What the dead want, p.1
What the Dead Want, page 1
What the Dead Want
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Friday, May 8, 2020
Chapter ONE
Monday, February 5.
Chapter TWO
Chapter THREE
Chapter FOUR
Chapter FIVE
Chapter SIX
Chapter SEVEN
Chapter EIGHT
Chapter NINE
Chapter TEN
Chapter ELEVEN
Chapter TWELVE
Chapter THIRTEEN
Tuesday, February 6.
Chapter FOURTEEN
Chapter FIFTEEN
Chapter SIXTEEN
Chapter SEVENTEEN
Chapter EIGHTEEN
Chapter NINETEEN
Chapter TWENTY
Chapter TWENTY-ONE
Chapter TWENTY-TWO
Chapter TWENTY-THREE
Chapter TWENTY-FOUR
Chapter TWENTY-FIVE
Chapter TWENTY-SIX
Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN
Chapter TWENTY-EIGHT
Chapter TWENTY-NINE
Chapter THIRTY
Chapter THIRTY-ONE
Chapter THIRTY-TWO
Chapter THIRTY-THREE
Wednesday, February 7.
Chapter THIRTY-FOUR
Chapter THIRTY-FIVE
Chapter THIRTY-SIX
Chapter THIRTY-SEVEN
Chapter THIRTY-EIGHT
Chapter THIRTY-NINE
Chapter FORTY
Chapter FORTY-ONE
Chapter FORTY-TWO
Chapter FORTY-THREE
Chapter FORTY-FOUR
Chapter FORTY-FIVE
Chapter FORTY-SIX
Chapter FORTY-SEVEN
Thursday, February 8.
Chapter FORTY-EIGHT
Chapter FORTY-NINE
Chapter FIFTY
Chapter FIFTY-ONE
Chapter FIFTY-TWO
Chapter FIFTY-THREE
Chapter FIFTY-FOUR
Chapter FIFTY-FIVE
Chapter FIFTY-SIX
Chapter FIFTY-SEVEN
Chapter FIFTY-EIGHT
Chapter FIFTY-NINE
Chapter SIXTY
Chapter SIXTY-ONE
Chapter SIXTY-TWO
Chapter SIXTY-THREE
Chapter SIXTY-FOUR
Chapter SIXTY-FIVE
Chapter SIXTY-SIX
Chapter SIXTY-SEVEN
Friday, February 9.
Chapter SIXTY-EIGHT
Chapter SIXTY-NINE
Chapter SEVENTY
Chapter SEVENTY-ONE
Chapter SEVENTY-TWO
Chapter SEVENTY-THREE
Chapter SEVENTY-FOUR
Chapter SEVENTY-FIVE
Chapter SEVENTY-SIX
Chapter SEVENTY-SEVEN
Chapter SEVENTY-EIGHT
Chapter SEVENTY-NINE
Chapter EIGHTY
Chapter EIGHTY-ONE
Chapter EIGHTY-TWO
Chapter EIGHTY-THREE
Chapter EIGHTY-FOUR
Chapter EIGHTY-FIVE
Chapter EIGHTY-SIX
Chapter EIGHTY-SEVEN
Chapter EIGHTY-EIGHT
Chapter EIGHTY-NINE
Chapter NINETY
Friday, February 23.
Chapter NINETY-ONE
Canelo Crime
About the Author
Also by M J Lee
Copyright
Title Page
Cover
Table of Contents
Start of Content
For my brother Mike, who gave me the idea in the first place
Friday, May 8, 2020
Chapter ONE
It was just another summer’s evening in Manchester.
She was lying in her small, thin bed, the night light throwing a grey shadow across her face.
I closed the door gently, ensuring the noise didn’t wake her.
Standing in the entrance, I watched as she moved restlessly in her sleep, turning her face towards me, the small gold cross around her neck catching the light against her pale wrinkled skin.
