Page 90 of Unalive On Air

“Is that so?” Angel says, turning to me and laughing.

But my response is too slow and gives everything away. “Noooo, I don’t necessarily think it was you. I just think we could be looking at a superfan copycat killer.”

“You reckon I killed you?” he says again, and this time I genuinely might pass out.

“No, no, no. What I’m saying is . . .” Oh, fuck. “It’s a possibility.”

Angel and Jeanie are both laughing, and I have no idea what it is about multiple homicides committed over four decades that’s so funny to them.

“I didn’t kill you,” he says, once his mirth has ebbed. “And I have an alibi for your death.”

“You do?”

Angel looks at Jeanie with an expression I don’t immediately recognise, and then suddenly I understand. With crashing clarity, it hits me. Why Jeanie didn’t tell us about Angel’s gift, why she’s so adamant Angel isn’t the Paragon killer, and where she was the morning I died?

“Oh my god. You’re in a relationship with each other,” I say.

“Well, as much of a relationship as a ghost and a fleshie can be in.” Jeanie slides up to Angel’s side, and he looks at her the way I dream a certain handsome surfer would look at me.

“On the night you were killed,” Angel says, once again looking for permission to continue. It’s given with a subtle nod. “We were here . . . in the back room . . . together. I have CCTV footage to prove it.”

Two thoughts. One, how? How can a ghost be intimate with a living person when we aren’t able to touch anything? And two, as much as I want to close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears, and “la la la” my way out of this, I can’t. That’s not why I’m here.

I need to get to the bottom of this mystery, and getting squeamish about a spectre and a rugged old dude going hell for leather on each other is not very professional of me.

“I need to see that CCTV,” I say. “Or at least the time stamp from my TOD.”

“Follow me,” Angel says, taking me into a small box room with a tiny desk and an ancient desktop computer.

It takes him a few minutes to pull up the correct clips on his hard drive, and Angel gives Jeanie one last apologetic look.

“Don’t know why you’re looking at me like that. It’s not as if Gary’s gonna see my naked arse on the screen.”

The grainy black and white footage starts at precisely midnight. Angel enters the premises and switches on the lights. The camera does that thing where it wastes half a second readjusting the autofocus. Angel hangs his coat on a hook and shakes the rainwater from his hair. Then he moves around to the desk, sits behind it, and appears to fiddle with his phone for a bit. He props it up beside himself and leans back in his chair.

“I’m tuning into your radio show. Imogen told me to,” Angel explains.

“Thank you,” I say, and then I remember the following week’s episode where I list him as one of the prime suspects, and I feel that sense of dread rising again.

We fast-forward through the next two hours. Angel stays firmly rooted to his chair. I can see that very seat if I lean through the wall and look into the main reception area. After this, the undertaker gets up and moves to a different room not covered by the cameras.

“Toilet,” he explains.

A few moments later he reappears and goes into what must be the back room. Here, he fixes his hair, brushes his teeth over the kitchenette sink, and sniff-checks his armpits. Then he takes a seat in a squashy‑looking leather armchair, checking his wristwatch every five to ten minutes.

At three a.m. he gets up, lights a few candles that are dotted about the room, turns the big light off, and sits back down. It’s another quarter of an hour before he rises from his chair again. He smiles, lips moving with words I cannot hear.

“Thankfully, there’s no sound,” he says, echoing my exact thoughts. “From here it . . . gets a little pornographic.”

As if on cue, screen Angel pulls his jumper over his head, then he unbuttons his shirt. He’s already undoing his trousers before his shirt hits the ground. And then what follows is a grainy image of a man in his pants making out with thin air.

I kind of want to laugh, except . . . he’s getting more action than I have since, like, forever.

“You can skip this bit,” I say.

“Thank you,” he replies, and fast-forwards the footage while keeping one hand over screen Angel. Through his fingers, I still see glimpses of him, and I appreciate that he’s giving me enough opportunity to compare the time stamp with my TOD.

Eventually, the Angel of two weeks ago tugs on his underpants and pours himself a glass of red wine. He sits on the leather chair again and begins chatting. And that’s where he stays, aside from infrequent bathroom breaks, until the sun rises. He gets dressed, talks to the wall for half a minute, then buries his face in his hands.