The Undetectables series - The Unfathomable Curse E-Book

Courtney Smyth

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 610

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

A witty, witchy fantasy murder mystery packed with ancient magic and fiendish puzzles. When Cornelia's twin sisters are taken by the Wickermere Reaper, Mallory, Diana and Theodore must race against time to uncover the buried secrets of the Broadwicks before it's too late. Perfect for fans of supernatural mysteries and cosy crime by authors such as Ben Aaranovitch, Josiah Bancroft and Tammie Painter. The summer after the events of The Undead Complex, the unthinkable finally happens – Cornelia's money is running out. Estranged from her family, furious at her parents following recent revelations, the Broadwick heir finds herself living on her own resources for the first time. Meanwhile two crimes are rocking the Apparent community. The Wrackton Digger is stealing bodies from the cemetery, and a new serial killer – the Wickermere Reaper – has emerged. But when the Reaper snatches their next victims – Cornelia's twin sisters – she must return to her family's home, and seat of the Ghoul Council, to conduct the search. With their resources split, and a ticking clock on the race to save the twins, The Undetectables must do what they do best – solve the strangest, most well-hidden magical mysteries to save the people they love.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

One

Perimortem I

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Perimortem II

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Perimortem III

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Perimortem IV

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Perimortem V

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise for

THE UNDETECTABLES SERIES

“A compulsively readable race against the clock to stop a supernatural killer – downright delightful and unapologetically queer.”

Polygon.com

“Unputdownable. Grim and caring, twisted and witty, The Undetectables is gripping and charming in equal measure. You won’t want to leave Wrackton, while also being really glad you don’t live there.”

Deirdre Sullivan

“If you aren’t already deep into spooky season then here is the perfect book to get you in the mood.”

Irish Examiner

“A fun and breezy urban fantasy novel that has an interesting take on using magical forensics”

SFBook Reviews

“If you’re looking for a mystery that makes you think, mixed with a healthy dose of supernatural, diverse representation and some of the best dialogue I’ve seen in a long time then [...] The Undetectables is the book for you.”

Geeking By

“I got so invested in these characters and by the last page I simply did not want to leave them behind. I’ll take a hundred more cases that need to be solved by the Wrackton gang, even if I need to commit them myself.”

Read By Ross

ALSO BY COURTNEY SMYTHAND AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

The Undetectables

The Undead Complex

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The Unfathomable Curse

Print edition ISBN: 9781835412213

E-book edition ISBN: 9781835412220

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: September 2025

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Courtney Smyth 2025 All Rights Reserved

Courtney Smyth asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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For every trans and nonbinary person,present and future

Even when it feels like the end, it isn’t.

Get up. Live. Thrive.

ONE

14 years ago (approximately to the day)

Agatha and Ethel Broadwick had wished death upon their youngest sibling from the moment she burst into the world screaming. Though this story is not entirely about them, it is important to know this.

The world – Occult and Apparent alike – holds a certain fascination with twins. Some believe they are a single soul split in half, resulting in an inherent oneness that must be upheld. That to be a twin, both members of this unwitting partnership must telepathically think the other’s thoughts. That it is a necessity akin to breathing. That a biological event – a division of cells – plants twins firmly alongside other and strange and, occasionally, ethereal and, in the extremes, evil.

Agatha and Ethel loved to meet expectations, and so they were all of the above, though they were none. They understood their place in Occulture and the power their family held, and that they had roles to play. Agatha enjoyed baking and floral dresses. Ethel enjoyed botanical ventures and green velvet. By the tender age of twelve, they were vaguely aware they were meant to present a united front – be pretty, be particular, be marriage material.

Perhaps this is why their thoughts turned to murder so early in their lives.

The twins were in the back garden of Broadwick Mansion one soggy summer morning. Grey storm clouds covered Wrackton, though patches of sunlight broke through long enough to illuminate Agatha, perched primly on the swing hanging from a willow tree so old it had probably seen the beginnings of Wrackton, and Ethel, pushing her gently one-handed, absorbed in a botany book. Both were trying to ignore the shadow of their little sibling as she ran around the garden in a pair of dark denim dungarees, a notebook clutched in her grass-stained hands, her adventure bag slung over her shoulder.

The twins were waiting, as they had been from the second their grandfather, Cornelius Broadwick III, was pronounced dead some weeks ago.

Usually the Broadwicks had a strict yearly routine: autumn through late spring spent in Wrackton to host balls and attend meetings with the Unified Magical Liaison and the Night Mayor – a man called Vincent Van Doren, of whom Agatha and Ethel were very fond. This also allowed the Broadwick children to attend Apparent schools in the next town over – ‘Mother always said Occult schools aren’t worth their salt,’ Agatha would say any time she was asked, which wasn’t often – until the school holidays, when they would pack up their things, climb inside one of the family’s SUVs, and drive to the Lake District.

To Wickermere.

To Rowan House.

To home.

This year was different. School wasn’t out yet, wouldn’t be for some weeks, but Agatha and Ethel heard things and sensed things and knew something had changed. Their parents, Imogen and Ezra, kept talking about hauntings, or haunts, in hushed tones, and the air was filled with a sense of anticipation.

The twins knew it would be today.

And that meant they had to act now.

‘Look at Cornelia,’ Ethel grumbled, throwing her book down, but Agatha already was.

In their beautifully manicured garden, Cornelia was the picture of defiant disharmony. She was lifting the backs of leaves and examining whatever insects she found there, oblivious to the general mood of the household as she loudly exclaimed in triumph whenever she found a particularly pleasing snail. Or whatever.

‘I think it’s time,’ Agatha said, stopping the swing to speak softly in Ethel’s ear.

