She led the way to the door.

Johnny offered up a silent prayer.

Someone, somewhere, heard it.

She pushed when she should have pulled. The rattling was the only noise, and it grew frantic as she began to lose her temper. Finally, one of the men from United Amalagamated Consolidated Holdings yanked the bar and the door jolted open.

Johnny risked looking behind him. He couldn’t see anyone who looked dead.

A week ago that would have sounded really odd.

It didn’t sound much better now.

‘I thought I felt a draught,’ he said. ‘Just now?’

‘They’ve left the windows open at the back,’ said Yo-less.

They’re not here, Johnny thought. I’m going to have to do this by myself. Oh, well . . .

‘Are we going to get into trouble?’ said Wobbler. ‘This was supposed to be a public meeting.’

‘Well, we’re public, aren’t we?’ said Johnny.

‘Are we?’

‘Why not?’

Everyone sat for a while looking at the empty platform. Then Mr Atterbury got up and limped up the steps.

‘Shall we have a meeting?’ he said.

Cold air swirled out of the cinema.

‘Well, THAT was an education.’

‘Some of those tricks must have been done with mirrors, if you want MY opinion.’

‘What shall we do now?’

‘We should be getting back.’

‘Back where?’

‘Back to the cemetery, of course.’

‘Madam, the night is young!’

‘That’s right! We’ve only just started enjoying ourselves.’

‘Yes! Anyway, you’re a long time dead, that’s what I always say.’

‘I want to get out there and enjoy life. I never enjoyed it much when I WAS alive.’

‘Thomas Bowler! That’s no way for a respectable man to behave!’

The crowd queuing outside the burger bar drew closer together as the chilly wind drove past.

‘Thomas Bowler? Do you know . . . I never really enjoyed being Thomas Bowler.’

The audience in the Frank W. Arnold Civic Centre looked a bit sheepish, like a class after the teacher has stormed out. Democracy only works very well if people are told how to do it.

Someone raised a hand.

‘Can we actually stop it happening?’ she said. ‘It all sounded very . . . official.’

‘Officially, I don’t think we can,’ said Mr Atterbury. ‘There was a proper sale. United Amalagamated Consolidated Holdings could get unpleasant.’

‘There’s plenty of other sites,’ said someone else. ‘There’s the old jam works in Slate Road, and all that area where the old goods yard used to be.’

‘And we could give them their money back.’

‘We could give them double their money back,’ said Johnny.

There was more laughter at this.

‘It seems to me,’ said Mr Atterbury, ‘that a company like United Amalagamated Consolidated Holdings has to take notice of people. The boot factory never took any notice of people, I do know that. It didn’t have to. It made boots. That was all there was to it. But no one’s quite certain about what UACH does, so they have to be nice about it.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Big companies like that don’t like fuss. And they don’t like being laughed at. If there was another site . . . and if they thought we were serious . . . and if we threaten to offer them, yes, double their money back . . .