I laughed.
But he wasn’t smiling, and it only took me a moment to realize he hadn’t been joking after all. It was the first time I had ever seen him so upset, and a creeping tide of dismay swept over me. And in that moment of cold terror, I received three priceless gifts: a fear of falling, a horror of lifts, and a sense of panic in enclosed spaces.
* * *
I stood up. In the corner of the graveyard, in the shadow of the wall, I saw a single, white headstone above a fresh mound of earth.
* * *
I was a child when I left home at eighteen, though I believed I was an adult. I was still a child at twenty-one, when Amy moved to London. I was a child when I wandered the streets, and cleaned toilets, and swept roads, and waited on tables. I am still a child now, long after my death.
And I was a child when my mother walked into the restaurant where I worked, five years after I had last seen her. I was so childish, I didn’t know who I was. I needed help – but I couldn’t help myself, so I turned to everyone around me for the answer. But no-one else could help me, so I turned back to myself. But I couldn’t help myself. And so I went on, whirling from one moment to the next, and never stopping. I’d spent half a decade trying to forge my own identity, but all I’d created was a stupid spinning top.
When my mother shouted my name across the room, I stopped moving. All the bonds that had been burnt or severed were renewed and reconnected; and as she grabbed my hand and gently rubbed my thumb, I knew who I was again. The feeling didn’t last long – when I became a detective and moved into my own flat, I spun more wildly than ever – but for those few precious moments I felt that I had finally come home.
And when I looked into her eyes, I saw a look of such compassion that I couldn’t speak, and I waited for her to break the long silence between us.
‘I thought you were dead,’ she said at last.
* * *
The inscription told me that my parents had been buried within a year of each other: my mother first, my father nine months later. I don’t know the details of how they died. It could have been an accident. It could have been one of those emotive terms which are so common but so imbued with fear: cancer, stroke, heart attack. It could have been natural causes – they would have been nearly sixty when they heard the news of my death, and a few years had passed since. It could have been none of these. The only certainty was, there were no flowers on the grave, fresh or otherwise, and apart from their names and dates, there were only six other words carved on the headstone:
I GIVE IN! I GIVE IN!
My father’s parting joke.
* * *
I spent an hour at the graveside, digging up more fragments from the past, and considering why I’d felt the need for this visit. I eventually realized it was because I had wanted to say something to my parents which I hadn’t had the chance to express while I was still alive. It wasn’t that I loved them (love is no use to the dead); nor was it a desire to tell them I was alive again (they couldn’t do anything about it, after all). It was just a single word.
I said it as I laid some wild flowers on their grave, which I’d plucked from the soil by the wall.
Goodbye.
In Corpse Code: a long, slow scratch.
Claustrophobia
Few people know when their life will end. Some prepare for it too soon, so that their minds give up long before their bodies. Some don’t prepare at all, and are amazed to discover they aren’t going to live for ever. But no-one gets it exactly right. I, for example, was absolutely convinced I was going to die when I fell from the roof and saw the ground rising to meet me; and I was utterly certain the agony would last for only the briefest of moments.
I was wrong on both counts.
The green and white awning of the bus station café broke my fall, along with my left arm. And that minor piece of luck kept me alive, and in severe pain, for another two hours.
When I consider what followed, I wish the fall had killed me. I remember nothing of the landing – I’ve always assumed that the awning saved me, but it could easily have been a misguided angel or a bored demon – but I do remember waking up some time later, unable to move, with violent stabbing pains in every part of my body.
I was in a warm, dark, vibrating place. I couldn’t see anything, but I heard a low, muffled hum. My hands were tied behind my back with rope; my legs were tied to my hands. My mouth was stuffed with a rag that tasted of oil and grease, sealed in place by insulating tape. The tape wound three times around my head, biting into the skin on my face and neck, tearing my hair when I moved. Sweat rolled into my eyes, ran down my cheek, dripped onto the warm, dark, vibrating surface beneath me.
I thought I had been buried alive, so I screamed for help. But with the rag, and the tape, and the low, muffled hum, no-one could hear.
Even as I was crying out, I realized that the details didn’t fit. If I was buried, why was I bound and gagged? And there was something soft pressing against my eyes – a blindfold. Why would anyone blindfold their victim before sealing him in a coffin? It didn’t make sense. I briefly wondered if the shock of the fall was causing me to hallucinate, but the oily taste of the rag stuffed into my mouth was too persistent, and the pain in my limbs too real.
I had no choice but to lie there, and continue screaming.
Somewhere behind my blinded eyes, behind the pain pulsing through my body, behind the knowledge that something terrible was about to happen to me, I saw Amy’s face. It wasn’t the image of her, pale and weeping, sitting on the carpet in her apartment in a shower of broken glass – though that picture returns to me now. Nor was it the incredulity which greeted my last profession of love, or the desperation as she tried to break the skylight window.
It was the memory of the last time we had met in the Jericho Café, seven years earlier. We were sitting by the window, recovering from the long, cold walk back across the meadow. We weren’t looking at each other, preferring the slimy grey pulp of snow and slush in the street.
