The Dead Speak Ill Of The Living (The Dead Speak Paranormal Mysteries Book 1) (18 page)

  
“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.”

  
Joe nodded, sure that meant something but unable to decide what.

  
“Well it’s nice to meet you Murphy,” Dee said, keeping her composure but
accidentally letting Murphy read her through her actions, “but we’ve finished
and were just heading back to our digs.” She smiled at him, walked past, and so
they all stood and left.

  
When out on the street Nazir hissed “who the fuck was that and how does he know
us?”

  
“I don’t know, I really don’t,” Dee confessed, “But we’ll have to work on
looking less fucking obvious.”

  
“I’m sure I’m missing something here,” Joe added.

  
“We’re all missing something Joe,” Nazir backed him up.

     
The group went down the street, bought some sandwiches from a shop they passed,
and went back to the Bed and Breakfast to eat them. The owners were surprised,
especially as they’d only just finished the laundry, but the group said they’d
come back to make a few phone calls, real life was intruding, and they’d be on
their way out to explore soon enough.

  
They sat morosely for an hour, as Joe recalled his brief encounter with Murphy
– literally a passing touch – and found little online insight, and little in
this case meant the occasional appearance on the web of the name and nothing
else. He certainly didn’t have a website all about his business.

  
But soon this worry was calmed as the group focused on the task in hand. So
they went for a long walk that afternoon, had a solid meal for tea, and waited
for it to get dark. Then they split into a pair of twos and threaded their way
through the night until they both met up behind the workshop.

  
“What’s the lock like?” Joe asked.

  
“You’d expect something old on these, but there’s a relatively recent one
fitted.”

  
“Is that a problem?”

  
“No, just give me a little time.”

  
Soon they were in, holding torches they’d taken from the car. Dee led them over
to the relevant end, pulled the covers off, and soon everyone was able to
examine the bonework.

  
“It looks even weirder in real life,” Nazir mused.

  
“How do we take pictures in this darkness?” Joe asked, holding a camera.

  
“We can’t risk the light’s going on, do the best you can,” Dee said, as she
made a written inventory of the suspect goods. Then she saw Nazir pick up the
lamp. “Maybe we should leave it all for when the police come, we don’t want him
getting any warning.”

  
Nazir looked at the lamp. “That’s probably a good idea.”

  
Feeling he’d taken all the photos they needed Joe dropped his rucksack to the
floor having removed the machine. “Let’s see what’s going on here.”

  
“Will there be ghosts here?” Pohl asked.

  
“Let’s see if they can go with their bodies.”

  
The device was switched on, and they got their answer. “Don’t just stand there,
go and kick him in the balls!”

  
“Hello?” Joe replied.

  
“Hel…yes, alright, hello. Who are you?”

  
“We’re investigating what’s going on here.”

  
“He’s stolen all our bodies and turned them into fucking antiques.”

  
“They’re not antiques if they’re new…” then Joe realised he was being stared
at.

  
“We’re on the case now, our report will go to the police the next day.”

  
“Good, finally. But just for me can you go and kick him in the balls?”

  
“How long ago were you taken?” Pohl asked.

  
“I’ve been here a month. Everyone who was here when I arrived has now moved on
as they’ve been sold.”

  
“What happens when he uses the bone on more than one piece?”

  
There was a telling pause and then “Besides them getting really upset?”

  
“We take your point. But we assure you this will be over soon.”

  
The group sneaked back out of the workshop, happy with their evidence, and
decided to have a drink to celebrate. There were no shortage of pubs in the
town, many filled with off duty craftspeople who gave the foursome an odd look
whenever they walked in, but this was ignored and soon Pohl was on the lemonades,
the rest booze and Joe was feeling more maudlin than usual. Dee, with great
reluctance, decided to call it a night, and they all walked back to the Bed and
Breakfast.

  
They arrived to find the door unlocked and hanging open, which was unusual
because they’d normally unlock it with their guest key, and the people who
owned it didn’t seem the forgetful sort. Bundling themselves into the hallway
they looked about, but the lights seemed off and no one was making any noise.
They then exchanged glances, although as they were new to this they didn’t
really know what the glances meant, but Dee led them through the breakfast
room, into the kitchen, where they all picked up a pan, and proceeded up the
stairs to where their rooms were. Both doors were hanging open, also unlocked.
Whoever had been in was skilled at this, they could probably get in through
anything. Which was something to remember.

  
Feeling certain what they’d find, Dee swung her door open and turned on the
light. They weren’t surprised to find the room a mess, as if a small whirlwind
had torn through it, although they knew it wasn’t a whirlwind, or at last at
six foot tall fleshy one. Dee went straight over to where the order book had
been hidden, and found it missing.

  
“Bastard’s been here while we’ve been round at his place” she concluded aloud,
and entirely accurately.

  
“Although he wasn’t as careful,” remarked Pohl.

  
Nazir stuck his head in. “Your room shaken to shit as well?”

  
“Yes.”

  
“I thought this chap was careful about sneaking about. Neatness, closing locks,
that sort of thing,” Joe said entering Dee’s room.