The room was bare and functional, not decorated like the others; a small table with one chair, a dresser with one picture resting on top, and one armchair where she could sit and read. The walls were painted a light eau-de-nil green, a colour beloved of company bureaucrats everywhere.
I never understood why that particular colour had been chosen for all the rooms in the facility. Any colour could have been selected; a pastel blue, for instance, or a warm rich cream. But no, the company had chosen the official coldness of eau de nil.
Whatever.
I advanced two steps towards the bed. She turned over once more.
What was she dreaming? Of days gone by when she had raced up the hill of her beloved Yorkshire? Or her first kiss behind the bike sheds at school, her body trembling with delight? Or even her wedding day, walking down the aisle in her borrowed white dress, the out of tune organ playing the ‘Wedding March’ in the wrong key.
She had told me all about her life one day. An old woman lost in her memories. It was one of the reasons I had chosen her to die.
For a moment, I stood still and stared at the hands resting over the top of the white bedsheet. Wrinkled, liver-spotted hands. Hands that had once caressed babies, done the washing up, wiped a child’s face, held a lover’s hand.
She was still healthy though, despite her age.
Too healthy.
She had signed the form a week ago. I always got them to sign it before the cull, they never said no. Most times, they never even looked at it, just one more of those interminable pieces of bureaucracy. Signing their lives away with the stroke of a pen.
I took the hypodermic from my pocket, removing the cap covering the spike. She wouldn’t feel a thing, a small prick and then a long, long sleep.
A forever sleep.
The hypodermic trembled slightly in my hand. This was my first time. But the Master had told me I was ready and the Master was always right. Praise his power.
I leant over the bed and lifted her thin arm. Her eyelids flashed open revealing blue, almost turquoise, eyes.
‘Hello, is it morning already?’ her sleep-drenched voice asked.
The voice was old, crackling with knowledge and the tannin of thousands of cups of tea.
‘Not yet, but I thought I’d check on you. It’s time for your vitamin injection.’
Before she could respond, I took the wrinkled hand and turned it over to reveal the soft, sagging flesh on the inside of the arm at the elbow.
‘But I don’t have vitamin injections, I have tablets and I’ve already taken them.’
Her head indicated the plastic pill box lying on the bedside table. Each small compartment of the box labelled with large black letters. SUN, MON, TUES, WED, THU, FRI, SAT.
‘This won’t hurt a bit,’ I said ignoring her words.
I inserted the needle into the soft part of the elbow, making sure I found a lovely vein, as clear as a blue tunnel, beneath the paper-thin skin.
Even though I was nervous, I had done it perfectly, she hardly felt a thing.
‘Aren’t you going to give me a cotton ball? They always give me a cotton ball after an injection.’
I smiled at her. ‘Not this time. It’s not necessary this time.’
She didn’t resist as I took her in my arms, feeling the fine grey hair resting against my chest, watching as her eyes fluttered and closed, the blue vanishing for the last time, eyes seeing no more.
The Master told me this would be my favourite time; waiting for them to die. There would be a point where one moment they were alive and the next they were gone.
The Master was right. It was the perfect moment. A moment to be savoured, to be enjoyed.
I was in control. I was the chosen one, the Master had selected me to do his bidding. I was his humble servant, his tool to be used as he saw fit.
I saw a shadow outside the window. Was somebody there? Was somebody watching?
I laid her head back on the pillow and strode to the window, looking out into the moonlit night. A thin, watery light from a crescent moon, filtered through the haze of petrol and diesel fumes hovering over Manchester, casting shadows across the old garden.
Nothing there. I must have imagined it. The Master said I would be nervous. Praise his power.
I was about to turn back when I saw a small figure dash from the left, run across the lawn and climb over the fence at the back.
Had he been watching? Or was it one of the peeping toms who haunted this suburb like thieves in the night?
No matter.
I turned back to stare at the old woman and I knew she was dead. There was something missing, something intangible, something no longer there.
