The Dead Speak Ill Of The Living (The Dead Speak Paranormal Mysteries Book 1)

by Robert Wilde

  “Okay, Joe, your turn.”

  “I, err, I am an expert in quantum biology and related disciplines, I have an encyclopaedic knowledge of Doctor Who, I have a GCSE in French, and I, err, err…”

  “I’ll put down an analytical mind,” Pohl said charitably. “Now you Nazir?”

  “How do I follow that.” Realising he’d been too harsh he decided to lighten the mood.

  “I give great head. Certainly the best here.”

  Pohl coughed, and Dee swivelled round to look at Nazir. “Are you dissing my bedroom skills?”

  “Yes, I am a sexual velociraptor.”

  “I could turn any man you’d shagged.”

  “And how many men have you shagged while we’ve known each other?”

  “It’s quality, not quantity that counts.”

  “That’s not what won World War 2.”

  Dee smiled sweetly at him and said “Fuck you, and fuck your mother.”

  “My mother’s dead.” Nazir thought he’d won.

  “Do you think that’ll stop me from fucking her?”

  Now Nazir pretended to look sad. “After last week that’s less funny than it would have been.”

  He’d won, because Pohl stepped in. “You’re making Joe nervous.” Dee looked at him, and he’d gone bright red, so she nodded and conceded.

  “Alright, skills? I have extensive knowledge of all western and middle eastern computer systems, skills that allow me to do things the law would frown upon. I also have a detailed knowledge of acquiring false identities, Visas, travelling across Europe. Basically, I’m a very naughty boy. Oh, and I’m an expert on the Eurovision song contest.”

  “You fucking cliché.”

  “Thank you Dee.”

  “Can no one drive a van?” Joe asked.

  Dee fixed him with a scowl. “If you mention us getting a team van again I’m putting you in the naughty corner.”

  “Well that’s all I needed to know,” and Pohl decided to leave it there for now. It was different running a group she couldn’t tell off for swearing and showing off.

  “Right,” and Dee leapt up. “So far we’ve solved two murders, or about eighty if you count Keyes, so it’s time we went after our next payday.”

  “Our first payday,” Nazir pointed out.

  “Moan moan moan. Anyway, did anyone read the papers yesterday?”

  “I read two?” Pohl offered.

  “Actually, I mean the news section of the Fortean Times website, but from now on we’re taking it as the papers, okay?”

  “I see a vision of our future and it's tin foil hats.”

  Ignoring Nazir, Dee continued, “I was looking into the stories last night, and this is what I’ve got. A village in the Home Counties was selected in the 1930s to be a home for a large mausoleum complex, and it’s been filling up with well to do corpses ever since. Time passes, fuck all happens. But now someone’s been sneaking into the tombs and stealing the corpses.”

  “And hopefully not molesting them,” Pohl added.

  “Ah, so you think we can go and find the corpses?”

  “Not quite Nazir. Because whoever’s behind this has stolen one hundred and twenty three.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Yes, a cubic shitload. What we’re after is whoever, or whatever is doing this.”

  Nazir didn’t need to do calculations. “That’s a lot of relieved relatives if we get this right.”

  “Sure is. So let’s get over there and do some ground breaking science!”

  “If we had a van it would be easier for us all to move our kit?”

  “Right, into the naughty corner!”

  Despite the reasoned appeals of one group member, they did not have a van, so had climbed into Dee’s car and were proceeding through country lanes in that. However, Joe was doing the driving today, as Dee and Nazir were in the back with their laptops.

  Pohl looked behind her, from her front seat, and remarked “you look like a picture from the 50s warning about technology and depersonalization.”

  “We can’t help if it we have things to arrange. On which note, what sort of place do we want to stay in?” Dee asked.

  “We have a choice?” Pohl asked.

  “Always! There’s a very nice hotel nearby which…”

  “How much were they paying you?” Nazir asked without looking away from his screen.

