Body Talk (Bring Out Your Dead series - Part 32)

Continued from Episode 31 - 'Missing You'

The story so far (you can read from the start at 'Board Stiff!'):  Josiah and Archibald, our two Undertakers, are on a mission to Spain to collect the mortal remains of Sir Lewisham Carnock.  Very little has gone right with this endeavour.  Now at the port of Santander, with Josiah, Chantelle and Lawrence away buying tickets and making arrangements, Archibald has discovered that the coffin they are carrying is empty!  Fortunately, Amber has just appeared with a proposition...

 

Archibald looked at Amber, blankly.

“You what?”  He managed, eventually.

“Look,” Amber whispered, “you need a body and I…well, I just might have one”

“You’ve got a body?”  Archibald yelped.

“Shh!” Amber hissed, “we don’t want the world to know, do we?  Come with me”

She marched off.  Archibald hastily closed the van doors and trailed after her.  On reaching her car, Amber opened the back door and nodded toward the rear seat.

“Have a look for yourself” She suggested.

“There’s just luggage and stuff” Archibald shrugged.

“Move some of the bags and then look!” Amber insisted.

Archibald tentatively moved a couple of bags aside, then involuntarily jumped, hitting his head on the car roof.

“Oh strewth!” He clutched his aching head, “there’s a …there’s a…body!”

“I did tell you”

“But…what’s it…I mean…how come?”  Archibald was perplexed.

“I, erm, I found it” Amber hastily composed an explanation.

“Found it?”  Archibald looked incredulous, “Found it where?”

“In a service station car park”

“Oh!”  Archibald thought furiously for a moment, “can I have another look?”

“Be my guest”

Archibald tentatively moved a few more bags.  He eased himself back out of the car.

“It’s him!  It’s the bassinet!”  He announced.

“The what?”  Amber looked puzzled.

“Our nob, the aristocrat what ought to be in our coffin. He’s a castanet, or something”

“You mean a baronet?”

“Yeah, that’s it” Archibald nodded.

“Are you sure it’s him?”  Amber considered the time she had spent with their car-jacker and found it difficult to believe that he might have been a member of the aristocracy.

“Yeah, that‘s him for sure” Archibald said, emphatically, “it’s the ‘LOVE’ and ‘HAT’ tattooed on his fingers what’s a dead giveaway.  Only, what I can’t figure out is how he got out of the coffin and finished up in the car park”

“Yes, it’s a mystery that is, for sure” Amber frowned.

“What made you put him in your car?”  Archibald was finding the whole situation very strange indeed.

“Erm, well, I could hardly just leave him there, could I?”

“No, s’pose not” Archibald agreed, reluctantly.

“Well, if he’s your body, I suppose we had better get him back into the coffin, don’t you think?”  Amber asked, brightly.

“Well, yeah, but that’s gonna be a bit tricky” Archibald stroked his chin in thought.

“No problem” Amber shook her head, “I’ll back the car down to your van, then we can whip him out of here and into the coffin”

“But, what if anyone sees?”  Archibald looked around, fearfully.

“Then we’ll have to make sure no-one does” Amber explained, in the tone of voice she usually reserved for Lawrence.

Archibald shook his head, doubtfully, but nevertheless, scampered back to the bright yellow van.  Shortly afterward, Amber reversed her hire car so that the rear doors were level with the van rear doors.  She jumped out of the car and looked carefully around the area.

“No-one about” She confirmed, “let’s get him out.  I imagine you’ll know how to do this for the best?”  She looked hopefully at Archibald.

“Well, no, not really!” Archibald looked dubious, “we don’t normally shift stiffs around in the back of ordinary cars”

“It can’t be that difficult!”  Amber snapped.

Archibald leaned into the packed car and grabbed the deceased by the armpits, Amber held the ankles on the other side and lifted as much as she could.  It was difficult.  The body was heavy and both Archibald and Amber were bent double, which didn’t make lifting any easier.  They had just about got half the body out of the car, when they heard,

“Excuse me,” A small, neat man was standing a little way away, hands clasped together and wearing a look of intense concern, “is there a problem?”

“Bugger!” Amber cursed and started to count to ten, under her breath. ‘I’ll bet, when the apocalypse comes,” She thought, bitterly, ‘there’ll be some annoying little tit somewhere saying “Excuse me, is there a problem”!’

Archibald froze in position, panic-stricken.  Amber dropped her end of the load, fixed a smile on her face and extricated herself from the car.

“Hello there, can I help?”  She asked, brightly

“I just wondered if there was a problem?”  The neat man nodded toward the corpse.

“Oh, no, no problem!”  Amber said, quickly, “it’s just a friend of ours, had one too many”

“One too many?”  The neat man frowned and looked at his watch, “at this hour of day?”

“Hates sailing” Amber explained, “taken a bit too much ‘self-medication’”

Archibald looked from one to the other in horrified amazement, still clutching the upper torso of the body.

“Oh, well, if you’re sure?”  The neat man looked far from convinced.

“Oh yes, no problem, we’ll just get him in the back of this van, then he can sleep it off!” Amber grinned, manically.

“Isn’t that a cof…” The neat man began, peering at the back of the van, but was halted in mid-sentence as Amber strode over, clutched his arm, turned him around and began to, gently but firmly, walk him away.

“It was so good of you to be concerned,” Archibald heard Amber saying, earnestly to him, “but everything’s fine and I’m sure you’ve got a thousand and one things to do before the ferry leaves?  I know we have!”

She patted the neat man, companionably, on the shoulder, gave him one of her brightest smiles and strode back to the car.  Taking her position again, at the foot end, she whispered,

“Has he gone?”  to Archibald.

“He keeps looking back, but I think he’s going” Archibald hissed back.

“Good, we need to get a move on, he might come back with the police or something”

Filled with a new terror, Archibald gave a mighty pull and dragged the corpse from the car, dragging Amber into the vehicle in the process.  Extricating herself from the bags and assorted luggage, she emerged looking somewhat dishevelled and glared at Archibald.

“Was that really necessary?”  She snapped.

“You wanted him out, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but you didn’t have to yank like that.  Just look at me!”  Amber tried to rearrange her clothing, without much success.

“Give me a hand to get him in the van” Archibald hissed, scanning the area for any more spectators.

With considerable effort, they managed to get the corpse in and Archibald set about hauling the body back into the coffin.  Successful at last, he emerged, dripping with sweat and decidedly flustered.

“I’ve got him in, all right” He announced, mopping his brow with a well-used handkerchief.

“Well done!” Amber replied, without much enthusiasm.

“Tell you what though…” He began.

“Yes?”  Amber frowned.

“He’s got this big cut on his head now, and that wasn’t there before”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh yeah, I checked him over thorough like, when we first picked him up.  Plus, he’s got bits of what looks like pepperoni and stuff stuck to his suit!  Just as well it’s not going to be an open coffin!”

“Hmm, it’s a mystery” Amber nodded, a guilty blush making its way up her neck.

“Not half!”  Archibald agreed, “I mean, what’s he doing eating pizza when he’s supposed to be dead?”

“Perhaps he was peckish?”  Amber suggested, with a wry smile.

Now read Episode 33