Carlota was staying in the room above Carl's garage that Eduardo (and later Kylie, Conchita and Pagan) used to occupy. It was very lucky for her that the small space was between tenants; otherwise she would have had to make do with the sofa.

That Saturday night she had grown weary of waiting for Kevin to return home and
decided to let Carl and Beth deal with him when he finally arrived. They were his parents after all. As she lay in bed she considered what Conchita might like as a present. Surely it was her grandmotherly duty to buy the child something when she came to visit. Kevin was old enough to do without but Conchita... Well what did three-and-a-half-year-old girls like to play with these days?

The elderly widow found that she was still contemplating this dilemma at one o'clock, just over an hour after she had gone to bed. Only then did she realise that she was not likely to get to sleep. She had been feeling an unpleasant chill that no amount of extra blankets and bed socks had been able to alleviate. Muttering to herself she climbed out of bed and made for the kitchen unit, wondering if anything worth eating or drinking had been carelessly left behind by her son's last tenant.

Carlota found the cupboards empty and was wondering what to do next when a sudden shiver ran down her spine, and seconds later she heard a soft tapping at the door. She chose to ignore it and climbed back into bed where she managed to sleep uncomfortably for three hours. Around four o'clock she was woken by the same tapping sound on the front door, so she scrambled out of bed muttering something about Edgar Alan Poe.

In truth she would have appreciated a visitor. She had been dreaming about her late husband, and now remembered nothing of the content of the dream apart from his face; all she knew was that waking from it had left her with an unpleasant feeling. However when she opened the door nobody was there. Baffled - and slightly angry rather than frightened - she ventured out onto the cold metal staircase in her bare feet and looked around.

Carlota caught sight of her grandson making for the house. She frowned, forgetting all about her mysterious visitor. She leaned over the railing in front of her and called, "Kevin!"

Kevin jumped, and then looked up to see the silhouette of his grandmother looming oppressively over him nine feet in the air.

"Um... hi Yaya!" he called, attempting to pacify her with a smile she could not see. "You're up late, aren't you?"

"I could say the same for you my boy," Carlota returned hotly.

"Yeah... uh... sorry about that," Kevin answered weakly. "We lost track of time."

Carlota rolled her eyes and said with affectionate reproach, "Oh Kevin. I was young once, you know. You needn't think I've forgotten what it was like. But in my day we used to respect our parents' wishes. If my father gave me a curfew, my escort would get me home no matter what! I am sure your Kelly's father will not be pleased with you, Kevin."

Kevin was about to say that he thought so too, but at that moment somebody threw
open a window across the street and yelled, "Hey, you wanna keep it down? Some of us are trying to sleep!"

"Sorry!" Kevin called, not meaning it. Then he looked up at Carlota's silhouette and said, " 'Night, Yaya."

"Goodnight Kevin," Carlota returned fondly as her grandson moved out of sight.
Then she backed into her room and again found herself engulfed by a coldness that she had not felt out in the cool summer night.

* * *

Beth fancied that she had been hearing strange noises all night. As Kevin made his way up the stairs at ten past four she woke with a start, shook her husband's sleeping form and hissed urgently, "Carl!"

"Mmm?" Carl returned sleepily.

"Do you hear that?"

"Beth please," Carl objected, pointedly turning over to face the wall. "It's probably just Kevin getting back."

"But you said that the last time!" Beth objected in a high-pitched squeak. "And the time before that. They can't all have been Kevin getting back. And besides," she added, "it's much too late for him. He would have come home hours ago."

She received only an inaudible mumble by way of a reply and she took it to mean,
"What do you think it is?"

"I think we've got a ghost," Beth muttered.

"Don't be stupid," returned Carl. "Go back to sleep - and please don't wake me up again unless it's a genuine emergency."

Beth turned over huffily and closed her eyes, though she was quite unable to sleep. She was feeling the same chill in the atmosphere that Carlota had noticed; and out on the landing, Kevin had felt it too.

He crept his way into the bathroom in an effort not to wake his parents, stripped off and filled the basin with water. The terrifying event in the cemetery was still foremost in his mind, his feelings for Kelly coming in at a close second. In the movies, Kevin had noticed, people always splashed water over their faces and then stared in the mirror at the own drained complexions if they were feeling the way he did. He tried this tactic now.

It didn't make him feel any different.

* * *

Anyone with an objective view of the entire situation could see that the Rivera family had fallen victim to some kind of haunting. It so happened that Kylie was the first to find herself waking up to a feeling of uneasiness - long before anything happened to Beth, Carlota or Kevin - and a fierce urge to check on her children. Before she got out of bed she squinted at the digital radio alarm clock on her right. It was still only eleven-thirty. Eduardo would not be back for at least half an hour. She was tempted to credit the disharmony she felt to his absence, but she had spent several nights without him before and knew that she should not be feeling this way now.

Rose was shifting uncomfortably in her sleep when her mother checked on her, and her fat little face was screwed up as though in pain or discomfort. Kylie turned on a light to be able to see clearly. She hesitated, wondering what to do. The baby would not appreciate being woken, and she may not even be as uncomfortable as she looked. Would it be wiser just to leave her be?

