The Death Collector

by Justin Richards

  ‘A séance.’ Liz’s disapproval was obvious. ‘You know that’s all just nonsense, Eddie.’

  ‘Just because your dad’s a priest or whatever doesn’t mean you know everything about death,’ Eddie shot back. ‘How do you know it doesn’t work? God talks to us, doesn’t he? He does miracles and stuff. And why do we say prayers if we can’t talk to him up in Heaven, then, eh?’

  Liz sighed as if he was six years old. ‘That’s completely different,’ she said gently.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Look,’ George interrupted, ‘the whole thing’s just ludicrous. Albert Wilkes is dead. His body isn’t walking about, and he certainly didn’t go home and take his dog for a walk.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ Eddie wanted to know. ‘I saw an old man with a dog. I tried to help him, like I told you. It was on Clearview Street like you said and on the right night – I bet that was Wilkes, dead or not.’

  ‘And you saw a monster,’ Liz reminded him quietly.

  ‘Yes, I did!’ He was furious now. ‘It tried to attack me. Spat at me too when it tried to bite.’

  ‘Spat at you?’ George made it sound like a music hall act. ‘It must have been rain, or water dripping off a branch blown in your face by the wind or something.’

  ‘It spat at me,’ Eddie insisted. ‘It stained my jacket – look.’ He pointed to where the monster’s saliva had dripped down him. He had to hunt round for the right stains – a spattering of dark, greasy patches in amongst the other marks on his threadbare jacket.

  George leaned forward to examine the patches. He snorted in amusement. ‘That isn’t monster spit,’ he said. ‘It’s machine oil. I’ve got enough of it on my own clothes before now to know that for a fact.’

  ‘I don’t expect you to believe me,’ Eddie mumbled. ‘But I still think we should go to a fortune-teller or a medium or someone. That paper out of the diary – it mentioned a crystal, didn’t it.’

  ‘What of it?’ Liz asked.

  ‘Could be a crystal ball, that’s why. Could be it’s telling us to look into a crystal ball.’

  ‘It could be all sorts of things,’ George said.

  ‘Wouldn’t do any harm to try it and find out though.’

  ‘If there is an answer to be found,’ Liz said, ‘then I expect it is in the other volumes of the diary. Not in some old woman’s tea leaves or crystal ball.’

  ‘Or the entrails of a goat, come to that,’ George added.

  Eddie had no idea what goats had to do with it. But before he could ask, George jumped down from the wall. He stumbled as he landed, and took an involuntary step forwards – bumping into Liz. Eddie was amused to see their mutual embarrassment, quickly followed by nervous smiles and apologies.

  George still sounded embarrassed as he said: ‘I should go. I need to get to work. But I shall try to find an opportunity to ask Sir William if I can look at the surviving volumes of Glick’s diary. He has them at the moment. Maybe he has found something.’

  ‘An excellent idea,’ Liz agreed.

  ‘I’ll meet you this evening and let you know what I discover, if anything. Shall I …’ He hesitated. ‘Shall I come round to your house again?’

  ‘No. I have some business I need to attend to this evening. I shall come and find you when I am done, if that is convenient. I have your address from your card.’

  George smiled. ‘Of course.’

  ‘I got business to do today and all,’ Eddie said, partly to remind them he was there. ‘I’ll tell you all about it this evening.’ They might have dismissed his idea of a séance, but Eddie wasn’t to be put off that easily.

  Liz was on her own again at the side of the grave when her father returned a short while later with a police sergeant. The two men had been talking, and once Oldfield had convinced him there would be no objection from the Church, the sergeant had agreed that he would arrange for the grave to be opened up.

  ‘Just to check the coffin is intact,’ he warned. ‘Just so the poor soul is properly covered and can rest in peace.’

  It was over an hour before two police constables started work with shovels. Liz was soaked through by then, and feeling cold and bedraggled. She must look a sight, she thought as she watched the men dig.

  They scraped the wet earth from the wooden lid of the coffin.

