And, as usual, he’d brought a huge amount of equipment with him. As he alighted from his taxi he looked up at the windows and waved. I stepped outside to greet him and glanced upwards, but I couldn’t see anything. ‘Who were you waving at Colonel?’ I asked, and he winked at me and tugged his little moustache. ‘Never you mind, young Riana, we all see something different in this house. I see the ghost of the old lady in Victorian dress.’ He rested his cases on the ground, gesturing to the driver to help him inside with them. ‘You mean Beatrice?’ I said in relief. ‘She’s no—’ I stopped speaking. I didn’t have to let him know Beatrice was just a friend and not a ghost at all. She was old and a bit strange, but she was as solid as I was. At dinner, later, when all my guests had arrived and were seated around the dining tables, Mrs Ward and Rosie served roast lamb and mint sauce. The whole thing seemed to have an air of familiarity about it, and strangely Rosie looked her usual comely self, exactly as she had been before she’d given birth to the baby.