At this point Kylie became aware of scratching noises at the kitchen door. It was easy to work out what was causing them: Pagan. Very agitated by this time, Kylie made her way towards the kitchen and opened the door. The black-and-white cat slunk out of the room and surveyed his surroundings, snarling softly. His eyes were wide, his ears and tail held firmly down. He skulked cautiously over to Rose's cot, stopped suddenly and then turned to look at Conchita's bedroom door.

Instantly Kylie panicked and made for the room where her older daughter was sleeping. When she opened the door she gasped and her hand flew to her mouth in horror; a pale mist was barely visible above the child's sleeping form. At lightning speed Kylie ran to Conchita's bedside and shook the child roughly.

"Chita," she hissed urgently. "Wake up!"

Conchita stirred and mumbled a quiet protest. Kylie looked into the sitting room at Rose's cot and then turned to lift Conchita into her arms. The child wriggled and moaned her objections as she was carried through to the sitting room. She found herself bundled onto the floor where her mother squatted before her, shook her gently by the shoulders and said coaxingly, "Come on honey, wake up."

Kylie was wearing only an old shirt that may have belonged to Eduardo at one time. When new it had obviously been white, but the years had turned it grey and several buttons were now missing. Composed enough to realise her state of un,dress, Kylie grabbed an overcoat and hurriedly slipped it on over the shirt. Then she climbed into her boots that stood by the front door.

"Are you awake yet, Chita?" she asked, disappearing into Conchita's bedroom and re-emerging with a pale blue knitted sweater and a pair of small white trainers.

"Um... yeah," Conchita replied sleepily. "What... why...?"

She was cut off as her flustered parent bundled the sweater over her head; then her feet were forced into the shoes and she was pulled into a standing position.

Kylie was just about ready to go when it occurred to her that Eduardo might wonder what had become of them all. With impressive speed she found a post-it and a ball-point pen and scribbled out an explanation:

"Being haunted -> f/house"

Rose was still fast asleep when her mother picked her up and slipped her inside her overcoat to keep her warm while she was carried outside. Kylie then grabbed some cash from her purse and shepherded Conchita out onto the landing, down the stairs and onto the street outside. They hadn't long to wait for a cab. Surely, Kylie reasoned, the cabbie would stop for a woman with a baby in her overcoat and a toddler clinging onto her hand - especially as they were standing out on the street in the middle of the night.

The cabbie did stop for them and Kylie was flooded with relief. For her the yellow taxi was a beacon of salvation. She bundled Conchita onto the back seat and then climbed in herself, barking instructions at the bewildered driver.

* * *

Egon was faintly surprised to find Kylie in the Firehouse the next morning. She was fast asleep, curled up in one of the armchairs and covered with a black leather overcoat. She had selflessly let both of her children use the sofa. Conchita was sleeping at one end with a tablecloth over her (clearly a piece of improvisation on Kylie's part from a scrounging expedition through the building); Rose was wedged between several cushions and slept underneath a knitted pale blue sweater.

Moments after Egon had found them like this he heard a door click open and then
Eduardo wandered into the room. He had a black N,ike holdall slung over his right shoulder. Egon looked at the clock on the wall, which gave the time as eight-fifteen, and then raised quizzical eyebrows at Eduardo.

"Apparently we had a ghost last night," the younger man said by way of explanation. "I wasn't there at the time so I don't know what happened."

"Oh." Egon was unfazed.

At that moment Conchita started to stir. Eduardo dumped his holdall and went over to the sofa, where he squatted before his waking daughter. It took her about half a minute to summon the energy to open her eyes. She finally managed it, looked around her, blinked several times and then pulled a face.

"Morning," Eduardo smiled.

Conchita screwed up her nose and demanded, "What's going on?"

"Mommy left me a note. It said you had a ghost last night."

"Really?" Conchita shrugged and said dismissively, "I didn't see it."

As Janine entered the room with the twins in tow, a gurgling sound came from the opposite end of the sofa and Rose started wriggling. Eduardo made to stand up, but he had to turn the action into an emergency nose-dive when Rose attempted to sit up on her own and toppled over the edge of the sofa.

Eduardo managed to catch the floundering baby; on the downside he had caught her
upside-down. Janine suppressed a laugh, Eduardo's panicked features telling her that the joke would probably not be appreciated.

Rose's frantic screams roused the sleeping Kylie. She blinked a few times as
Conchita had done, and then she too pulled a face when she saw Eduardo kneeling on the floor in front of the sofa, holding their younger daughter upside-down against his chest.

"What's going on there?" she demanded as Eduardo carefully turned Rose the right way up.

"She jumped off the couch," he said, hauling the baby over his shoulder and getting to his feet. Then he approached Kylie saying, "She's probably hungry."

The four members of the Spengler family tactfully withdrew as Kylie undid the first few buttons on the ancient shirt she was wearing. Eduardo looked at the article with some amusement and said, gesturing towards the Nike holdall, "I brought you all some clothes."

"Oh honey, well done!" Kylie approved. "I didn't even think of that. When did you get here?"

"A few minutes ago," replied Eduardo. "I stayed in the apartment with Pagan last night. He seemed pretty spooked."

Kylie pursed her lips, suddenly feeling guilty for leaving her beloved pet behind. Still, she hadn't had time to dig the cat carrier out of the junk cupboard, and she very much doubted that a loose cat would have been welcome in the taxi.

"Why did we come here?" demanded Conchita from her position on the sofa. She had relieved herself of the tablecloth to reveal a white nightshirt sporting a cartoon picture of a blue elephant that looked very much like it was on dr,ugs.

