Dead Men's Boots (5 page)

The kitchen was completely unscathed, which was a huge relief. I eyed the knife rack and wondered what it would have been
like to meet the contents of that as I walked through the door. Memorable: like something out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon but
without the perky sound track.

“Does he mainly stay in the living room?” I asked Carla as she heaped coffee into the Cona machine. She was scraping the bottom
of the packet. When she’d finished, I took the empty packet from her and dumped it in the bin. Along the way, I accidentally
kicked over a red plastic bowl on the floor. Dry pet food spilled out onto the tiles.

“Living room. Stairwell. Bathroom,” she said tightly. It was obvious that there was a whole catalog of horrors behind that
terse list. “I’m safe in the bedroom, and the hall outside the bedroom, and here.” She switched the machine on, turned to
face me, her face strained and earnest. “I said that wrong. Safe. He’s never hurt me. He throws things around the room, but
nothing’s ever hit me. He’s still my John, Fix. He’s scared, and because he’s scared, he’s angry, but he’d never dream of
harming me.”

I mulled that over and found nothing to say to it. The stuff I’d dodged on the doormat had come a bit too close for comfort.
But then John knew what I was and what I could do to him: He had good reason to want me to keep my distance. And if Carla
had been living with this for six days and not taken so much as a scratch, it was hard to argue with her conclusions. Geists
had been known to topple wardrobes on people’s heads and push them out of windows. What was left of John Gittings was pulling
its punches, at least as far as his widow was concerned.

I scooped the pet food back into the bowl and used it to change the subject. “I thought you hated animals,” I said.

“Stray cat,” Carla muttered, distracted. She tapped the Cona machine with a fingernail as it started to make slup-slup-slup
noises. “It came in through the window one day, and John fed it some tuna. Then it wouldn’t stop coming. I asked him not to
encourage it, but he wouldn’t listen. Haven’t seen it in a few days, though. Maybe it’s true that they know when someone doesn’t
like them.”

Over coffee, she came back to the question of options. “I’m going to have to let them do it, aren’t I?” she asked me glumly,
staring at the cream swirling on the surface of her drink. “Dig him up again and burn him?”

I thought about that. “If the will’s as specific as you say it is… Your only chance would be to prove that John wasn’t in
his right mind when he wrote it.” I hesitated at that point, thinking about where I would be the following morning and what
a tangled thicket the whole question of sanity was. In your right mind? Sure. But sometimes it all depended on who was in
there with you.

“How do you prove something like that?” Carla asked, echoing my thoughts.

I took a swig of my coffee. I’d topped up both of the mugs heavily with what was left of the brandy, and it had a very pleasant
afterburn. But the bitterness was there, too, and I let it seep through me. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Usually, it comes
down to expert opinions. In my experience, you can find an expert who’s willing to say more or less anything, but it costs
money. And since John wasn’t getting any kind of medical help before his death, it’ll be harder to make something like that
stick.” I paused for a few moments, then raised the next point very tentatively. “How important is it to you that he stays
where he is?”

Carla sighed, made a vague, helpless gesture. “I thought it was what he wanted,” she said, her voice a throaty murmur. “Underneath
it all, I thought, This thing and this thing and this thing, that’s all the disease. And these other things, they’re still
him. They’re what’s real. I couldn’t believe he didn’t still want to lie next to Hailey, because he’d told me so many times—”
She faltered, glanced off in the direction of the pillaged living room. “But now that there’s all this, I don’t know. Maybe
I got it wrong, Fix. And maybe that’s why he’s so angry with me.”

I’d been thinking the same thing, but I was relieved that she’d gotten that far by herself. “Yeah,” I allowed. “That’s a possibility.
When did he change his mind, exactly—about being buried, I mean?”

“I told you. End of last year. Before Christmas sometime. I don’t remember, exactly.”

“Did he ever talk it over with you? Give you any reasons?”

