DYING IN STRANGE POSITIONS
by
T.J.Hurford
It is the 'Sixties' and everybody is really 'swinging'. Psychedelia rules and talk centres around the next 'Beatles' album. In the kitchenette of flat number 14b overlooking the King's Road in Chelsea, The 'Fab Four' have been forgotten in the turmoil surrounding the disappearance of Uncle Albert.
It's bad enough him dying three days ago on the eve of his step-son's sixteenth birthday, but to actually go missing too!. The family can't quite come to grips with the situation. The undertaker is frantic. Nothing like this has ever happened before to U. Diggit and Isla Plantem. The whole thing is grave. Very grave indeed.
Light, though IS beginning to dawn. There appears to have been a mix-up. It's all the fault of the 'wacky baccy'. Isla Plantem has just had a very painful discussion with her two young mortuary assistants, Flower and Lettuce. Strange, she muses, how artificial substances can alter the mind.
Albert Jacobs has been mistakenly transported to Jamaica for cremation and Bernie Marley, London bus driver will always,now, be late. HE is waiting in Uncle Albert's coffin at the Chapel of Rest across the river in Lambeth. His 'laying out' should be very interesting indeed. The Marley family are Rastafarian Jamaicans and the Jacobs are white Jews.
Isla Plantem communicates the problem to her partner, Ulysses Diggit. There's nothing they can do. They don't have another body available although there IS some discussion about Lettuce or Flower 'standing in'. Isla and Ulysses decide to put a brave face on it. The Marleys don't know about the problem and with any luck the telegram that has just been dispatched to Kingston explaining that high-altitude air travel in very cold cargo bays can sometimes have a rather unusual effect on skin colouration will reach the family home before the coffin does. The firm recommends dark tan shoe polish to avoid any distress to the mourners.
Isla, herself, visits the Jacobs family above The Heavenly Three Spice Joyful Hygienic Chinese Takeaway (laundry done) in their King's Road flat where they have lived for the past ten years. There has been an accident, she explains Uncle Albert has been found but the hearse had been in an accident. Four undertakers are in hospital, she lies, being treated for smoke inhalation, (only a slight exaggeration she thinks, Lettuce having just been taken to Chelsea hospital suffering from withdrawal symptoms after his 'stash' has been confiscated as a punishment). There has been a little singeing. The merest hint of smoke damage. It IS possible that Uncle Albert might just look the teeniest bit, well, foreign, shall we say?. No charge will be made for the funeral because of the inconvenience and distress caused.
Mrs. Jacobs is overcome. To lose her husband AND get the funeral done for FREE. She doesn't know whether to wail or cheer. She realises that she is rubbing her hands together gleefully and endeavours to make it look like this is through distress rather than the profit motive.
Isla makes her way to the door. 'PHEW!' That was a really narrow escape. She decides to try some of that wacky baccy herself when she gets back to the office and to Hell with the consequences. There is just one cloud to blot the horizon. The step-son. What was his name?. Ah yes. George. Whispered some very disparaging remarks as she left the flat. A sullen-faced boy, Isla thought. Would be a handful when he grows up. Didn't believe a word she had told them. Well. Tough!. Isla tries to shrug off her vague feelings of disquiet and drives off to her Sloane Street office. "Get even with YOU". he'd said. "Someday".
The funerals go off without a hitch. Having been apprised of the difficulties, none of the assembled mourners seem in any hurry to view the mortal remains of their respective Dearly departed.
In the back of the hall at Uncle Albert's funeral, George sits sullenly brooding. His Mother comes over to comfort him with a sardine sandwich. "Albert was like a Step-Father to me Mum". "He WAS your Step Father, George". "Well. There you are then!". He shrugs off her hand and leaves the wake to walk home in the rain. The sound of 'Eleanor Rigby' drifts across his consciousness. He walks into the cafe and sits on a bench by the window stirring a glass of cola with a straw. "One day I'm going to get my own back on them undertakers." He thinks. "On ALL bloody undertakers".
It is eight years later.
The world seems a different place. Duller somehow. The Beatles have split up and 'flower power' and psychedelia have given way to 'glam' rock and Gary Glitter. Things will never be the same again.
At Portsmouth Royal Naval Dockyard, George Abraham Jacobs is descending the gangplank from his ship for the last time. From the deck his erstwhile crew mates (including the Captain and Officers) give him the traditional send-off of streamers of Izal toilet paper. He is bombarded with rotten fruit and boiled eggs until he rounds the corner of the nearest building and disappears from sight. It has NOT been a happy eight years.
In the flat above the takeaway, George stares down into a plate of half-eaten cold baked beans. Several cigarettes have been stubbed out into the congealed mess. On the floor in the corner a screwed up charred piece of paper is the only evidence that his Mother was ever there. "Dear Son". The note had read. "I have re-married. A charming man named Winston. I met him a week after Uncle Albert's funeral at the undertakers office. It seems that WE buried Winston's brother and they cremated your Step Father. Makes you laugh doesn't it?" George did not laugh.
