• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

'You're not talking about blackmail?' said Albert, horrified.

Jack looked indignant. 'Blackmail? Certainly not. Blackmail is a dirty word.

It pains me,Albert, that you, of all people, could ever think me capable of even contemplating such a foul deed. No, no, I was thinking more in terms of a... business arrangement. Between gentlemen, as it were.'

Albert looked around. The fog was growing thicker, the night colder. Those bobbing lights he so feared would be more difficult to spot in a fog like this.

The lantern-bearers would be almost upon them before they even had chance to throw down their shovels.

'Let's open this box and be away from here, Jack,' he said. 'We've spent far too much time here already.'

Jack grinned. 'Afraid of the wraiths and the hobgoblins, are you?'

'No, just the rope,'Albert said.

Jack chuckled, and the two men dropped into the narrow trench they had dug by the side of the coffin and set about opening the box. It did not take long: the wooden lid was already so soft with rot that they found they could tear it off in chunks with their bare hands.

Inside the coffin was the corpse of a woman wrapped in a winding sheet.

Her skin, which was the texture of old fruit about to dissolve to mush, had turned a ghastly blue-black. Her jaw yawned open, her withered eyes had sunk deep into their sockets, and there were beetles and grubs in her hair.

'Not as fresh as most,'Jack said with a sigh.'Still, it'll have to do. We'll put it at the bottom of the pile, and maybe he won't notice.'

The two men manhandled the corpse out of the grave and dumped it unceremoniously on the damp grass. Insects, their feasting interrupted, scuttled hither and thither. As they began to refill the grave, Jack said, 'I propose we follow him tomorrow evening after he's taken his leave of us and see where he goes.'

Albert groaned inwardly, but was quick to spot a potential flaw in Jack's plan. 'We'd never keep up with that cart of his.'

Jack heaved dirt effortlessly into the grave. He was not even short of breath, unlike Albert, who was wheezing like a grampus.

'Don't concern yourself with that. I'll provide the transport.'

'You?'Albert said, surprised.'And what transport do you have all of a sudden?'

'I'll borrow Ned Cockles's old nag. It might look clapped out, but it's a sturdy enough beast.'

Albert's heart was sinking slowly into his boots. 'I still think it best to leave well alone jack.'

Jack looked up at Albert and winked. By contrast to his colleague, he was in an uncommonly good mood. 'You just leave the thinking to me, Albert,'

he said,'and I'll make both of us rich.'

Albert, however, could not find it inside himself to look even remotely convinced.

***

'This is madness,' said Litefoot.'Utter madness!'

'Yeah,' said Sam with a grin. 'Fun, isn't it?'

It was one o'clock in the morning. She had just about forgiven the Doctor now for leaving her behind some sixteen hours earlier while he went off gallivanting with the professor, though she wasn't about to let him know that.To his credit, the Doctor had been profusely apologetic, had told her that his intention had been to attend the postmortem with litefoot and then to pop back for her, but that events had 'sort of spiralled'.

'They always do,' Sam had snapped. 'You should have known that they would.'

The Doctor had sighed, giving her what she sometimes thought of as his regretful, puppy-dog look. 'I'm truly sorry, Sam; he said again, 'but there really was no time to wake you. Our presence was required urgendy.'

'Two minutes,' said Sam. 'That's all it would have taken me. I'm an up-and-at-'em girl. You should know that by now, Doctor. I'm not one of your fluffy-bunny, screaming types.'

'I know, I know,' the Doctor had said, holding up his hands. 'I suppose I thought...'

'Thought what?'

'Well, this was no picnic. It wasn't run or exciting or dangerous. It was a postmortem, Sam.A postmortem on a half-eaten corpse which had been in the