If I were a Christian or a believer in religion, I would have probably said the soul had departed the body, leaving behind a shell with the life force no longer there.
But I didn’t believe in anything.
Except the Master of course. Hadn’t he told me everything that was going to happen? Hadn’t he understood my pain? Hadn’t he helped me rediscover my purpose in life?
The Master was my everything. My beginning and my end and everything in between.
He had told me I would understand the beauty of taking a life. The overwhelming power and control of deciding who should die and who should live.
I looked down at the old woman lying on her bed and knew she was dead, and I h
An immense sense of power flooded my body. I closed my eyes, experiencing the austere beauty of it all. The Master had told me the depression would follow soon after, though. With the power comes the glory and the sadness. I couldn’t have one without the other.
I took hold of the old woman’s wrist and felt for a pulse.
Nothing.
I had chosen this woman because she was the most active of the residents. She was always full of life, greeting everybody with a cheery wave and a loud ‘Morning’. She was perfect for what they needed.
I placed the wrist beneath the bedcovers, tucking her in and adjusting her clothes. She would be found by the morning attendant bringing her a cup of tea.
Another one who had passed in the night. The usual words of respect would be spoken. The door would be locked. The doctor called and she would be pronounced dead over the phone.
A death certificate would be issued and she’d be carried away quickly, before the residents were up and about, to lie on a cold, stainless steel table.
Her last resting place.
I noticed the cross glistening in the faint light. Reaching out I seized it and pulled.
The thin gold chain held firm.
I pulled harder, but still the chain held.
I tugged once more, sharply this time; the chain snapped leaving the small cross wrapped in my fist.
I wanted a keepsake from her to remind me of the feeling I had standing over her bed, helping her to leave this world. A small memory to keep me warm at night.
I took out my phone to take a picture of her lying on her deathbed. He wanted a picture of her dead, proof she had gone.
She was the tenth, but it was my first.
The Master would be pleased. He was always pleased when they were killed.
Praise his power.
Monday, February 5.
Present day.
Chapter TWO
Detective Inspector Thomas Ridpath approached the hospital bed. The coroner, Margaret Challinor, was still lying in exactly the same position as the last time he had visited three days ago.
Outside, the wind was howling and the rain lashed down against the walls of the old hospital building. The drive out had been difficult, but still he kept coming whatever the weather. He couldn’t leave her now.
Inside the ICU all was quiet. Mrs Challinor’s grey corkscrew curls lay sprawled across the pillow like the arms of an octopus. Somebody had combed and rearranged them since the last time he visited, probably one of the nurses.
A tube led from her nose, along her face, past her hair up to a bag hanging over her head. Her arms and wrists were covered in electrodes all connected to a variety of machines at the side measuring her vital signs; heart rate, blood oxygen levels, breathing, blood pressure and intercranial pressure.
She had been like this for the last eight months when Alexandra Orwell had attacked her one evening while she was walking her dog. There had been bleeding on the brain and an operation was performed in order to relieve the pressure. The doctors had been hopeful of a speedy recovery but then Orwell had attacked again, this time injecting her with morphine.
The doctors had resuscitated her one more time, but ever since she had lain there in a vegetative state.
The last time Ridpath visited he had talked to her consultant, Mr Pereira.
‘Will she ever recover?’
‘It has been known. Some patients remain in a coma for years, then wake up, ready to face the world. But…’
‘But?’
‘Statistically, the odds are not great.’
‘She’s a statistic now, is she?’
‘I’m sorry, detective, it sounds cold and uncaring, but you have to understand how we assess Mrs Challinor.’
‘How do you assess her?’