  ‘Well, it’s still here at any rate,’ the sergeant announced. ‘All right, you can fill it in again.’

  The constables both sighed audibly, and climbed out of the grave. One of them caught his boot on the coffin lid as he hauled himself out of the pit. The heavy wooden lid moved. Not much, but enough for the sergeant as well as Liz to notice.

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ he proclaimed. ‘That should be screwed down, shouldn’t it?’

  ‘Indeed it should,’ Oldfield agreed. ‘I fear it may have been tampered with after all.’

  The sergeant took a deep breath of misty air. ‘You reckon we should open it up, sir? Just to check?’

  ‘I think it would be advisable.’

  Liz turned away as one of the policemen jumped back down into the grave. She could hear the scrape of the wood as the coffin lid was lifted clear. She did not want to look, but she strained to hear the reaction from the men watching.

  ‘Well, he’s in there all right,’ the sergeant said.

  ‘Bit odd though,’ one of the constables said. ‘I thought Albert Wilkes died in his sleep.’

  ‘Indeed he did,’ Oldfield’s cracked voice replied.

  ‘Looks like his legs are broken, or something,’ the other constable said. Liz almost turned to see for herself.

  But the sergeant said: ‘All right, put the lid back on.’

  ‘You’re going to leave it at that?’ Liz asked. Now she did turn round. From the expressions on the faces of the men, the body must have been a singular sight. Perhaps there was more wrong than broken bones.

  ‘I really do think some further investigation …’ Oldfield began.

  The sergeant nodded, holding up a hand to stem the protest. ‘I quite agree, sir. The way the man was lying, the way the legs were bent and all. That didn’t look like any body I’ve seen, and I can tell you I’ve seen a few.’

  ‘What do you propose?’ Liz asked.

  ‘Either this body has been tampered with, or this man did not die peacefully in his sleep.’ The sergeant turned to Oldfield. ‘I propose, with your agreement sir,’ he said, ‘to suggest to my superiors that we seek permission from the deceased’s next of kin for an urgent post-mortem.’

  Chapter 8

  Her father was tired after his early morning exertions, and so Liz sat with him in the living room until it was time for her to get lunch ready. Once in the kitchen, she quickly laid out a plate of cold meat and some salad. She checked the clock, and seeing she still had twenty minutes before she needed to serve up the food, she opened a drawer in the kitchen table and took out a book.

  It was not a novel, but a playscript. She sat down and checked that she could not be seen from the door. She did not expect her father to come looking for her, but if he did she would have time to push the book under the cushion of the chair. Not that there was anything untoward in the text. But she knew how much her father disapproved of the theatre. They had argued so often that Liz had given up trying to persuade him that plays were not the word of Satan and music halls the Devil’s own choice of entertainment.

  It was an argument her father would never let her win, so instead she avoided it. And read her plays in the kitchen, or after he had gone to bed. With half an ear listening for the hall clock to strike one, Liz lost herself in Arthur Wing Pinero’s world of The Magistrate.

  The crust was hard and dry, but when Eddie broke it open, the inside of the roll was still moist and fresh. He gnawed at it, making it last, letting the hard flakes of crust soften in his mouth as Annie watched with obvious amusement.

  ‘I don’t reckon you’ve eaten anything for a week,’ she told him.

  ‘Maybe I haven’t,’ he admitted,
sending crumbs flying. ‘I don’t know.’

  She laughed at that. ‘You want another one?’ she wondered as she watched the roll disappear.

  ‘You got one?’

  ‘Can get one. But it’ll cost you.’ Her pale eyes glinted with mischief, and Eddie could guess what was coming.

  ‘Got no money,’ he admitted.

  ‘A kiss then.’

  He pulled a face and made a retching sound. Little Annie laughed again. But Eddie could tell that she was making light of her disappointment. She always did. One day perhaps he would give her a kiss, and see if she laughed then. Faint from the shock, more like.

