The Physics Of The Dead - A Supernatural Mystery Novel by Luke Smitherd Page B

and when he speaks next his voice is muffled by his forearms. “You just never get a break. Never.”
    You've been here a week. Let's see what you think in a year, Hart thinks, and this is one of the incidents that makes him think he's made a mistake with Bowler. Because if he ever needs to get away-if Bowler really becomes unhinged-Loose Bowler would always follow Hart. The thought is deeply disturbing.
    Bowler mutters something, and Hart has to ask him to repeat it. It turns out Bowler had said two words.
    “Heart attack.”
    Hart is understandably confused.
    “Pardon?”
    “Heart attack. My Granny. Just behind there.” he says, pointing at Cathedral Lanes without looking up, meaning the cobbled alleys around the cathedral itself. There isn't much Hart can really say in reply.
    “I wasn't there. She'd gone shopping with her carer . I was working full time by then, and didn't see so much of her. She didn't mind so much by the end; she'd gone a bit, you know...” he punctuates this with a waggle of the hand. Hart understands. “But she was still always pleased to see me when I went to visit. When it happened, apparently she wasn't out of breath or anything, or even struggling; two minutes before they'd been laughing and talking about Brighton...of all things...she was a very giggly woman. Very friendly, not one of these nasty, bitter old ladies. Good laugh. I suppose it might have even been the laughing, at the time, you know. Either way, down she went.” And he accompanies this part with a surprisingly blunt effect; he slaps his hand hard, on his thigh, like he's overcompensating, covering his pain.
    “Heart went, down she goes. Nothing they could do. Dead before the ambulance got there.” He pauses a moment, and then turns his red eyes to Hart. “So, see, this is the thing for me, Hart. She died RIGHT THERE. Well within The Foyer.”
    Hart sighs, not unkindly, and settles back whilst Bowler talks.
    “So,” continues Bowler, turning further, to stay looking into Hart's eyes now he has moved backwards, his hands turned upward into cups, waiting to receive. “Where is she, Hart? Don't get me wrong; I'm GLAD she's not here. That she's not stuck with...all this. But she died here, HERE. So where's SHE gone? And, and, and why...why are WE here and she's NOT?” He isn't angry. He's after answers, pleading. And worse, he knows Hart doesn't have them.
    Hart laces his fingers together and looks at them. These are questions he used to ask, used to need to know. But he knows now that they don't matter, in the long run. They are here, and surviving and getting out are the priorities, not the things that can't be changed. He can't give hollow comfort, and wouldn't know how anyway, but thinks that in this moment when Bowler needs him-a rare moment of emotional insight-he has something. Not something he really believes fully himself, but with nothing better to say, it might suffice.
    “Perhaps...perhaps she IS here..” says Hart. “Perhaps she's here, but on a different frequency. In the way that everyone in our Foyer are roughly on one frequency-close, but not close enough to be able to communicate like us-and we're all loosely on it, not totally fixed, which explains why we can fade in and out with George sometimes, for example...and your Grandmother, and others like her, are on another frequency altogether. Except we can't see them or even be aware of them, the same way the living can't see us.”
    He falls silent, not knowing whether to go on as Bowler hasn't even looked at him throughout this. His gaze is back at the floor. Hart is searching for something to say to follow up, and Bowler saves him the bother by speaking himself.
    “I don't buy that. Sorry, Hart...but I don't. Even if I did, I wouldn't like to think of her being ANYWHERE that's like this.” His voice is flat, his face expressionless, and Hart thinks this must be the worst week of Bowler's existence, living or otherwise. Hart is wrong. So far, it is