In the Company of Ghosts Read Online Free

said Agatha, tugging at the blue hospital gown hanging from her diminutive frame.
    ‘Of course, you know they would have allowed you to wear your own clothes for good behaviour?’ said Thorson.
    ‘Oh bobbins,’ smiled Agatha. ‘There was never much chance of that, was there?’ She fixed Thorson with a steely glare. ‘Am I needed, Helen?’
    Doyle answered for the woman. ‘Enough for the minister to scrawl his signature on the cancellation for your sectioning order inside this loony bin.’
    ‘Excellent, excellent. Then you’ve mastered the arrangement between the office and the government, Mister Doyle. New in Margaret’s boots or no.’
    ‘The arrangement?’
    ‘You are passed the jobs no one in their right mind would wish to take on. In return you can ask for as much rope, in as many different varieties as you please, to hang yourself.’
    Doyle’s eyes narrowed.
    ‘Don’t worry, dearie. I can tie the fanciest of nooses.’
    ‘Unless you want to save me a lot of arse-ache and tell me the name of the murderer now, love, how about you get changed and we run you home before Doctor Mengele out there finds a way to keep you locked in his dungeon?’
    Agatha shuffled off to the tiny bathroom, the bundle of her clothes under her arm held as tight as an aid parcel by a refugee. Her clothes were in a transparent bag, air vacuum-removed to save space, making a tiny crumpled brick. Her handbag was in a separately sealed packet. Yes, this was what she had been wearing when she had been admitted. A musty smell emerged as she broke the seal, what you got after garments had been stored unlaundered for over a year. But at least they’re mine. Agatha removed the clothes one by one, whip-cracking them across the basin, working out the creases. Unsealing her handbag, she checked its contents. Her Mont Blanc pen was there. So was the little steel hole punch, custom made with a dial on top to vary the shape of the holes it could make. Even her purse and money. The unit’s clerks were growing boringly honest. Agatha should have felt elation at being free, instead she felt a tingle of apprehension. Why is that, I wonder? She stared in the mirror. Behind her, sitting on the shelf of the small wet-room was Groucho Marx, his eyebrows moving up and down as if he was attempting to do press-ups with his forehead.
    ‘Am I doing the right thing, Groucho? What do you think of my office friends’ proposal?’
    ‘Why, I would say it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.’ He removed the cigar he was smoking and twirled it between his fingers. She could almost taste the smooth flavour as its delicate aroma filled her nose. That was one thing she was looking forward to, smoking her treasured stock of Vegas Robainas again. There was, she suspected, a method to the way these ghosts appeared to her. Like Tarot cards. A hidden significance to their appearance, if only she could puzzle the order out . But who is Groucho in the suite of my haunting? The Hanged Man or The Chariot? Agatha dropped the hospital gown to the wet-rooms’ floor and began to pull on her clothes. The silk blouse, then the berry-coloured corduroy trousers, finishing with her favourite cable-knit lambswool cardigan.
    ‘I think I shall have to take my chances, Groucho. I have been hovering between the worlds myself, vacationing inside the unit. I shall have to swallow my principles and accept Mister Doyle’s offer. It is time to see what’s been going on out there in the real world.’
    ‘Those are my principles, too,’ said Groucho. ‘If you don’t like them, I have others.’
    He had vanished by the time she turned around, which was very like him. Opening the door fully dressed, Agatha faced her two liberators. Salvation always came at a cost.
    ‘I’m ready to go. You can take me to prison now.’
     

CHAPTER THREE – MRS WITCHLEY’S OTHER PRISON
     
    There was peacefulness about the Tower of London out of hours, clinging to it like pollution from