“You didn’t mention it last night.”

“It’s boring. I’ll be back in tomorrow, probably.”

“Probably? They’re not going to keep you in, are they?”

“No, nothing like that. I’ll let you know as soon as I do, promise.”

“Fine.” Hannah stepped to one side so we could walk to class. Her feet dragged all the way.

Getting hold of Justin’s address had been a matter of getting hold of Tamsin’s phone. I’d simply waited until she was showering after second period gym and snagged it from her bag. As I suspected, her contacts were up to date with email addresses, phone numbers, Twitter and all sorts, including physical addresses. Quickly I memorised Justin’s postcode and house number, and stuck the phone back in her bag when her hags weren’t looking.

Then at lunch I headed over there.

He lived in Brook Green, or he had, and his house was not actually that far from mine, which explained why I’d seen him down at the river a few times.

It was a smart Georgian townhouse. Justin had only been in the country five years, so his parents must have bought at the height of the market. They were well off. Not a huge surprise.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the kind of area that was good for loitering; no benches or bus shelters anywhere nearby and a police car was parked at the end of the road. I walked up and down the street half a dozen times, keeping my eyes on the blue front door. There was no sign of Justin.

Movement in the living room caught my attention and I increased my speed. A tall woman was standing at the window, one hand on the curtain, slow and elegant in grief. With the other she clutched a phone to her chest. Even from a distance I could see that she hadn’t slept in days. It had to be Justin’s mother, waiting for a call that would never come.

Was he in there, watching her?

I considered going up to the front door and knocking. I could offer my sympathies and try to get inside.

But I couldn’t face her. Not knowing what I knew.

I tugged at my glove, pulling it free. The black Mark staining my hand seemed to mock me. I had to ask Justin who killed him and put that look on his mother’s face. Still, I had time left; time to stake out the house and local area. And there was another obvious place for me to look.

Bothering his mother would be a last resort.

I texted Hannah swiftly. “Do you know where Tamsin lives?”

It turned out that Tamsin lived in a portered apartment on the other side of the borough, an easy walk from High Street Ken tube. I curled my lip. She’d have parquet flooring and downstairs a gym, maybe even a swimming pool. I leaned in the shadows of the building opposite and my eyes darted. The day was getting busy and any one of the people milling past me could be dead. Every minute I spent out here I was opening myself to the possibility of gaining another Mark and hastening the arrival of the Darkness.

The porter buzzed in a woman with an armful of shopping bags, calling her by name. It wouldn’t be easy breaking in and Tamsin certainly wasn’t going to be inviting me over any time soon. Again, my best bet would be to hang around outside until Justin turned up.

I closed my fist. The black Mark seemed to throb and the shadows around me grew darker. Breath held I stepped carefully out into the light, where I exhaled. Suddenly I was no longer comfortable with my hiding place.

A wave of anger lifted me onto my toes. “Justin, where the hell are you?”

It was almost 4 o’clock when Tamsin came home and my feet were itching with the need to run. I’d never stayed in one place for so long, so exposed. I felt as though ghosts were converging from all around the city, surrounding me with hands outstretched, ready to cover me with Marks, enough to blacken my whole body.

I was shaking like a junkie by the time she turned up.

Finally I saw her turn the corner with a couple of hags. At the end of the road she waved them off and as soon as they had given her cloyingly sympathetic hugs and turned away, her shoulders sagged and her whole body seemed to gain weight. She almost heaved herself along the street, bag dangling from her fingertips, barely skimming the filthy pavement.

I felt an unfamiliar twist of sympathy. Now would be the time for Justin to show up. I scanned every face, jerked when I saw a dark haired young man approach her. But he wasn’t in school uniform and he walked on without saying a word.

“Cheer up, love, it might never ’appen.” A grinning builder gave her a nudge as she passed and Tamsin glared poison.

“Piss off.”

With a low whistle he backed away and I shook my head with a half smile. Tamsin could look after herself. But where was her boyfriend? The shadows teemed at my feet. Suddenly it seemed like there wasn’t so much time after all.

By the time I got home it was dark. After I’d seen Tamsin enter her building I’d taken the risk and walked back via Justin’s house. He remained conspicuously absent. The frustrating thing was, I could be just missing him. He may well have been at school today while I was at his house, or at home while I was at Tamsin’s. There was only one of me and a whole city to search.

I had less than three weeks. He had to turn up some time. Didn’t he?

I decided that the best thing to do was choose one place. Given that he hadn’t gone to school, I thought Justin’s most likely hangout would be his own house. I wasn’t keen on staking out his street so obviously, exposing myself to local police as well as ghosts and nutters, but I took a sketch pad and pretended I was drawing. It was at least an excuse to be loitering.

It was a total waste of time.

By Thursday night I’d stopped wearing my glove inside. Looking at my hand had become an addiction. It didn’t hurt, but the numbness throbbed and I checked it obsessively every few minutes. Had it grown darker?

If I didn’t find Justin I was going to be the one stuck wearing the Mark when the Darkness came. There was no way I’d be able to identify his killer without him, I was no Sherlock Holmes. And without knowing who his killer was, I couldn’t pass the Mark on.

I’d been fortunate as far as other ghosts had been concerned. Somehow I’d successfully avoided the dead since Justin had Marked me, but I couldn’t be lucky forever. When another ghost touched me, I would be carrying double the stain. That would summon the Darkness faster and shorten the time I had to find him.

I shivered, tore my eyes from the invisibly throbbing black Mark and tucked my hand under my arm. I needed more information. I had to speak to someone who knew Justin better than I did.

My hand hovered over the phone, tendons standing proud. I had to call Pete.

Viciously I punched in his number from memory, hurting my fingertip as I jammed the digits.

“Hello.”

“It’s Taylor.”

There was silence for a moment and I wondered if Pete had put the phone down. Finally he spoke. “Right. Why are you calling me?”

I exhaled. “I know they haven’t found Justin yet–”

“What do you care?” His anger shivered down the line.

“I was just going to ask if you could tell me some of his hang outs. I-I thought I could help, maybe spend some time at one or two this weekend in case he turns up.”

“You want to help.” His scorn burned, but then I had no cause to complain. He was right; there was no way I’d be making this call if Justin hadn’t Marked me.

I swallowed. “I guess there’re a lot of people out there looking for him, but a fresh set of eyes can’t hurt, can it?”

The phone sat silent in my hand. I closed my eyes, wondering if my one-time friend would believe me.

“You haven’t been at school much this week.” Pete’s tone was accusatory. “Hannah’s been on her own.”