Acknowledgement is still acknowledgement! Kit can work with that.

He reaches up to pluck his cigarette from his mouth, blows a whorl of smoke away from the other loiterers around the forge, then takes a few steps nearer to Fíadh. There's no point in waiting for a less awkward moment to start a conversation with the taciturn types; he'd be better off waiting for the saints to rise from their graves.

"Thanks for helping Ben," he tells her, forthright. "He's my--" uhhhhh "--friend, runs the carpentry shop with me. He mentioned you, and the, uh, you know." The ghosts. Spooks. Whatever they are.