Ethel, naturally, knew exactly what her sister meant.

‘It’s like we always say: this is the rest of our lives.’

‘Besides, we aren’t far off eighteen. In six years’ time do we still want to be making excuses for her, instead of preparing for our roles inside the Ghoul Council?’ Agatha asked.

They had been promised just that for their entire lives; they’d bent their entire existence around Wickermere and their parents’ work on the Ghoul Council there.

‘You’re right, as always,’ Ethel said, watching Cornelia roll underneath a shrub. ‘I have not forgiven her for the Worm Incident last year.’

‘Imagine how much happier Mother and Father will be without her in the car.’

‘No one eating the best snacks,’ Ethel – who was particularly fond of cheese and took it personally when someone ate the last piece – said.

Agatha bit her lip; she rarely hesitated. ‘Will they take it the way we intended? Mother’s highly strung at the moment. Father’s not much better. I know they weren’t close with Grandad Cornelius’ – an understatement, as Cornelius Broadwick III had not particularly liked his son, or his daughter-in-law, and had had next to no time for his grandchildren even before he took ill – ‘but it has to be weighing on them. There’s the funeral, and then they’ll be taking his place on the Ghoul Council.’

‘What does that mean?’ Ethel asked, and Agatha got a split second of smugness at knowing something her sister didn’t.

‘It means they’ll be important to Occulture, like Grandad Cornelius and Great-Grandfather were. They’re taking over the Council and everyone will have to listen to them properly. The Broadwicks will once again define things at the top,’ Agatha said, though she was mostly quoting snippets of conversations she’d overheard and it was not, strictly, her own opinion on the matter.

‘Hang on, how do you know all that?’

‘I had to go down for water the other night and heard them talking. Mother’s most direct competition is Uncle Harry’ – who was not actually their uncle, and frowned at the concept of being regarded as such – ‘because he’s “much better positioned” for the role. I think she’ll win, though. She has to. Grandad Cornelius wouldn’t have left the management of Rowan House to Father if he thought they’d just sign it over to someone who isn’t a real Broadwick,’ Agatha said, shuddering.

Neither she nor Ethel had ever had cause to consider the ethical dilemma of one family owning the base of operations of the only Council more powerful than the Unified Magical Liaison of Magical Municipalities, largely owing to them being twelve.

Ethel tilted her head in consideration. ‘But what if Auntie Dot won?’ It will come as no surprise to learn that this was not a real aunt, though she was softer on the idea of the title. The Broadwick line had thinned when Grandad Cornelius was born, and Agatha and Ethel had populated their family tree with semi-suitable stand-ins.

‘What about her?’

‘She’d hardly kick us out if she got Grandad Cornelius’s job, would she? Great-Grandfather let the Ghoul Council stay in Wickermere as a gift, and Grandad Cornelius kept up the tradition. We can’t have tradition if someone changes it!’

‘Uncle Harry would probably make her kick us out. Or Mother and Father would allow it to happen – you know how they all are about following the rules. There’s no point in worrying about it, Ettie.’ Agatha smiled up at her sister. ‘It’ll never happen. Mother and Father are going to take over Grandad Cornelius’s job, as Broadwicks should, and everything’s going to stay exactly the same. Except for all the parts that will change. Besides, I heard Dorothy and Father have been working hard to bring in “fresh-faced rule followers” for the Council cabinet. To deal with the hauntings,’ she suggested, hoping Ethel wouldn’t push too hard on that last point.

‘What’s a cabinet?’

‘I think it’s just what they call the Ghoul Council Headquarters,’ Agatha ventured.

‘So it’s like a special kind of cupboard,’ Ethel said thoughtfully. ‘Are you sure about this, though? They’ve been so short-tempered…’

‘Ethel, we’d be doing ourselves a favour. Think of all the times they’ve had to shout at Cornelia to go away, especially in the last few weeks. All the ruined dinners. The fact she took the last piece of cheese,’ Agatha added, neglecting to mention she was the one who consumed the other nine pieces before Ethel noticed. ‘We could make everything much better. For all of us. For our family.’

‘We have heard them say how difficult she is,’ Ethel said slowly.

Cornelia, meanwhile, was lying on her stomach, nose in a notebook filled with her childish scrawl detailing the genus and colours and walking behaviours and whatever else she felt like recording about the bugs she’d uncovered, a thick pencil gripped in her muddy little hand.

She was utterly oblivious to the plot against her.

‘You find the snacks and grab a shovel,’ Agatha said, jumping to her feet. ‘I’ll check the coast is clear.’

Ethel complied, a lingering worry gnawing at her – there was a chance, however small, that the Broadwicks would not, actually, be happy with their decision.

The twins prepared the garden bunker.

Why there was a bunker in their garden, the twins had never thought to ask. It was a fixture of Broadwick Mansion, and that was as far as it went.

‘If we drag the sundial in front of it, nobody would ever know it had been opened,’ Ethel said, scraping soil and leaves away from the entrance. ‘We can dig her back up when we return.’

‘They’ll be so pleased with all their free time, they won’t want to bother,’ Agatha said dismissively. ‘If we’re going to be going to Wickermere earlier and earlier every year—’

‘Are we? I thought that was to avoid bringing Cornelia’s beastly little friends away with us like she keeps asking.’

‘Oh, Ethel.’ Agatha tilted her head. ‘Sometimes I wonder if we really are twins at all, or if I got the brains and you got… nothing.’

‘I will tell Mother you said that,’ Ethel said seriously.

‘You won’t. You’d have to tell her why I said it, and you won’t want me to take credit for this plan.’

