Dead Men's s Boots

For all I knew, Todd was one of them: a Vestal, to use Pen’s word. Someone who’d never seen a ghost or any of the other manifestations of the risen dead, and couldn’t quite bring himself to make the conceptual leap in advance of the evidence.

But he surprised me. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said, and he looked as though he meant it."

"‘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.