Dead Men's s Boots

She’s ill. Killing is one of the symptoms of her illness.’

Susan put the glass to her lips and emptied it. She made a sour face. ‘I’m not good at this,’ she said. I was surprised I hadn’t noticed the slur in her voice at the door. ‘I don’t even like the taste. I think I’m going to get sick before I get drunk.’

‘Susan-’ I began. She shook her head impatiently.

‘Play your tune. I want this to be over. I don’t want it in my life any more.’

I nodded. For the third time that night I unshipped my whistle and held it in my hands, ready to play.

My mind was fogged by exhaustion, though, and although I knew the notes I had to play – the notes of a summoning that would have Juliet’s name written all over it – I couldn’t get my mind into the place where it needed to be. I felt like someone trying to fit their eye to the lens of a telescope, and screwing up the angle so that all they can see is the magnified reflection of the blood vessels inside their own eyeball.

I played a note, more or less at random, hoping my sixth sense would kick in and the music would start to flow.

It didn’t. Nothing at all came into my mind, not even a note that would connect to this one in a way that made sense.

I lowered the whistle and stared at it, blinking my eyes back into focus. It was strange, and it was frightening. I’d had good days and bad days, but I’d never had my knack desert me quite so suddenly and completely before. All I wanted to do was the summoning. It was the easiest part of an exorcism: it just made a path, a line of least resistance for the spirit you were looking for to move through.

It was usually easiest if you were close to the spirit, harder the further away you got: but the only reason it wouldn’t work at all, wouldn’t even stay in my head long enough to suggest the beginnings of a tune, was if-

‘She’s already here,’ I said. ‘Isn’t she?’

‘She’s upstairs,’ Susan muttered, pointing. ‘In our bedroom. Or it was our bedroom. I don’t know what it is now.

’ Slowly, deliberately, but still spilling a little on the table, she poured herself another drink.

I walked right on past her. I wanted to offer her some kind of solace but what could I have said? Bad friend Felix was on the prowl again: good news wasn’t on the agenda.

The main bedroom was dead ahead. Juliet was sitting on the windowsill, legs hugged to her chest, both feet off the ground. In a way it was a curiously little-girlish pose.