  “Oh, yes. Okay, there’s a nice bed and breakfast where we can get four rooms.”

  “Make it three, I’ll share with Joe, alright Joe?”

  “That’s fine.”

  “Some men wouldn’t share with a gay man.”

  “You’re gay, not a rapist,” Joe explained.

  “Okay, I’ll book us in. How are you getting on?”

  “Very interesting. I’ve pulled up a copy of the police report on the incident.”

  “Shall I ask how you found that?” Pohl asked.

  “No, just in case they torture you, you’d give away my secrets.”

  “So what did you find?”

  “The figure you had is a little altered. They now believe every single vault in the place has been opened, some better than others, but only one hundred and forty two bodies are missing.”

  “It’s gone up?”

  “The mausoleum are understandably terrified this will get out, and I believe the caretaker has been sacked for gross negligence, even though he’s not a suspect.”

  “Who is a suspect?” Dee asked.

  “This is where it gets good for us. There are no suspects. None at all. They haven’t got a Scooby.”

  “You’ll set him off again.”

  “Hey!”

  “So the coast is clear for our group.”

  “How will we get in?” Joe asked.

  “Oh,” and Nazir looked up from the notes he was reading on a possible public order issue, “given the amount of people coming to shout about the whole thing, we’ll be able to slip in fine. In fact, we’ll be welcomed as long as we don’t threaten to lynch anyone like seemingly every other fucker.”

  “And as long as we don’t tell anyone why we’re there.” Everyone looked at Pohl. “We’ll look like the worst sort of ambulance chasing new agers.”

  “I think,” Dee explained, “that’s exactly what we are.”

  “But we have something that works!” Joe protested.

  “And no one will ever believe us with you and the machine disappearing for six years of tests.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Neither do we Joe,” Dee revealed, “neither do we.”

  The bed and breakfast was warm, friendly, and this was entirely because they thought Pohl was a mum who had bought her two children and her daughter’s middle eastern boyfriend with her, and they were doing the decent thing and having the men in a separate room. Quite how they’d have reacted to knowing there was a real life gay under their roof was something the foursome speculated, concluding it would involve a new B&B very quickly.

  It was thanks to the unintended deception that everyone had a good night’s sleep, and awoke keen to crack on. The plan was to rise promptly, get to the mausoleum, do their thing before too many people had arrived, and be back for breakfast, which was optimistic on the final point, but Pohl believed the eight am opening time was the best opportunity for a chat.

  They arrived, pulled up, and saw a young man unlocking.

  “Hello,” Nazir said, hailing the man, “you were different to last time we came.”

  “Oh, yes, I’m just temporary until a new caretaker is appointed.”

  “Sorry to hear that, did the last men retire?”

  “Yes,” he clearly lied. Which was fine, Nazir was lying too.

  “Are you finding out information we already know or trying to get some holiday sausage?”

  Nazir replied without looking at Dee. “I’m ready to take advantage of any opportunities.”

  “Are you coming inside?” the man asked.

  “Ooh yes,” Nazi
r replied.

  They were soon in, and they walked to the furthest end of the building and turned the machine on. “Anyone still here?” Joe asked.

  There were a jumble of voices, some shouting, before a thread could be picked out. “Quiet, quiet, I’m the mayor, I’ll speak.”

  “You were the mayor.”

  “He’ll do,” Dee cut in. “One at a time.”

  “You can hear us?” said the mayor.

  “Yes, and we’ve come to investigate the body snatching.”

  “How are the police getting on?”

  “It’s not hyperbole to say we’re your best bet.”

  “Okay. You’ll want a description.”

  “You have one?” Dee was grinning.

  “Yes. A man, six foot tall, black hair but a greying beard, in his forties.”

  “But you don’t know who he is?”

  “No.”

  “Just the one?” Dee was sure they’d be after a group.

  “Yes, works alone. Great strength in his hands and arms.”

  “Good, and he takes the bodies?”

