Famous Last Words

It was the most sensational case in all legal history: a ghost testifying against their own murderer.

Scientists had spent years developing the technique, fighting to ensure their project didn't outlast its funding. Psychics and religious leaders were consulted as to how spirits could best be contacted. Eyewitness testimony of spectral sightings was methodically collected from every corner of the globe. Researchers spent weeks holed up in supposedly haunted castles, attempting to interview their dead ancestors.

Although well-intentioned, the study at first tended to attract money-hungry quacks rather than respectable professionals, since so few amongst the latter community were willing to be associated with what they considered silly folklore. Even those few that could be recruited had a high resignation rate, frightened by the often-disturbing nature of their work.

It was only with the arrival of Dr Richard James that success began. Well-known for a string of popular-science bestsellers, James was utterly devoted to the project and used his political links to successfully lobby for greater money and manpower. Breakthroughs quickly followed, which I cannot discuss here in any great detail for legal reasons: suffice to say it was soon understood that there is no means by which ghosts can be forced to appear before human eyes, but those that do of their own free will can, with the right technology, be indefinitely trapped in such a way as to allow full visibility and audibility.

While that in itself was a near-miracle of innovation, further problems presented themselves. Ghosts were difficult to locate, and when found frequently spoke incomprehensible languages or could no longer remember how to speak at all. Others were so ill-humoured and even violent that any attempts at conversation had to be abandoned. To exacerbate matters, often those that seemed most amiable were deceitful attention-seekers, a tendency best illustrated by the incident in which three separately captured spirits all simultaneously claimed to be the final residue of Alexander the Great.

Nevertheless the project proceeded and its findings were eventually made public. Far from the rapturous praise they had expected, however, the scientists involved were the target of much criticism. Colleagues working in other fields were often resentful that one study should attract so much media attention while their own work went unrecognised. Public outcry at the team's perceived mistreatment of phantoms led to a number of new laws which required full, informed consent and thus greatly reduced the number of potential test subjects. Worst of all, the country's newest government was less willing than its predecessor to fund a venture which, while interesting, had little practical merit.

In response to these strains, Dr James controversially obtained finance from private sources by sharing the team’s results with several commercial enterprises that hoped to profitably market the ability to converse with one’s dearly departed friends and family.

Since it had enjoyed so much public funding, the new technology was put to work in the public interest. The police were especially interested in its possibilities.

It was one morning in December that a pair of junior researchers encountered the study's first known murder victim. The relevant authorities were called and confirmed that she both resembled and knew the extensive biographical details of one Pip Grass, strangled to death by an unknown assailant eighteen years previously. Except the assailant’s identity was no longer unknown, since she identified her uncle Rodney Aft as the killer.

The case came to trial and Mr Aft was found guilty once the jury had been satisfactorily assured that a phantom’s testimony could be trusted. Yet it was not the mere fact of a ghost giving evidence which ultimately made this case most notable. Rather it was Miss Grass’s closing remarks, which expressed her unexpected wish that Mr Aft should be acquitted despite his clear guilt.

‘You see, I’m glad he killed me. Obviously I was upset about it at the time, and it was certainly painful, but I’ve enjoyed death much more than life. Now the living have established a reliable means of communication with the dead, the coming years will inevitably bring a new understanding of death – a new understanding that it may, at least in certain cases, be preferable to life.’