She was right, and Ethel wasn’t happy about it. Their parents were mercurial at the best of times, and she didn’t want to risk delaying going to Rowan House. Ethel missed her other bedroom there. One of the best parts of being a Broadwick, in her not-so-humble opinion, was that she and Agatha could be different versions of themselves. Wickermere meant solitude, and Rowan House was perfectly placed within the centre of that solitude for landscape paintings and propagation experiments in the greenhouse. It meant casual friends a few towns over – family friends, really – who they could go for ice cream with. Pissing Mother off right before what was set to be the best summer ever would start things off terribly.

‘Father did always say secrets were best kept buried,’ Ethel mused. ‘It still doesn’t excuse you being rude to me, though. Or for not telling me what you overheard right away.’

‘You’re right.’ There was no apology. ‘In that case, I also overheard them talking about some kind of Ghoul Council project. A really big, really important one.’

‘What kind of project?’ Ethel dropped the shovel and her sister shook her hair back so they could commence prising the bunker door open.

‘It’s something to do with the Witches of Bonemarrow Lake,’ Cornelia said.

The twins jumped and Cornelia looked up at them, her glasses frames bent and speckled with dirt. It was unclear how much she’d heard, but the lack of annoyingly righteous indignation suggested she’d just wandered over.

‘I heard them talk about it when I got sent home from school,’ Cornelia said.

Against her better judgement, Ethel asked, ‘What did they say?’

Cornelia shrugged. ‘Something about drowning in red tape. They were talking to the Night Mayor. He seemed angry.’

That was not unusual for Van Doren, so it was not of particular interest to either twin.

‘What are you doing with the bunker?’ Cornelia asked suddenly.

‘Nothing.’ Ethel cast her sibling a disdainful look. It was typical of Cornelia to ruin everything at pivotal moments. ‘Just enjoying the garden before we go up north.’

‘Cornelia,’ Agatha said, in that particular tone of voice both twins employed when they were about to do something dastardly. ‘I think I saw a beetle down there, in the bunker. A big one. Very shiny. Why don’t you go look?’

Cornelia paused, and Agatha waited with bated breath. She was, after all, smarter than Ethel when it came to getting people to do what she wanted. And Cornelia was only eight; she didn’t know enough to distrust her.

Much to both their surprise, Cornelia climbed into the bunker. Agatha started slowly inching the bunker door closed while Cornelia combed around the floor.

‘It’s down there, you should curl yourself up really small,’ Ethel said, tossing the snacks and a bottle of water in after her. The door was almost closed when the worst possible interruption occurred.

‘Agatha? Ethel? Get Cornelia and come inside, we need you to pack. We’re leaving this afternoon.’ Ezra Broadwick’s powerful-yet-measured voice boomed over the garden.

Ethel and Agatha exchanged glances. Agatha wanted to continue. Ethel wanted to cut their losses.

Ethel won.

They left Cornelia bewildered and stalked towards the house. Unusually, their father was wearing the sort of suit he normally reserved for the most important meetings. Even more unusually, he was wearing an expression normally reserved for Cornelia when she’d done something to upset the delicate balance in their household.

‘Why are you both dirty?’

Agatha and Ethel clasped hands, bowed their heads, and whispered a spell to make the dirt disappear.

Ezra appeared briefly mollified. ‘Today is very important. From the moment we arrive at Rowan House, I want you on your best behaviour. The funeral is tomorrow, and then a lot of changes are to happen. You keep Cornelia in line, you keep yourselves in line. For your mother and me. Won’t you?’

‘What kind of changes, Father?’ Agatha asked sweetly.

‘If everything goes well, tomorrow will mark the first day of the rest of our lives. Come, now.’ He held his arm out to shepherd his children inside, then the soured expression returned.

‘Cornelia,’ he said, in the tone he reserved only for her.

Cornelia was covered in muck and had a shiny, horn-headed beetle in her hands. Ethel eyed it with particular disgust. The worst part of enjoying plant life meant dealing with the creatures who insisted on living in it.

‘Agatha and Ethel tried to bury me alive,’ Cornelia said, but Ezra was already casting a spell to clean her up, holding his hand out for the beetle that she refused to relinquish.

He never did hear what his twins did to his youngest child, even when told directly.

‘Inside. Change into nice clothes, no dungarees,’ he said, sweeping back into the house instead of commenting on the assassination attempt.

Cornelia turned on the twins before they could say anything else.

‘You tried to kill me. You… you… arseholes!’

‘Ooh, what a big insult,’ Agatha said. ‘What horrible little friend did you learn that one off?’

‘My friends aren’t horrible,’ Cornelia said defiantly.

‘I beg to differ,’ Ethel said. ‘And anyway, we didn’t try to kill you. We just wanted you to disappear for a while.’

‘Yeah, well…’ Cornelia visibly struggled to find something, anything, to retort. ‘I hope you disappear someday!’

Agatha and Ethel raised an eyebrow in unison, mirrors of each other.

‘Good one,’ Ethel said.

Cornelia’s face twisted up into a frown as they walked around her, leaving her cupping the beetle in her hands.

‘I do!’ she shouted. ‘I do hope you disappear! And nobody will try to find you cause you’re so HORRIBLE. And me and my friends won’t try to find you because you said they were horrible, and you’ll be lost forever!’

The twins ignored her, climbing the stairs to their respective bedrooms, Cornelia’s words hanging in the air like a hex.

PERIMORTEM I

Their targets were acquired.

A shovel hit the earth and parted it, soil falling away. The hardest bit was over, and the shovel had found a rhythm now they’d breached the soggy topsoil.

