The Love of the Dead

by Craig Saunders

“Stick to doctoring, Freeman. You ain’t got the lingo.”

  “Not street enough?”

  “Too damn smart,” said Coleridge. “Thanks, doc. That it?”

  “That’s it. Same as the others, excepting the presence of the head. I’ll email you the report.”

  “Alright. I’m off to find a bird watcher.” Coleridge hunted around for the last of his bacon roll.

  “In Norfolk? I shouldn’t think it’d be too hard,” said Freeman.

  “No. I suppose not. But then, that’s what phones are for. See, doc? I’m learning.”

  “Wouldn’t hurt you to do a bit of leg work.”

  “Funny. Don’t let me keep you from your golf, or whatever it is you doctors do.” He scanned the room again. “You see where I put my roll?”

  Freeman shook his head. Sighed.

  “McDonald’s, one shouldn’t wonder.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Coleridge really didn’t have the patience to wander about the nature preserves looking for a nerd with a pair of binoculars.

  He used the phonebook instead. He could have used the Internet, he supposed, but he didn’t like it. It didn’t feel right, finding a phone number by tapping on a keyboard. He didn’t know why, but it was probably the same reason he didn’t like GPS or dishwashers or TVs that could record themselves. Maybe missing things was a good thing, sometimes, because when you missed something you invariably found something else instead.

  Either way, it felt right picking up the phonebook, feeling the weight in his hands. Solid. Something real.

  He propped the phone between his shoulder and his ear and put the number in. A nerd picked up on the first ring.

  He wasn’t the only asshole working on a Sunday.

  “Hello? RSPB.”

  “Who am I talking to?” asked Coleridge.

  “Leary. Wayne. Can I help you?” He sounded defensive already. It wouldn’t be the first time. Coleridge was well aware that his phone manner needed a bit of work, but he had better things to do. Like catch a murderer.

  “Mr. Leary? I’m Detective Coleridge. You want my ID?”

  “What for?”

  “I’ve got a feather, ah, involved in a case.”

  “You’ve got a feather involved in a case?”

  OK, Coleridge, he thought. Could have put that better.

  “I’ve got a feather I need identifying.”

  “You want to give me ID for identifying a bird feather?”

  Fucking smartass.

  “You want my ID or not?”

  “I don’t think the Freedom of Information act covers that.”

  “Okay,” he said with a sigh. “I’m glad we cleared that up.”

  “You have the feather with you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can you let me see it?”

  “Ah...”

  He heard the nerd sniffing over the phone. It sounded pretty patronizing. Warranted, probably. Coleridge hadn’t thought it through.

  “You want to email me a picture?” said Leary. Like he was talking to a child.

  He might as well have been. Coleridge looked at the picture on his desk. Looked at the computer.

  “Sure. Hold on.”

  He pressed the hold button on the phone. “Mandy!”

  “What? I’m in the middle of...”

  “Come on. I need your expertise.”

  Mandy huffed and put down whatever it was she was working on. Coleridge smiled sweetly at her when she stood over him.

  “Stick that in there, would you?” he said, showing her the picture, gesturing at the computer.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Some nerd wants me to email him that picture. Just do whatever it is you do, eh?”

  “Seriously, Coleridge. You don’t know how to scan a picture?”

  “Mandy,” he said, “I barely know how to turn the fucking thing on. Come on, the guy’s waiting.”

  She shook her head and snatched the photo from him. Made it look like she was pissed off, but she was all right. She was one of the few people in the office he genuinely liked. Probably because she wasn’t a copper.

  She came back after a couple of minutes and clicked a few times at his computer. The picture came up.

  Coleridge whistled. “You’re a genius. Always saying so, ain’t I?”

  “Coleridge, you’ve never paid anyone a compliment in your life.”

  “Well, I’m doing it now.” He smiled again. She shook her head again. Like she’d had enough of him, but he knew she liked him really. He bought her a Christmas present every year. Well, for her kid. She probably chucked it. He didn’t have the faintest idea what kids liked.

  “Right,” he said. “Nearly there.”

  “What now?”

  “Send it over to him.”

  “Who?”

  “The guy on the phone.”

  “What’s his email address?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  She sucked her teeth and looked at him.

  “What?”

  “You could ask him.”

  “Yeah. Okay. Hold on.”

  He picked up the phone again. “Leary? You still there?”

  “Yes, I’m still here.” He didn’t sound too happy about it.

  “What’s your email?”

  Leary read it out and Coleridge repeated it to Mandy, miming her tapping while he was doing it.

  She swore under her breath, but she brought up Coleridge’s email and typed in the address.

  “Thank you,” Coleridge whispered. Blew her a kiss. She thumped him, but she smiled a little bit, even if it was just the corners of her mouth twitching.

  “I’ve got it,” said Leary. “Hang on.”

  Coleridge waited while the nerd from the RSPB opened the file.

  “It’s got some blood on it. Did someone kill this bird? Should I open a file on this?”

  Coleridge resisted the urge to tell the nerd that he had bigger fish to fry.