‘It just doesn’t feel right,’ she said, repeating herself. ‘Not any more.’
I nodded. ‘It hasn’t felt right for a long time.’
‘So what’s left between us?’
‘Why can’t you just accept me for who I am?’
‘Don’t be sarcastic,’ she snapped.
‘I wasn’t being.’
She changed course. ‘Anyway, that’s the point. Who you are just isn’t what I want. It hasn’t been for the last three years. And I just can’t stand it any more … You keep telling me how much you want a relationship like the one your parents have, but you don’t think about what I want. It’s too much pressure.’
‘So what do you want?’ I asked.
‘That’s my business!’ she shouted. She looked around the room, embarrassed. The café was empty, but she still lowered her voice. ‘Look – I’m sorry – but I don’t think this is ever going to work out.’
The skin on my back shivered, as if a soft carapace were taking hold there.
‘Thanks for telling me,’ I said.
‘We’re just not the same people any more—’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘Get away from me.’
‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ She stood up, furious. ‘Look … It’s not my bloody fault you can’t loosen up. I can’t solve that one for you. And you can’t keep blaming me.’ She collected her purse from the table top. ‘I’m too young. I want to experiment – enjoy myself while I can … If I don’t, I’ll never know what I’ve missed.’ She bent down to kiss me on the forehead. ‘You must see that?’
* * *
And I do see it now.
But now is too late.
* * *
The vibrating, humming, pain-racked terror returned. I understood, at last, where I was: imprisoned in a car boot, with no idea of the destination.
It felt like an hour before we stopped. I can’t say for sure, but knowing whe
re we ended up, an hour is about right. The crunching of tyres on gravel softened as we rolled the few yards to our final resting place. The humming of the engine grew quieter, then cut out. The random vibrations of the suspension ceased. The oily rag was making me delirious. My heart beat furiously.
I heard whispering voices, then two doors closing. Footsteps, coming closer. A key turning in the lock, then the boot opening.
‘Give us ’and, Ron,’ said Ralph.
‘Right you are, Ralph,’ said Ron.
Death by description
I returned to the Agency, my mind preoccupied with my parents – but when I reached the front door, I discovered that the key I had borrowed from Skirmish didn’t fit, and that I was locked out. Make-up or no, I didn’t relish the thought of watching the world go by until someone arrived with the right key. Fortunately, Death answered my pounding just as it was becoming frantic. He opened the door and ushered me inside.
‘Knock any louder and you’ll wake the dead,’ he said.
He invited me into the office, where Famine mumbled a barely audible hello from behind a tall column of paper.
‘Where’s War?’ I asked him.
‘Still asleep,’ he muttered. ‘Late night. Sore head.’
‘Come and look at this,’ said Death. He showed me his typewriter, which contained a Termination Report like the one I’d seen in the Chief’s office on Thursday. It was a description of my friend, Lucy, but the details bore no resemblance to the person I’d known when I was alive. ‘I’m just about to send it upstairs. Is there anything you want to add?’
I shook my head; then thought better of it. I borrowed a pencil from War’s desk and scribbled this simple, three-word message at the bottom of the page:
Life is luck.
* * *
‘So what exactly are you doing today?’ I asked Death.
‘A skinning,’ he groaned.
‘Live or dead?’ Famine interrupted.
‘Alive. Fully conscious. Introductions, explanations – the lot. Then it’s down to business.’
‘Carving knife?’
Death shook his head and pulled an elongated black briefcase from beneath his desk. He paused, then flicked open the catches and lifted the lid. The contents shocked me.
‘That’s sick,’ I said.
‘Someone has to do it,’ he replied.
The case was lined with a moulded plastic insert. Lodged in the insert was a single tool comprising nine parts: eight interconnecting poles made from polished bone, and a single, shining scythe blade, three feet in length. Each bone was embossed with a small black skeleton. The blade was carefully wrapped in cellophane.
‘Nice piece o’ kit,’ said Famine, who had slithered unnoticed from his desk.
‘And brand new,’ Death commented wearily. ‘Seems a pity to get it dirty.’
He removed the bones from the case and carefully screwed them together to make the shaft; then slotted the blade into a narrow groove in the top piece, securing it with a metal clasp. He stood up and posed briefly with the assembled weapon. It was at least eight feet long.
‘Magnificent,’ Famine observed.
‘Frightening,’ I added.
‘Gratuitous,’ Death sighed.
The scythe was disassembled and repacked without further comment; but the sight of it had unnerved me a little. I patted the ampoule of liquid in my jacket pocket for reassurance; but it was beginning to feel increasingly like a burden. How could I use it on someone who had been nothing but helpful to me? Then again, as Skirmish had already pointed out, what other options did I have?
Death checked his watch, breathed hard, and turned to me. ‘It’s time,’ he said. ‘I’ll be gone for most of the afternoon. There’s a good deal of preparation, and once the first blow has been struck, the skinning itself involves – well, you don’t want to know the details now … I’ll pay you a visit when I get back, and tell you how I got on. In the meantime, you should find the door to your room open – if not, go and see the Chief.’
He picked up his briefcase and left without fuss. I was about to follow him when Famine stopped me.
