Justin Richards - The Death Collector

‘And if the grave is empty?’ Liz asked.

‘Either he isn’t dead at all, or …’ Eddie shrugged.

‘He is dead,’ George said.

‘People get buried alive,’ Eddie protested.

‘Not these days,’ Liz said sharply. She bit at her bottom lip. ‘At least, I don’t think so.’ The notion obviously worried her.

‘Then we go to a medium and hold a seance,’ Eddie decided. ‘If he’s really walking, we should find out what he wants. And to do that we have to talk to him.’

‘A seance.’ 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 seance, 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.’

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.