Coffin Dodgers

by William Stafford

  “Bet there’s cats up to the bollocks in there. Cats and collectible plates or something.”

  “Hah! And I’ll bet there’s very little in the way of clutter in the home of Vivian Flyte. Bit of a clean freak, says De’Ath. What was the word he used? Fastidious. She won’t have cats.”

  “Sounds like a right fucking joy to work with,” said Stevens. “Not surprised somebody’s bumped her off.”

  “Ah, they’ve all got alibis,” Pattimore pulled out a list of names and holiday destinations. “So I don’t think it’ll have been one of her colleagues.”

  “Smart arse.”

  “Thanks for noticing. We’ll go straight there. Unless...” Pattimore unlocked his car and paused dramatically.

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless you’re going to shit yourself with fright again.” He chuckled and got in.

  Fuckin’ bender, Stevens scowled. I’ll have him.

  He got in and with a nonchalant air stretched the seatbelt across his chest.

  “Your bum chum’s ex was a wossname, you know,” he said casually. “A mortician, pathologist thingy.”

  Pattimore didn’t respond. He started the engine and they drove to Vivian Flyte’s house in silence.

  Gotcha, thought Benny Stevens.

  ***

  “Dickon around?”

  The woman behind the bar frowned. “I’m doing my job,” she said.

  It was the man’s turn to frown. A light appeared to come on behind the barmaid’s eyes.

  “Oh! You mean Dickon, the boss Dickon. No, mate; he’s not here.”

  “Day off, then?” The man hoped to prompt the barmaid into divulging further information.

  “Looks like it,” she sniffed, busying herself with behind-the-bar tasks in the hope the nosy parker would get the hint. She was wary of saying anything about Dickon’s whereabouts and recalled with a shudder the occasion when she had revealed Dickon’s shifts to a pleasant-enough chap who’d turned out to be one of Dickon’s many exs. The ex had waited for Dickon to show up and ambushed him with vitriolic recriminations and declaring he’d best get himself checked for all sorts of infections, much to the amusement of the patrons of Dedley’s most popular (and indeed only) gay pub.

  By night, the Oddfellows Arms was abuzz and a-thump and awash with conviviality, loud music and copious drinking but by day, before lunch, it was a desert.

  The man beat a tattoo on the countertop and assured the barmaid - whose badge revealed her name to be Brenda - that he would try again another day. Brenda nodded a farewell and it was only when the door swung shut behind him that she became aware she was holding her breath.

  There was something about the man that gave her the willies - Well, if he was one of Dickon’s conquests, the willies was the last thing he would give her, but there was an indefinable quality to him that unnerved her. She couldn’t’ put her finger on it but then again she supposed he wouldn’t want her to. Was it his eyes, she wondered? Dark and heavy-lidded they were. It was like being stared at by someone half-asleep. Was it his hair? Unruly and uneven, like he’d cut it himself - with a knife and fork and a sellotape dispenser.

  Or was it the thin, cruel lips that bordered the diagonal slash of his mouth, with one end curled upwards in a permanent sneer and the other curving downwards in an eternal grimace?

  Whatevs, thought Brenda. She put the jukebox onto random selection - anything to fill the pub with happier energy. The man’s departure seemed to have sucked the positive ions from the room.

  ***

  “You do look a bit green around the gills, Mills,” D I Brough observed as D S Miller got into the driving seat and stretched the seatbelt across her chest.

  “You’re no bloody oil painting yourself, sweetheart,” she said with a bitter scowl. She caught sight of herself in the rear-view mirror. Christ; I do look wrung out. Dark circles around my eyes, a sheen of sweat painting my sickly features. I look like someone’s beaten up an anaemic panda.

  “If you need to go home -”

  “I’m fine!” Miller almost snapped his head off. Brough lifted his hands in surrender.

  “All right, Miller.”

  “I’m FINE!” Miller reiterated with added savagery. “Now, where are we going again?”

  “Well,” Brough stretched to retrieve a thin file of papers from the back seat. “While you were availing yourself of the facilities, I went through the admissions records for our friend who’s gone walkabout.”

  “Who?” Miller had no patience for cryptic remarks.

  “The missing dead man. So far, all we have is the basics: description of height, weight and colouring from the mortuary records.”

  “And the report of whoever brought him in.”

  “What?”

  “You know - ambulance, uniforms,” said Miller, “Who got him to the morgue in the first place?”

  Brough stared at her. “Well, I was getting around to that.” He shifted uncomfortably in the passenger seat. “Are you going to drive or what?”

  “Yes, sir. Only you haven’t said where we’m going.”

  Brough riffled through the file. “Dedley nick? Seems as good a place as any for starters.”

  “Thought that was shut.”

  “Well, it is and it isn’t. It’s more of a base for the hobby bobbies these days.”

  “Don’t call them that!” Miller started the engine.

  “What then? Our esteemed colleagues the Community Support Officers?”

  “No,” Miller grumbled, “ I was thinking more along the lines of shit-wit wankers.”

  Brough thought it best not to add further comment. He sat back and bit his lip while they drove up the hill to Dedley’s town centre police station.

