Vic called twenty minutes later to say she was now free to meet with us. We payed for the coffee and walked back to the depot, still engrossed in our fruitless discussion. The police were about to leave when we arrived. Officer Meyer waved at us before she climbed into the patrol car and drove away.

The archaeologist had bound her hair into a messy ponytail in the meantime, a few escaping strands framing her strained smile. "Sorry to keep you waiting. This entire case just makes little sense, and the police think the same. Come in. Would you like a cup of coffee?"

"No thanks, I've already had my fill today. What doesn't the police understand?" Matt followed her through the entrance while I trailed behind to inspect the broken locks of the two doors on the way. The one on the double door seemed intact, but someone had used brute force, probably a crowbar, on the smaller one. The frame was bent, the woodwork splintered. This hadn't been a sophisticated burglar.

I caught up to the others in the kitchenette where Vic picked up a cup of black coffee from the almost industrial sized coffeemaker lurking in a corner and introduced us to her four colleagues, among them Chiara and Alex, the forklift driver and depot master. Everyone seemed still in a state of unbelieving shock about the break-in.

Chiara pressed another cup of coffee into my reluctant hand. "Glad you're back after the disaster yesterday—and welcome to another disastrous day. I just hope this isn't the new normal around here."

Vic gulped down the hot brew. "Me too. Alt least we didn't have to deal with Paul's extravagant moods today, I bet he's too occupied with his urn. Did you find the broken lock and call the police, Alex?"

"I did." He leaned against the kitchen counter with crossed arms and nodded. "I was the first here in the morning, as usual. Patrice arrived minutes later. With the big boss visiting her museology congress, I'm glad you dropped by when you did and took care of the official part of the paperwork."

"My pleasure. Not that I could help in any significant way except guiding the sergeant around and naming the responsible department head. Deb and Chiara could have done the same if they had arrived before me." Vic shrugged and went to refill her cup.

I hesitated at first but then asked the important question that had been nagging me from the moment I saw the patrol car. "Was anything stolen?"

Chiara shook her head. "It doesn't look like. At least we couldn't find any hints, and Alex knows this place better than the back of his hand." She sent Vic a meaningful glance. "Perhaps the robbers got disturbed by—something."

The archaeologist sighed and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. "As I already told the police, there's no way I could have overlooked a broken lock when I came in yesterday evening. Besides, it was not dark yet, and I'd have seen these scratches on the door for sure in the dusk."

Chiara pulled a face. "I didn't mean you, silly. I was talking about our ghost."

The reaction of the other three people was more than interesting. Alex scratched his neck and whistled a low note. Deborah, the mousy elder woman responsible for the inventory, turned as pale as a ghost herself and made the sign of the cross. The last, Patrice, a young man wearing the uniform of the community service, chuckled and rolled his eyes in disbelief.

Vic stared at the ground for a few seconds before she looked straight at Matt, a muscle in her jaw twitching. "I owe you an apology, Matt."

His eyes widened. "So, San was right, and you've seen the ghost for real."

"I don't know what I've seen, but I swear it wasn't a burglar or a human. And when I left and locked this place up at a quarter to seven or there around, the door was intact."

Matt nodded. "Apology accepted, even if it comes as quite a shock." He sent her a wink and her face brightened, regaining a bit of colour.

"Would you mind guiding me to where you've seen the apparition?"

"Sure." I ignored the annoying grin and head shake of the youngster and followed Vic along the middle aisle to the back of the depot.

The others, except Patrice, who sat down at his workstation, trailed along. We passed the first few rows of palette shelves loaded with enormous pieces of masonry. I recognised columns and capitals, but also blocks with parts of inscriptions. Behind them followed narrower aisles, the shelves filled with hundreds of identical boxes.

Matt gave me a sideways glance and tapped his wrist. I smiled to assure him I paid attention to my special sense. At the same moment, the tingling started. It announced the supernatural presence moments before Vic stopped and pointed down the fifth aisle to the right. "It was down there, perhaps halfway to the end."

I rubbed my wrist. The sensation remained vague, far from the sharp itch that would mark the imminent appearance of a ghost of Guillaume's strength. But he was an exceptional spectre, stronger than most I had encountered. If he was right and the ghost haunting this depot was ancient, Roman even, it might be weaker, especially during the daylight hours. "How did it manifest?"

"It was like a thin cloud of smoke at first, and for a moment I feared there was a fire and ran to fetch the fire extinguisher by the door. When I came back with it, I realised there was no odour, though, just a sharp chill in the air. Not what you'd associate with a fire." She drowned her second cup of coffee and sighed. "I wanted to be sure anyway and approached to get a closer look. That's when the smoke took on a human form. Or something like it, a translucent, misty human form that floated at least half a metre above the ground. I think I shrieked, and in the same instant it turned towards me and faded away to nothing." She shivered.

Chiara placed an arm around her shoulders. "It's fine, nothing to worry about. That's almost the same thing I've witnessed."

"Wait, you've seen the ghost in here too?" Vic turned to face her coworker. "When?"

The older woman knitted her brows and stared into the air. "Hm, it feels like ages ago. Must have been a few years back, when I first got a temporary job at the museum. Late one evening, I'd brought in the documentation from the excavation and wanted to finish a drawing we needed to continue the next day. I preferred working here to the cold and damp container on the dig."

Deborah laughed, a timid sound. "Who wouldn't?"

"Me, since that night." Chiara shrugged. "I was engrossed in my work when I heard a whimper. At first, I thought it must be a dog. When I investigated, I saw the form of a woman in a long white shift. Don't ask me for details. I was too busy screaming and am sure I almost fainted. When I dared to open my eyes and look again, she had disappeared."

"I'd have died on the spot." Deborah shivered. "I have heard the rumours about the ghost, but have never seen her and avoid being in here alone after dark."

"A sensible attitude." Matt smiled at her. "Did I get this right? You all agree that we deal with a female ghost?" My partner was in full investigation mode now.

"We call her the White Lady." Alex leaned against a shelf and scratched his ear, the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt showing a tribal tattoo. "Most workers here have met her earlier or later. She's done no harm ever, and some can live with the knowledge she hangs out here, while others prefer to look for another job."

Vic sighed. "That's why everyone except me believed Béa when she insisted we had a ghost on the dig. Don't mind the new kid in town."

Chiara nudged her friend. "It's nothing personal. The way Béa described the ghost was too close to What I experienced. And when my pencils disappeared and this unnatural draft passed through the tent, I knew we had woken another ghost."

Vic bit her lips. "I should have believed you. At the latest, when I observed that weird mist coiling over the grave with the urn—and when my office keys disappeared from the drawing table where I had left them. Sorry."

"It's fine, really. You're are not the first to doubt the existence of ghosts, nor will you be the last." Chiara raised her brows and pointed her thumb toward Patrice, who bent low over his keyboard at the registration table.

A grin tugged at Vic's lips. "Right, his scepticism is quite refreshing. Is there anything else you'd like to know, San? Matt? Otherwise we—wait, what's that?" She ventured into the aisle and stooped to pick up a small object from the floor. When she came back, she held up a tiny piece of white material and inspected it from all sides. "A shard—must belong to an oil lamp, mid-first century, I guess. It's part of the upper side with part of the picture. Here, that's probably the paw of an animal. I bet it fell out of a box when the police checked for damage."

"I doubt the police would remove an item and drop it during a burglary investigation. This would be outright sloppy." I joined her and pointed at the boxes lining the aisle. "What do these contain?"

Deborah studied the faded labels. "Old stuff from the eighties, eighty-nine—wasn't that the famous excavation of the En Chaplix cemetery?"