  Everyone called her little Annie, though she was as old as Eddie and slightly taller. But her dad, the baker, would tousle her hair with his floury hands and call her his little girl. Eddie liked Annie. He liked the way the flour flecked her dark hair, the way she half-smiled when she tried not to laugh. The way her eyes widened when she saw Eddie, and most of all the way she kept yesterday’s rolls for him.

  ‘Annie?’

  She could sense he was going to ask her something serious, and frowned. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You know anything about talking to the dead?’

  The frown froze on her face, lining her forehead and wrinkling the skin by her nose. ‘You’re weird, you are, Eddie Hopkins,’ she said. ‘Who do you know who’s dead?’

  Eddie grinned at her. ‘Lots of people,’ he said. He laughed out loud to see her flinch at that. But inside, he wasn’t laughing.

  A policeman called mid afternoon. He assured Liz and her father that a post mortem on Albert Wilkes was to be carried out that evening, and that the poor man’s widow had been informed and the relevant permissions obtained. He made it sound very formal, and despite the way in which events had come about, Liz supposed it was.

  That evening, after reading evensong from his battered Book of Common Prayer, Liz’s father announced that he would retire early. Relieved, Liz helped him up the stairs. She did not want to be late meeting George Archer, and she had another appointment she intended to keep before that.

  She sat on the top stair until the sound of her father’s gentle snores was rhythmic and settled. Then Liz spent another fifteen minutes washing up the crockery and cutlery from supper and tidying the living room. She crept up the steps again, listening carefully to check her father was still settled and deeply asleep.

  In the drawer of the kitchen table where Liz kept her playscript there was a sheet of cartridge paper. On it she had written a short message. The ink was faded from age and the paper was curling at the edges, but she saw no reason to write it out again. It was a short note to her father and he had never read it. Liz hoped he never would. She placed the sheet of paper prominently on the table in the living room where he would be sure to see it if he woke and came downstairs. It was not much of a letter, and while it did not tell the whole truth it was not actually a lie:

  Dear Father

  Since you were sleeping so soundly, I have taken the opportunity to go for a short walk. I feel the fresh air will do me good after such a long day.

  Please do not worry, as I shall be back soon. I will look in on you on my return.

  Your loving daughter

  Elizabeth

  The Chistleton Theatre was not an imposing building. Standing slightly back from the road, it was easy to miss unless you knew it was there. The frontage was narrow and bland, nothing like the decorated facades of the larger London theatres. It rarely boasted much of an audience, but the people who did come were keen and loyal.

  Liz Oldfield barely glanced at the front of the building. It was dark and quiet – there was no performance this evening. A new play was in preparation, and Liz could just hear the sounds of the rehearsal. A deep voice was proclaiming loudly about the merits of afternoon tea, pausing at the end of each line of the script. She recognised it at once as the theatre’s leading man – Nigel Braithwaite. He was loud and brash and not talented enough to have made it in the larger theatres. But he was also intelligent and modest enough to recognise the fact. Despite his bluff manner, he was willing to listen to the producer’s advice and on the night he would be word perfect if not a hundred per cent convincing.

  Braithwaite’s volume increased when Liz opened the door, and continued to grow as she made her way through the narrow backstage corridor towards the auditorium. She stood in the flies, just off stage, hoping not to be noticed as she watched Marcus Jessop attempt to tone down his star’s performance. Mary Manners was standing quietly beside Braithwaite on the stage, patient as ever.

  ‘And Mary,’ Jessop finished, ‘that was fine thank you.’

  The woman smiled thinly. She was playing the leading lady, which meant that both the main characters were rather older than the author had intended. But they complemented each other well, Liz thought. If she felt a moment’s stab of regret that she had herself turned down Jessop’s offer of a leading role – again – then she did not admit it, even to herself. One day, she had promised, one day she would take up that offer. One day she would have the time to commit herself to the theatre. But she scarcely dared think when that might be, or of the events that would have to take place to give her that freedom.

  Until then, she would swell the crowd scenes, help with the props, perhaps even serve as prompter. Jessop had promised her a walk-on part, and she hoped and prayed she would not have to let him down. He seemed to have faith in her and she had earned a round of applause for her brief appearance in the last play – to Mary Manners’s distinct annoyance and Nigel Braithwaite’s generous congratulation.

