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‘This is bloody Bill the Bard, you know.’ Just in case I’d forgotten.
    â€˜We’ll know in a minute,’ I said. ‘The Ghost speaks again very soon.’
    And indeed, we were approaching that moment. Hamlet, having entreated his friends to silence, instructs them to swear an oath on his sword. They pause, uncertain and afraid, and, according to the play, the unearthly voice of the Ghost filters up, supposedly from the underworld, but in this case from below the stage, commanding them to swear.
    There was a long silence. No voice from anywhere, never mind the underworld.
    â€˜Shit,’ said Lingoss, and then...
    â€˜Swear,’ boomed an unearthly voice, resonant with the terrors of Hell.
    Lingoss stiffened. ‘I know that voice.’
    â€˜Swear,’ intoned the voice sepulchrally, throbbing with all the despair and grief and sorrow and desolation of a lost soul. And with a bit of a Bristol accent.
    â€˜We all know that voice,’ I said, through clenched teeth.
    â€˜Swear by his sword,’ commanded the eldritch voice, rising in tone and pitch and finishing on a strangulated note that even a banshee with its balls trapped in a vice couldn’t have achieved. All around the stage people stepped back, and on the stage itself, Hamlet’s companions completed the scene with almost indecent haste.
    â€˜Oh my God,’ said Lingoss to me, agitated, but still recording I was pleased to note. ‘What did he think he was doing?’
    The scene ended and the actors swept from the stage.
    Time to find out.
    I opened my com and taking advantage of the milling crowd said quietly, ‘Mr Markham. Report.’
    â€˜It’s fine. Everything’s fine.’
    This is St Mary’s speak for ‘Everything’s gone tits up, but I’m trying to sort things out so leave me alone to get on with it.’
    â€˜Do you require any assistance?’
    â€˜No. No. Everything’s fine.’
    I stared at the stage as if I could see through the wood.
    Dr Bairstow’s voice sounded in my ear. ‘Dr Maxwell, we appear to have lost contact.’
    â€˜Really, sir?’
    â€˜Report, please.’
    In situations like this – the ones where I’m not quite sure what’s going on – it is important to report as fully and clearly as possible without actually saying anything at all.
    â€˜It’s fine,’ I said, borrowing from the master. ‘Everything’s fine.’
    There was a short, disbelieving silence and then he closed the link.
    â€˜Just act normally,’ said Markham, in my ear again. ‘Everything’s fine.’
    â€˜Stop saying that.’
    â€˜Well it is.’
    Where are you?
    â€˜I’m carrying Shakespeare out from under the stage.’
    â€˜Oh my God, is he badly burned?’
    â€˜No, not at all. His costume is, but he’s fine.’
    I was puzzled. ‘So why are you carrying him?’
    â€˜He’s just a little bit limp at the moment.’
    â€˜He’d better not be. The Ghost appears again later on.’
    â€˜That won’t be a problem.’
    I stopped. Did that mean that Shakespeare would have recovered by then? Or that someone was available to carry on? I wish people would report more clearly.
    â€˜Was that you just now?’
    Silence.
    I ground my teeth again. ‘Was it?’
    â€˜I’m not sure what the correct answer is to that one, so I’m not saying anything. Anyway, I can’t talk now – I’m heaving a living legend around and I need to concentrate on what I’m doing.’
    I took a moment. This was Markham. Himself a living legend, but for completely the wrong reasons. On the other hand, he usually managed to emerge from whatever crisis he had embroiled himself in more or less unscathed. I should let him get on with it.
    â€˜Do whatever you think necessary,’ I said, mentally crossing my fingers.
    â€˜Okey dokey,’ he said