"There was some kind of ghost in our apartment," Kylie explained, with Rose still attached to her chest. "It seemed very interested in you, Chita. There was a white mist above your bed when I woke you." She looked up at Eduardo and asked, "Did you notice anything when you were there?"

"Just that it was pretty chilly and that Pagan was pi,ssed."

"Daddy!" Conchita exclaimed, suddenly seized by a fit of laughter.

Eduardo looked sideways at his three-year-old daughter and said apologetically, "Um... I only thought bu,mmed."

Conchita giggled again, stopped abruptly and announced that she was going to the bathroom. Eduardo went with her: "Just in case you fall in the toi,let." Unsurprisingly this produced a fresh giggling fit.

Rose stopped feeding, so Kylie threw the baby over her shoulder to burp her. This resulted in a dribble of milk down the back of the antiquated shirt, which scarcely mattered of course. Keeping hold of Rose, Kylie wandered over to Eduardo's holdall and rummaged through the contents. She was impressed: he had brought a lot more than just clothes. He had also had the foresight to pack a hairbrush; toothbrushes and paste; two of Conchita's scrunchies; Kylie's make-up and everything one could possibly desire to change a baby.

When Eduardo returned from the bathroom with Conchita on his shoulders, Kylie smacked him on the lips and said, "You're a genius. Not many men would have thought of bringing all this."

"So tell me about this ghost," was Eduardo's reply.

"Well I told you everything really. Eerie atmosphere, chilly feeling, cat a little crazy, white mist over Conchita. Rose didn't look too happy either," she added.

Eduardo suggested that they go back to their apartment later "with PKE meters and stuff." He then suggested that Kylie went to the bathroom and put some clothes on. While she was gone he pulled Rose into a romper suit and helped Conchita into the complicated sleeveless denim dress he had brought for her.

When Janine ventured back into the room she was greeted by an indignant "Ow!" from Conchita. Kylie was sitting on the sofa running a brush through the child's thick brown hair. She had put the two scrunchies Eduardo had brought on her right wrist with the intention of tying the lush hair up in bunches.

Once she had finished hairdressing she patted Conchita on the bottom and said brightly, "Ok, torture's over, you can go and play with John and Eden now."

With a smile of satisfaction, Conchita trotted happily out of the room. Eduardo was in an armchair entertaining Rose with his goatee; or rather she was entertaining herself with it. Janine asked to be allowed to hold the baby and Eduardo willingly obliged.

"Has Egon done anything about this Alexander Drake guy?" Kylie asked Janine. She was careful to use his full name, as this was how the Ghostbusters knew him.

"He shut himself in his lab and worked on it until midnight," Janine replied solemnly.

Kylie furrowed her brow. She and her kids had arrived shortly before midnight.
They had missed each other completely.

"Great. I'll go and find out what he's got." She looked at Eduardo and asked uncertainly, "Honey, do you want to...?"

Eduardo shook his head, so Kylie left him where he was with Rose and Janine.

* * *

"Well." Egon ran his eye over the document he held in his hand as though to make absolutely sure he had got it right. The sheets of A4 contained a lot of jargon involving PKE coordinates and so forth. "It seems our Death Row prisoner has a guardian angel."

Kylie raised her eyebrows, but otherwise she appeared unfazed. "You mean literally?" she asked.

"Well," Egon said again, "that depends on your definition of a guardian angel. It wasn't sent from Heaven or anything like that, but there is a ghost protecting this man."

"What, just a normal run-of-the-mill ghost?"

"It's very powerful," Egon went on. "Much more so than your ordinary house ghost. I don't know where it gets its power from, but apart from that it doesn't seem particularly special, so I'd likely be right in guessing that the power comes from some kind of connection with the spirit's old life."

"Like what?" Kelly pressed for details. "Did they have a lot of money or did a lot of people love them or something like that?"

"It may be something like that, yes," Egon mused aloud. "It's certainly not the case that every wealthy and/or popular person becomes powerful after they die; the concept warrants further research."

"And in the meantime?"

"The prison authorities are paying us good money to get rid of the ghost by tomorrow," Egon replied, "so I don't think we need to go into a lot of detail about trying to find out whose ghost this might be. That doesn't concern them. It may be possible for the ghost to protect Drake without actually being there, but let's assume that it is there. Unless there's another way to break its spell, you need to get it to take corporeal form so you can trap it."

"Sounds like the mass-maker gloves to me," observed Kylie, "although they would require a little cooperation from the ghost. Too bad we don't have something we could just throw over it. You know, like ghost powder or something. You should invent some," she added with a wan smile.

"Garrett's working this morning, isn't he?" asked Egon.

Kylie nodded. She knew for a fact that Garrett would soon be on his way to the fitness centre where he worked the odd shift to treat twisted knees and cases of tennis elbow.

"That gives me a little more thinking time," continued Egon. "Still, you can take the mass-maker gloves just in case. I'll get on the phone to um..."

"To Death Row," Kylie put in helpfully, her tone noticeably dry.

"Well... yes. I'll call and let them know you're going over there this afternoon."

"Actually Egon, I won't be going." Kylie even surprised herself with this announcement, for it was a split second decision. "I'd like to sit this one out."

"Well... all right," Egon said slowly. He was an employer very conscious of his workers' rights. "But that means Garrett and Roland will be on their own."