She shook her head. “Fix—” she said, and then there was a long pause. I saw the outline of what was coming, which helped:
I kept my face deadpan and waited. “I don’t think I can bring myself to talk to that man. Todd. I don’t think I can do it
without screaming at him.”

“Well, with lawyers, you always want to be sure your shots are up to date.”

Another pause. I guess she was hoping I’d take the hint without being asked: It can’t be easy to beg favors from your dead
husband’s friends. But I was feeling like my humanitarian impulses had led me far enough astray today already. I drank off
what was left of my coffee, put down the mug, and stood.

“Well,” I said, “try to tell yourself that he’s only doing his job. It’s the truth, more or less. Thanks for the coffee, Carla.
If you change your mind, call Pen. She’s got a room free, and she’d love the company.”

Carla nodded with only the very faintest sign of hurt in her eyes. “I’ve got something for you,” she said, sabotaging my got-to-be-moving-along
routine when it was just getting into second gear. Since I didn’t have any other choice, I stopped and waited while she got
up from the table and started to rummage through the drawers of the big Welsh dresser behind her. At last she found what she
was looking for and brought it back to the table.

What she had in her hands was an antique half-hunter watch, Savonnette-style, with a silver case and a silver chain, tarnished
but still very beautiful. There was delicate filigree work on the case, and the silver bar that was meant to attach the watch
to a waistcoat was not a bar at all but a tiny figure of the crucified Christ, his outstretched arms providing the necessary
perpendicular line. It was an amazing piece of work—pair-cased, too, I discovered, as I automatically opened the front and
discovered the actual watch nestling inside its bivalved shell. It had to be two hundred years old, and it had to be worth
a small fortune.

I looked at Carla. “I can’t take this,” I said.

“It belonged to his dad, and he wanted you to have it,” she answered in a tone that brooked no argument. “It was one of the
last things he said to me before—when he was still thinking straight. ‘If anything happens to me, give this to Fix.’ So it’s
not up to me or you. It’s yours.”

I put it in one of the inside pockets of the paletot, bowing to the inevitable. “Thanks,” I said lamely. “I’ll— Well, I’ll
think of John every time I look at it.” Unpalatable though that prospect was right now.

“Thanks for driving me home,” Carla said.

“It was my pleasure.”

And then the twist of the knife. “Fix, I hate to do this. You’ve been so kind already. But if John’s going to be dug up and
then cremated, I’ve got to know where and when. And I hate that man so much. If it’s not too much to ask—”

And there it was. No good deed goes unpunished. Come to think of it, probably most of the people you see lying rolled and
robbed on the side of the road are Good Samaritans who stopped like idiots because they saw someone wringing his or her hands
and looking helpless.

“Well,” I said. “Yeah. Sure. I can check the details with him. Let you know.” It was the minimum commitment that the situation
seemed to call for. I tried not to sound too grudging as I gave it.

“Oh, Fix. I’d be so grateful. You’re a sweet man. Thank you.”

She kissed me on the cheek and we hugged again, even more awkwardly than before.

As she walked me back through the living room, I paused briefly, unfocused my eyes, and strained my senses for the ghost.
It was still there, a faint, unmoving presence like a stain on the air. Dormant. Dreaming.

“The music should keep John quiet for a couple of days, at least,” I told Carla. “After that, see how you go. If he’s unhappy
because you ignored his last request, then maybe after Todd’s done what he needs to do—”

“Why does Pen have a room free?” Carla demanded, derailing my thoughts.

“Uh—because we had a bit of a falling-out,” I admitted.

“You two? What could make you two row with each other?”

“Rafi,” I said, and she let the subject drop. Everybody always does. Conversationally, that one word is the ace of trumps.

    
Three

I
F YOU COME OUT OF HIGH BARNET TUBE AND HEAD uphill along the Great North Road, you pass the Magistrates’ Court on the left,
in between a bathroom supply shop and a real estate agent’s. Or you could stop right there and save yourself a little effort,
because it’s not like Barnet has anything more exciting saved up to show you.

