The Dead Have No Shadows Read Online Free PDF Page B

replied.  “I didn’t ...  It was...”  He trailed off.  He didn’t want to go into details of why he’d been in the bank.
    Pester laughed.  “What did you do then – when you were alive?”
    “I was a student.  I was doing a Master’s in Politics and Law.”
    Pester laughed again.  “Studying the law and died breaking it.  I like that.”
    The two men lapsed into silence.  They had been walking that way for what seemed like hours when Pester called a halt.
    “Your first experience is coming up,” said Pester.
    “My what?  Where?” said Mickey.  “I can’t see anything.  The whole place looks the same as it has all day.”
    “There’s nothing to see yet,” said Pester, “but we’re getting close.”
    “What’s going to happen to me?” snapped Mickey.  “What do I need to do?”
    “Don’t know,” Pester replied taking a sip from his water bottle.
    “Don’t know?” said Mickey.  “You said you were my guide.  So come on, guide me a bit here.”
    Pester sighed.  “I am guiding you but I don’t know what’s coming up.  It’ll be an episode from your life and it’ll be soon.”
    Mickey sighed himself and took a sip of his own drink.  He was careful with the water, as Pester had warned him. 
    How could he prepare himself for something that he knew nothing about?  What use was this Pester guy as a guide if he couldn’t help?
    “How many of these episodes, or whatever you call them, am I going to have to face?”
    “That depends on you,” said Pester.  “It depends on what your life was like and how you handled things.”
    “Thanks for nothing,” muttered Mickey.  “Some help you are.”  He corked his bottle, slipped it back into his coat pocket and started walking again.  This time it was Pester who had to quicken his pace to catch up.
    After another mile so of silent marching the roof of a building came into view.  The ground started to slope downwards making more of the building visible.  Mickey stopped dead.
    “That looks like my old primary school,” he gasped.  “What the fuck is that doing here?”
    “You’ll find out soon enough,” said Pester.  “We’ll be going in.”
    “Going in?” said Mickey.  “Won’t people think it a bit odd that two strange men are wandering around the school?  It’s the sort of thing that gets you arrested you know.”
    “Don’t worry about that,” smiled Pester.  “No- one’ll know that we’re there.”
    “Well, in that case if I don’t go in, they won’t miss me,” said Mickey.  He wasn’t sure why but he felt apprehensive about walking around his old school – whether anyone knew he was there or not.
    “It’s your choice,” Pester conceded.  Something in his tone of voice bothered Mickey.
    “But?”
    “But if you don’t go in there’ll be a consequence for you.”  Pester raised a hand to stop Mickey asking any more.  “Don’t ask.  I don’t know.  But all decisions have a consequence over here, one way or another.”
    Mickey shrugged and started walking.  He felt that he was in enough of a mess as it was; making things worse for himself didn’t seem a very bright thing to do.
    As the Victorian School House came into full view it brought back a flood of childhood memories.  A lot of these were good ones – some though were not so welcome.  Mickey began to think of things that had long been buried.  The tall, vaulted and panelled windows and gabled ends always made Mickey think of the place as more of a chapel than a school.  The classrooms were high ceilinged and had huge cast iron radiators that always gurgled and growled like some huge emphysemic beast waking up.  Big as they were, the radiators had never been able to chase the cold from the classrooms in the deepest of winters and the class, teacher included, had had many lessons wrapped in coats and scarves.
    Mickey stopped walking again.  What was he thinking?  The place had been on its last legs when he had started