According to most interpretations, people in Purgatory are merely hanging around, purging their sins while they wait to go to Heaven. In this version, no one goes from that waiting room to Hell – if you deserve Hell, you’re there already. The community of souls in Purgatory is made up of people who were basically okay, they’ve just got a few things to atone for before heading up to claim their big reward in the sky. They may be spending a bit of time on Platform Seven but there’s no chance they are going to end up on the tracks. They’re just checking their watches, tapping their feet, whistling to themselves, until their train pulls into the station. It’s not what you actually do in Purgatory that counts, after all – it’s how long you spend there. The 09.16 to Doncaster won’t come a minute earlier, however good you are.

Some people think that this is what ghosts are, souls in Purgatory, but in that version, the platforms and waiting rooms aren’t just populated by people who have something to atone for, but also the ones who went before their time, violently, unfairly, the ones who can’t ascend or descend while they still have business on earth. Some people still believe that if you pray for a dead soul or make an offering of some sort, you can spring them from Purgatory a bit before their time. Their train might come in earlier. By that token, I guess it follows that if someone living makes an effort to find out what really happened to the unfairly dead, to nail the culprit, then they might be releasing that troubled soul to float free.

To my knowledge, this is the first time anyone has suggested a comparison between a medieval monk and a constable in the British Transport Police.

*

It is the day after I have seen Matty with his new girlfriend and foreseen what is to come between them. In some ways, it is a relief to know I have no power in the human world – imagine my dilemma if I could alter the future, if I could appear to tiny, pretty Shelley in a dream, the Ghost of Girlfriend Past, and tell her what awaits her. Perhaps I would prevent the birth of her second child, Matthew’s son – and then what if that son was going to grow up to be the scientist who found a cure for cancer or Alzheimer’s? Messing with the future is a very silly business, which is why it isn’t possible; foreseeing the future and being able to do nothing is a curse.