Alice Biggins was lying flat on the single bed in her small room along the Endless Corridor. An unread book lay by her side. Sleep was the thing Alice missed most about being alive. She missed the ability to switch off. In life there was respite. Death was relentless. She wished now she had been more appreciative of afternoon snoozes, lie-ins and early nights. Sometimes she tried to trick her ghostly body into thinking she was asleep, allowing her mind to drift into a fragmented dream-like state, hoping this would make the time pass faster.
When she heard a knocking her first thought was that it was the Unseen Door and that finally her endless existence in the Bureau would be over.
It came again and she realised it was just the door to her room. She stood up and opened it.
‘Lapsewood,’ she said.
Lapsewood smiled. ‘Alice,’ he replied. ‘Can I come in?’
‘It’s not safe for you here. Penhaligan’s got half the Bureau looking for you.’
‘That’s why I asked to come in,’ he said.
‘Of course. Sorry.’ She moved to the side and Lapsewood closed the door behind him.
Alice had never had a visitor before. Unsure what to do with herself, she sat down on her bed. Lapsewood sat next to her. In his hands was a heavy-looking document bound with string.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘My report,’ he said. ‘I’d like you to get it to General Colt.’
‘Why?’
‘It has an updated tenancy list for London. All the houses have ghosts now. It wasn’t hard to find volunteers willing to enter infected houses once they knew the consequences of leaving them unoccupied.’
‘You’re still working with Rogue ghosts?’ said Alice.
Lapsewood sighed. ‘No. I’m working with ghosts. There’s no difference between us and the Rogue ghosts. It’s all in my report. It’s not just the spirit hounds that are anomolies. We are all anomolies. The only difference between us and them is that we do more paperwork. Ghost status doesn’t mean anything. Licences, forms, permissions – none of it does anything except monitor what’s going on. The Bureau just pretends it does to justify its own existence.’
‘So why do you want to give the report to General Colt?’
‘Because he needs to assign a new Outreach Worker. They’re the only visitors a lot of these Residents get.’
‘But if nothing we do makes any difference, what’s the point of any of it?’
‘Alice, you and I have unfinished business. Aren’t you curious to find out what it is?’
‘Yes, I suppose . . . but I’d be scared, you know, of stepping into the Void.’
‘We’re all so scared of the unknown, but who says it’s something bad that happens when you go through? Hanging around like this, living these half-lives, doing work that doesn’t need doing, filling in forms, following procedure, applying for licences. We’re all in limbo.’
‘So that’s what you’re going to do, is it?’ asked Alice. ‘Finish your unfinished business?’
‘I’m going to try. That’s why I’m here.’ Lapsewood took Alice’s hands in his own.
‘You’re confusing me,’ she said, looking into his eyes.
‘That’s because I’m confused,’ said Lapsewood. He smiled. ‘After a life and death of dull, predictable certainty I’m finally confused. Beautifully confused, Alice. And that’s how it should be. The world is confusing. But I do know one thing.’ Lapsewood gave Alice’s hands a little squeeze. ‘Once you’ve delivered the report I’d like to ask you out, Alice.’
‘Out? Where?’
‘I don’t mind. Paris . . . Vienna . . . Blackpool. We can go anywhere. We’re free spirits, Alice. I don’t mind where I am so long as I’m with you. You see, I think you’re my unfinished business.’
‘Me?’ she exclaimed. ‘But we never even knew each other in life.’
‘I’m not explaining myself,’ said Lapsewood. ‘Love, Alice. I never loved. I was never loved. I never fell in love. Not in life. Not in death. Don’t rot away in this miserable place. Come with me and see the world. Maybe we’ll find our unfinished business, maybe we won’t, but at least we’ll be together. What do you say?’
Alice Biggins glanced at the drawn curtains in front of the window that looked out onto the Endless Corridor. She turned back to Lapsewood and smiled.
‘Yes,’ she said.