"I'm sure they can handle it," Kylie answered with a shrug. "Or else you could go with them."

"Me?" Egon furrowed his brow. "I've never been to Death Row before."

"Neither had I. And I am not going back."

Egon was suddenly sympathetic. "Was it really that bad?"

"It was just all so clinical," Kylie confided. "Just walking in there you wouldn't know whether they were waiting to die or waiting to get measles shots. I can't describe what Drake was like. In a way it was like he knew he was going to die soon, so he'd already done it. He was just waiting to make it official... if you see what I mean." She felt that she wasn't making much sense.

"Maybe we shouldn't have taken this case," Egon thought out loud. "It's the most controversial thing I've ever done in my life, and that's saying something."

When Janine had received the phone call alerting the Ghostbusters to the case, she hadn't considered the implications it might involve. She had been told that a prisoner who was to die shortly was the victim of some kind of haunting, and she had taken an objective and professional view of the matter and sent the team out as she would to any other case.

Now the Ghostbusters were, in a way, responsible for Sandy Drake's life. Kylie knew that she could not be in that position. In any other case it would be a delicate state of affairs, but with Drake being who he was the situation was positively explosive. Eduardo was wise to want to ignore it. Now Kylie had decided she wanted to do the same. The case given to the Ghostbusters, the exe,cution on Monday, anything and everything relating to Sandy Drake would be nothing to do with her or her family anymore.

* * *

Kevin phoned Kelly at eleven o'clock to let her know he was going to tell Eduardo and Kylie about what they had seen in the graveyard the night before. Kelly wanted an excuse to visit her much younger friends, and she suspected that Lucy wanted one too; so the three of them met up ten minutes later and went to the Firehouse together.

Loud, excited barks in the foyer signalled their arrival at eleven-thirty-five. Conchita was on the sitting room floor being educated by Eden and John; they were demonstrating tessellation with fat plastic shapes of various bright colours. Conchita had already mastered putting them in the shape sorter, and now she was finding this game inordinately dull. Therefore when she heard Lucy barking hysterically she was out of the room like lightning. Eduardo, who had been supervising, hadn't time to ask where she was going before she had already gone, but he too was familiar with Lucy's inexhaustible vocal chords and easily worked the puzzle out for himself.

Moments later Conchita skipped happily back into the room with Lucy at her heels. The dog made straight for the plastic shapes and started a tug-of-war with Eden over a bright orange triangle.

"Hey," Eduardo smiled pleasantly at his visitors. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Actually," Kelly said with her usual brightness, "we may have a case for you. Lucy, stop that! You'll pull the poor girl's arms off."

She went to retrieve Eden's orange triangle while Kevin explained to his uncle the reasons for his visit. He began in hesitant tones, "It's kind of personal."

"How d'you mean?" asked Eduardo, half expecting his nephew to tell him that Kelly had a ghost occupying her und,erwear drawer.

Kevin related to Eduardo the previous night's events, ignoring the background noise of Kelly struggling with her stubborn Labrador and Eden and Conchita laughing hysterically. Finally the precious triangle was recovered and Kelly handed it over to Eden saying, "There you go sweetheart. It took a few bumps but I think it's gonna be ok." Then she looked around the room and asked, "Say, where's Tweedledum?"

"Oh shoot!" Eduardo turned round in alarm to see that the group on the floor was one child short. "Where is he?"

His question was answered by Janine's voice wafting from downstairs: "No honey, that's Daddy's microscope!"

Eduardo slapped his hand to his forehead. He was a terrible childminder, he mentally scolded himself. Any fool knew that the kids who liked to take things apart were the ones that needed watching the most.

With his eyes firmly on the two children that remained Eduardo said to Kevin, "It's kind of weird that this should happen the same night that we had a ghost in our apartment."

"You did?" Kevin looked surprised. "Think there's a connection? Because it just so happens that I felt something in the house when I got back."

Eduardo raised his eyebrows and repeated questioningly, "Felt something?"

"Yeah just, you know, like chilly."

"Like chilli," Eduardo smirked quietly to himself; and then he pulled himself together. "I don't like this, Kev. I want to check it out."

"Do you want us to take the kids?"

"That'd be great," Eduardo said, "if you wouldn't mind."

They both looked at Kelly, who had tickled Conchita to the ground and was now kneeling over the hysterical child, her long blond hair falling about her face, making mad threats about feeding her to Lucy unless she begged for mercy. Conchita was laughing too much to beg, so Kelly left her on the floor to recover and made a lunge for Eden.

"Oh we don't mind," said Kevin, smiling indulgently at the scene of insanity before him. I love that girl, he thought to himself, though he was secretly relieved that he was again being denied the opportunity to tell her so.

It was then that Janine came in leading John by the hand. Kevin turned to them and said jovially, "It's my fault Janine, I distracted him."

"No it's not, it's my fault," Eduardo nobly corrected him. "Sorry, Janine."

Janine favoured her son with a fond yet reproachful look and said, "Well he didn't do too much damage."

The redheaded little boy ignored the rebuke and made a beeline for the excited dog. Lucy was examining the shape sorter, whose lid lay on the ground several yards from its component parts. John watched wide-eyed as the colossal dog plunged her nose deep into the empty plastic box. He knew Lucy well and therefore he knew there was a strong chance that she would be unable to remove the shape sorter from her snout.

