She passed Robin and he looked around as she expertly picked her way around the shelves. He listened as her footsteps grew quieter, and when they had disappeared, he looked around at the desk. It was cluttered with weathered knickknacks—an executive toy missing a ball, a half-solved Rubik’s Cube, a book of word searches open, with the cover weighted by a stapler. He looked at the book to see Sally had not found any of the words listed but had instead highlighted her own. Past the book was the clattery old keyboard and Sally’s headphones, and past them was a tool kit and what appeared to be a stack of computer hard drives taken apart. There was nothing on the desk that was personal—nothing to tell him who Sally Morgan was. Or anyone else, for that matter.

He slid closer to the mess of monitors and looked at the nearest one—the front page of The Red Door. He read the title of the article that, from the date, seemed to have been posted the day Robin had got to Marsden. He started to read:

Ghosts of Marsden Unite to Question Standedge Incident

by The Red Door 23/10/2018 13.45

On 26th June 2018, five students, well loved among the Marsden community, disappeared inside Standedge Canal Tunnel, leaving their friend and local tour guide Matthew McConnell unconscious on the deck of their canal boat, along with their Bedlington terrier.

Consensus among police and the community is that McConnell viciously attacked his peers inside the tunnel and used the disused tunnel connected to the canal tunnel to dispose of the bodies and reenter the boat, resuming the journey before the boat reemerged at the other end of the tunnel.

This writer has noticed the public opinion of McConnell turn incredibly sour as of late, with the latest news being his court hearing set for sometime in December. McConnell’s guilt largely rests on the fact that the crime cannot be explained any other way, and although there are factors going against the ‘McConnell Theory’ (such as the CCTV evidence at both sides of the disused tunnel, that The Red Door covered in last week’s QUICKFIRE NEWS), police seem confident that they have the right party in custody.

However, there have been reports of a splinter group emerging who believe in McConnell’s innocence. They call themselves the Ghosts of Marsden, and seem to believe that the chosen students were spirited away by some rather more otherworldly means. The Red Door uncovered the secret location of the Ghosts of Marsden’s meetings—the Community Centre in Diggle on Tuesday nights (they implore you to bring baked goods)—and went to talk to them.