Dead Men's s Boots

I could always turn and walk away, but that didn’t seem like an option. So I pushed the door wide and went on in.

Todd was sitting at his desk, the chair tilted back slightly so that he could lean on the shelves behind him. The gun in his hand was pointing at my chest, and his posture Ónd atwas completely relaxed.

‘Mister Castor,’ he said, pushing the chair on the client side of the desk out towards me with his foot. ‘How is it that you can never rely on religious cultists even to get a simple murder right? Take away their pentagrams and their mystic sigils, they’re like little kids.

I was very disappointed to hear that you’d survived your little trip to Alabama. But I try to treat every setback as an opportunity. Come on in and sit down.’

I walked on into the room, but I didn’t take the chair: so long as I was standing, there was a chance I might get the drop on him at some point. Sitting down I was dead meat.

‘Working late,’ I commented.

Todd’s gaze flicked towards the corner of the room.

Looking in that direction myself, I saw a fold-out bed. ‘I sleep here these days,’ he said, sounding a little flat and resigned. ‘Mrs Todd has filed divorce papers. She says I’m not the man she married. And you know what? She has a point. I asked you to sit down, Mister Castor. A bullet through your kneecap would force the issue.’

I sat down. I wondered why he hadn’t killed me already, if that was the plan. Maybe because he was worried about getting blood on the carpet: if that was it, his night was going to be ruined when he saw what was on the first-floor landing.

‘You’ve come a long way in a short while,’ Todd went on. ‘That’s a tribute to your detective skills.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Except that you’re not a detective.’ Todd’s tone hardened, and he gave me a look of actual dislike. ‘You’re just a man who gets rid of unwanted ghosts. One step up from a backstreet abortionist. What they do at the start of the life cycle, you do at the end. And, like them, you’re just doing it for the money.

You don’t have either the brains or the motivation to figure us out.’

I didn’t bother to give him an answer, because he didn’t seem to need one. There was a photo of a beautiful if slightly austere-looking brunette on his desk. I picked it up and inspected it thoughtfully.

‘So who did Mrs Todd marry?’ I asked.

‘An ambulance-chaser with a death wish.’

‘Whereas you . . . ?’

‘I’m nobody you’ve heard of.