Kylie was the next to join the group assembling in the sitting room. She had Rose on one arm, and the baby was happily playing with large clumps of her mother's hair. However she soon abandoned this game on seeing her father, squealing excitedly and reaching out a chubby little hand to his goatee.

But Rose was to be disappointed; she was handed over not to Eduardo but to Kelly, who had crossed the room in two strides with arms outstretched to take the baby. Rose was not perturbed, for she made the best of the situation by wrapping her tiny fingers tightly around a lock of fair hair. Kelly winced and inclined her head towards the fat little hand to give the hair some slack, but this only encouraged the baby to pull harder.

"Hey look, Eduardo!" Kelly exclaimed excitedly, for she had noticed for the first time that Rose's eyes were no longer the blue of a newborn baby's. "She's lost her baby eyes. She's got your eyes now."

"Really?" Eduardo stooped to take a look, but had to duck quickly out of the way when Rose made a grab for his goatee. However he had ample time to notice that the baby's eyes had indeed turned brown. "Wow," he marvelled. "When did that happen?"

"Just now," Kelly answered with a facetious grin.

"We wanna take the kids to the park," Kevin said to Kylie. "Is that all right with you?"

"You're welcome to the little pains in the bu,tt," Kylie returned. She aimed a playful smile at her older daughter that she hoped disguised her slightly downcast mood, which had resulted from her earlier conversation with Egon. Conchita returned the smile with one of her sweetest; the kind that made her dark green eyes and her delectable dimples look immense.

"You're looking suspiciously cute today," remarked Kelly in furtive tones. Still holding Rose on one arm she stooped to Conchita's level and tugged on one of the bunches of brown hair at the sides of her head. "Pigtails and everything. You'd never know the awful truth."

Suddenly the conversation was interrupted by a frightened yelp, and Kelly turned to see her beloved black Labrador struggling helplessly with the twins' shape sorter firmly attached to her face. The dog pawed at it desperately but to no avail. John, Eden and Conchita all burst into helpless laughter, while the adults (and teenagers) in the room smiled quietly at poor Lucy's handicap.

"Oh Lucy you idiot," muttered Kelly, rising to her full height while keeping a firm grip on Rose. "Can somebody please help her?"

Kylie, as the most sensible person in the room, was the first to get over the hilarity. She caught the dog by the collar and with her free hand gently prised the white plastic box from her face. Lucy let out a yelp of surprise and looked bemusedly about her, inspiring fresh laughter from the younger spectators. Then, sensing that she was the object of ridicule, she slumped dejectedly towards her owner with her tail between her legs.

"Poor Lucy," Conchita sympathised through her trademark giggles. She got to her feet and reached a bronzed arm out towards the dog in a gesture of peace. Lucy immediately cheered up and began to lick the arm thoroughly, careful to ensure that every inch of smooth brown skin was caked in drool.

The younger generation rarely paid much attention to their elders when Lucy was around, so Eduardo took the opportunity to brief Kylie on the case that had come up concerning their own family. Kylie listened carefully to the accounts of the two supposed hauntings that Eduardo had heard about from Kevin.

"If you ask me," she said gravely, "this is no coincidence. Do you think it's anything to do with...?" She hesitated.

"Sandy Drake?" Eduardo's expression darkened. "I don't know. I guess it's the most likely explanation."

"Well," Kylie went on, "if your family is being victimised I think the first thing we should do is find out if anything happened to Carl and Beth last night."

"What about my mom?"

"Her too," Kylie nodded. Then she gasped, and suddenly shouted at a volume that drowned out the noisy children and dog, "Oh s,hit!"

Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at her. Kylie's green eyes were wide with alarm and her hand flew to the top of her head in a gesture of despair. She looked at the clock on the wall (which gave the time as eleven-fifty-five) and then suddenly she turned and ran as fast as she could towards the pole.

Eduardo watched her go, reasoning that he should be the one speeding home as the problem involved his mother. Still, he would never catch her up at the speed she was moving. He turned his head to look at where Conchita sat on the floor, staring after her foul-mouthed mother in wide-eyed amazement.

The stupefied silence was somewhat unnerving in one usually so vocal, but Eduardo knew it couldn't last long. Remembering his faux pas from earlier that morning he grinned at Conchita and said with mock solemnity, "I expect she only thought shoot."

That did it. Conchita burst into a torrent of giggles. The "only thought" joke would probably make her laugh for years to come, her father decided. It would also be useful for diverting people's attention from any accidental obsc,enities uttered in the child's presence.

"Come on then Giggle-Mouth," Kevin addressed his young cousin, taking her by the hand. "Are we going to the park or aren't we?"

"What about Tweedledum and Tweedledee?" Kelly asked Janine. Then she turned to the twins and said with a broad smile, "You wanna come with?"

The twins did want to go with, so their mother happily obliged. John was already on the lookout for opportunities to slip tiny screws - and other items he had salvaged from various sources - into the numerous pockets of Kelly's khaki combat trousers. Admittedly this was not what he would normally do with such items, but he knew Kelly would appreciate the joke.

As for Eden, she always liked to spend time with Kelly and her wonderful big black dog. Lucy was a far more interesting playmate than either John or Conchita. With any luck she would sit on somebody's picnic like she had the last time they had been in the park together.

* * *

Roland had been discussing the Sandy Drake case with Egon. He was still doing so when Garrett arrived, having come from the fitness centre. With infinite patience Egon told the new arrival what he had already told Kylie and later Roland.