  
“That’s when he doesn’t want to get caught. Tonight he’s obviously been
panicking. Big time,” Dee finished, starting to pack her clothes back into her
bag before Joe had time to perv over her knickers.

  
Joe, for his part, was trying to desperately ignore the pants now on the floor.
“Shouldn’t we call the police? There might be fingerprints?”

  
“Oh we’re going to the police alright, we’ll be in their office as soon as
someone will see us. Then we’re going to nail this bastard.”

  
“Do we call the police here?”

  
“No sense in terrifying the people who run here with a break in.”

  
“That’s unusually humanitarian of you,” Nazir smirked.

  
“No need to explain to them a body stealing twat has been creeping about while
they’re asleep.”

  
“Should we check they’re not murdered?” Joe asked.

  
“They’ll be alive, this guy only steals stuff, he doesn’t kill anyone.”

  
“Yet,” Joe persisted.

  
“Alright, you go take a look. We’ll tidy up quick. And someone go and lock the
back door.”

  
Mercifully for all parties involved, Joe found everyone else in the building
still alive.

  
Due to government austerity, the town didn’t have its own police station, and
the group had to drive to find one. They decided to let Dee do the talking as
she was used to trying to get details out of coppers, and send only Pohl with
her so they didn’t seem mob handed.

  
Dee was soon ushered into a room to meet a police officer who looked half
asleep and in desperate need of a dietary change, but who presented her coffee
without asking and also had his book out. Part of police work is assessing
whether the people you’re talking to are lying or telling the truth, and while
even people being honest can be misleading – the human brain was notoriously
bad at gathering and retaining accurate information – you could still tell the
bullshit if you knew what you were doing.

  
But what really confused the officer was that, by all standards of
interpretation, Dee seemed to be telling the truth, had utter conviction. So
when she explained the body snatching was due to a craftsman turning the bones
into objects he sold had to balance the utter bizarreness of the claims with
his common sense telling him it was all bullshit and the way Dee seemed to be
entirely true to her own mind.

  
“How did you discover this Miss Nettleship?” he asked.

  
She explained she was a journalist who had read about the case, had strayed
into the workshop accidentally while on holiday, and found what she’d found.
Now the officer could tell she was lying, which was a little odd because this
was the only rational thing she’d said, so what was she hiding?

  
“Here are the photographs,” Dee said, bringing them up on her laptop. The
officer looked closely, and couldn’t tell if that lamp was something
photoshopped or taken from a Nazi crimes website.

  
“What do you think?”

  
“I’ll go and take a look Miss Nettleship.” The next day, most definitely the
next day.

  
The officer wasn’t expecting to find anything at the workshop, but he wasn’t
expecting to find nothing. He thought he’d have a chat with the staff, look at
their stuff, poke about, and come away to conclude Dee was losing it. What he
actually found was space, dust, and a complete lack of tools, products,
materials or craftspeople. The place had been stripped out and everything was
gone.

  
Which, the officer had to admit, was pretty damning. People didn’t just quit
their home of eight years and vanish overnight for the fun of it. So maybe Dee
had been right, which meant a load of interviews and forensics. But if she’d
been right the chance had been lost. The man was gone. Very gone. And it was
his fault for not getting down there immediately.

  
“We fucked up,” Nazir concluded as he leant back in the coffee shop’s antique
chair.

  
The group had spent the morning giving testimony to the police, and the officer
in charge had to admit their stories all matched, and seemed reasonable, even
if he didn’t believe it. They knew something else, but it wouldn’t be anything
a police report really wanted to deal with.

  
“We should have called the Police the moment we were in the workshop,” Pohl
sighed.    

  
“Alright, I concede, we got this wrong.” Dee looked into her coffee.

  
“Is there any chance of them finding him?” Joe asked.

  
Nazir tapped his laptop. “It’s not looking good. They have no leads. Someone
saw a van being filled, a big van, but no number plate and the description was
‘white’. They don’t have a Scooby.”

  
“Buggeration.”

  
On the plus side, we’re all still alive,” Nazir said to cheer the mood.

  
“I don’t think we should feel too down about this,” Pohl said, deciding Nazir’s
approach was right, because Dee and Joe looked like something had just punched
them. “We are new to this. Very new. We have no training in law enforcement, we
all come from other areas. We are learning, and you can’t do that without
making mistakes. So, yes, we missed our chance to go to the police, we thought
we were able to work to our own timetable. But we can revise that now, we can
evolve, or develop, or however you want. We’ll be more attuned to necessity
next time.”

  
“Here here,” Nazir said.

  
Dee rubbed her ear. “Maybe we should give Maquire a call, see what he can
recommend.”

  
Nazir now decided it was time to cheer her up through some banter. “You just
want to spend time with him because you fancy him.”

  
“What? I do not…” and she went a little red. “I mean, he’s nice, but…hang on,
you don’t fancy him too do you?”

  
“I’d shag him,” Nazir confirmed.

  
“I will not have my crushes being perved on by my gay friend.”

  
“So it is a crush!”

  
“No…bugger.”