  “Yes!” a hundred voices told Joe off for saying the obvious.

  “Anything else that might help us?” Dee asked, recording.

  “Yes. Most definitely. He measures all the bodies, writes them down. Then re-measures before he later takes.”

  The living part of this conversation looked at each other as the sounds of a newcomer haranguing the temporary caretaker filtered through. “Measurements? Some sort of religious nutter?”

  Dee pondered what Nazir had said. “Taking to order?”

  “How about a craftsman?” Joe said.

  “A craftsman?”

  “Yes, strong hands, taking measurements, getting things to order.”

  “Hello,” said the Mayor.

  “Yes?”

  “That’s a good shout. Our town is famous for our skills. We have furniture makers, a stonemason school, stained glass, glass blowing, we have a hub of talented professionals.”

  Dee nodded to herself. “Then we need someone who works with bone. Anyone?”

  “No.”

  Pohl smiled. “Then we need someone who works in secret with bone.”

  “Hang on, that’s the plan?” Nazir said, sipping on the coffee served with his breakfast. It was instant made in the mug, which he didn’t mind especially given how little they were paying for the rooms.

  “We need to find a craftsman, so we’re going to have to divide the phone book, and visit them all to see if we can find someone matching the description, or who looks awkward.”

  “We’ll be here for a week!”

  Given Joe was enjoying actually having a holiday for the first time since he was a child he said “I can manage that.”

  “And do you have a better plan?”

  “No Dee, I don’t. So we’re dividing. I say we go in pairs. And as Pohl and I would make an odd couple you two ladies go as mother and daughter and I’ll go as a gay couple with Joe.”

  “Don’t flirt with poor Joe, he can’t cope.”

  “I…err..no,” he couldn’t he realised. “How do I pretend to be gay?”

  “There’s no pretending. Just act like a human being not a cartoon. How would you act with a woman… actually, scratch that.”

  “Maybe we should have a man with each lady?” Joe suggested.

  “This isn’t the 1950s,” Dee replied.

  “I don’t mind going with Dee,” Pohl said.

  “Right, let’s get going, it’s a long list.”

  They filled the next two days with visits. In weeks to come, the shopkeepers and craftspeople of the town would speak to each other of the two odd pairs who came in, sniffed about, and seemed highly suspicious. It wasn’t that most customers were odd, because they were, you had to tolerate that sort of thing, and it wasn’t that they didn’t buy anything, because ‘window’ shopping was also common. It was the way they looked forensically around the rooms, didn’t find whatever they were looking for, then left. But they weren’t looking at the goods. They seemed as interested in dust as tables, in beards as glass, as the way people reacted as the goods.

  One the third day Dee and Pohl entered a shop selling custom made wooden items. There was a lovely crib in the window, marvellous chairs in the room, and a bird table of the most detailed and extravagant structure. A sign hung, explaining he would make anything.

  Two Americans tourists were at one side of the shop, examining some shelves they would have loved but couldn’t possibly get back home, and they detected none of the held breaths Pohl and Dee forced themselves into to avoid gasping. Behind the counter, sketching something on white paper, was a man six foot tall, with black hair, a greying beard, and thick wrists.

  “Hello ladies, how can I help you?” he said with a slight Welsh accent.

  “Hello,” Pohl said, not sure what they were supposed to do now other than report back. “How are you?”

  “I’m good thanks, what are you after?”

  “You work in wood?” Pohl continued, as Dee scanned the room but found no obvious signs of bone.

  “I work in many materials,” ding ding ding thought Dee, “what are you interested in?”

  “Sorry to bother you, but do you have a toilet?” the younger woman asked.

  “Of course, just out the back, through that door.”

  “Thanks, back soon mum,” and Dee dived off, leaving Pohl to smile and fall back upon her best ‘bullshit the head of faculty’ skill. She’d have to write that on the list.