"Kylie has opted out of this as well," Egon deadpanned. "Roland is undecided. Whether we go ahead with this case is up to you, Garrett."

"Sure I want to go ahead with it," Garrett enthused. "There's a ghost needs busting, so we bust it."

"Then I'll go with you," Roland decided. "You can't do this on your own."

"I'll go too," added Egon. "We'll take the mass-maker gloves, but I may be able to come up with a more reliable plan. I don't like working on such a controversial case," he added, "but if you want to go ahead with it then obviously I'll help you."

"All right then!" The heavy atmosphere was lost on Garrett. He turned his chair to the door with unmarked enthusiasm and exclaimed, "Let's kick some ghost butt!"

* * *

Exhausting as it was, tearing up the stairs to the apartment was quicker than waiting for the elevator, so Kylie kept running all the way up to the fifth floor. The first thing she noticed on reaching her hall was Carlota standing at the front door of the apartment.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry," Kylie panted breathlessly, skidding to a halt beside the elderly Mexican woman, who regarded her expressionlessly. "We didn't bunk off work in the end because... because..."

"Because what?" Carlota asked flatly.

Kylie hesitated. Would it be wise to tell Carlota about the supposed haunting?
Finally she said, "Come back to the Firehouse with me and we'll tell you. Um... the kids aren't there, sorry. Kevin and his girlfriend took them to the park. You see Eduardo wants us to work on this thing and... Have you been waiting long?"

"I had not been here long at all when you came charging up the stairs like a bull in a china shop," Carlota returned.

"Oh." Kylie was still short of breath but somehow she managed to let out a sigh of relief. "Well that's something."

"My dear, you should not get so flustered," Carlota said soothingly. "Carlos gets stressed like that and he has a high blood pressure. How can you expect to be a good mother to my grandchildren if you go making yourself ill?"

"Um..." Kylie's thoughts were too muddled even for her to get annoyed. She waved her hand dismissively and said, "Can we just go to the Firehouse? Or the park? No wait, let's go to the Firehouse, then you can talk to Eduardo about... things."

"What things?" Carlota asked suspiciously, but Kylie refused to divulge any further information without Eduardo being present. She did a lot for that man, but nothing she considered unreasonable, and she was da,mned if she was going to ask his mother whether she had seen any ghosts recently. Oh no. That was something he could definitely do for himself.

* * *

The trip to Central Park was nothing out of the ordinary until Kevin spotted Lucille, Andy and Billy Welch. The two boys were chasing each other around a park bench and laughing uncontrollably; their mother was sitting on the same bench and watching them with tears in her eyes.

She looked like she was on the brink of despair. Kevin instantly felt sorry for her and made a decision to try and cheer her up. Rose might raise a giggle; he was looking after her as Kelly was occupied with the other three kids. Hugging the baby to his chest, Kevin approached the park bench with a broad smile on his face and greeted the family: "Didn't I say we'd see you around? You know, guys, there's a fascinating game of 'plastic surgeon' going on back there."

Lucille looked suspicious. "What's 'plastic surgeon'?" she asked.

"Oh it's quite harmless," Kevin assured her. "Or at least it is for the kids. It involves tying Kelly up in knots and then... untying her again."

He didn't explain the game in full detail. The idea was for one child to twist Kelly's limbs any way they would go and then for somebody else disentangled her. Ideally a third person - or a fourth, if Kelly was counted as a person - would ward off the excitable Lucy.

Andy and Billy looked questioningly up at their mother. She gave them a weak smile and said, "Go on then."

The boys scampered off to join in the rather bizarre game, and Kevin sat down next to Lucille. He sat Rose on his knee and jigged her up and down at break-neck speed to keep her from bursting into tears. They hadn't brought the pram with them as that was back at Kylie and Eduardo's apartment. Lucille watched the baby with distant eyes that looked full to the brim with tears.

"Are you ok?" Kevin asked.

"Don't I look ok?" Lucille returned dryly.

"Well... no, not really." A pause and then, "I'm sorry, it's none of my business if you're ok or not."

Lucille didn't contradict him. They both watched passively as Conchita and Andy between them hauled Kelly's right foot up to her left elbow. Watching games of "plastic surgeon", Kevin often found that he was quite surprised by some of the ways in which Kelly bent. She wasn't small, but she was surprisingly supple.

Then suddenly Lucille spoke. She said in a quiet, expressionless voice, "I'm supposed to be taking them to visit their uncle."

"Oh." It seemed an odd statement to Kevin. What was so bad about going to visit an uncle? Carefully he asked, "Isn't that good?"

Lucille shook her head and said despairingly, "I just don't know. He's in prison."

"Oh," Kevin said again. "Well... that's different, I guess."

"That's not all."

Kevin looked at Lucille and noticed that she was not looking at him. He felt almost like a Catholic priest in a confessional. She was a virtual stranger to him; she didn't want to look at him or talk to him as though he were a real person. He didn't know whether she wanted advice or just an outlet for her emotions. It could get nasty, though. What did she mean by that last remark?

"He's going to die tomorrow," Lucille went on in the same empty, expressionless tone. "Obviously he wants to see the kids but... it's weird."

An interesting choice of phrase, Kevin thought. Now what on Earth was he supposed to say to this woman? He decided to say nothing, and let her keep on talking.

