by Robert Wilde
“No, no, we can use this,” and Dee seemed excited, “we can lure him in if we have to.”
“I’m still not sure I like the sound of that.”
Pohl didn’t like the sound of that the next day, when she rose, showered, dressed, went outside and suddenly found herself overwhelmed by paranoia. She was only, at this point, supposed to be getting milk from the corner shop, but she scanned every car, every passer-by, everybody in an attempt to spot them. She knew what he looked like, but what if he had an accomplice? So it became them, Them, out there, watching her as she walked, watching her as she went into the shop, peering at her from behind the shelves, eyes boring into her back. The shopkeeper asked if she was alright, wondering why she’d gone pale and hunched, but Pohl wondered if he knew. Had someone come in and asked, had he given her away, had he betrayed her?
She left, allowing the morning air to bring a bit more sense, and then crept home. On arriving she was almost too scared to look at the post, but she did so and found nothing. A relief, but of course another package could arrive at any time. Then she’d have to be ready, by the door, to rip it open, find Them. She shook as she made a cup of tea, and settled onto the small cabinet in the hallway.
Dee found her there a short while later, and asked what was wrong. Pohl decided she didn’t want to admit anything, so said she was waiting for a parcel. Dee raised an eyebrow, and went into the kitchen. Then she came out with a mug of tea for them both.
“You’re worried,” Dee said.
“Yes,” came the admission.
“Don’t be. This guy doesn’t kill, he steals stuff.”
“Bodies.”
“Okay, bodies, but it’s not killing. All he’s doing is trying to freak us out. Stop us going back after him. We do know what he looks like.”
“What if it’s someone linked to him, or someone local who knows him, or someone he’s sent, or more than one?”
“You’re garbling Pohl, and that’s not like you. Come have a sit down and we can chat this out.”
“I think Dee, that it’s now I’d prefer us to have a ghost in this house we could talk to.”
“Ask it who delivered the parcel, and when they’re near?”
“Yes, exactly. Exactly that.”
“I’d rather have a little more stress and comfortable showers.”
“I don’t know if I would at the moment.”
“Understood. Then come through and we’ll chat.”
Pohl closed her eyes, nodded, and took a sip of her tea as she stood.
“What’s wrong with the tea?”
“I put brandy in it.”
“Br…ah, relaxing.”
“Yes. I mean, I have a cupboard filled with pills, but I thought we’d stick with the old fashioned way instead of making you a middle class drug addict.”
“I think that’s kind?”
The craftsman was sat in a far more upmarket café this time, picked by his patron, and it had been a struggle to order a black coffee. It would be a cliché to say there were too many weird options, but this place was going out of its way to be pretentious. Then his patron arrived, smartly dressed, and ordered something ten words long.
“Hello,” the patron said as he sat down.
“I’ve got the details of the potential new locations, I assume you’ll want to consider them in private?”
“Yes, of course, but I trust your judgement after all these years. Give me the details of the one you like, I’ll read up and have it arranged by the end of the week.”
“That’s… mighty kind.”
“No, it’s how we do business. You have your skills, I have mine, and mine are to make sure yours are being used properly. But I do have an extra request.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I need a few more items that are small and made of bone. The whistle was perfect, but now I need some extra.”
“It did have a sweet pitch, have you given it to someone?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“What manner is that?”
The patron smiled, and explained how he’d wrapped it up and popped it through Professor Pohl’s door to wind her up. And it was working perfectly.
“No, no, that’s too risky,” the younger man protested.
“Nonsense. I have this under control.”
“But you’re prodding them, what about when they react?”
“They’re four halfwits, I’ll have them shitting themselves when the door rings within the month.”
“I don’t want to be any part of this. No part at all.”
“You’re not. I’m doing this myself. I’m only telling you because I need more small items. And if you don’t find it fun, just forget about it.”
“Fun? I want to blend back in and get on!”
“You will. No one can link us, I’m very careful. So get me some more small items, let me have my fun, and you can carry on working away. Okay?”
Begrudgingly, the other man said “okay.”
Pohl came downstairs, opened the door with such speed the postman took a step back, and she eyed him up as if he had a cat’s head on each shoulder.
“Postman?” she said, looking at the uniform.
“Yes, I see you often?”
Pohl caught herself, smiled a rictus grin, and took the pile of post, closing the door and leaving an entirely befuddled postman to walk away. The pile was taken into the kitchen, dumped on the worktop, and rifled through. All was all flat envelopes apart from two packages, both an inch thick and a full letter wide. Both addressed to her.
Heart pumping, Pohl took a knife and slit the first package open, finding…a book. A book she’d ordered herself before this nightmare started, and a book with no bones in it at all. Feeling more confident, Pohl opened the second package, and found another book she’d ordered at the same time.
Of course, the shop sends everything individually. So, panic over, another postman visit without bones. Pohl sighed, finished her coffee, and prepared to go out.
