Morse awoke alone when the grandfather clock struck two. He rose from his bed to search for the second heavenly messenger whose presence he could feel nearby. He carefully treaded downstairs and found her in his sitting room. She wore a green velvet hooded mantle, trimmed with ermine fur.

"Are you here to teach me the error of my ways, spirit?"

"Well, I'm not here for the bouncy castle." The spirit answered. She removed her hood to show her young face and her deep golden curls adorned with holly.

"Laura Hobson. But you're not dead!"

"No, I'm not. I am the ghost of Christmas Present."

"Fair enough. Take me where you will, spirit."

He touched her robe, and together they floated through Oxford. They hovered through a Christmas market with all the delicacies of the holiday on offer. There was much merriment as a choir sang. Morse stopped to listen, but the spirit tugged at his pyjamas.

"We have somewhere to be, Morse." He accepted her guidance and they floated on, through the door of a home decorated by an ivy wreath tied with an oversized red bow.

Morse instantly recognized the family of his sergeant Robbie Lewis setting the table for Christmas dinner. Lewis himself was staring out the window. His wife, Valerie, came over and handed him a glass of sparkling cider.

"Thanks, love. I only wish Morse would come. He's miserable and alone, I just know it."

"You can't force him, Robbie. You tried your best to help him; you always do." Val gazed adoringly into his eyes. He kissed her forehead.

Lewis' teenage son entered with the potatoes. "Honestly, dad, we're happier without that old grouch here. I don't understand why you put up with him."

"I won't have you insulting the founder of the feast like that, son." Mrs Lewis said definitively. Lewis put his arms around his wife's shoulders.

Morse rolled his eyes and spoke to Hobson. "Let me see here. Unless I straighten up and become more compassionate, Tiny Tim Lewis over there will lose a leg, or worse?"

"No, though there will be an empty chair at future Lewis Christmases. But it belongs to someone else." Hobson nodded towards the lady who seemed so securely fixed in Lewis' arms.

"Surely not Val!" Morse exclaimed.

"God bless us, everyone, even Morse!" Mrs Lewis announced as she raised her glass.

"That can't be right!" Morse protested to Hobson.

"Do you mean to insinuate that I don't know death? I am the pathologist after all. You're the one who can't look at a corpse without turning green."

Oh God, poor Robbie. Morse thought. "Spirit, why are you telling me this?"

"Every day, you are showing your sergeant how you live your solitary life closed off from others, save for the occasional pretty face, of course." She tossed her hair in an act of mock self-flattery. "But Lewis needs to be around the people who care for him. Would you have him shut everyone else out simply because there is no wife to care for him?"

"Of course not."

"Then show him a better example. Reach out to your own family. Don't be a lonely curmudgeon. He'll look to you, even after you're gone."

"But can I change Val's fate if I mend my ways?"

Hobson shook her head sadly, "no."

"Take me home, spirit." The idea of Valerie Lewis' demise burdened him terribly.