  ***

  PCSO Hobson was reading a lads’ magazine when the big shot detectives from Serious interrupted his lunch break.

  “Oh ar!” he said in a dense local accent that affronted Brough’s soft southern ears. “I remember him alright. Found him on the car park of that benders’ bar.”

  “I’m sorry, where?” Brough set his jaw. Miller tried to signal a warning to Hobson with her eyes.

  “The poofters’ pub. The wussies’ watering-hole. The bummers’ boozer...” Hobson carried on, merrily oblivious.

  “If you’re trying to say ‘gay bar’ I suggest that’s the term you use,” said Brough, his voice a low growl. He and Pattimore had been watching a lot of Clint Eastwood lately.

  Hobson pulled a face. “That’s the one, ar. There’s only one in Dedley - gay bar, I mean. There’s loads of - um, it’s very popular, like.”

  “So,” Brough moved out of reach of the odious man in order to reduce the temptation to throttle him, “you’re saying you found the deceased on the car park of the Oddfellows Arms.”

  “I ain’t just saying it, cocker; it’s what happened.”

  “And there was no one with him?”

  “Nah.”

  “And he was naked?”

  “As a proverbial. They get up to all sorts in there. Probably.”

  “What about his car?”

  “Quiet, Miller.”

  “No, no, it’s a fair question,” Hobson turned a patronising smile to the lady detective. “There wor no cars. He day have one.”

  Brough tried to navigate the man’s vowel sounds and double negatives. “So the car park was completely empty?”

  “As a proverbial.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Well,” Hobson’s chest swelled beneath his hi-viz tabard, “I follered procedure, day I? I checked for signs of life, but there wor none, summoned a nambulance and secured the scene.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “I shut the gate. There wor no signs of foul pla
y but I bay no doctor, bin I?”

  “If you say so.”

  “What happened next?” Miller prompted. Hobson needed little encouragement.

  “Well, I rode with him in the nambulance, kept him company, like. Got him signed in - which day take long because he day have no i.d. on him, did he?”

  “Quite.” Brough was ready to dismiss PCSO Hobson from his attention forever when Miller, who had been preoccupied with her phone during most of the exchange, piped up.

  “Body sent down to morgue; this much we know. To ascertain cause of death. Dental imprints taken in order to ascertain his identity.”

  “Right,” Brough was nonplussed. “And how long’s that going to take?”

  Miller sucked in air through her front teeth. “As long as a proverbial?”

  “That’s enough of that, Miller,” Brough scowled. “Get back in the car.”

  The detectives left. Miller was smirking but Brough’s expression suggested he was trying to shut out the sound of the shit-wit wanker’s laughter without having to resort to sticking his fingers in his ears. He scowled all the way back to Miller’s car, which - since the car park had been sold off to Dedley Technical College and was now a seat of training for student hairdressers and bricklayers - was considerably further away from the nick than he would have liked.

  At the bottom of the road, Brough could see the pastel-shaded edifice that was the Dorothy Beaumont rest home in which he had had quite an adventure undercover almost two years ago. Miller too had unpleasant memories of the place in which her demented mother had spent her final days. Brough decided to go easier on her.

  “Dental records might come up with something later today or tomorrow morning.” She unlocked the car, keeping her eyes averted from the Dorothy Beaumont. “As for the other - the autopsy - who knows?”

  “Well, he won’t need an autopsy, will he, Miller?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Not if the bugger got up and walked out of there, he won’t.”

  Miller drove them back to Serious through the slush. “Do you believe that? Do you think that dead chap got up, murdered the mortician and legged it?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Yes: no. I don’t believe the chap, as you call him, was dead in the first place.”

  3.

  Dickon came up from the cellar just as Brenda the barmaid was about to finish her shift. She always clocked off at six before things at the Oddfellows Arms got ‘too fruity’, as she put it. Dickon was always offering her extra hours, especially during the busy festive season but Brenda always turned them down, citing ‘family commitments’ rather than any dislike for ‘the gay boys’ as the reason for her refusal.

  “Off you pop then, Brenda love.” Dickon washed his hands in a stainless steel sink under the counter. Brenda was already shrugging her coat on and coiling a python of a scarf around her neck. She didn’t need to be told twice.

  Dickon nodded towards a poster on the wall. “Be a pet and take that down for me, would you, Brenda love?”

  Brenda had just thrust her hands into faux fur-trimmed mittens. She pulled them off again. The poster showed a drag queen jumping out of a cake that was fashioned to look like Big Ben or Elizabeth Tower or what the hell it was called these days.

  “Looks like a bust.” Dickon was wistful. “The event,” he clarified. “The gig. The show. Maybelline Maybe has cried off, given her definite No. Where am I going to get another top drawer act at this short notice? New Year’s is days away!”

  “Have you rung around the agencies?”

  “Of course I’ve rung around the bastard agencies. May as well ring around the bastard roses. All the top acts have been snatched up.”

  Brenda frowned. “Is that some kind of procedure?” Her expression suggested she didn’t want him to go into detail.

  “No, Brenda love. The way your mind works!”

  “Oh, I’m sure something will turn up.” The mittens were back on and Brenda edged towards the door.