  Dee didn’t go to the toilet, but did open the door and put the light on. Then she went down the small hallway, opened the door at the end, and found herself in a large workshop which stretched back down the narrow property. The objects closest to her were obviously wooden, but she was interested in the ones at the back covered with a sheet. There was no dust on these, so they were recently covered, and she pulled one away… and the wood was heavily inlaid with a hard, white substance. So, ivory, plastic or… bone?

  The sheet was replaced, and another removed. Here was a lamp, but suddenly subtlety had gone. The lamp’s stalk was a thigh bone, the shade was build out of thinner white things still recognisably bones, and…

  Time was of the essence. Couldn’t pause. They’d found it, must come…but what was that? Next to the lamp, a black book. Dee snatched it up, looked through, and found a list, addresses, and lots of references to bone. Bingo.

  She slammed it into her bag, walked to the toilet, flushed it, and returned to the shop. Pohl was there, still talking, as were the tourists, still dreaming. Time for a dignified retreat.

  “The full Ed Gein?” Joe asked, hand warming up on the coffee.

  “The full fucking Ed Gein,” Dee confirmed, and went back to sipping a barista prepared number. Could you really tell the difference between this and instant or was she a coffee snob? “A lamp, made of bone. It’s like something Nazi.”

  “That’s actually an urban legend…”

  “I thought you were classical history?”

  “In a history department. Full of historians. We have to talk about something.”

  “Fair point,” Nazir conceded.

  “So we’ve got him.” Joe said, the machine strikes again.

  “Well, looking at this book, I think we’re only halfway there.”

  “Halfway?” Joe asked.

  “This is a book that anyone could have written any shit in. We’re going to have to go back and gather some real evidence.”

  “But you were excited about the book?”

  “Oh, I am, and here’s why. This book is filled with everyone who’s ordered, including names and addresses, what was made, what bone was used, and price. There must be a thousand sales in here.”

  “From a few hundred bodies?”

  “The book goes back twenty years. I think he’s moved several times.”

  “This is big,” Joe said, eyes wide, “this is really big.”

  “Yes, it is. A
nd when we get some good photos we will nail him.” Dee thought about saying “tighter than one of his cabinets”, but she wasn’t a cartoon.

  “Why don’t we just take the lamp?” Pohl asked.

  “Or we could just take the lamp.”

  “Right, that’s us sorted out then. Lunch and back to his place?” Dee suggested.

  “Better leave it until the evening,” Pohl cautioned, “Sneak in. How are your lock picking skills developing Nazir?”

  “I can get into my house now. But my neighbours think I have Dementia.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Actually, it’s not meant to be funny. Unlike the looks they’re giving me.”

  “Just buy a door, take it into your house, and practice inside.”

  “Science boy is being practical again.”

  “Don’t you start with the van…”

  “Good middle of the day!”

  At that last voice the group turned, and found a man stood there. A rail thin man with glasses rimmed wider than his bones, the newcomer wore a suit like he was trying to look normal but failing. And yet he walked over to them from the café’s door with the smoothness of a cat.

  “Hi, do we know you?” Dee asked.

  “No, you don’t, but I’m here to make your acquaintance. My name’s Murphy.”

  “Forename or surname?” Pohl asked.

  “Please, just Murphy. May I sit?” He wasn’t shaking hands.

  “What’s it about?”

  “I think we’re in the same business.”

  Not letting him sit, Dee asked “what’s that?”

  “I’m a Private Investigator. I specialise in the unusual and the strange.”

  Dee kept his eyes, but the other three looked at each other, and told Murphy all he needed to know.

  “What are you investigating?” Dee asked.

  “I’m sure you’ve seen the web, or the local papers, someone has been stealing an awful lot of bodies.”

  “And you’re finding the culprits?” Pohl said, keen to throw in a plural to make it look like they didn’t know.

  “Yes. I thought we might be able to pool our resources, share information, as we’re in the same trade.”

  “Did we see you before? Out shopping?” Joe asked, realising.

  “Yes, I think we brushed together in a potters.”