When she finally did so, smelling ozone and petrol fumes, she looked around. Over the last ten days, Pohl’s mind had begun to change. She was no less paranoid of the bones arriving, of being watched, of being someone’s toy, but her mind had pushed into a new zone. For the first time she felt a hunger for something, and this feeling was called revenge. She didn’t just want the bones to stop, for the man or men to be arrested, she wanted him punished. She wanted him, to use Dee’s parlance, to be fucked up for what he’d done to her. She wanted to grind his face beneath her feet. An entirely new feeling, one she’d associated with ancient writers than more herself, but one there nonetheless.
And it felt comfortable.
But still Pohl had to go into the world, so she walked to the end of Dee’s short path, looked around, checked there was no traffic…and saw a white van parked up. There was a man in it, sat casually staring out, a man she didn’t recognise but who caught her eye and looked away.
The indignity of it, that bastard sat there, looking at her, waiting until she’d gone. Well she wasn’t going to take it anymore. She stormed over, right to the side of the van, and the man inside looked puzzled. She wrenched the door open and began a stream of shouted invective her brain very rarely used, and balled a fist up as if to hit him.
“Woah! Woah! I’m just here to repair some fucking plumbing!” the man replied in shock.
“You intestinal parasite, you deserve to be…”
But as she shouted her mind noticed the dirty overalls, the catalogue of plumbing supplies and the general state of the van.
Oh fuck, she thought, it’s not him.
In a car, parked up at the end of the road, the patron was sat watching Pohl. Well, he wasn’t exactly watching, more in hysterics, having watched her storm over and harangue a perfect stranger. The professor was clearly going to crack, and then he’d start on that tight cunt of a lodger she had. Oh this was glorious, such total fun. Better than television, better than typing things on the inte
rnet.
But first things first, something to do. As Pohl apologised, put her hands up embarrassed and walked as far away as quickly as possible without looking back, the Patron exited his car, walked over, and quietly slipped a new package through her letter box. No noise, just something she’d find when she came back. Assuming she dared show her face in this street again. Then he returned to his car, drove a safe distance, and began to laugh again. Deep, booming belly laughs.
Pohl spent the afternoon shamed faced in the library, sneaking out for snacks, and only came back when she imagined plumbers had knocked off for the day. And she’d timed it right, as the van was absent when she got to the street, so she went to Dee’s front door, unlocked and slipped inside.
“Hello,” Nazir’s voice boomed out of the lounge.
Dropping her jacket off, Pohl walked in to find Nazir sitting in front of a laptop in the lounge with Joe and Dee with him.
“Social visit or do we have a job?” Pohl asked.
“Oh, we most definitely have a job,” Joe grinned.
“Good what’s it about?”
“Did you not get my text message?” Nazir asked Pohl.
“No?”
“I bet you didn’t get the one for yesterday either.”
“No,” and Pohl’s hand dropped to her pocket.
“Did you get mine?” Joe asked.
“Look, I haven’t had any text messages.”
“Have you been walking about with your mobile off again?”
“I’ve never quite adjusted to having this device on you. I keep thinking it’s all message in pigeon holes and catching someone during their lunch hour…”
“Then we have some news for you. Firstly, we’re in the twenty first century, and then…”
“Perhaps,” Dee suggested to Nazir, “we should introduce this sensitively.” Pohl cocked her head, so Dee went on. “Another box was delivered this afternoon, for you, with finger bones in it…” and Dee shot a hand up just in time, “let me finish. Let me finish. While you were out yesterday Joe and Nazir rigged up a tiny camera on our front door, so it would capture whoever came to it.”
“I didn’t see anything?”
“That’s the point. It’s very small, you can’t tell it’s there unless you’re looking. Joe got it sourced and then…”
“Isn’t technology marvellous these days,” Joe exclaimed.
“Yes unless some perv is shooting up your skirt on the tube, but that’s for another night. Now the lads have been through the footage, and we have a visual on who’s doing this.”
Pohl shot round to the laptop. “Show me.”
“Okay, here we go,” and Nazir bought an image up. There stood a man, in his late fifties, with a hairline that looked fake and a face that found it impossible to smile nicely.
“That’s not our craftsman…”
“No, he’s still gone to ground. This is the man harassing you. Us.”
Pohl looked around the room. “Thanks Dee, thanks all of you. So who is it?”
“We don’t know,” Nazir explained. “The next stage is to run a face recognition scan on all the papers and social media sites in the area.”
“Then let’s do it.”
“Can we just finish this episode of CSI, we’re halfway through.”
“No Nazir, you can not.”
“Okay, let me just set it off.”
“How long does it take?”
“It might find a match quickly, it might take all night.”
“Okay, let’s get tea organised.”
“An excellent idea.”
They had a lovely lasagne for tea, and spent its cooking time trying to divert attention away from the matter in hand, which went very well as Nazir was explaining the entire plot of the Dexter TV series, which he was informed didn’t count as police research, and then CSI seasons one to four, which they conceded might count as research.
“Have you watched anything Joe?” Dee asked.
“I went through the first season of Pertwee last week.”
“Pert…that’s Doctor Who isn’t it.”
“Yes.”
“Very on target.”