In the corner of the room an old record player stands dusty and unused. George opens the lid, switches it on and plays the record on the turntable. It is Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles.
At his desk in New Scotland Yard, Chief Superintendent Jack Tugwell is looking distinctly worried. FIVE murders on his 'patch' in the last three weeks. Not so unusual, perhaps given the number of tourists in London at this time of year and the ethnic diversity of the local populace but there is something very, very odd about these particular killings. The connection between them would not even go unnoticed be the rawest recruit. The pattern has nothing to do with the manner in which these five people died. One stabbing, one shooting, two strangulations and one 'tap' on the head to date. No!. the peculiar similarities between the murders is quite straightforward, although in Jack Tugwell's experience, entirely unique. ALL of the victims were undertakers and all of them, without exception had left a note in their own hand-writing stipulating that they should be 'catered for' by the Chelsea firm of U.Diggit and Isla Plantem.
Chief Superintendent Tugwell sighs. Across the office one of his subordinates looks up. "Tricky case, Sir?". "Not just tricky, Bob. Bloody peculiar, more like. FIVE undertakers. All unrelated in any way as far as we can make out. All leaving instructions to be buried by the same firm who are not, repeat NOT suspected of drumming up more than their fair share of trade by doing a spot of creative nobbling of the opposition". The other man shakes his head. "I'm afraid I don't quite get it?. Strange, yes, but why peculiar?. His superior stands up. "Fancy a trip to the mortuary, Bob?. I'll show you why this case is peculiar".
Down in the bowels of Saint Thomas's Hospital beside the Thames, there is a problem. Two problems, to be exact, and there are going to be a few more before the week is out. The normal mortuary refrigerator stands in all its gleaming shiny magnificence along one wall, an array of massive steal filing cabinets. In the middle of the room four large domestic chest freezers, hastily installed are getting in the way. Two stand empty and open. Another two have occupants.
The two policemen stand at the door awaiting permission from the staff to enter the crowded room.The mortician calls them over and lifts three lids. Inside the murder victims lie awaiting release to the undertaker. One of the bodies is bent double as though touching his toes. Only a rather large and pimply bottom is visible. Another is doing the 'splits' a look of profound shock on his aged face. The third is in a rather graceful balletic pose, one hand frozen into a very obscene gesture. The attendant sighs shrugging his shoulders in disgust. "A sense of humour, this one, Jack. Should see the other two. They're upstairs in the kitchen cold store. The restaurant staff aren't happy". "One has his leg round his neck like some Indian yogi. The other is standing on one leg with the other held up to the back of his head like an acrobat. Well. you get the picture. Tied in position they were. It was done after they died except for the 'splits bloke' over there". He nodded towards a chest freezer by the door where one of his assistants was looking rather guilty having just stuffed his shopping down the side of one of the corpses. "Not very tactful, John". "Sorry boss. I'd normally put my shopping in the cafe cold room but for some reason the manager told me to sod off, today. Actually, 'sod' was not the word he used".
The Chief Mortician sighed again. "Bloody Hell. It's always Mondays, isn't it?" "Tied up like human bonzai trees they were, before Rigor set in. For some reason the boys thought it would be amusing to bring them to us before the effect had worn off. There WILL be words, but I suppose it is important for your lot to see what you're up against?".. "By the way, It WAS five. It's now six. Another one came in half an hour ago".
"It's THEM I feel sorry for". He nodded towards a double set of swing doors from behind which for some minutes past loud grunts and cursing have been apparent. The three men walk over and quietly open one of the doors.
In this adjoining room, Isla Plantem, Ulysses Diggit and their two assistants Lettuce and Flower are struggling to straighten out a grotesquely 'moulded' naked corpse, standing with one leg in the air, a tiny bow and arrow in his stiffened hands. The clouds that fill this room are not only attributable to the frosty air. All four people have very large 'cigarettes' in their hands. There is a strong and pungent smell of Marijuana. The policemen tactfully withdraw but not before they see the corpse topple over and pierce an anonymous rump with its obviously sharp arrow, with very loud results.
George Jacobs is finally getting his revenge. On the floor of the sitting room a large library book with the word 'RODIN' lies alongside an open telephone book. Beneath the title, 'Undertakers' several names have been crossed out. Dozens more are ringed in red ink.
The firm of U.Diggit and Isla Plantem has never been so busy. It is just a question of whether the public will learn to accept the rather unusually-shaped coffins which at this very minute are at the design stage and awaiting approval by the staff. Whether Isla, Ulysses, Lettuce and Flower will suffer collective nervous breakdowns first, hernias and slipped discs notwithstanding before they get used is debatable.
end
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