‘Good luck,’ he said, his bony hand resting on my arm. ‘This evening. Your appraisal.’
I thanked him. ‘I’ll let you know what happens.’
‘Unlikely,’ he replied. ‘Very busy today. Going abroad for three months tomorrow. Leaving after breakfast … You can read my postcards – if you’re still here, that is.’
* * *
The door to my room was unlocked, so I was denied yet another opportunity to meet the Chief. I was seriously beginning to doubt his existence. Perhaps I’d been around Famine too long – his paranoia was contagious.
Yet the more I thought about the situation, the stranger it became. As I replaced Skirmish’s key on the writing desk, I realized that I didn’t even know if the Chief was a he, a she, or even an it. For all I knew, the attic room’s sole occupant could have been a feathered creature with the body of a fish, the legs of an elephant, and the head of an axolotl … But most likely there was nothing suspicious about our never meeting. It was just bad luck.
Whatever. I lay down on the bed, closed my eyes, and spent the next seven hours thinking: about everything that had happened to me, and about the terms of my contract. I didn’t stop to eat or drink, and barely paused at all until I heard a knock on the door – by which time my head was aching. I’d long since forgotten what Death had said to me earlier that morning, and I was genuinely surprised when he entered. I was even more surprised to see that he’d lost his briefcase and was grimly clutching his scythe in his right hand.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
He sat down in the Barca lounger, slipped into recliner mode, and told me the whole story.
* * *
‘I should begin by telling you about skinning – so that you know from the start I’ve got nothing against this method per se.’ He propped his scythe against the wall almost as an afterthought. ‘It’s actually got all the elements I used to relish in a termination … For instance, there’s a lot of detailed planning, involving the isolation of the client, finding the right moment to strike, the time allowed for cleaning up, and so on. Then there’s the formal requirement of an efficient skin removal – a major challenge in itself. Within that you have plenty of scope for creativity. Do you start with the head or the feet? Which part of the blade should you use? Do you hack out pieces patchwork-fashion, or cut a long line down the back and peel the torso like an orange? I’m being simplistic, of course: it’s actually quite a wrench to tear the flesh from…’ He faltered. ‘Is this too much for you?’
I shook my head, frantically searching for some trivia to distract me. But my brain refused to comply. It clearly had its own agenda, because the only message it fed me was: Grow up. Deal with it.
‘Fine … So you’ve got satisfaction in the planning and execution stages, and then there’s plenty of work in the aftermath. For example, it’s vital to clean the blade as soon as you’ve finished, otherwise the metal will rust. The reason why I’ve been using a new scythe is because I let Skirmish borrow the old one a few weeks back. Don’t ask me what he used it for – the point is, he didn’t return it for days. And when I challenged him, he said he’d lost it – but do you know what?’
‘What?’
‘He’d kept it in his room all along, stored under the bed. The handle was covered in blood, there were traces of fat and flesh on the blade, and he hadn’t even wrapped it up again. I watched over him while he cleaned it. He spent hours and hours scraping away every last mark, and I wouldn’t let him go until I was satisfied. You could barely see the damage once he’d finished. But I knew it was there, and it never felt the same after that…’
He gazed wistfully at the implement leaning against the wall. All the talk of administrative matters had briefly animated his blank features, and even caused a few short-lived smiles to illuminate his grim face; but the mention of his old scythe sent him back
into a silent depression. I tried to relieve his mood by changing the subject.
‘What was your client like?’
‘Deeply unhappy,’ he sighed.
‘Why?’
‘He was convinced that life had betrayed him. He’d always tried to be as honest as possible in everything he said and did. He felt that nothing should be hidden below the surface, that everyone should be open. A completely stupid idea, of course – and he paid the price. He could never keep friends for more than a few months.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Everyone he met he offended, sooner or later, and always without meaning to.’
* * *
Two years of private investigation taught me that people have an ambivalent attitude towards honesty. They like it, they hate it, they want it, they don’t. Sometimes they believe it’s best not to know, then they complain that they haven’t been kept informed. They despise ignorance, but don’t like turning over rocks to see what lies underneath.
My years underground taught me a different lesson. The dead accept that there are things that are known, and things that are unknown. This is why corpses are so stupid.
Sorry for the interruption.
* * *
‘What did he do for a living?’
‘He worked in an abattoir on the southern edge of town.’ Death stared at the ceiling and breathed deeply. ‘But, look, I should finish this story off. It might help me understand why I did what I did at the end.’
I nodded, and made myself comfortable. He flicked a switch and eased the Barca lounger back into armchair mode before continuing.
‘Imagine this. You’re on a two-lane road bordering farmland. You drive over a low, hump-backed bridge spanning a canal and turn left into a slaughterhouse yard. The Metro’s air-conditioning sucks in the sweet smell of boiled bones and blows it around the interior. You get out and scan your surroundings: a plain, two-storey brick building with a sloping slate roof, four small windows, a narrow front entrance, and a cobbled courtyard. There’s a tall, grey chimney rising from an extension on the right and several metal pipes protruding at odd angles from the walls. This is where I found myself at ten-thirty this morning.
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