Walking with Ghosts

that?’
    ‘Jesus,’ the thin man said.
    J.D. turned round. ‘He’s not coming, man, uses a place round the corner, the service is better.’
     
    He’d taken the first bite out of the turkey burger when Wimp arrived and sat on the bench next to him. ‘I’ve read your books,’ he said. ‘They’re good. Specially Fungal Fatigue, that was my favourite.’
    You want to talk about my books? Wimp, my ego’s as big as the next man’s. When people want to talk about my books I forgive them everything and join in. Only just now I‘m with somebody else, like a woman, and this is her sandwich in the bag, and she’s waiting for it.’
    Wimp put a hand on his shoulder to hold him down. ‘No, it’s something else. Christ, J.D., you’re just the same as you was at school. You haven’t changed a bit. Apart from the beard, you’re exactly the same. Fuckin’ weird.’
    J.D. sighed. ‘Can we just get to it?’
    ‘What I do,’ Wimp explained. ‘I work in the travel business.’
    ‘A travel agency?’
    ‘Yeah. I was with the big one for ten years. Last year some of us went to Nepal. Just checking it out. We were thinking of doing some more tours. There’s a lot of money to be made out of that area.’
    ‘Let me get this straight,’ said J.D. ‘Sandwiches aren’t your main thing?’
    ‘I told you. Sandwiches is temporary. I got hold of this dope while we were in Nepal. Temple balls. It blew my brains out.’
    J.D. laughed.
    ‘S’not funny, man. The stuff took me apart. It was more like acid, something like that. I don’t do heavy dope, never have. Grass, yes. Even used to grow my own, when we had a conservatory, when I was married. And this stuff, this temple balls stuff was too much. Wasted me. I had a nervous I breakdown.’
    ‘In Nepal?’
    ‘No, in York. I was in the hospital, shuffling round a mental ward in carpet slippers and a dressing gown. I thought I’d never get out. I was terrified.’
    ‘Jesus,’ said J.D. ‘I never heard of dope that could do that.
    ‘You sure you wasn’t on anything else?’
    Wimp shook his head. ‘It’s me, man. I can’t take it, that’s all. The other guys I was with, they smoke it all the time, they bake it in cakes, slip the odd shavings in their mother-in-laws’ coffee. You know, the usual stuff. I wanna get rid of it.’
    ‘You brought me to this bench to unload dope on me?’
    ‘That was the first thing I thought, when I saw your face through the shop window. J.D. Pears sent from Jesus to take this fuckin’ dope off my hands. Was I right?’
    ‘Maybe,’ said J.D. cagily. ‘I’m only a poor writer. What’s deal?’
    ‘I’m not on the make here, J.D. All I want is what I wanted in the first place, some good old-fashioned, mild, dope. A straight exchange.’
    ‘How much have you got?’
    ‘A weight.’
    ‘All right. So if I come up with a weight of something gentle, you’ll take it away and give me a weight of Nepalese temple balls that’s guaranteed to blow my mind, and the minds of all my friends, and make me the most popular guy in town?’
    Wimp nodded. ‘That’s the deal.’
    ‘No catch?’
    ‘No catch, J.D. D’you wanna do it?’
    ‘Let me think a minute.’
    ‘Think all you want.’ Wimp was quiet for two seconds. He looked back at the sandwich shop. ‘So, have we got a deal? You gonna go for this dope?’
    J.D. pursed his lips and slipped the remains of his turkey burger back into the bag. He gave Wimp his right hand, said, ‘Press the flesh, my man.’
     
    J.D. got back to the place he’d left Marie in a B-registered Montego. And neither of them were there. A Montego is not a small car, and Marie was not a small woman. He scanned the street and the car park where Edward Blake’s Beemer had been. No one was hiding. They’d all skipped.
    All right, so he’d been longer than planned, but he was back now, and he’d remembered the tuna salad in pitta bread. ‘Fuck,’ he said to the spot where the car had been, ‘if I d’ve known this was gonna happen I’d’ve put mayonnaise on it.’
     
    *
     
    The Montego, with Marie at the wheel, edged its way along the main street of the village of Osbaldwick. The houses to the left were fronted by a beck, and access to each of them was over a series of individual bridges. She crossed one of the bridges, the Montego passing under a canopy of mature pear trees, before emerging at the gothic arch and weathered door of a stone-built cottage. There was a garage attached housing a