  “I hope you’m right, Brenda love. Last bloke I spoke to said there was a chance some Russian act could fit me in between engagements. We’ll have a promotion on the vodka if he can.”

  “That’ll be nice,” said Brenda. She put one hand on the push plate and waved at Dickon with the other.

  “See you, Brenda love.” Dickon bared his teeth. Brenda made good her escape. Dickon pulled down the poster and tore it into quarters, taking out his anger on the shiny sheet of paper.

  Leave me in the lurch would you, Miss Maybelline Maybe? We’ll see about that!

  He continued to tear the pieces until they were small enough to throw in the air and shower him like confetti.

  I’ll see to it you never work in Dedley again.

  ***

  The naked man spent the day cowering in the bushes of Dedley’s Field Park - so named after an alderman of yesteryear who had insisted on green spaces for the good people of the town, the worthy and respected Hierosophat Field. This park was his monument. That it was used by the not-so-good people of the town (and in some cases the absolutely wicked) would have displeased the alderman, but he is long gone and no longer anyone’s concern.

  Some homing instinct had drawn the amnesiac young man to the bushes of Field Park. He couldn’t remember his name but the place was more familiar to him than his own body.

  I must have spent a lot of time here, he reasoned. I must be a park keeper or something.

  He sank further into the shrubbery as a couple of young women in baggy tracksuits ambled past, leaning on a pair of pushchairs - one of which contained an infant whose face was glossy with the product of the cold in its nose. The other chair was conveying a cardboard box of beer bottles.

  The man froze (almost literally), waiting for the inane conversation of the girls, the grizzling of the child and the clinking of the beer bottles to recede. At last he breathed again and was instantly set upon by a small yipping terrier that had penetrated the undergrowth to retrieve its much-loved, much-gnawed rubber ball.

  “Gerroff!” the man shrieked, hoping to dislodge the canine’s canines from his ankle. “Get out of it!”

  The beast saw the man’s hopping and flailing as encouragement and redoubled its enthusiasm. The man kicked out sharply, sending the dog flying. The dog yapped with glee and from a distance saw there were other things on offer than a boring old ankle. It hunkered down and wiggled its hind quarters. Too late the man realised the brute’s intention. Before he could defend himself, the creature bounded towards his crotch, its teeth closing within an inch of the family jewels.

  “Towser! You little bastard!” The voice of an old man heralded the intrusion of the face of an old man into the bushes. He quickly comprehended the situation and turned his invective towards the pervert who was trying to perform an oral sex act on his beloved pup.

  The naked man believed neither dog nor owner would brook an explanation - and what explanation could he give? Instead, he took advantage of the dog’s momentary distraction and tore from the bushes. With both hands protecting his most delicate parts, he pelted along the asphalt path as fast as he could run, hoping it was fast enough to outcourse the dog whose owner was entreating him, “Sic him, Towser! Bite his bloody bollocks off!”

  By this point, Towser was reacquainting himself with his rubber ball and chose to devote his attention and his teeth to that instead. The old man, disappointed by Towser’s lack of hunting instinct, supposed he ought to call the police about the dog-worrying pervert and tried to think where the nearest public phone box might be.

  The naked man saw he was almost upon the young women with the pushchairs and managed to swerve around a bend in the path before they could see him. This diversion took him towards some outbuildings and a brainwave struck him.

  If I’m a pa
rk keeper, I’ll have a park keeper’s shed... in which I keep my park keeper’s jacket and shit like that...

  Heartened, he began to try doors, keeping one eye over his shoulder in case the intrepid Towser approached for a rematch.

  ***

  It’s never an easy time, Harold Cole reflected. Even with all his years of experience as an undertaker, it still drew upon all his professionalism not to break down and weep along with the grieving relatives when they came in to make arrangements.

  In cases of untimely death it was worse. Parents ought never to outlive their children no matter how grown-up their children may be. It is against nature, Harold Cole believed, despite all evidence to the contrary served up by the wildlife documentaries on the BBC. In actual, real life, red in tooth and claw nature, practically every creature that walked, crawled, swam or flew was accustomed to losing several offspring - in fact, they expected it and increased the size of their litters to compensate for the loss. But them’s animals, Harold Cole was dismissive. With humans it’s different. It had to be, or what was the point? Besides, it would be indelicate, not to say against his code of practice, to suggest the bereaved binge on a David Attenborough box set and get on with it.

  The Trents, a couple of pensionable age, had lost their only child, their beloved son Timothy and were beside themselves - and each other.

  Never gave us no grandkids, Mrs Trent boohooed into a soaking tissue.

  Never found the right girl, Mr Trent explained.

  But Harold Cole guessed the truth. He had seen Timothy Trent’s body; he had laid him out. He had seen the tattoos. The piercings. The dyed hair. Even in death there was a certain pursing to the deceased’s lips and one of his eyebrows seemed arched for all eternity.

  As far as Harold Cole was concerned, that was against nature too, again pitting his opinion against the actual facts of life on Earth.

  The Trents shuffled away, clinging to each other like competitors in the world’s saddest three-legged race. Harold Cole headed to the back room to lock up.