“It helps to cultivate a mind open to the oddities we’ve been finding.”
“I’ll concede you th…”
“Eureka!”
Everyone looked at Nazir.
“Either you’ve found something or you’ve been possessed by the ghosts of ancient Greeks.”
Nazir smiled at Dee, “I have a match for the face.”
“Who is it?”
“Well Professor, there’s a man who lives in the next town who gets in the papers a lot. Local businessman, big but never on the council, loves publicity, isn’t afraid to piss people off. I’ve got a page here from when he tried to open a strip club to piss all over an ungrateful population.”
“Sounds a case,” Dee noted.
“So here’s his smug face on the web, and here’s his face on our video.” The laptop was turned and they all looked at it.
“That’s a match,” Joe concluded.
“So, let’s just get this sorted and off to the police…”
“No,” Pohl said to Nazir. “We have to be sure. We have to go and check his place out.”
They all looked at each other. “Why not,” Dee grinned.
It was the evening, but they all entered Dee’s car and she drove them over. Soon they were parked outside the sort of house that was set back from the road and needed a team of gardeners to upkeep.
“Lights are on,” Dee noted, “so let’s…where are you going?”
Pohl had climbed out of the car and started running up the drive, leaving the car door open. The other three hopped out, shut the doors and followed, afraid to call out. By the time they’d caught up with Pohl she’d rung on the front doorbell.
“What are you doing?” Dee hissed.
Just then the door opened, and a familiar face stared out at them, only this time he wasn’t looking nearly as smug. “Hello?” he tried innocently.
Dee opened her mouth to talk, but Pohl was faster. She just wasn’t faster with her tongue, because the professor pulled a knife out of her coat and stabbed it deep into the man. With the others paralysed in shock, Pohl thrust the knife in and out of the man’s guts with a wet snicking sound each time, until he was on the ground, sprawled and still.
As blood pooled on the expensive carpet, Dee got back control of her mouth.
“You cunted him in the fuck!”
“Yes,” and Pohl smiled, “I’m a cougar!”
“That is not what it means!”
Joe looked behind him. “I think we’re hidden from the road up here.”
“What?” Nazir said as he turned. “Oh, yes, see what you mean, if we leave now no one will ever know it was us.”
“Unless he has hidden cameras.”
“Let me pop in and check the setup,” Nazir said, making sure to avoid the dead fellow.
“What are you thinking?” Dee hissed to Pohl.
Calm, and looking a little scared, she tried to defend herself. “He’d driven me over the edge. I had to stop him, I had to.”
“This is not what we agreed!”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened.”
Nazir reappeared holding a black box.
“I got the hard drive, no one will know it’s us now.”
“Right,” Joe agreed “we take her home, we get her cleaned up, and we do it quickly. Does anyone know what cleans off blood?”
Dee raised an eyebrow to Joe. “Clearly you’ve never been a woman.”
At four am the following morning the group were still all sat around in the ladies’ lounge, drinking their way through an entire hot chocolate container and trying to make sense of the night. This process was aided when the doorbell rang, and Dee looked at the laptop to discover it was Maquire, standing waiting outside.
“He knows…” Pohl said, afraid.
“If he knew he’d be here mob hande
d. Let me talk to him,” and Dee went and opened the door.
“Having a late one Dee?”
“We’re all up, group chat. Big business,” no, hang on, this was going badly.
“Then I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s something I need to report to you all.”
“Come in,” Dee offered, and soon Maquire was in the lounge and being offered hot chocolate.
“No, it’s alright. I’ve got some news you may find unsettling.” And he looked right at Pohl. “Earlier this evening, well, in the middle of the night, we were called to a murder scene. A man had been killed, on his doorstep, and so we swung into action. But we soon found two things. Firstly, he had a room filled with, well, with stuff made from bones, and I think one of uniform is going to need therapy. We don’t know where these bones came from at the moment, but we found something else. A file. It turns out this man loves harassing people, and not in a comments section on YouTube way but old school stalking craziness. And I’m sad to report Professor that you were one of his targets.”
“Me?”
“Yes. Has anything happened? We don’t know if he was pursuing a campaign yet or planning to.”
“No, nothing,” and the others were impressed at how nonchalant she answered.
“I see. Which is excellent, of course. But we’ll have to interview you, part of procedure.”
“Why did he pick me?”
“We don’t know. The file doesn’t say. Most of it is probably in his head. But we’ll do our best to find out.”
“Thank you Constable.”
“Not a problem Professor. Now, if I could have a word with Dee before I go?”
“Yes?” Said Nazir, eyebrow raised. Dee shot him a look as she escorted Maquire out of the house.
Once on the doorstep, door mostly shut, Maquire turned to Dee, allowing himself to get very close, before almost whispering “this man was killed in a frenzied attack. Probably someone pushed to breaking point through harassment. We have no prints and little else, and I can say, even at this stage, that we won’t find who did it. But Dee, promise me, if it was one of your group you will get them therapy.”
It was all Dee could do to stop her nose wrinkling at the word. “Therapy.”