  ‘You’ve got something I have to admit that I haven’t,’ Braithwaite had said quietly to Liz in the wings after the last night’s performance. ‘Talent. Skill. The audience responds to you.’

  Jessop’s voice jolted Liz back to the present: ‘Is that Miss Oldfield I see lurking in the wings there?’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted, stepping forward. ‘I ordered the dresses and the hats. They should be delivered later in the week.’

  ‘That’s terrific, thanks ever so much,’ Jessop told her. He ran down the centre aisle of the theatre from where he had been sitting half way back, and leaped on to the stage as if he was in his early twenties rather than his forties. ‘Sorry you’re reduced to helping with Wardrobe this time.’

  Liz shook her head. ‘That’s all right. I’ll do anything I can.’

  Jessop nodded sympathetically. He had thinning dark hair and thin-framed glasses that caught the lights as his head moved. ‘I know,’ he said quietly. He had a bushy moustache that bristled and twitched when he spoke, and Liz always found herself watching that instead of meeting his eyes. ‘Maybe next time, eh?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Liz said. It was what she always said, and at some point he would stop asking. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she told him. ‘I have to leave in a few minutes, but I wanted to let you know that it is all in hand. And if there’s anything else I can do to help … ?’

  Jessop blew out a long sigh. ‘Not unless you have any idea how we can make that ashtray …’ He paused to indicate a silver-plated ashtray on a low wooden table on the stage beside them. ‘Make that ashtray fly across the room and land in Mr Braithwaite’s lap.’

  Liz looked at the ashtray. Then she looked across the stage to where Braithwaite was sitting.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Like the policeman in the play, I haven’t a clue.’

  ‘Pity,’ Jessop said. He turned and made his way less enthusiastically back to the auditorium. ‘Still, I expect we’ll think of something.’ He did not sound convinced.

  The mortuary was little more than a hut with a wooden table standing unevenly in the middle of the damp floor. Doctor Jones washed his hands in a cracked tin basin in the corner of the room and then turned his attention to the final job of the day.

  The body was already on the table. Jones was annoyed that the clothes had been removed. Someone had washed the corpse, which made Jones doubly-angry. How many times had he told th
em that the deceased was not to be touched save by himself. To have the clothes removed was to take away possibly vital evidence. To clean the body was to wash away more evidence. Even though this one had been in the ground for a week, he would still have liked to have met the man in his original condition. Preferably still in the coffin.

  This was not morbid fascination on the part of Jones. Rather, it was typical of the methodical and meticulous way he approached his work. He did not pretend to enjoy his work for the police, and would have been happy to go home after finishing his general practice. But he suffered from a sense of duty, and he was very aware that if he did not help out when necessary then in all probability no one would.

  The least he could expect, then, was that the body he was due to examine should not be tampered with. That this one had been was obvious from the moment he started his examination. He double-checked the notes he had been given, but there was no mention of a previous autopsy. Perhaps the notes were wrong – certainly surgery had been performed after death.

  But, Jones thought, it would take a physician more dedicated and conscientious than himself to open up a cadaver and then sew it back together so carefully. And the places where incisions had been made – there was no sense to it at all. Jones stepped back from the table and surveyed the body of Albert Wilkes. The scars were obvious to anyone with any training. They seemed to run the length of the limbs. There was evidence of incisions in the chest and even under the receding hairline. When he rolled the body on to its side he could see at once that the pattern of scars was repeated on the back of the corpse. But why? For what purpose?

  Frowning and no longer tired or aware of the lateness of the hour, Jones set to work. Within minutes he was more puzzled than ever. After an hour he again stepped back from the table. He wiped his brow with his forearm. On the table beside the body was a long bone he had removed from the left leg. The flesh and skin that had surrounded it hung in loose flaps on the table. Jones just stared at it.

  It did not take long for him to come to his decision. He opened the door of the small mortuary and called for the police constable who was posted to keep him company and lock up when he left.