Soon they’d be through to their final resting place. The place the bodies would stare up from, unseeing, unhearing, unfeeling. Lying in suspended animation until the digger was ready for them again.

They won’t have been seen for some time, and will not be seen for some time yet. Not until the decay becomes too much to bear and the ground must be disturbed once again.

They were digging, digging, digging, each mechanical movement a step towards what’s to come next.

TWO

NOW

If the phrase ‘be careful what you wish for’ was a person, it would’ve taken Cornelia Broadwick tenderly by the chin and whispered, ‘I told you so.’

Her card had been declined again, putting her purchase of a beautifully pinned Chrysochroa castelnaudi at risk, which led her to check her bank account for the first time in months, only to find that the available funds were £0.00.

A few frantic clicks later showed that she no longer had access to the family accounts, or her savings accounts (not that she was in the habit of topping those up). In fact, the only money she could see was in the Undetectables’ joint account, and that looked scarily low.

‘Mallory,’ she hissed, but was promptly shushed by both Mallory and Diana, the latter of whom elbowed her sharply in the ribs to make her pay attention.

The fact they were at a funeral was irrelevant. Cornelia was broke.

‘Mallory,’ Cornelia said again, and Mallory leaned closer so she could whisper directly in her ear. ‘We don’t have any money.’

Mallory turned her head just enough for Cornelia to see her frowning as she took her phone, prompting Cornelia to remember where they were.

Observer Johnson stood over the open plot next to Vincent Van Doren’s grave, droning on and on about Occulture and the Ternion – inappropriate, in Cornelia’s humble opinion – to an audience of six.

Cornelia, Mallory, Diana, Night Mayor Dr Ray – the current Night Mayor/Medical Examiner of Wrackton, who had amassed more titles in the eighteen-ish months since she came to power – Detective Inspector Alyssa ‘Sully’ O’Sullivan, and the coffin being lowered into the ground, containing Jacob Gabbott’s recovered remains. Or most of them.

Though his body had been recovered over a year ago, right as the Undetectables were taking down the Dollhouse Murderers, a significant amount of red tape and dithering had left Jacob’s body in a freezer. Cornelia had seen many cadavers while she was studying entomology, and many more in the course of her work with the Undetectables, but she didn’t want to think about what state his body must’ve been in.

It was a closed casket. Dr Ray had assured her he was definitely dead.

Mallory tapped Cornelia’s wrist and handed her phone back, the notes app open.

Parents cut you off almost eight months ago because you won’t speak to them

Cornelia looked at her quizzically, and Mallory nudged her to keep reading.

They sent you an email at the time

Cornelia should’ve known it would come to this. She’d spent the best part of a year dodging their calls and making excuses not to be in the same room as them. It wasn’t a surprise they thought money was her main motivation in life, and yet she found herself feeling mildly outraged they’d cut her off before attempting to confront her in person.

It wasn’t her fault she couldn’t – and indeed wouldn’t – speak to her family. There was no question of her being in the wrong given that her parents were, very likely, murderers. It was especially grievous that they were the likely murderers of her friend and un-live-in ghost, as it recast the Broadwicks’ enthusiastic hospitality towards almost-doctor-of-forensic-para-anthropology Theodore Wyatt (who had died at a Samhain ball in their home) into something a lot more guilt-ridden and nefarious. It was made all the more a particular sort of pickle by the fact she was co-founder of a PI agency that specialised in murders, and that the ghost in question had resulted in the agency making a collective home in the basement of Broadwick Mansion – though that was a problem she hoped to deal with at another, more convenient time.

‘Morrigan and Hecate, your witch is our command. We return him to you, to the earth, to nourish the land. Jacob Gabbott will rest and his bones will feed the magic you guide us in,’ Observer Johnson said, cutting through Cornelia’s haze of fury.

While he was saying the words, it did not feel as though he meant them in the slightest. She knew he felt as the rest of them did: good riddance to the Whistler.

If she was being honest, her family had unusually good timing, giving her the gift of something else to funnel her worry into. It made what was happening in front of her much less of an issue.

Much less of anything.

Cornelia took a deep breath, feeling a familiar numbness flood over her limbs, leaving her light-headed and able to float above the scene with a detached indifference as Jacob’s coffin was slowly lowered into the ground. She’d been allowing herself to, for want of a better word, disengage with her surroundings whenever she’d had to leave the house since the Whistler had abducted her eighteen months prior. It took the edge off the jangling, insistent fear that whispered she was in danger every minute she was outside the safety of her front door, so she’d come to almost welcome it whenever it happened. It was preferable to running screaming back to the relative safety of Broadwick Mansion, largely because she was sure that if she started screaming, she’d never stop.

Observer Johnson glanced at them over the rows of gravestones – they were standing several sombre yards away, which the Undetectables had thought would both be respectful, and would also stop Cornelia spitting on Jacob’s grave, even if this was something she was sure she wouldn’t stoop to doing.

She felt too far away to seriously contemplate it.

Above the scene, she saw herself and her best friends in their most appropriate attire – Diana had bullied Cornelia into wearing smart trousers and a jumper that was only two sizes too big. It was a muggy, cloudy day in Wrackton, and nobody wanted to be in the witch cemetery.

Cornelia had expected many unexpected things would befall them upon starting the Undetectables, Private Investigators – helping you detect the undetectable! – that fateful October eighteen months prior, but standing over the burial of their first serial killer to ensure he really went into the ground wasn’t one of them.

Nor was anything else that had happened in that case, or any case they’d taken on since.

‘What was all that?’ Diana hissed, holding out her hand for Cornelia’s phone. Cornelia shook her head even as Diana tried to prise her fingers off it, unlocking the screen in the process and opening apps at random.

