The Death Collector (11 page)

‘Who?' Eddie asked. ‘You mean the factory bloke?'

‘Yes,' George said. ‘But I'm pretty sure he is just a collector of curios and was interested because he thought I had something to sell.'

‘You think he wants a complete diary?' Liz asked.

‘Well if he does it won't be this one. The volume this paper came from is burned to ash,' George added. ‘This is all there is now. Sir William Protheroe, at the British Museum, is examining the others.'

‘They must want them bad to go stealing and murdering,' Eddie announced.

‘Yes, and before that I think they tried to buy them,' George said. ‘From poor Albert Wilkes before he died. He worked with my friend Percy,' he started to explain.

But Liz was looking at him in astonishment. ‘You did not tell me your friend's name before,' she said. ‘How curious. I wonder …'

‘Wonder? Wonder what?'

‘Yeah,' Eddie added, ‘what is it?'

Liz frowned. ‘Well, I can't think it is relevant,' she said. ‘Though it was rather unsettling at the time. Father and I visited the man's widow just a few days ago. She lives on Clearview Street.' Liz was looking off into the distance as she remembered. ‘The poor woman was in such a state. She must have been dreaming or something.'

‘So what did she say?' Eddie demanded.

Liz was looking out of the window. When she turned, George could not make out her expression as the light was behind her now. ‘She said that her husband, her dead husband, had come home and taken the dog for a walk.'

There was a moment's silence, broken by Liz's nervous laugh. ‘Father did what he could to comfort the poor woman. But she was distraught.'

‘As you say,' George agreed, ‘a dream. A waking nightmare. She missed him so much she thought he had come back.'

Eddie was thoughtful. He stood up and walked round the room. ‘What about the dog?' he asked at last.

‘The dog?' George almost laughed out loud. ‘Who cares about the dog?'

Eddie was looking at him excitedly. Then he turned to Liz. ‘Was the dog there?'

‘No,' she admitted. ‘No, I didn't see a dog, I must confess.'

Eddie was almost breathless with excitement now.
‘So maybe this Wilkes really had taken it for a walk.' He paused before going on: ‘You see, that old man Blade was after had a dog,' he said. ‘And that was on Clearview Street.'

George frowned. There was a coincidence here, but was it any more than that? He was trying to see the significance, if any, when he realised that Liz was no longer paying attention. She was looking out of the window again.

‘There's a policeman coming to the door,' she said.

They had talked of going to the police, of course. But after her experiences with the relatively mundane matter of a missing wallet, Liz was adamant that without some solid evidence they would get no help.

‘I was hoping to find the Reverend Oldfield,' the policeman said when Liz opened the door. ‘I know it's early,' he admitted.

‘Indeed,' Liz told him. ‘He is still asleep. I am myself an early-riser,' she added by way of explaining how she came to be awake and up and dressed at the crack of dawn. ‘Can I help? I am his daughter.'

‘It isn't a pleasant incident, miss.'

‘An incident? What can you mean?'

‘Well, I'm not sure yet, miss. Probably nothing. I think I disturbed the men. I wasn't really sure what to do about it as it seems there's no real harm or damage done.'

‘Some sort of damage?' Liz wondered. ‘Where?'

‘Well, not really
damage
miss. I saw two characters making off through the graveyard. Maybe they were just taking a shortcut. Only, well, one of the graves looks like it's been disturbed. I gather that Reverend Henderson is away, so I was advised to inform your father. I'm just going off duty myself,' he went on. ‘But if the Reverend wants to take a look for himself, there'll be someone there until eight o'clock. We'd appreciate his professional opinion.'

‘Thank you,' Liz said. The constable touched his helmet, and turned to go. Liz stepped back to close the door. ‘Oh, constable,' she said quickly as a thought occurred to her. ‘Which grave is it that has been disturbed?'

‘It's a recent one, miss. Over towards the Galsworthy Avenue side. No headstone yet, of course. But I gather it's the grave of a gentleman called Albert Wilkes.'

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 séance,' 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 séance.' 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.