‘No, no,’ Mr Vicenti shook his head. ‘It’s so hard to turn the pages.’

‘Well, we must know what is happening,’ said Mrs Liberty. ‘There’s no telling what the living are getting up to out there while our backs are turned.’

‘I’ll . . . think of something,’ said Johnny. ‘Something better than newspapers.’

‘Right,’ said William Stickers. ‘And then you get along to these Council people and tell them—’

‘Tell them we’re not going to take this lying down!’ shouted the Alderman.

‘Yes, right,’ said Johnny.

And the dead faded. Again there was the sensation of travelling, as if the dead people were going back into a different world . . .

‘Have they gone?’ said Wobbler.

‘Not that they were here,’ said Yo-less, the scientific thinker.

‘They were here, and they’ve gone,’ said Johnny.

‘It definitely felt a bit weird,’ said Bigmac. ‘Very cold.’

‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Johnny. ‘I need to think. They want me to stop this place being built on.’

‘How?’

Johnny led the way quickly towards the gates.

‘Huh! They’ve left it up to me.’

‘We’ll help,’ said Yo-less, promptly.

‘Will we?’ said Wobbler. ‘I mean, Johnny’s OK, but . . . I mean . . . it’s meddlin’ with the occult. And your mum’ll go spare.’

‘Yes, but if it’s true then it’s helping Christian souls,’ said Yo-less. ‘That’s all right. They are Christian souls, aren’t they?’

‘I think there’s a Jewish part of the cemetery,’ said Johnny.

‘That’s all right. Jewish is the same as Christian,’ said Bigmac.

‘Not exactly,’ said Yo-less, very carefully. ‘But similar.’

‘Yeah, but . . .’ said Wobbler, awkwardly. ‘I mean . . . dead people and that . . . I mean . . . he can see ’em, so it’s up to him . . . I mean . . .’

‘We all supported Bigmac when he was in juvenile court, didn’t we?’ said Yo-less.

‘You said he was going to get hung,’ said Wobbler. ‘And I spent all morning doing that “Free the Blackbury One” poster.’

‘It was a political crime,’ said Bigmac.

‘You stole the Minister of Education’s car when he was opening the school,’ said Yo-less.

‘It wasn’t stealing. I meant to give it back,’ said Bigmac.

‘You drove it into a wall. You couldn’t even give it back on a shovel.’

‘Oh, so it was my fault the brakes were faulty? I could have got badly hurt, right? I notice no one worried about that. It was basically his fault, leaving cars around with Noddy locks and bad brakes—’

‘I bet he doesn’t have to repair his own brakes.’

‘It’s society’s fault, then—’

‘Anyway,’ said Yo-less, ‘we were behind you that time, right?’

‘Wouldn’t like to be in front of him,’ said Wobbler.

‘And we were right behind Wobbler when he got into trouble for complaining to the record shop about the messages from God he heard when he played Cliff Richard records backwards—’

‘You said you heard it too,’ said Wobbler. ‘Hey, you said you heard it!’