It was the day after the night before, and the night before had involved all the many units of alcohol I’d failed to take
in before the funeral. I felt fuzzy-headed and sticky-eyed as I walked in off the street, finding myself in a red-carpeted
foyer where tasseled ropes barred off some directions and steered you in others. It was like a cinema, except there didn’t
seem to be anyone selling popcorn.

Nobody challenged me. There was a single usher on duty, but he was talking with strained patience to a belligerent young guy
in a hooded jacket outside the door leading to court number one, and he didn’t even look around as I passed. I followed the
arrows to courtroom three, where a sign said that the honorable Mr. Montague Runcie was presiding, and slid in quietly at
the back. It looked like I’d missed only the warm-up. The magistrate, a man in his late fifties with a pinched, acerbic face
and three concentric rings of wrinkles across his cheeks as though his eyes were wells that someone had dropped a pebble into,
was still examining papers and holding a muttered conversation with the court clerk. Pen was sitting right at the front with
her back to me, as tense as all hell if the set of her shoulders was anything to go by, but she hadn’t started shouting yet,
so that was good.

I sat down in an empty seat at the back of the room. There were a lot of empty seats; this was the sort of case that could
easily make the local papers, but it didn’t look like any of them had caught on to it yet. In the digital age, cub reporters
don’t bird-dog the courts and the cop shops anymore: They print out the press releases that come in over the wire, clock off
early, and spend more time abusing substances.

Eventually, the magistrate looked up. He cast his eyes around the room as if someone at the back had just spoken and he was
trying to work out who so he could hand out some lines.

“Miss Bruckner?” he said in a querulous tone. Pen got to her feet, holding up her hand unnecessarily. Her fall of red-gold
hair made her hard to miss even sitting down. As always, she looked much taller than her five feet and half a spare inch.
That effect is even more pronounced when you’re facing her, staring head-on at her scarily vivid green eyes, but it’s noticeable
even from the back. Pen may be a small package, but what’s in there was tamped down with a lot of force, and the lid barely
stays on most of the time.

“And Professor Mulbridge?”

On the other side of the court, another woman who’d been scribbling notes in a ring-bound notebook looked up, flicked the
book closed, and stood. She was older than Pen and made a strong contrast to her in a lot of ways. Matte-gray hair—the same
gray as Whistler’s mother or a German helmet—in a well-sculpted bob; gray eyes flecked with the smallest hint of blue; an
austere, thin-lipped face, but with a healthy blush to her cheeks that suggested a warm smile lurking under the superficial
solemnity. She was dressed in a formal, understated two-piece in shades of dark blue, looking like a probation officer or
a Tory MP, whereas Pen was wearing flamboyant African silk. The professor’s cool self-possession was clearly visible under
the self-effacing smile and polite nod. Clearly visible to me, anyway; but then I go back a long way with Jenna-Jane Mulbridge,
and I know where most of the bodies are buried. Hell, in a few cases, I even dug the graves. People who don’t know her so
well are apt to take away from their first meeting a vague sense of heavy-handed maternal benevolence; and to be fair, if
I were going to describe Jenna-Jane to someone who didn’t know her, “mother” might well be the first couple of syllables I’d
reach for.

“Here, Your Honor,” Jenna-Jane said mildly. Her voice said, “Trust me, I’m a doctor,” and she is, as far as that goes. Then
again, so were Crippen and Mengele, and they both sold patent medicines in their time.

The magistrate tapped the stack of papers in front of him. “And I presume Dr. Smart and Mr. Prentice are also in attendance?”

“Yes, Your Honor” and “Here, Your Honor” came from somewhere off to my far right.

The magistrate acknowledged them with a curt nod. “Thank you,” he said dryly. “You can all be seated again. Now, from what
I understand, this is a question of the disposition of an involuntarily held mental patient. A section forty-one case, Mr.…
Rafael Ditko.”