man with somewhere important to be would want to be buried somewhere that was handy for the shops and the Tube.
I rounded one of the graves and almost stepped sideways into another. The water was up to John’s neck now, and he was staring in all directions, his eyes wide with dread.
Before I could get to him, something pulled him under. He gave a wail of terror, cut off very abruptly when his head went below the surface. When I got to the spot there was nothing to show where he’d been except for a ragged stream of bubbles, drifting away on the midnight-black flow of the urban river.
Something brushed against my leg, under the surface: something big enough to push me aside as it glided past, unseen. I jumped away, seeing the roiling water it left in its wake. It turned in a vast lazy arc and headed back towards me. I took one step back, and then another, and on the third step there was nothing there to put my foot down on. I slipped on the rim of the submerged grave pit and went under, mouth clamped shut.
I woke up gasping for air as though I really had half-drowned. Like someone in a movie I came bolt upright, my body sheathed in already cooling sweat. I groped for a bedside light, found one and after a few seconds of floundering succeeded in turning it on.
A big tabby cat that had been sitting at the foot of the bed yowled in protest, jumped down onto the floor and padded to the door, shooting me a glance of cool disapproval as it left. The stray that Carla had told me about, obviously.
Shit! That had been the worst nightmare I’d had in years. With slightly shaky hands I unzipped the sleeping bag and swung my legs out. There was no way I was getting any more sleep until my pulse rate had come back down to normal.
I went to the door, then trekked along the short passage and looked out into the living room. Turning the light on had robbed me of my night sight, so I couldn’t make out many details in the scene before me: I could hear Carla’s rhythmical breathing, though, and I could see the shadowy bump that was her sleeping form.
The coffin still stood on its trestles, undisturbed. The cat walked under it, rubbed its cheek against the legs of the nearer trestle, then strolled on with regal indifference.
A couple of cautious steps into the dark brought me to the foot of the coffin. I put a hand on its lid, the smooth wood chilly under my fingertips.
All right, mate, I said beneath my breath. Nothing formal. No promises, because when all’s said and done I don’t owe you a damn thing.
But I’ll do what I can.
8
Todd had made all the arrangements for the cremation, too. He’d told Carla that the hearse would call at ten in the morning, but he was there himself at nine-thirty to supervise. Carla was in the shower, so I opened the door for him, feeling like I’d been rolled up wet and put away dry.
I must have looked fairly rough, too, because as he walked on inside Todd gave me a glance that was almost supercilious. ‘Sleep well?’ he asked blandly.
I picked up my mug of coffee, which I’d rested on the coffin lid while I was opening the door, and took a deep swig of Carla’s bitter espresso before I answered. ‘Like the dead.’ Todd actually winced. They say that if you can make a lawyer blush you get a free pass to Heaven: I wondered if this would be good for a day trip to Purgatory.
He outlined the route to me, although this time we’d be travelling in one of the official cars so there was nothing to memorise. ‘Mount Grace Crematorium is on Bow Common,’ he said. ‘Behind St Clement’s Hospital. We’ll drive down to Primrose Hill, around the Outer Circle and then east all the way from there. Is Mrs Gittings ready?’
Todd could hear the sound of the shower as well as I could, so I gave him the only answer that question seemed to deserve. ‘Almost.’ He wasn’t listening, in any case: he was prowling around the room looking at the damage that the ghost had done, which of course he was seeing for the first time. He assessed it with a thoughtful, even professional eye, as if he was considering what it might be worth as part of a lawsuit. I finished my coffee and watched him in silence. He seemed nervous and eager to be on his way, which he probably was. I didn’t know how much he charged for estate work, but it didn’t seem likely that John had paid him enough to cover two visits to Waltham Abbey and a slap-up funeral in the East End. Or maybe I was underestimating the strength of John’s determination to have his last wishes respected. Maybe he’d given Todd a big enough retainer to cover all eventualities.
The lawyer’s circuit of the room brought him back to the door at last. It was still open because he hadn’t closed it behind him on the way in. He looked at John’s old wards with the same clinical eye, then glanced at me.
‘These ought to go,’ he said. ‘Before we take the body out.’
It was slightly embarrassing that I hadn’t thought of that myself. Of course, that could be what had caused John’s ghost to be separated from his body and stranded here in the first place. It was hard for the dead to cross magical wards if they’d been put together right in the first place – and although they were mostly used to keep ghosts and zombies out of places where they weren’t wanted, they’d work just as effectively to imprison them. Jenna-Jane’s cheerfully sadistic experiments at the MOU in Paddington had proved that a hundred times over.
I took down the birch sprig myself: it brought my dream back more vividly than I liked. ‘Not much left of me now . . .’ Todd wiped over the chalked
Carla still hadn’t put in an appearance, and the cars weren’t here yet either, so I went back through into the kitchen and brewed some more coffee – I’d bought a packet the night before, on the same expedition from which I brought back the curries and the beer. Todd accepted some – black, no sugar – and then left it to cool as he paced around the room some more.
‘Did John ever mention why he was so dead set on being cremated at Mount Grace?’ I asked. ‘Is there something special about that one place?’
He turned to glance in my direction, looking a little surprised. ‘Well, perhaps I played a part in that,’ he said. ‘I thought I mentioned this already, but maybe I was talking to someone else. Mount Grace is something of an oddity. The owners – the Palance family – are clients of ours. They bought the crematorium from the borough in the 1920s, although they founded a blind trust to take care of the actual running of the place – its running as a historical site, I mean. It’s hardly ever used for its real purpose any more, except in very rare cases – family and friends, mainly. I had the file on my desk one time when John came into the office. He was talking about cremation and I told him about Mount Grace. The idea of a crematorium that’s something of a select club seemed to appeal to him.’
So whatever it was, John’s concern hadn’t been narrowly geographical. He’d been concerned about what exactly was done to his body, rather than where it was done or where the remains were put afterwards. Burning rather than burial. Why? To close the door on his return? But it didn’t. Although a lot of ghosts tend to stay close to their mortal remains, far more linger in the place of their death, just as John had done. Being cremated only ruled out coming back as a zombie – not coming back per se.
‘Any reason why you suggested Mount Grace, then?’ I asked, for form’s sake. ‘Did John ask for something specific in the way his body was disposed of?’
Todd shook his head firmly, looking bored and perhaps even a little resentful at being questioned. ‘It was nothing like that. It was just that he wanted the whole thing settled quickly – almost on the spot. Because of my firm’s connection with the Palances, I was able to make arrangements at Mount Grace with a single phone call. And it seemed to meet John’s requirements in other respects, too. The cost is nominal, because as I said the trust sees the place mostly as a site of historical interest, and there’s a bequest that covers its maintenance.
‘There’s a garden of remembrance, where Mister Gittings’s ashes will be laid, and it’s in a rather beautiful spot. At least, it
