The landlady of the Boar’s Head, Mrs O’Twain, hadn’t noticed anything especially odd about the man with the three-pointed birthmark on his head who entered the pub as she was ringing the bell for last orders. The Boar’s Head was home to as many different kinds of customer as there were kinds of folk in the world. By day it was filled with journalists, drinking and gossiping in the name of work. Businessmen came to escape their offices by day, and their families by night. The rich, the poor, the reputable and the disreputable: every walk of life came through its doors. As her husband used to say, liquor was the great equaliser and you couldn’t tell a lord from a chimney sweep when they were under a table.
Mrs O’Twain had served a number of religious men too. Anglicans and Catholics might have argued about what happened to the wine they took at holy communion once it entered the body, but both were agreed on the importance of it going in to begin with.
‘What will it be, padre?’ she asked. ‘You’re just in time.’
‘You have a spirit,’ he replied.
‘We have a wall full of them. Which can I interest you in?’ she said, taking his strange manner as indication he had visited a number of public houses prior to arriving at this one.
‘A spirit of a different kind concerns me. My name is Reverend Fallowfield.’
‘You want something you can’t see?’ she asked, confused.
‘None can see the spirits of which I speak,’ he said. ‘Those spirits who walk amongst us. Unhappy souls.’
Mrs O’Twain rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, you’re like that girl, are you?’
‘What girl?’ demanded Reverend Fallowfield.
‘A well-to-do young lass, she was. Little more than fifteen years, at a guess. But polite enough. She came here asking after my dead husband. I thought she was a . . . well, I don’t know what I thought she was, but as it turns out she never knew him in life. She was hoping to meet his ghost.’ She chuckled.
‘Her name, this girl?’
‘I never thought to ask. What’s all this sudden interest in my husband’s ghost, then?’
The priest seemed momentarily lost in thought. By now, a couple of the regulars were listening in.
‘This chap giving you bother?’ asked one of them.
‘He says he’s interested in my Paddy,’ she replied.
‘Debt collector?’ asked another.
‘Ghosts are the debts we collect in life,’ said Reverend Fallowfield. ‘I pay them off. I banish them to the other side where they belong.’
‘My Paddy never hung around here enough in life, always roaming around looking for more trouble to land himself in. I see no reason he’d linger here in death.’
‘Unless the dead like a drink too,’ said one of the regulars, laughing.
‘In which case I’d notice the depletion in stocks,’ replied Mrs O’Twain.
The joke got more laughter than it deserved, but then they all did this far into the evening.
‘I am not asking a question,’ said the priest angrily. ‘Your husband’s spirit remains here because he cannot leave.’
Mrs O’Twain felt a pang of annoyance now and her resolve to speak her mind was strengthened by the inclusion of others in the conversation. ‘If he is here then he is no burden. Which is more than could be said of him in life.’
‘Spiritual decay,’ pronounced the priest. ‘They exist amongst us without our permission. They pollute us.’
‘Oh, and now you’ll be telling me that for a small donation you’ll rid me of this unseen tenant, will you?’
‘I will not charge you for this exorcism,’ said the priest. ‘It is your decision if you wish to make a donation after you have seen this public house cleansed.’
‘I tell you, I’ve heard some scams in my day,’ said Mrs O’Twain, ‘so I’ll give you the credit of at least coming up with a new one. But, it is a scam, and in the end you’re no better than the coiners I chased out last Wednesday.’
The priest slammed down his fist in anger, but as he did so his elbow collided with a man behind him, sending the remainder of his drink to the floor. The two regulars instantly stood up and the priest backed away.
‘I’ll ask you not to come in here causing trouble again,’ said Mrs O’Twain. ‘Now I suggest you buy this man a beer to replace the one you just spilled.’
The priest scowled. He thrust a hand in one pocket and pulled out a coin, which he tossed across the bar.
‘It better be real,’ said Mrs O’Twain.
‘You dare question my authenticity?’ barked the priest. ‘I who will rid this city of every stinking devil that lurks in its shadows. You mark my words.’
The priest turned and left the pub to cheers and laughter from the other customers.