The Dead Place. Stephen Booth

there they were, the footsteps again.

      Sandra knew the car park well, even remembered it being built in the eighties. Some feature of its design caused the slightest noise to travel all the way up through the levels, so that footsteps several floors below seemed to be right behind her as she walked to her car.

      She’d experienced the effect many times before, yet it still deceived her. When it happened again tonight, Sandra couldn’t help turning round to see who was behind her. And, of course, there wasn’t anyone.

      Every time she heard the sound of those footsteps, she turned round to look.

      And every time she looked, there was no one there.

      Every time, except the last.

      Wasn’t it Sigmund Freud who said that every human being has a death instinct? Inside every person, the evil Thanatos fights an endless battle with Eros, the life instinct. And, according to Freud, evil is always dominant. In life, there has to be death. Killing is our natural impulse. The question isn’t whether we kill, but how we do it. The application of intelligence should refine the primeval urge, enrich it with reason and purpose.

      Without a purpose, the act of death has no significance. It becomes a waste of time, a killing of no importance, half-hearted and incomplete. Too often, we fail at the final stage. We turn away and close our eyes as the gates swing open on a whole new world – the scented, carnal gardens of decomposition. We refuse to admire those flowing juices, the flowering bacteria, the dark, bloated blooms of putrefaction. This is the true nature of death. We should open our eyes and learn.

      But in this case, everything will be perfect. Because this will be a real killing.

      And it could be tonight, or maybe next week.

      But it will be soon. I promise.

       2

      Melvyn Hudson had decided to do this evening’s removal himself. He liked a fresh body in the freezer at the end of the day – it meant there was work to do tomorrow. So he called Vernon out of the workshop and made him fetch the van. Vernon was useless with the grievers, of course. He always had been, ever since the old man had made them take him on. But at least he’d be where Hudson could keep an eye on him.

      The vehicle they called the van was actually a modified Renault Espace with black paintwork, darkened windows and an HS number plate. Like the hearses and limousines, the van’s registration number told everyone it was from Hudson and Slack. Your dependable local firm.

      They were dependable, all right. Bring out your dead – that might be a better slogan. Sometimes Melvyn felt like the council refuse man arriving to pick up an old fridge left on the back doorstep. Nobody worried about what happened to their unwanted rubbish. Their disused fridges could pile up in mouldering mountains on a landfill site somewhere and no one would be bothered, as long as they didn’t have to look at them. Most people were even more anxious to get a corpse off the premises.

      A few minutes later, Vernon drove out on to Fargate, hunched over the steering wheel awkwardly, the way he did everything. Hudson had sworn to himself he’d get rid of Vernon if he messed up one more thing, no matter what old man Slack said. The lad was a liability, and this firm couldn’t afford liabilities any more.

      Hudson snorted to himself as they drove through the centre of Edendale. Lad? Vernon was twenty-five, for heaven’s sake. He ought to be learning the business side of things, ready to take over when the time came. Some chance of that, though. Vernon was nowhere near the man his father had been. It had to be said that Richard had done a poor job of shaping his son. Not that there’d be a business much longer for anyone to run.

      When they reached the house in Southwoods, Hudson asked the relatives to wait downstairs. There was nothing worse than having distressed grievers watching the deceased being manhandled into a body bag. If full rigor hadn’t set in, the corpse tended to flop around a bit. Sometimes, you’d almost think they were coming back to life.

      This corpse was an old man, shrunken and smelly, with a bubble of grey froth on his lips. He wasn’t quite cold yet, but his skin felt like putty, flat and unresisting. Hudson thought that if he poked a finger hard enough into the man’s stomach, it would sink right in until it touched his spine.

      Vernon was standing by the bed like an idiot, his arms hanging at his sides, his mind on anything but the job.

      ‘What’s up with you?’ said Hudson.

      ‘Melvyn, when you do a removal like this one, don’t you ever notice the little things in a person’s bedroom?’

      ‘Like what?’

      ‘Just the little things. Look, there’s a glass of water he’s only half drunk. There’s a razor here that somebody used to shave him with this morning. It’s still got some of his hairs on it, even though he’s dead.’

      ‘Of course he’s bloody dead,’ said Hudson, struggling to keep his voice down. ‘What do you think we’re doing here?’

      ‘Don’t you look at those things, Melvyn?’

      ‘No. It’s just a job. We’re professionals.’

      ‘But don’t you sometimes think … Well, while all this stuff is lying around, it’s as if he’s not really dead at all. He’s still here in the room.’

      ‘For God’s sake, leave off the thinking, Vernon, and get a grip on this stiff.’

      Hudson took the knees of the corpse, while Vernon grasped the shoulders. An arm lifted and a hand flapped, as though waving goodbye.

      ‘Watch it, or he’ll end up on the floor,’ said Hudson. ‘The family down there are doing their best to pretend they don’t know what’s happening. An almighty thump on the ceiling will ruin the illusion.’

      They got the body on to the stretcher and began to negotiate the stairs. These old cottages were always a problem. The doorways were too narrow, the stairs too steep, the corner at the bottom almost impossible. Hudson often thought that people must have been a lot smaller when they built these houses – unless they lowered corpses out of the window on the end of a rope in those days.

      They loaded the stretcher into the van, then Hudson went back into the house, smoothing the sleeves of his jacket. It wasn’t his funeral suit, of course, just his old one for removals. But appearances mattered, all the same.

      ‘Now, don’t worry about a thing,’ he told the daughter of the deceased. ‘I know your father was ill for some time, but it always comes as a shock when a loved one passes over. That’s what we’re here for – to ease the burden and make sure everything goes smoothly at a very difficult time.’

      ‘Thank you, Mr Hudson.’

      ‘There’s only one thing that I have to ask you to do. You know you need to collect a medical certificate from the doctor and register your father’s death? The registrar will issue you with a death certificate and a disposal certificate. The disposal certificate is the one you give to me.’

      ‘Disposal?’ said the daughter uncertainly.

      ‘I know it seems like a lot of paperwork, but it has to be done, I’m afraid.’ Hudson saw she was starting to get flustered, and gave her his reassuring smile. ‘Sometimes it’s best to have lots to do at a time like this, so you don’t have time to dwell on things too much. We’ll give your father a beautiful funeral, and make sure your last memories of him are good ones.’

      The daughter began to cry, and Hudson took her hand for a moment before leaving the house.

      Back in the van, Vernon reached for the pad of forms under the dashboard.

      ‘Leave the paperwork,’ said Hudson.