‘Normally, I would not discuss a patient with a non-relative, but as you have been visiting her for the last eight months, I will make an exception in your case.’ He took a deep breath. ‘In this hospital, we use two assessments for coma patients: the Glasgow Coma Scale and the FOUR score. In both, Mrs Challinor is classified as having a severe brain injury.’ Mr Pereira picked up the patient notes from the end of the bed. ‘In her last examination, she received a GCS score of seven with specific indications of E2V2M3. Her eyes are closed with swelling, she is intubated but there is a motor score of three because she retains a small reaction to pain. The FOUR assessment gives us slightly more detail; her eyelids are closed, there is an extension response to pain but her pupil and corneal reflexes are absent and she breathes slightly above ventilator rate.’
‘What does it all mean?’
‘It means Mrs Challinor received severe brain damage in her attack and we don’t know if, or when, she will recover.’
He tried to digest this information. ‘Thank you for your honesty, doctor.’
Off to one side, a single chair lay parked against a wall, Ridpath pulled it across to her bedside and sat down. ‘Hello, Mrs Challinor, it’s good to see you again.’
She didn’t react to his voice. There had been no acknowledgement of his presence for a long time.
No caustic remarks.
No blunt honesty.
No penetrating wit.
Nothing but the beeping and the whirring of the machines keeping her alive.
He no longer felt embarrassed at talking to somebody who never responded. The doctors said it was good for her to hear voices she recognised. One day, they hoped, one of the voices would cut through the fog of the coma into which she had fallen. One voice, one reaction, one hint that she responded, that’s all it would take to bring her back.
God, how he missed her.
The words of advice she offered. The reminders of what he was required to do. The constant desire to be an advocate for the dead in the land of the living. Officially, she was his boss, but their relationship was more than that; she was a colleague, a mentor, a friend.
‘Not a lot has happened since the last time we had a chat.’ He stopped for a moment realising ‘chat’ was hardly the right word for what was happening. ‘Monologue’ might be more appropriate.
He began again. ‘Not a lot has happened since the last time I visited. Eve is doing well at school. I think she has a boyfriend now but she won’t tell me who it is. I don’t want to come over as the heavy-handed dad, but she’s only fourteen so I think I have a right to know. What do you think?’
He glanced over at Mrs Challinor. The skin was still as perfect as ever, an almost quintessentially English peaches and cream, but there was a sadness to her face which Ridpath had never noticed before. Mrs Challinor was always so alive, so animated. Now she seemed a shell of the person he had once known.
He carried on. ‘Sophia and Jenny send their love. Sophia is engaged to be married to her Irishman. Apparently, the parents have met him and reluctantly agreed. He seems a lovely man and she is deliriously happy. Jenny has taken to wearing black to the office, gone are her Fifties orange dresses. Apparently, Clarence Montague took her aside one day and told her such clothes weren’t in keeping with the image of the coroner’s office so in true style, she has gone from one extreme to the other. Montague is still the same, managing to annoy anybody and everybody on a daily basis but we’ve all become used to handling his particularly prissy ways.’
For a moment, he thought he saw a movement of her eyelid but after staring for a while, realised he had probably imagined it.
He continued on. ‘He’s removed all the Section 28s you signed and has vastly reduced the number of inquests we hold.’ Ridpath imitated his voice. ‘“Our role is not to question the departments of government but to ensure the smooth, efficient and economical running of the coroner’s department.”’ Ridpath coughed twice. ‘I often think he would make a better accountant than a coroner. At the moment, he’s on an economy drive, turning down the heating in the office and switching it off at night. The old building isn’t the warmest place to work at the best of times and now we all wear coats inside. It’s so cold in Court 1, I saw a polar bear yesterday wearing a jumper in the witness box.’
He looked for a reaction to his joke but there was none.
‘Helen Moore has been promoted to Senior Coroner and is supporting him in his efforts to reduce the costs of running the office.’ He took a deep breath. ‘We all miss you so much and can’t wait for the day you return.’ Another breath. ‘I miss you so much…’
A woman stood at the entrance.
‘Hiya, Ridpath. You’re here again.’
It was Sarah, Mrs Challinor’s daughter.