‘—Ghoul Council member and acting spokesperson for the Unified Magical Liaison, Nova Khan, has issued the statement “do not fear”. This comes in response to calls for the UML to increase security in the weeks following the recovery of the body of the most recent victim of what has been locally dubbed “The Wickermere Reaper”—’

Cornelia fumbled until the news podcast stopped playing. Nobody else appeared to notice and the proceedings continued uninterrupted as she ignored the burning, curious looks from both Diana and Mallory.

A further complication in not talking to the Broadwicks since Katherine the ghost had shown Cornelia the horrifying truth: no matter how high-profile the Undetectables had become since the Whistler, any case the Ghoul Council stuck their oar into was off-limits. The risk of Cornelia having to talk to the Broadwicks was too high. Her reticence to go near the Wickermere Reaper case had created something in the realm of friction between her and the rest of the Undetectables, even if they understood her refusal.

But it didn’t stop her following media developments in said case. Principles be damned.

Mallory opened her mouth to say something, when a shadow moving to her left caught Cornelia’s eye.

‘Oh, shit,’ Cornelia whispered.

Observer Johnson stopped speaking, but for once it wasn’t her fault.

The others pivoted owlishly to see a woman walking slowly towards them, leaning heavily on a cane as she moved over the soft grass. Rain beaded on her trench coat, her curly hair pinned neatly under what Cornelia could only describe as a ‘widow’s hat’.

Her face was drawn, but the resemblance was unmistakeable.

The same gait, the same bone structure, though her lips and eyes were somewhat sunken. There was a radiance to her that should’ve been expected, given her history with Van Doren. Any Apparent who caught his eye would need to be pretty exceptional.

‘That’s her,’ Diana said softly. ‘That’s Delilah Gabbott.’

Jacob’s mother. The catalyst to his actions. Where everything had started, even if that was never her intention.

Observer Johnson’s expression was markedly neutral as she approached, particularly given that nobody had expected anyone to turn up, hence Dr Ray inviting the Undetectables.

Sully grabbed the stool Observer Johnson had been using earlier and placed it close to the grave. Delilah sank onto it gratefully.

Observer Johnson had been about to ask if the gathered members wanted to come and flame a handful of earth to toss into the grave, and Cornelia categorically did not want to do that.

‘Let’s move back,’ she said, and they did, adding inches of distance between them and Delilah Gabbott. There was hardly any point. This particular part of this particular witch cemetery – of which there were several, all over Wrackton – was small, the gesture meaningless.

Their presence, disrupting her mourning her son.

That was another thing Cornelia hadn’t expected: no matter how badly someone behaved, how murderous or depraved they were, someone, somewhere, probably loved that person. She’d turned a phrase Jacob had said to them over and over in her head, had chewed on it since the Dollhouse Murderers had echoed it – that they always make monsters of the mavericks. Loath as she was to ever agree with him, he was right. They made monsters of killers because it felt safer.

Monsters were, ultimately, people. They could be Occult or Apparent. They could live under your roof, or be your friend or someone you loved very much.

They were just people. And that made them scarier.

Dr Ray stepped up and shook Delilah’s hand, which was remarkably gallant of her given that Jacob had caused her many a sleepless night, and was partially responsible for a considerable amount of destruction in Wrackton.

Not to mention the murders.

Delilah Gabbott, Dr Ray and Sully each threw a flaming handful of dirt into the grave, and then it was done. A funeral they’d waited more than a year to witness, over in minutes. Delilah dropped something into the grave just as Observer Johnson beckoned over two young Apparent-looking men who started up a machine covered in ceremonial runes to finish the burial. That, too, was over in moments.

‘Should we say something?’ Mallory asked quietly, an anxious furrow appearing on her forehead.

Cornelia almost reached out to smooth it, but stopped herself.

‘“Sorry for your loss, he was an awful bastard?”’ she said instead.

‘Or something sensible.’

‘I think we just leave her be,’ Diana said decisively. ‘I can’t imagine anything good would come from talking to her.’

‘And we’d be doing it for the wrong reasons,’ Mallory conceded. ‘To make ourselves feel better.’

‘As if that’s not what we were doing by being here in the first place,’ Diana scoffed.

Cornelia ignored her, both because what she said was true, and because Diana had been the one who’d eagerly agreed to attend the funeral.

‘Let’s just go,’ Cornelia said, her phone still clutched in her hand. She pushed Diana forwards gently.

‘Ouch,’ Diana hissed, stumbling. She hopped on one leg, her shoe covered in soil. Cornelia stepped around her to see a pile of it behind a particularly ornate gravestone.

It had been dug up recently, the coffin beneath it exposed.

Mallory spotted it before anyone else did. ‘This is Mr Blackburn’s grave.’

‘I had just forgotten all about that case,’ Cornelia said, squinting at the epitaph through her rain-spattered glasses.

There had been many, many emails from his wife, Mrs Blackburn, who had hired them to look into the circumstances of his death last year, and Cornelia had hoped to never again have to hear the name. He’d died right before they took on the Dollhouse Murderer case; it had been yet another murder-that-wasn’t in a long string of them. Cornelia missed the days when their cases were frivolous.

Mallory’s expression as she stared at the grave told Cornelia the cogs were turning, though not with the sparkle she got where something piqued her interest. This was a look of careful consideration.

‘We got an email from Mrs Blackburn yesterday,’ Mallory said. ‘Saying she thought his grave had been disturbed, and asking us to look into it. Even though it was originally my directorial decision not to do this anymore, I made a small mistake in reading it aloud to Theodore—’

‘Oh, come on,’ Diana groaned.

