2
0’ 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 ekpiptein with the palm of his hand, and I levered off the mezuzah. Between the two of us, we cleared the doorway inside of a minute. Todd tactfully didn’t point out that as the resident exorcist this was something I ought to have done myself before he arrived.
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. The cs oGray 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 was beautiful and I’m sure it will be again when the building works on the site next door are finished. The crematorium has its own formal gardens.