  “Don’t worry about that. Can you tell me what this is?”

  “Well, the picture’s not brilliant, and there’s no scale, but yes, I can tell you.”

  Coleridge rubbed his eyes. He supposed he should give the guy a chance to shine, to show off what a genius he was, recognizing a bird’s feather, but he didn’t have the time or patience.

  “Well, please enlighten me.”

  “It’s a tail feather from the Corvus Corax...”

  “English?”

  The man sighed. Coleridge understood what it was like to be unappreciated. You got used to it, though.

  “It’s a raven’s feather. The common raven. You can tell because of the...”

  “Yes, yes. A raven? For sure?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I really should open a file on this.”

  “Thanks for your time,” said Coleridge and hung up. Rude, maybe, but he had people to see yet, and the day was already half done. He had a clue, and a boss who wanted to kick his butt, but it was lunchtime and he was fucking starving.

  He looked at the picture of the feather on the PC. Picked up the evidence bag, looked at the real thing.

  A raven. It had to mean something, but he was fucked if he knew what. He didn’t think so well on an empty stomach.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Beth spent the morning getting ready. She took her time about it.

  She showered, slowly. Ate a rare breakfast—only a couple of slices of toast, but enough to be going with. She did some housework, opened some windows and let the fresh air blow though. The house was musty.

  Miles’ room stank like old men’s farts.

  Feeling better for having done something and for having a full night’s sleep with no dreams, no dead son to wake her in the night, she could see clearly.

  Pretty good going, she thought, after all that had happened the day before. She should have been a wreck, holding a bottle and a smoke and crying like a
baby. But this morning, she felt good.

  Ready to go. Ready to get on with it.

  She thought about it after Coleridge left, thought about all she’d been through. She’d been a victim. This man, whatever he was, was holding her hostage. She didn’t like it much, but she’d been a prisoner in her own home since he came into her life. Now she had a police car parked out front. She had her own personal saviour, Coleridge. She didn’t know if he was up to the challenge, but she suspected he might be as good as his word.

  But then what could any of them do? Seven people had been murdered, and she knew a damn sight more than any one on the police force did.

  She might not be able to fight him. She might be in line, just waiting for him to show. But she didn’t have to be a victim.

  It was time to do something about it. She had thicker skin than most people. When there were strange noises in her house she was the only one who could go and see what it was. A woman on her own, surrounded by the dead. You couldn’t be a sissy when you lived like that.

  She’d never faced a killer before, but that didn’t mean she had to just sit and wait for him to cut her throat.

  Movement was the key. When you’re afraid, you’ve got to move. Things didn’t seem as scary when you’re putting one foot in front of the other.

  It was time to get moving. To find out what she was up against, because the alternative was dying.

  She knew where to start, too.

  She didn’t have a car, so getting over to Mary and Stan’s was going to be a pain in the ass. There was a bus that ran out that way, eventually, but it was a three-mile walk to the bus stop, two changes, and about two hours to make a twenty-mile trip.

  But the policemen in the car out front...it wasn’t like they were doing anything else.

  She pulled on her coat and checked herself in the mirror. She didn’t usually bother to look in the mirror. She was pretty certain she knew what she looked like. But she checked her hair, grinned so she could see her teeth. She didn’t wear makeup, but she’d pass.

  She walked up to the car with what she hoped was a friendly expression on her face. “I need to go to Mary and Stan’s,” she said, smiling sweetly, crouched down so she could look through the window at them. She had a pretty good face. She wasn’t a stunner, she knew that. But she wasn’t bad looking, either, and she wasn’t shy of making the most of it when she needed to.

  “Mary and Stan?” asked the younger of the two policemen in the car.

  “The Westmoors. The murdered couple.”

  “I’m not sure I can do that, ma’am.”

  “Beth, please. If you’re not sure, who would be sure?”

  “I suppose I could call the station.”

  “You’re here to keep an eye on me, right?” She looked at the younger one, at the older one. The younger one was in the driving seat. The older policeman was right by her, in the passenger seat. She chose the older one. She figured he’d have more clout. She smiled at him. She was smiling a hell of a lot today.

  Better be careful, Beth. Your face might crack.

  “That’s the idea,” said the older one. He had a graying moustache that really didn’t suit him, and the ghost of a dead dog sitting in the back of the car. She didn’t mind sharing the backseat with this specter. It looked pretty friendly.

  “Officer, surely you could keep a really good eye on me if I was sitting right there in the back of the car?”

  “I don’t know...”

  “Safest place to be, right?”

  “It’s a murder scene. I can’t just let a civilian into a murder scene.”

  “You know Detective Coleridge?”

  The policemen exchanged a look. She couldn’t read it, but they knew him, that was certain.

  “Well, I’m working as a kind of...consultant. On the case.”

  “Okay,” said the younger one, but like he wasn’t sure at all.

  “Give him a call. He’ll give permission.”

  “He’s not my boss, ma’am.”

  “Beth,” she said without a pause. “But he outranks you, right? So if anyone gets shit for it, it’ll be him.”

  “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “Just call him, please.”

