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“Well then he came in one day and murdered me,” she finished. “Just walked over to where I was standing on the balcony and shoved me over the side. There I was, one moment feeling all warm and loving, sipping champagne, and the next I was flyin’ past the walls, and the cobblestones come up and smacked me in the face.”

Arthur looked at the vibrant woman opposite. Alive, he had wanted her, dreamt and lusted after her, even felt a certain tenderness for her. Now, with them both long-dead, he saw her as a person, wild, limited, but vital and real. “Why did he kill you?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she answered simply. “I haunted him for fifty years and I never found out. If he’d been drunk or scared I’d give him up to the Bobbies, I could have moved on. He was calm and cold. He walked straight up to me, gave me this sad smile, and pushed me into the cold air. Well, it seems like, if you’re angry when you die, you sometimes stick around. Something to do with ecto, ecto…, ghost stuff getting really sticky. And I was raving mad, especially looking at myself spattered on the cobblestones. I wasn’t pretty anymore,” Gladys added without a trace of self-consciousness. She licked the last of her soup off the spoon. “I suppose it wasn’t a bad thing really, ‘cause I could feel myself being dragged down there – Hell. I have to say, though, something was dragging me up into the clouds as well. I was sort of floating, looking at myself when O’Grady came sliding out of the hotel. Quite a crowd had gathered by then, but they were all looking at me, and no-one even noticed him. The bastard didn’t even glance my way, just strode away with the wind blowing at his fancy cloak. I ran after him; at least my ghost did, screaming curses, battering at his face. All I managed to do was blow a few drops of rain in his face. Once, I got tangled in his black curls and he looked startled and ran his fingers through his hair, so I knew he could sense me.”

Gladys got up and went to the bar. She started talking to the acne barmaid who glared and shook her head. Gladys persisted and the barmaid began to look puzzled. She stomped over to where Arthur and Jasper were sitting. “Her says,” she began without preamble, that her’s gooin’ ta be the third barmaid. “Her says to goo away now, while her learns the ropes, and come back at fower. Now, yo know that the clocks ‘ere don’t work proper, and ah work from midnight to noon, and Nellie works from midnight to noon, only it’s a different midnight to noon.” She scratched her head absently, and studied a large flake of dandruff that had lodged under her fingernail.