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Instead, she did the only thing she could think of: she reached over her shoulder and opened her rucksack for Larry to slip right in.

And then, as soon as he was nestled inside, sitting comfortably and slimily on top of her laptop case, she zipped the rucksack shut.

31

Breaking and Entering

Kelly headed back to the Carnival of Horrors. However, the sullen teenager at the entrance told her that Old Ned had not yet returned, and Edward had been called away on urgent business, so she decided to return to the village to see if Old Ned was wandering around down there.

Preparations for the Halloween parade were in full swing now, with dozens of local people out on the streets, some of them wearing what she would describe as pre-costumes: a ghost hat, maybe a vampire’s cape, a rucksack with a pumpkin design, all to get into the spirit of things. Down near the inn, she also found the film crew, who had cajoled some of the locals, including a grinning Ambrose, into taking part in interviews about the village. One person with a microphone stopped her and asked if she was willing to answer a few questions, only for Larry to jump up and down in her rucksack.

‘I’m sorry,’ she told her. ‘I’ll have to say no.’

She headed into the Howling Gail Inn.

At lunchtime, the inn was quiet, with no dinner service on a Friday. As she spotted Miranda and Esmeralda in the kitchens busily preparing trays of food for tomorrow’s festivities, she happened upon an idea which might set to rest some of her suspicions once and for all, and headed out into the beer garden.

Following a gravel path around the side of the ancient old building, she identified which room belonged to the Littleslades. There, not to her surprise, was a drainpipe leading from the corner of the building down to the ground. She had already established Pierce Littleslade’s prowess at climbing up and down poles, and now, as she stared up at that window, she noticed something fluttering in the breeze.

She had to borrow a chair from one of the picnic tables in order to reach it, but when she plucked it down from a hook holding the drainpipe to the wall, she found she was holding a piece of white frilly lace. Exactly the kind of white frilly lace that might once have belonged to a wedding dress.

Sure that proof the Littleslades were up to no good was within her grasp, she went back into the dining room, where the tables had been laid out for dinner. She crept up to the kitchen to listen until she heard Miranda and Esmeralda’s voices talking flippantly about a pop concert they were looking forward to attending.

Kelly pulled her rucksack off her back and unzipped it.

‘All right, Larry,’ she said. ‘If you really are the magical toad Old Ned seems to think you are, I’ve got a task for you. You go in there and scare them, then run up to my room. Is that understood?’

The toad, of course, didn’t reply, but Kelly thought he squinted a little as though attempting to wink. She popped him down on the floor, swallowing down her revulsion at touching his dry, leathery skin. She pushed the kitchen door open a crack, then nudged him through.

It didn’t take more than a few seconds for the screams to begin, followed by the crash of the other door leading into the main bar as the two serving girls fled. Kelly, seizing her opportunity, slipped into the kitchen and grabbed the master key from where she had seen Esmeralda hang it. Then, with Larry hopping off in pursuit of the two girls, she hurried upstairs.

She crouched by the Littleslades’ door for a few seconds but heard nothing, then gently turned the key in the lock.

The room was empty.

She slipped inside as the commotion continued downstairs, then quietly closed the door behind her.

Their cases were where they had been before, at the end of the bed, and the urn was sitting on the windowsill. Kelly went first to the wardrobe, pulling the door open only to find it empty. She leaned against the side wall and heard the familiar click of a secret compartment. Opening it, she found the wedding dress now hanging inside.

Without pausing to think what she was doing, she took it off the hanger, rolled it up, and pushed it into her rucksack.

Then she hurried to the urn by the window. She lifted the lid and peered inside. To her surprise, it was completely empty apart from a single mobile phone—an old one, the kind of retro phone that probably only held a few numbers and had no special features.

She took it out and dropped it into her rucksack, watching it slide down into a gap beside the rolled up wedding dress.

As she looked up, she saw the Littleslades on the path at the bottom of the beer garden, slowly making their way up towards the inn.

She put the lid back onto the urn and ducked down out of sight.

As she turned back towards the door, she noticed something on the floor beside the bed. It looked like a postcard. She crawled over and picked it up. There was an address written on one side but no message, and the other side showed a picture of Notre-Dame.

Turning it back over, she realised that it was already postmarked. And the address was to Edward Dawkins at the Carnival of Horrors.

‘Busted,’ Kelly whispered to herself.

But she had no time to take the postcard because in moments the Littleslades would return. She hurried to the door, slipped out into the corridor, and ran down to her own room where, not to her surprise, she found Larry sitting outside her door.

‘Nice work,’ she said, picking him up with a little less revulsion than before. Then she opened her rucksack and nestled him on top of the wedding dress.