The Death Collector

Chapter 7

Eddie and George made their way to the graveyard while Liz went to wake her father. It seemed best to examine Albert Wilkes’s grave as soon as possible, and George was conscious that despite his lack of sleep he was due at work at the Museum in a few hours. With luck he would be able to find a quiet store room and catch forty winks.

They walked briskly, Eddie leading as he said he knew the way. ‘Do you live round here?’ George asked him.

The boy glanced at George, a lick of dark hair poking out from under his cap. ‘I don’t live nowhere,’ he said.

‘Everyone lives somewhere.’

The boy grunted. ‘Fat lot you know. You’ve got a house or something, I suppose.’

‘Well, yes.’ There was something in the boy’s manner that made George almost ashamed to answer. ‘It was my father’s house,’ he said.

‘You got a father too. That’s nice.’

‘I did have,’ George replied quietly. ‘Not any more.’ Eddie looked at him — not a sideways glance of contempt, but with an intensity that made George feel even more uneasy. ‘That’s sad,’ Eddie said. Then he looked away.

‘I just meant you seem to know your way around here,’ George said. It sounded more apologetic than he had intended.

‘I know lots of London.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘What’s that mean?’

Eddie had stopped, and George had to stop as well to answer. ‘It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘I don’t expect you to like me,’ the boy snapped. ‘I don’t expect you to worry about what I do or where I sleep or where my next meal’s coming from. You got a house and home, so that’s all right.’

George stared at him. He had no idea how to respond to this sudden outburst. He could just agree with the boy and walk away — a lot of what he had said was certainly true, and George felt no pricks from his conscience about how he lived. But somehow, despite everything — even losing his wallet — he felt caught up in the boy’s life. They were linked now, both entangled in a mystery that if the lad was right threatened their lives.

‘I do like you, Eddie,’ he said quietly, without even realising he was going to say it. It sounded trite and awkward, but he realised that it was true. There was something about Eddie Hopkins. If nothing else, the boy was a survivor, and while George didn’t agree with the boy’s morals, at least the lad had some.

Eddie stared at George for a long moment. His mouth moved as if he was about to speak. Then he glanced down at his feet before suddenly slapping George heartily on the shoulder and grinning at him. ‘Let’s go and see the grave robbing, then,’ he said.

It was raining when Liz eventually got her father to the graveyard. A fine drizzle that was almost a mist, and which seeped into Liz’s clothes. Her father seemed not to notice as he prodded at the turned earth with the end of his stick and muttered quietly to himself about what the world was coming to.

‘You say that the constable was going to meet us here?’ he said at last, his forehead wrinkling like a tortoise’s.

‘He was going off duty. But he said there would be someone.’

‘Probably idling about somewhere,’ her father decided. ‘You stay here, I’ll go and find the fellow.’

Liz watched him set off towards the nearest path, leaning heavily on his stick. She was tempted to follow, but she waited until her father’s shape was blurred by the rain. Then she walked slowly over to where George and Eddie were sitting on the wall of the graveyard.

Being cold and damp was nothing new to Eddie. He could feel the rough brickwork of the wall through his trousers and shuffled slightly to get more comfortable. He watched the old man walking unsteadily into the mist, and then Liz came over. They had been forced together by circumstance, and he had stolen from both George and Liz. He quite liked them — well, the woman anyway. The man was quiet and dull and difficult to understand. But Liz was open and honest and she hadn’t turned him over to the police when she could have done.

What worried Eddie was that neither of his new associates seemed willing to accept Mrs Wilkes’s story. For Eddie it was simple — if the woman said her husband had come home, then she must have some reason for saying it. Even if she thought he was dead. And he was sure that he had seen the old man himself — dead and walking.

‘We should dig this Wilkes bloke up,’ he pronounced as Liz reached them.

‘Why?’ George wanted to know.

‘To make sure he’s still there,’ Eddie said.

‘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.’