"It's really tough on them." She gestured towards her sons. "And me too, of course, but they're the ones that matter. They only lost their father to cancer four months ago."

Vaguely Kevin wondered how close Lucille's husband's death had been to Rose's birth.

"I don't know if I can cope with taking them to see Sandy," Lucille continued.

Kevin furrowed his brow in thought. Sandy. That name sounded familiar. If this guy was on Death Row... He shook the thought from his mind. There could be any number of people called Sandy on Death Row.

"I don't see why this had to happen now," Lucille was saying. "To tell you the truth we never really believed it would happen. He's been waiting for nearly fourteen years."

"Fourteen years!" Kevin's eyes widened in horror. "Oh Lord!"

Lucille suddenly turned her head sharply to look at him and remarked dryly, "All that and you're shocked by fourteen years."

"Um... is he your brother?" Kevin asked, for he knew Drake had one sister and no brothers. If she was talking about her brother-in-law, it couldn't be the same man.

"Yes," was the unfortunate answer.

"What's... what's his name?"

"Sandy."

"Yes I know. I mean his other name. His surname," Kevin added for clarification.

"Drake." Lucille frowned and asked, "Why?"

"Um... he's dying tomorrow?"

Lucille's frown deepened. "Yes," she said, her tone seemingly challenging him to say more.

Kevin sensed that he was angering Lucille, so he wisely chose not to press the matter further. All the time he had been talking and thinking he had been robotically moving his right leg up and down to keep Rose peaceful. Now he looked down at her, and then he looked out at the small crowd of children now running away from Lucy with screams of delight. There was Conchita, Alberto's granddaughter, ducking for cover behind the older nephew of her grandfather's killer. The mind boggled.

"Small world," he muttered bitterly.

"What?" demanded Lucille.

"Oh... nothing."

Kevin's mind was working overtime but nothing in it made sense. Sandy Drake, who had killed his grandfather and turned the happy toddler Kevin's world upside-down, was to die by exe,cution the following day.

Finally something clicked inside his head and a coherent thought popped up like a jack-in-the-box. Why, Kevin wondered, oh why had he not been told?

* * *

Carlota sat on the sofa in the Firehouse and listened to what Eduardo had to tell her with an expression of pure equanimity. When her son had finished talking she answered him in Spanish, so Kylie had no way of guessing how she might be feeling either from her expression or her words.

"Please speak English, Mama," Eduardo said reasonably. "Kylie doesn't understand Spanish."

Carlota gave Eduardo what almost looked like a frown, with no indication as to what it meant. Then she looked at Kylie and said with an unconvincing smile, "I was telling my son that I felt the same unseasonable cold last night that you and Kevin felt."

"That pretty much proves it then," Kylie decided. "We've got some kind of family haunting going on."

"Yes," Carlota agreed, "except that you are not in my family."

Hint hint. Kylie returned Carlota's meaningful stare with an ice-cool gaze and said serenely, "My children are."

"Quite. Now then." Carlota turned back to look at Eduardo. "What about Carlos? Have you asked him about this?"

"Guess we'd better go see him." There was a distinct reluctance in Eduardo's tone. "Wanna come, Ky?"

"Sure," said Kylie, knowing that Beth might need some help in keeping family relations bearable.

It so happened that Beth answered the door. Eduardo secretly hoped that this might mean his brother was working, but there was no such luck. Carl was obviously due to go on duty soon as he was wearing his uniform - including the gun. When she was shown into the sitting room Kylie deliberately looked anywhere but at the holster on Carl's belt.

"Hey Mom," Carl smiled pleasantly at his mother. Then he regarded his brother with deep suspicion and said, "Eddie."

"Carlos," Eduardo returned flatly, his arms folded across his chest.

"Oh you boys." Carlota raised despairing eyes to the ceiling. "Why don't you try being nice to each other for a change?"

"What's going on with Drake?" Carl demanded, moving uncomfortably close to
Eduardo so that the smaller man felt forced to take a step back. "Have you dealt with this so-called ghost yet?"

"Call the office, Carlos, it's nothing to do with me," Eduardo retorted.

Carl looked sharply at Kylie, brown eyes blazing, but she was unfazed. She told him calmly and simply, "It's nothing to do with me either, Carl."

"Bull," Carl fairly spat. "Even if you're not working on it you must know what's going on."

Eduardo honestly didn't know, but Kylie did and she wanted to keep Carl in a relatively good mood (if it wasn't too late for that). She craned her neck to look him in the eye and said evenly, "The others are working on it as we speak."

"Good," Carl nodded approvingly. "I trust it'll all be dealt with by tomorrow?"

"I don't know," Kylie replied truthfully.

"What ghost?" Carlota looked puzzled. "What have ghosts got to do with that man?"

"There's a ghost... looking after him," Kylie explained. "No one's allowed near him except to feed him."

"This had better not mean they won't ex,ecute him tomorrow," Carlota said firmly. "That man has been kept alive for too long."

Carl rounded on Kylie and demanded hotly, "What did you wanna go and tell her that for? I thought you weren't having anything to do with it anymore."

"Hey!" Eduardo stepped between them before Kylie had a chance to bite back. "Don't talk to her like that!"

Carlota then stepped between her sons. She babbled something at them in Spanish and in unison they turned on her and shouted, "Mama, English!"

