Dead Men's s Boots

The fractured sodium glare of a street lamp was splattered over the curve of the windscreen, so that all I could see of him was an outline, immobile and sinister. I couldn’t even tell if he was looking at me or not. I fought the urge to wrench the door open and have it out with him there and then: the back of the van was probably stuffed three-deep with his mates.

An even nicer surprise was waiting for me when I got up to the flat. Someone had painted across the door in thick, still-dripping black paint the words EXORCIST EQUALS DISEASED EQUALS DECEASED.

I stared at it in dead silence for about half a minute, considering my options. It wasn’t my front door, of course, it was Ropey’s: but still, I was living behind it, and it was my arse he’d want to kick when he saw this. But was it worth getting my head used as a baseball? On balance, still probably not. I’d wait until the odds were more in my favour, and then I’d put these little fuck-ups through some changes.

The first thing I did when I got inside was to call Carla and tell her Todd’s idea about the wake. She was iffy at first, but she talked herself into it: I said I’d call him and tell him it was a goer.

A pregnant pause at the other end of the line, punctuated in the middle by a muffled sob.

‘Fix?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Could you – could you come over and be here, with me? When they bring John’s body back?’

I thought about that one for all of two seconds. ‘I’d love to, Carla,’ I lied, ‘but I can’t.

I’ve got too much work on. I’ll have my mobile with me, though. If the geist – I mean, if John gets overexcited, call me and I’ll come over and play him to sleep again.’

I hung up before she could find another angle to come in at me from. A second call to Todd’s office got me the answerphone and I left a message there. That ought to have let me off the twin hooks of guilt and duty and feeling a little better.

It didn’t, though.

I wandered from room to room, irritable and unsettled, wanting to pick a fight that I could win but not able to think of one right then. The wind was still high, and the noise it made as it broke on the northeast corner of the block was like a howl of pain, sampled and playeI wled andd back through some aeolian synthesiser: it made me think about the late John Gittings, prowling invisibly around his own living room like a trapped animal.