Dead Men's s Boots

‘It gets worse. Whether or not John was in his right mind when he died, he’s pretty much out of it now. The ghost is restless. Violent. It’s become—’

‘Geist,’ Todd finished, and I nodded, impressed that he knew the technical term. He blew out his cheek. ‘Damn,’ he said simply, and then for a long time he stared at the floor, his thumb running absently along the edge of his desk. ‘Well, that – yes, that’s distressing. She must be very distraught. To see someone you loved – still love, I suppose . . .’

There was a long silence, at the end of which Todd looked at me and nodded as though I’d been pressing an argument. ‘I want this to give her as little stress as possible,’ he said. ‘Especially after what you’ve said. So what I’m proposing is a wake.’

I thought I must have misheard him. ‘A wake?’ I echoed him. ‘You mean a party?’

Todd shook his head brusquely. ‘No, not a party. Just a night when the coffin goes back to the house: when Mrs Gittings can sit with it, and John’s spirit can become a little bit more reconciled to . . . his violent end. Do you think tha chyou thit would be a good idea?’

I mulled it over, and I had to admit – to myself, at least – that it did. It might or might not provide closure for Carla, but it ought to do John’s ghost a power of good to see that his last request was being carried out to the letter. In theory, it ought to stop the haunting. You didn’t need an exorcism if you gave the dead what they wanted.

What I said, though, was, ‘It doesn’t really matter what I think. I’ll talk it over with Carla. See what she says.’

Todd pushed the papers back into the file, closed it and stood up, very abruptly. ‘You do that,’ he said. ‘If there’s a way of making this happen that spares her feelings, then that’s the way we’ll take. Thanks for coming in, Mister Castor. I’m glad you told me all this.’

‘The cremation,’ I reminded him. ‘When is it going to be?’

‘Wednesday, most likely. But it depends how soon I can get the disinterment done. It might have to be Thursday. Talk to Mrs Gittings and let me know what she says. Oh, and please leave a number with Carol. I think under the circumstances Mrs Gittings won’t appreciate a call from me, so if you don’t mind continuing to act as a go-between . . .’

‘Happy to,’ I said stolidly. ‘Thanks for listening.’

I went downstairs again and left my address and phone numbers with the bored brunette. The photocopier was in a state of even more advanced disassembly and Leonard was nowhere to be seen.

I stepped back out onto the street. It was about five o’clock, and although there was still some light from the low, loitering sun, a roiling rope of heavy grey cloud was in the process of swallowing it whole like a python gulping down a guinea pig.

A scarecrow-thin old man crusted with the filth of years spent on the streets, dressed in a long trailing outer coat so dirty and tattered you couldn’t guess what colour or even what kind of garment it might once have been, came shambling along the pavement towards me. I stepped aside automatically, but he zigged at the same time and walked right into me. His mad, mud-brown eyes stared into mine.

‘At the waterhole,’ he said, his voice a dry, throat-tearing rasp. ‘With the others there behind you. Pushing. Pushing. Nowhere to go.’ He laughed out loud, delighted by some sudden revelation, and the stench of his breath hit me across the face like a solid slap.

I winced and leaned back, away from the searing smell, but he was already walking on – singing now, in the same harsh, agonised tone, ‘Oh, the Devil stole the beat from the Lord, and it’s time we put things straight . . .’ I didn’t recognise the tune, but that ragged voice was shredding it pretty effectively in any case.

An involuntary shudder went through me, and with it came a nagging prickle somewhere at the edge of consciousness – the slight sensation of pressure that comes when I’m being looked at by one of the risen dead. I looked around: nobody in sight except the decayed tramp, who was heading away from me and had his back turned, and a woman on the other side of the street wheeling a baby in a stroller. Maybe recent events had put me on something of a hair-trigger: I slipped my hand inside my coat to make sure that my whistle was there and forgot about the psychic twinge. Probably nothing, but if it was something I was all tooled up.