Kylie stared at them all in disbelief. She had never witnessed a row on this scale before. True that Carl usually liked to shout, but Eduardo always kept his ripostes quietly petulant, at least in her presence. This was also the first conflict Kylie had seen that involved their mother. She looked at Beth, who was passively standing by. She didn't look surprised, but clearly didn't know where to put herself, so she just stood and watched with despairing eyes.

"You never could show respect," Carlota was saying to Eduardo, in relatively subdued tones. "Not to anyone, but especially not to your father. Must you disrespect his memory now?"

"That's not fair," Eduardo defended himself, and he seemed about to say more when the front door opened and then slammed shut. The argument stopped abruptly; everyone was silent as Kevin stormed into the room with a face like thunder.

"Why so quiet?" the new arrival demanded. "More secrets, is that it?"

"What are you talking about, Kevin?" Carl asked wearily.

"Take a wild guess." Kevin sounded positively disgusted. "I'm talking about Sandy Drake, Dad. Why the hell didn't you tell me?"

"Oh I don't believe it," Beth muttered, burying her face in her hands in a gesture of despair.

Eduardo muttered something inaudible, and Carl immediately rounded on him. "What was that?" the older brother demanded loudly.

"Nothing," Eduardo muttered.

"You keep out of this, Eddie!"

"I am keeping out of it!" Eduardo shot back. "You're the one brining me into it!"

"Hey!" Kevin interjected. "I asked you a question, Dad. Why didn't you tell me?"

"You didn't need to know," Carl answered shortly.

"But I have a right to know!" yelled Kevin.

His eyes were blazing and his teeth were gritted in a way familiar to Kylie, as she had seen this very expression in both Eduardo and Carl before. However she had never seen it in the usually amiable Kevin and now found it almost frightening.

Carlota had been eyeing her grandson with deep disapproval. Now she turned to Carl and started babbling away in Spanish again, and Kevin's expression darkened.

"Don't start talking Spanish!" he yelled.

"And why not?" demanded Carlota. "If you cannot be bothered to learn it then you must expect to miss out on things."

"I mean it!" Kevin shouted, with incredible bravado, for it was always unwise to induce Carlota's wrath. "You're only doing it so I can't understand you. You've been doing it since I was a kid. Well I'm not a kid anymore, and I won't be kept in the dark!"

"Ok, so now you know," Carl put in. He had calmed down by this time, and in truth he was secretly relieved. "How did you find out? Did you tell him?"

This last question was directed at Eduardo, who took a step back when his brother turned on him angrily.

"No," he replied firmly, making sure to look Carl in the eye.

"Then it must have been you!" Carl snapped at Kylie, pointing a colossal forefinger at her chest. "You just couldn't keep your nose out of our business!"

"Dad, leave her out of this," Kevin put in. "It was nothing to do with her. I - "

"Listen," Eduardo interrupted, closing the distance he had created between Carl and himself. "I'm getting pretty damn sick of you treating Kylie like this."

"Back off, Eddie."

"Boys!" Carlota suddenly shouted. "Stop this at once!"

"Great," Kevin approved. "And then you can tell me everything about Sandy Drake."

"You don't need to know anything more about that man," Carlota insisted.

"I want to know. I have a perfect right to know!" Kevin objected.

Carl looked pensively at his son and asked, "You wanna watch the ex,ecution?"

Kevin stared at his father in wide-eyed amazement. Suddenly he managed to say, with utter incredulity, "Do I wanna what?"

"It's a simple enough question," his grandmother pointed out.

"No I do not!" Kevin almost squeaked. "Are you completely sick?"

"So what's your problem, Kev?" Carl asked in exasperated tones.

"What's my problem? What's my PROBLEM? My problem is you people all treating me like I'm five years old!"

Again Eduardo muttered something incomprehensible, so Carl rounded on him again and yelled, "You shut the h,ell up!"

Kylie had noticed that Beth was inching towards the door, and she decided it was high time that she too beat a hasty retreat. However her exit was a little less subtle. She turned on her heel and marched purposefully to the front door, which she slammed behind her to make sure everyone knew she had left.

Eduardo started on hearing the door bang shut, and instantly felt bad about losing his rag in front of Kylie. It was bad enough being involved in something like that, but it was probably worse for her having to witness it. Eduardo favoured Carl with one final glare of defiance before following Kylie outside. She had walked a short way down the street, but he was soon able to catch her up. He put a hand on her elbow to stop her and said, "Whoa, hey, wait up. I'm... sorry about that. Guess we got a little carried away."

"Hey," Kylie smiled reassuringly, "no judgement. You should hear some of the rows I've had with my parents. I just didn't really want to stay there and watch you kill each other, or else be driven deaf from all the yelling."

"Sorry," Eduardo said again.

"We didn't get what we came for," remarked Kylie.

"Oh shoot, you're right. I'm not going back in there, though."

Kylie pulled a face. "God, no, me neither. Or at least not until much later. Let's go home."

"Home?" Eduardo looked puzzled.

"Yeah. To look for ghosts."

She started off down the street once again and Eduardo walked alongside her. They were silent for only a few seconds before Kylie asked, "What do you suppose Kevin's done with our children?"

"Kelly must have them," replied Eduardo.

"Poor kid. She's got Eden and John to look after too, remember."

"Right. Between them they'll probably drive her ins,ane."

TO BE CONTINUED...