Cornelia closed her eyes briefly. ‘Is he still trying to get us to take the pointless small cases?’

Mallory bit her lip. ‘I think he feels left out, when we travel for bigger ones. He was so enthusiastic about this one. I offered to let him take it himself, but he said cemeteries—’

‘Give him the Samhain squirrels, yeah. We were all there when he first workshopped that particular phrasing,’ Diana said, scowling.

‘I was going to give it a cursory glance as we were leaving.’ Mallory met Cornelia’s eye as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a roll of crime scene tape and a pair of gloves. ‘See if there was anything of interest to report back to him. I expect it to be nothing, so I came underprepared.’

Cornelia sighed. Their latent success since they’d caught the Dollhouse Murderers – preventing them from completing a ghoulish necromantic ritual involving what Cornelia called Chilopoda titanica, and everyone else called ‘massive horrible centipedes’ – particularly after actor and former suspect Sandi Clementine had not been able to stop talking about the ‘private investeeegators’ she’d met at Oakpass Manor, had made them shed their habit of taking on any and every case that entered their agency inbox. They could afford to be more discerning, even if Theodore didn’t seem to quite grasp that. He was forever angling to be lead on literally any case.

Mallory wasn’t usually so willing to listen.

She was also aware this was probably a consequence of not being able to investigate what seemed to be one of the biggest scandals the Occult world had seen since the Vampire Wars, and nobody even remembered what happened in those. So she tried not to judge.

‘What’s your cursory glance telling you now?’ Diana asked, brushing a clod of dirt off her shoe.

Cornelia had tried to tell her that heels in a cemetery were not the best idea.

‘I don’t think this was opened legitimately, and I can’t tell if his body is still in here,’ Mallory said.

‘Want to talk to Dr Ray about it?’ Cornelia pivoted on the spot, realising they were now alone in the cemetery. ‘Then we can tell Theodore it’s nothing to worry about, and we can all agree not to share anything we don’t want to work on with him ever again.’

‘Too late,’ Diana said, pointing. They watched Dr Ray’s and Sully’s slowly retreating forms, in step with Delilah as they shuffled towards Dr Ray’s car. Observer Johnson and the gravedigger boys were gone.

‘Ah well,’ Mallory said.

Cornelia felt a stab of terror, like she’d re-entered her body suddenly. Mallory and Diana had a habit of making her forget her fear, but it always found a way to creep back in.

Shrugging it off as best she could, Cornelia reluctantly accepted the proffered end of the tape roll and got to work securing the area around the grave.

‘The machines do most of the digging’ – Mallory gestured at the now-abandoned machine standing sentry over Jacob’s grave – ‘but this looks like someone dug him up with a shovel, or some other non-mechanical means.’

‘Magically?’ Cornelia asked, tapping her pockets before swearing loudly. ‘I don’t have any beetles with me.’

Mallory tilted her head. ‘Possibly? I’d expect a slightly neater job in that case. If Theodore wants this, he’ll have to call in to Dr Ray himself later, and we know he won’t like—’

As Mallory said the word ‘call’, Cornelia’s phone buzzed.

MOTHER (DO NOT ANSWER)

She frowned at it, anger rising up in her throat, and she stabbed the reject button more aggressively than was strictly necessary.

If cutting her off was her parents’ (six-month-old) last-ditch attempt to get her to speak to them, she wasn’t going to fall for it.

‘Let’s go home,’ Cornelia said. ‘One of you needs to help me apply for Universal Basic Income.’

THREE

‘Mallory!’ Theodore exclaimed, bursting through the door of the research room just in time to save Cornelia another round of ‘no I can’t just suck it up and ask my parents to let us on the Reaper case and you know full well why, Diana’.

The room warmed with his crackling presence as Mallory greeted him with a hug. Diana stomped up the basement stairs, intermittently heaving loud sighs that she was amplifying with a spell to make sure they could all hear. Cornelia refused to rise to the bait.

‘I wasn’t expecting to see you here, I thought you’d still be—Never mind. Did you look into our case?’

‘It isn’t our case,’ Mallory reminded him. ‘It may not even be a case at all. There was a disturbance at Mr Blackburn’s grave. Cornelia and I cordoned it off—’

‘Cornelia, I know you’re stoically resisting the bait,’ Diana shouted, her magically amplified voice echoing around the basement. ‘I can make all this stop if you’d just go to the Broadwicks, even if they’re—’

Cornelia and Mallory shot a look towards the basement stairs as Diana hissed, ‘Shit!’ and the amplifying spell ended. They’d agreed they wouldn’t gripe about the Broadwicks in front of Theodore, lest he realise they were keeping something from them. Mallory didn’t want to tell him anything until they were sure, but they couldn’t be if Cornelia continued to refuse to talk to the Broadwicks.

‘Excellent! Oh, wonderful,’ Theodore said, cat ears quivering as he rummaged around on his desk. He triumphantly held up a notebook with a lavender cover. ‘I was just dashing back to grab this, but you have made my morning. My decade. My… unlife! So what’s the case? Do we have any complications, any leads? No! Don’t tell me. A twisted tree that claims the bodies of all who tended to it, and a mangled corpse has been found in its roots. A flying vampire, impaled on the roof of the Observatory!’

‘I think instead of working on any cases, you should take up writing fiction,’ Cornelia said. ‘I’d read those stories.’

‘There’re no complications. We’ve left it for you to look into, it’s all ready. We don’t know how much the grave was disturbed, or how, but you are case lead—’

‘And as case lead, I insist you all work with me on this case,’ Theodore said swiftly. ‘I believe that’s how it works, case lead gets to designate roles.’

