he killed me! No matter what it says in the papers.’
    â€˜I see,’ I say, even though I don’t. Dead or alive, girls are complicated. ‘Murder weapon?’
    â€˜Bus,’ she says, and when she catches me looking all ‘say what?’ she turns her side to me, and I see it.
    She’s definitely a bit flatter round the middle than she should be.
    But I’m not in the mood for Cluedo so I give her another ‘I see,’ just for appearances, and glance at the screen. There’s plenty of Bieber still to go (professional, Dan, be professional) so I put on my best bedside manner and say, ‘Why don’t you start at the beginning?’

3
MURDER BY PUBLIC TRANSPORT

    Ems is –
was
– like a million other girls in London. Well, okay, a bit better-looking than most, but what I mean is, she’s like your sister or your mate’s girlfriend or the popular one at school: full of life and drama and shopping. At midnight she should be with her friends having a good time, not standing in my room telling me how she died.
    But there’s this man in the middle of it all. His name’s Carl Bagport, and Carl has a nightclub anda criminal network to run, starting with organised shoplifting and going down from there.
    â€˜But why did you do it in the first place?’ I think I know the answer, but I need to hear it from her.
    â€˜Money.’ Ems looks wretched. ‘He pays a lot for… well, it’s stealing. That’s against the law, you know.’
    I know.
    Simon makes a noise like he’s clearing his throat – even though he no longer has one – and I let him speak.
    â€˜Forgive me, but I’m not sure I quite understand. You say Mr Bagport was using a photographic apparatus to make pictures of you, Emeline? Doing “shoplifting”. But to what end?’
    Simon’s not quite on the ball when it comes to the twenty-first century. I think he goes back to the eighteenth or something.
    â€˜It was just a bit of fun at first. You can pinch