There is the huddled shape of a homeless person in a sleeping bag tucked along one wall. Caleb ignores the shape as he walks past. I float behind him. When I was alive, I hated this underpass even in daylight, the lowness of it, the rumble of traffic overhead, the echoing sound of droplets of damp dripping off the walls. Caleb walks along it seemingly oblivious, lost in thought.

It is only as he comes to the steps that lead up to Cowgate that I realise what is happening. I am following him, watching him, keen to see if, at some point, his step will lighten a little as he appreciates that he is still alive and that that fact alone is a wonderful thing. I am wondering where he lives – that’s assuming he is on his way back home, of course. I think about the surrounding area. Lots of young professionals have moved out of Peterborough, to the suburbs or the surrounding villages – Peterborough isn’t really a city so much as a group of townships joined by ring roads – but if he has a daily commute from the station then maybe he’s walking distance, one of those streets between the Parkway and the Back River. He takes a right down Priestgate and as he turns the corner, I see some dog shit on the pavement that he also notices and avoids. I feel a rush of gladness that he didn’t step in it – that really would have put the lid on a terrible day, after all – and then it comes to me, the thing I should have noticed straight away if I had not been so distracted by watching Caleb’s progress through the underpass and up the steps and the speculation on where he might live. For the first time since I died, I have left the station.

Love has set me free.

8

My first act as a ghost newly released from imprisonment on Peterborough Railway Station is to become a stalker.

Caleb walks down Priestgate, past the museum, past the amusement arcade that promises Rainbow Riches – win £500 here! On the opposite side of the road, a homeless man sits on the kerb, leaning forward with his arms on his knees and his head resting on his arms, as if he is asleep. The hood of his huge, dirty padded jacket is pulled up and over so that it covers his head entirely. He is completely still, but something about his posture strikes me as watchful. Caleb walks past him as if he isn’t there. I glance at him and wonder if he is one of us – I know I am not alone, after all.