‘I think I’ll go help Diana,’ Cornelia said, smiling at Mallory, whose face was betraying several emotions at once.

‘Those were the rules, yes,’ she said slowly, imploring Cornelia with her eyes not to abandon her.

Cornelia settled for leaning against the doorway into the research room.

‘And rules are important,’ Theodore said. ‘So, tell me. Mr Blackburn. He’s a zombie now, I suspect?’

Mallory filled him in.

Theodore nodded seriously. ‘Just as well I’m here, then. Not many cases require the specialities of a forensic anthropologist, you know, but it’s just as well you have me.’

‘Para-anthropologist, I thought?’ Cornelia said.

‘Para does a lot of heavy lifting. They call me the Bone Doctor, you know. I have to dash off, but – as case lead. Can you call Night Mayor Dr Ray, set up an official meeting for, oh…’ He looked at his wrist, which was watchless. ‘Two hours from now. No! Ninety minutes! Fantastic. Case lead!’ he said, before barrelling out the way he’d come.

Mallory stared after him, a fond smile on her lips.

‘We don’t have to do it,’ Cornelia said.

‘Don’t we?’ Mallory asked lightly. ‘We’ve got a significant lead on his first murder that we can’t follow, and we’re keeping it from him. He had a… strange time, last year’ – Cornelia felt that was a generous description of Theodore’s borderline terrifying behaviour during the Dollhouse Murderers case, up to and including the time he tried to possess Mallory – ‘and he’s come back from that. His job at the Mayoral Offices isn’t quite as fulfilling now they’ve bricked up a large portion of the section that was producing giant creatures and spectral disturbances, not to mention Katherine the ghost—’

‘Who he specifically has never mentioned,’ Cornelia said.

‘Yes. Nonetheless, he’s been working away like nothing happened last year. I still think them almost taking his job away was the reason he was so…’

‘Strange,’ Cornelia supplied.

‘So, I think we can do this. Let him take the case, and support him where he needs – it likely won’t even matter, but it’ll make him happy. Let him get some practice at dealing with the organisational side of things. I’d rather we did it from a place of wanting it for his benefit than, say, guilt.’

Cornelia felt a stab of it shoot through her, right on cue. It hadn’t occurred to her that Mallory would know she felt… she wasn’t sure how she felt. Angry, at her family. Betrayed. But she thought she’d done a good job of burying the guilt. Before she had to respond, Diana clattered back down the stairs with a tray of tea and biscuits.

‘What did I miss?’

*   *   *

The Mayoral Square had been to hell and back, but nothing was more hellish than the restoration of the oversized neon light in the shape of former Night Mayor Vincent Van Doren’s face in the window of the Mayoral Offices.

Cornelia looked at it with disgust, grateful once again for the distraction from focusing on how being outside made her feel like she was being flayed alive. ‘Do you think Dr Ray did this as a joke?’

‘I think her mind works in mysterious ways, so I wouldn’t put it past her,’ Diana said. ‘Do we have our passes?’

‘At reception,’ Cornelia said. ‘Theodore and I need one, so they’re reissuing the lot.’

Part of the Undetectables’ recent success had meant the Unified Magical Liaison – the Occulture governing body, known as UML for short – were more keen to work with them, while taking simultaneous pains to bury them under reams of utterly pointless paperwork at every opportunity. The Undetectables had been officially hired more than once to investigate smaller crimes and non-serial murders.

Diana had carefully scrubbed the internet to try to preserve some sense of anonymity when it came to stakeouts and following suspects, and so far it was working out nicely. Mallory had confirmed they’d even turned a modest profit, whatever that meant.

‘Are you sure we can’t just take a quick trip over to Dublin, leave this case to Theodore? Taylor’s mum was absolutely adamant there was a banshee in her garden she wanted us to take a look at,’ Diana said hopefully.

‘We can’t all go with you to meet your girlfriend’s mum for the first time,’ Mallory said, more kindly than Cornelia would’ve put it. ‘The red tape involved in taking a case in Ireland is too much to think about.’

‘Thanks, Brexit,’ Cornelia said, scuffing the step with her boot.

Anything to prolong having to go back into the Offices.

‘You mean thanks meddling of the UML,’ Diana said bitterly. ‘You’d think they’d have found it in their hearts to let us roam free, solving cases wherever we’re needed without needing to have meetings about it. Ones like the Wickermere Reaper, for instance, given that we’re a handful of hours from the Lake District and could easily lend our expertise to a case where someone is burying victims alive and it’s overshadowing the entirety of the Occult world now that they’ve started takingOccult victims after a string of Apparent tragedies, if the article I read about it is to be believed.’

‘Oh, don’t worry, we can just use my family’s considerable wealth to—Oh no wait,’ Cornelia said, both determined to out-bitter Diana, and having just remembered that she didn’t have any money. She’d worry about it properly later.

Mallory was focusing on walking up the stairs and didn’t say anything. Cornelia watched after her, her pale denim jacket with the little Undetectables patch sewn into the sleeve sitting nicely over the black dress that swayed around her legs as she moved, which she’d reluctantly donned for the funeral.

Diana cleared her throat and Cornelia realised she’d been staring, then took the stairs two at a time until she was in step with Mallory.

Diana and Mallory hesitated at the doors of the Mayoral Offices, but Cornelia strode in, her shoulders back, allowing herself to float away out of her head until she could’ve been walking through a dream. It meant she was waving at passing Office staff without looking to see if they were glaring at her first, but that didn’t matter.

The place where Jacob had died had been bricked up, and with it went Katherine the ghost. There was nothing specific to fear, or so Cornelia kept trying to tell herself.

