Dead Men's s Boots — читать онлайн бесплатно полностью

I glanced across at the fat man once, out of the corner of my eye: he was still on his knees and he was stilttyd he wal looking at me, although when I caught him at it he dropped his gaze to the ground with a slight grimace and went back to the job in hand.

‘Any luck, Leonard?’ the receptionist asked."

"The man shook his head glumly. ‘There’s no jam,’ he said, in a higher voice than I would have expected – a voice that had a slight fluting quality to it, as though the big man had swallowed that weird little device that gives Mister Punch his voice. ‘I think it’s one of the rollers, come off its bracket.’ He leaned forward and reached into the machine – with both arms, this time. It shifted on its base and creaked ominously.

‘Mister Castor.’ I looked up. Todd was just coming down the stairs, hand outstretched. He had a different suit on – mid-blue instead of grey, and with a subtle dog-tooth. Maybe he had one for every day of the week. I stood, and we shook.

Shaking hands is always a little jump into the unknown for me. The same morbid sensitivity that makes me good at sensing the presence of the dead sometimes allows me to pick up superficial psychic impressions through skin-to-skin contact. Nothing this time, though, or at least nothing revealing: Maynard Todd exuded only a cool aura of self-possession as immaculate as his tailoring.

‘Thanks for coming,’ he said. Then he looked past me, and his expression shifted into a slightly perplexed frown. ‘Uh – Leonard, are you sure you know what you’re doing there?’

‘Yes,’ Leonard grunted tersely.

I could see Todd thinking about taking the discussion a stage further, and I could see him giving up on the idea. He turned to the receptionist instead. ‘Carol,’ he said, ‘call the service number.’

‘Yes, Mister Todd.’

‘I can fix it,’ said Leonard, not looking round.

‘Come on upstairs,’ Todd said to me, ignoring Leonard’s answer. ‘You want some tea or coffee?’

‘I’m fine,’ I said, and followed him back up the wide staircase. When we turned around the elbow of the stairs Leonard was still on his knees, intent on his veterinary duties.

‘John Gittings,’ Todd said, glancing back down at me as we walked. ‘That’s what you called about, right?’

‘Right,’ I agreed.

‘And I saw you at the funeral.’

‘Right again.’

He nodded. ‘Yeah, I thought so. You were the one who stepped in when the natives were getting restless. Thanks for that.’

I didn’t answer. It would have sounded a bit graceless to say that I was more worried about Reggie and Greg picking up an assault charge than I was about Todd’s well-being.

The stairwell went up and up, and I lost count of how many turns we took before we got to Todd’s office. It was surprisingly small, but then the courts had been the lower end of Victorian working-class housing: they meted out space as though space was gold. Todd indicated a chair as he walked around to the far side of the desk and pulled open the blinds, which looked onto the court’s central light well and so didn’t make much difference to the grey luminescence filtering into the room: this looked like the kind of place where you’d need the desk lamp on at noon on Midsummer’s Day.

As he sat down, Todd flicked open a green hanginaid green g file that was already on his desk. It contained a thick wodge of papers. I took the chair opposite him.

‘John Gittings,’ he said again, flicking through the documents on top of the file with quick, practised hands. ‘I’ve been thinking about this one.’

‘Have you?’ I asked, for form’s sake.

Todd nodded. ‘About Mrs Gittings’s feelings on the matter, I mean,’ he clarified. ‘I’m going to go ahead and get the exhumation order, like I said. Have John disinterred and taken to Mount Grace for cremation. I don’t have any choice about that.’

‘I’m sure.’

He must have caught the sardonic edge in my tone, because he gave me a slightly injured stare.

‘Seriously,’ he said. ‘You think I enjoyed turning up at the funeral looking like the bad guy in a silent movie, terrorising widows, breaking up the show? I didn’t. I didn’t enjoy it one bit. But my client’s wishes were absolutely specific.’

I didn’t answer right away: I was only here to check the dates. But since he’d given me the opening, it seemed churlish not to at least poke a stick into it.

‘Carla thinks that John was suffering from some kind of dementia.’

Todd looked pained. ‘Mrs Gittings has that luxury. I don’t. Not unless she can prove it in court. I have to assume that John meant what he said, and I have to act on it.’

‘There’s something else you should know about,’ I said. ‘Mrs Gittings is being haunted by her husband’s ghost.’

I left it out there, looked at his face.