  The policeman called in to what was probably a central dispatcher on his radio. He waited, she waited. The wind was cold around her legs. She heard Coleridge’s voice. Then some swearing. The younger policeman flushed, embarrassed that she was overhearing the two of them getting served.

  It might not work like she said it would, but it worked.

  She sat in the back, where she supposed the criminals sat. It smelled of dog. A huge shaggy Alsatian sat in the seat beside her. It grinned at her.

  She didn’t know what to do with dogs. She’d never had a dog, live or dead.

  She grinned back. It seemed happy enough with that.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Of course the policemen didn’t have a key, but Mary was at the window and saw the cruiser pull up. When they got to the door, Mary was waiting for them on the porch steps. She bore no sign of injury. Her head was on just like it should be.

  Sometimes when people die hard, they bear their wounds in death. Some people appeared just as they always had, or even like a younger version of themselves. They appeared like they wanted to, or how they were most comfortable. Beth never did get why it worked that way.

  She was glad to see Mary hadn’t been left mutilated in spirit. But whole though she might be, she looked so sad that Beth almost turned right around and got back in the car.

  She wanted to speak to Mary, try and offer some kind of comfort, but she couldn’t talk to her with the policemen watching. She nodded instead. Just a slight dip of her head, to let Mary know she saw her. Not so much that the policemen would notice, but enough.

  The younger policeman, Newman, seemed uncomfortable. Maybe he could pick up on something not quite right. It could be that he was sensitive to spirits himself. Maybe he just felt the chill in the air from the presence of the dead.

  Beth didn’t pay the policeman’s shivers any mind. Mary beckoned her, and Beth followed ’round the shingle path, stones crunching underfoot, to a drain cover with a heavy pot on it. Mary held her hand out, toward the pot. Beth couldn’t lift it, but she shifted it to one side, walking it on its base, and the backdoor key was there.

  “We’ll have to go in the back,” she told the policeman, palming the key.

  “Ma’am, I’m really not comfortable with this.”

  She could have laughed, but she didn’t.

  “You can follow me and make sure I don’t steal Mary’s drawers.”

  She let herself in without waiting for him to answer. He followed her in through the patio door, shifting from foot to foot while he waited.

  “Please don’t touch anything. I could get in real trouble for this.”

  “I won’t,” she assured him. She didn’t need to. Mary was right there. But the hardest thing to take wasn’t the blood on the carpet in the dining room. The hardest thing was Stan’s absence.

  They’d been married for over twenty years. Back when she’d known them they’d celebrated theirtwentieth wedding anniversary. That must have been six, maybe seven years ago. None of that mattered anymore. Half a lifetime together, an eternity apart.

  Beth only ever saw the unquiet dead. Most moved on. They were able to. They’d done all they could in life, or all they were meant to do. Mary waited. Waited for something. Beth didn’t know what, but it broke her heart. Every time she felt that kind of pain, like an awakening when she thought she was dead inside, it made her wonder.

  It made her wonder if she’d fall or stand.

  Sometimes she thought about old buildings. Like a riddle, some kind of Zen thing. If a building was old enough, did you assume that it was pretty good at standing up? Would it be there for another hundred years? Another two hundred? Or did you figure it was due to fall down any minute? She felt like that now, her heart thumping in her che
st. She felt like an old building you couldn’t really trust, because you could never decide what it was going to do.

  She could go either way.

  People had obviously been through the house, but nobody had cleaned up the blood. Mary and Stan had no children. All they had in life were each other. It made her sad all over again. All their married life it had been just the two of them, now there was just one.

  Blood everywhere. On the walls, thick and wide on the carpet.

  She walked around it. She didn’t want to walk through it. She’d found out lately that she was more squeamish than she’d thought. Holding a severed head, having it talk to you, that’s when you figured out just how much gore you could take. She’d had just about her limit.

  But Mary didn’t know that. She couldn’t know that. Some spiritualists believed the spirit existed out of time. Once, maybe, Beth had believed that. But no more. She’d lost too much, seen too much. Any faith she’d ever had had long ago fled. Now she just believed what she could see, what she could feel.

  She could see the blood. She could see Mary.

  But for Mary, that wasn’t enough.

  She reached forward, and even though Beth stepped back, momentarily afraid that Mary was going to try to step into her skin, she wasn’t quick enough. Mary’s freezing, ethereal hands engulfed Beth’s head, and the vision poured in.

  Newman still paced in the kitchen. He didn’t see Beth fall to the floor or hear her feet thumping on the soft carpet.

  Beth saw. She had no choice.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Mary and Stan sat at their dining table. Mary scanned the newspaper, resting it on the table top. The pages rustled softly as she turned a page. Stan read a paperback book, leaning over the table, too, resting his elbows. He flicked a few pages over and then flicked them back again, like he was bored of the book and looking for the end of the chapter.

  Stan looked up at something over Mary’s shoulder.

  “Who are you?” he said.

  Mary turned and saw what Stan saw. They saw because they were gifted.

  Beth saw everything through Mary’s eyes.