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cloth.
    ‘Heat didn’t work, I take it?’ I said.
    ‘No,’ George said. ‘Hopeless. Couldn’t get it hot enough. I’m going to try putting it in daylight today, see if that spurs him on a bit.’
    I regarded the shrouded object. ‘You sure? It didn’t do anything before.’
    ‘Wasn’t so bright then. I’ll take it out into the garden when the noonday sun comes round.’
    I tapped my fingers on the desk. Something that I’d been meaning to say for a while, something that had been on my mind, finally came out. ‘You know that sunlight hurts it,’ I said slowly. ‘You know it burns the plasm.’
    George nodded. ‘Yep . . . Obviously. That’s the idea.’
    ‘Yeah, but that’s hardly going to get the thing to talk, is it?’ I said. ‘I mean, don’t you think it’ll be counterproductive? All your methods seem to involve inflicting pain.’
    ‘So what? It’s a Visitor. Anyway, do Visitors actually
feel
pain?’ George pulled the cloth away, revealing a glass jar, cylindrical and slightly larger than the average waste-basket. It was sealed at the top with a complex plastic stopper, from which a number of knobs and flanges protruded. George bent close to the jar and flipped a lever, revealing a small rectangular grille within the plastic. He spoke into the grille. ‘Hello in there! Lucy thinks you feel discomfort! I disagree! Care to tell us who’s right?’
    He waited. The substance in the jar was dark and still. Something sat motionless in the centre of the murk.
    ‘It’s daytime,’ I said. ‘Of course it won’t answer.’
    George flicked the lever back. ‘It’s not answering out of spite. It’s got a wicked nature. You said as much yourself, after it spoke to you.’
    ‘We don’t really know, to be honest.’ I stared at the shadow behind the glass. ‘We don’t know anything about it.’
    ‘Well, we know it told you we were all going to die.’
    ‘It said “Death is coming”, George. That’s not quite the same thing.’
    ‘It’s hardly a term of endearment.’ George heaved the tangle of electrical equipment off his desk and dumped it in a box beside his chair. ‘No, it’s hostile to us, Luce. Mustn’t go soft on it now.’
    ‘I’m not going soft. I just think torturing it isn’t necessarily the way forward. We may need to focus more on its connection with me.’
    George gave a noncommittal grunt. ‘Mm. Yes. Your mysterious connection.’
    We stood surveying the jar. In ordinary sunlight, like today’s, the glass looked thick and slightly bluish; under moonlight, or artificial illumination, it glinted with a silvery tinge, for this was silver-glass, a ghost-proof material manufactured by the Sunrise Corporation.
    And sure enough, within the glass prison was a ghost.
    The identity of this spirit was unknown. All that could be certain was that it belonged to the human skull now bolted to the base of the jar. The skull was yellowish-brown and battered, but otherwise unexceptional. It was adult size, but whether a man’s or a woman’s we could not tell. The ghost, being tethered to the skull, was trapped inside the ghost-jar. Most of the time it manifested as a murky greenish plasm that drifted disconsolately behind the glass. Occasionally, and usually at inconvenient moments, such as when you were going past with a hot drink or a full bladder, it congealed violently into a grotesque transparent face, with bulbous nose, goggling eyes and a rubbery mouth of excessive size. This shocking visage would then leer and gape at whoever was in the room. Allegedly George had once seen it blow kisses. Often it seemed to be trying to speak. And it was this apparent ability to communicate that was its central mystery, and why George kept it on his desk.
    Visitors, as a rule, don’t talk – at least, not in a very meaningful way. Most of them – the Shades and Lurkers, the Cold Maidens, the Stalkers and other Type Ones – are practically silent, except for a limited repertoire of moans