‘Enhanced,’ said Mr Vicenti.

‘We had to find it out,’ said Mr Fletcher. ‘You have to find it out. You have to forget who you were. That’s the first step. And stop being frightened of old ghosts. Then you’ve got room to find out what you are. What you can be.’

‘So we’re off,’ said the Alderman.

‘Where to?’

‘We don’t know. It iss going to be very interesting to find out,’ said Solomon Einstein.

‘But . . . but . . . we’ve saved the cemetery!’ said Johnny. ‘We had a meeting! And Bigmac . . . and I spoke up and . . . there’s been things on the television and people have really been talking about this place! No one’s going to build anything on it! There’s been birdwatchers here and everything! Turn the machine off! We’ve saved the cemetery.’

‘But we don’t need it any more,’ said the Alderman.

‘We do!’

The dead looked at him.

‘We do,’ Johnny repeated. ‘We . . . need it to be there.’

The diesel engine chugged. The machine vibrated. The dead, if that’s what they still were, seemed to be thinking.

Then Solomon Einstein nodded.

‘This iss of course very true,’ he said, in his excited squeaky voice. ‘It all balances, you see. The living have to remember, the dead have to forget. Conservation of energy.’

The bulldozer’s engine stuttered into silence.

Mr Vicenti held up a hand. It glowed like a firework.

‘We came back to say goodbye. And thank you,’ he said.

‘I hardly did anything.’

‘You listened. You tried. You were there. You can get medals just for being there. People forget the people who were just there.’

‘Yes. I know.’

‘But, now . . . we must be somewhere else.’

‘No . . . don’t go yet,’ said Johnny. ‘I have to ask you—’

Mr Vicenti turned.

‘Yes?’

‘Um . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘Are there . . . angels involved? You know? Or . . . devils and things? A lot of people would like to know.’

‘Oh, no. I don’t think so. That sort of thing . . . no. That’s for the living. No.’

The Alderman rubbed his spectral hands. ‘I rather think it’s going to be a lot more interesting than that.’

The dead were walking away, some of them fading back into shining smoke as they moved.

Some were heading for the canal. There was a boat there. It looked vaguely like a gondola. A dark figure stood at one end, leaning on a pole that vanished into the water.

‘This is my lift,’ said William Stickers.

‘It looks a bit . . . spooky. No offence meant,’ said Johnny.

‘Well, I thought I’d give it a try. If I don’t like it, I’ll go somewhere else,’ said William Stickers, stepping aboard. ‘Off we go, comrade.’

RIGHT said the ferryman.

The boat moved away from the bank. The canal was only a few metres wide, but the boat seemed to be drifting off a long, long way . . .