But of course, the only thing behind him was the window, and through it, that incredible view of Carmel Bay. So then he turned back to look at me, and must have seen that my gaze was fastened directly on his face, since he breathed, ‘Nombre de Dios,’ in a manner that would have had Gina, who has a thing for Latino guys, swooning.

‘It’s no use calling on your higher power,’ I informed him, as I swung the pink-tasselled chair to my new dressing table around, and straddled it. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, He isn’t paying a whole lot of attention to you. Otherwise, He wouldn’t have left you here to fester for—’ I took in his outfit, which looked a lot like something they’d have worn on The Wild, Wild West. ‘What is it, a hundred and fifty years? Has it really been that long since you croaked?’

He stared at me with eyes that were as black and liquid as ink. ‘What is . . . croaked?’ he asked, in a voice that sounded rusty from disuse.

I rolled my eyes. ‘Kicked the bucket,’ I translated. ‘Checked out. Popped off. Bit the dust.’ When I saw from his perplexed expression that he still didn’t understand, I said, with some exasperation, ‘Died.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Died.’ But instead of answering my question, he shook his head. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said, in tones of wonder. ‘I don’t understand how it is that you can see me. All these years, no one has ever—’

‘Yeah,’ I said, cutting him off. I hear this kind of thing a lot, you understand. ‘Well, listen, the times, you know, they are a’changin’. So what’s your glitch?’

He blinked at me with those big dark eyes. His eyelashes were longer than mine. It isn’t often I run into a ghost who also happens to be a hottie, but this guy . . . boy, he must have been something back when he was alive because here he was dead and I was already trying to catch a peek at what was going on beneath the white shirt he was wearing very much open at the throat, exposing quite a bit of his chest, and some of his stomach, too. Do ghosts have six-packs? This was not something I had ever had occasion – or a desire – to explore before.

Not that I was about to let myself get distracted by that kind of thing now. I’m a professional, after all.

‘Glitch?’ he echoed. Even his voice was liquid, his English as flat and unaccented as I fancied my own was, slight Brooklyn blurring of my t’s aside. He clearly had some Spaniard in him, as his Dios and his colouring indicated, but he was as American as I was – or as American as someone who was born before California became a state could be.

‘Yeah.’ I cleared my throat. He had turned a little and put a boot up on to the pale blue cushion that covered the window seat, and I had seen definitive proof that yes, ghosts could indeed have six-packs. His abdominal muscles were deeply ridged, and covered with a light dusting of silky black hair.