‘We’re here to see Dr Ray. Dr Night Mayor. Night Mayor Ray,’ Cornelia said, slapping a hand down on the reception desk.

‘The UML have actually awarded her the title of Honourable after she successfully oversaw the restoration of the Offices, though none of the signs have been updated yet,’ the receptionist – an unusually owlish-looking demon who couldn’t have been older than nineteen – said, then snapped her mouth shut and handed over four visitor passes.

‘That’s my cue,’ Theodore said grandly, the air instantly warming.

Cornelia held up his visitor badge. ‘Can you wear this? Is it not going to be staticky and illegible?’

‘Adds to our mystique. Helping you detect the undetectable… by being undetectable,’ he said, plucking it from Cornelia’s hand.

Mallory fixed it to the front of his cardigan where it immediately crackled and fuzzed, and the four of them began the long walk to Dr Ray’s office.

Cornelia inhaled shakily, ignoring all of this as they walked down the corridor with the perennially faulty witchlights. Even post-rebuild, they refused to reliably turn on, suggesting it was a feature of the Offices and not a bug.

She didn’t look at the others, refusing to give them an opportunity to ask what was wrong. It wasn’t a question she could answer.

Instead, she focused on the facts: Jacob was dead.

Jacob couldn’t hurt her.

But the Jacob in her head…

She shook away the thought.

No matter that she’d skilfully managed to avoid setting foot inside the Offices in over a year – she’d always been busy with emails, or in the bug room, or doing a half-arsed job of cleaning the lab. Whether Mallory or Diana had noticed was up for debate, but they’d had the sense not to comment on it.

She could do this.

Dr Ray’s office door was open a crack, and after a brief round of rock paper scissors (Cornelia lost) she did the old knock-and-enter.

‘There you are,’ Dr Ray said, her voice muffled behind a stack of papers on her desk. There was a pretty strawberry-blonde woman beside her trying to sort the papers into piles, but she took one look at the Undetectables and mumbled an excuse to leave.

Cornelia knew her: Hayley Eason. Ex-girlfriend of the last Night Mayor of Wrackton. Last she’d heard, Hayley had been in the hotel business.

‘To what do I owe this pleasure, being as I saw most of you a mere ninety minutes ago?’ Dr Ray asked.

‘Bodies,’ Theodore said before anyone could stop him. ‘Bodies, and those who would contrive to steal them.’

Mallory held up a hand so Diana wouldn’t interject, but when Theodore offered no more detail, Mallory settled herself into the chair in front of Dr Ray.

‘We’re following a lead regarding a former client – or rather, a decedent related to a former client,’ she said smoothly. ‘While we were at the cemetery earlier, we noticed he’d been – and there really isn’t a more technical way to put this – dug up.’

‘Dug… up?’

‘Yes. We were notified by our former client that the grave appeared, quote, “disturbed”, but on inspection we believe he’s been partially to maybe fully exhumed. In a sort of illegitimate, body-snatchers kind of way.’

‘Hmm.’

Mallory gave Theodore an encouraging nudge, inviting him to speak up, but he gestured for her to continue.

‘We were just wondering if you, in your capacity as Medical Examiner, had any idea what that was about, given that you examined this decedent,’ she finished.

‘Remind me of the decedent’s name?’ Dr Ray pressed a hand to her beautiful forehead and Cornelia felt the familiar swoop of her all-out crush on the most brilliant woman in all of Wrackton, bar one notable exception.

‘Paul Blackburn.’

‘He’s a zombie now,’ Theodore said knowingly.

‘For the love of Blair.’ Dr Ray dropped down into her chair and pulled a file towards her. ‘You’re certain it’s his grave?’

‘Absolutely. We saw it less than two hours ago after the funeral, but you’d already departed,’ Mallory said. ‘Mrs Blackburn contacted me to say it had been meddled with. While the earth over the grave had been lifted and piled elsewhere, I couldn’t tell at a glance if it had been fully exhumed—’

‘It has,’ Dr Ray said grimly. ‘I’d bet my life on it. And that is not a bet I make without the intention of winning.’

‘It’s good to not throw your life away,’ Theodore said bitterly. ‘Wouldn’t want to end up like me. The Cautionary Tale of the Samhain Ghost.’

‘Are you quite done?’ Dr Ray asked him, and for once Theodore’s mouth snapped shut. ‘This is not the first. There was another last week – different cemetery, but same principle. Mound of dirt beside disturbed grave, and I haven’t the faintest clue why. The first victim, though I hesitate to call them victims, was an Apparent named Freya Evans. She was laid to rest last year.’

‘Do you have a burial date?’ Mallory asked. Cornelia looked at her curiously; Mallory was already establishing a pattern, despite her earlier insistence that this was Theodore’s harmless case.

‘I’d say about a week or so before Paul Blackburn, if my memory serves me,’ Dr Ray said. She handed Mallory a case file. ‘Autopsy report’s in there. Do you want the case?’

‘Officially?’

‘Hayley will do up the contracts – usual terms?’

‘Do we normally get paid for these?’ Cornelia whispered to Diana.

Dr Ray’s eyelids fluttered for a fraction of a second. Had Cornelia not been gazing adoringly into her face, she would’ve missed it.

‘Cornelia is impoverished now,’ Diana said. ‘Hence her suddenly caring.’

‘Yes, usual terms,’ Mallory said.

This felt reassuring, so Cornelia didn’t press further. She had no idea what a reasonable amount was. She’d seen the figures before, but they hadn’t made sense to her out of context.

‘As long as I am included in these terms, so say I!’ Theodore said.

‘Okay. Hayley will be in touch.’ Dr Ray gestured at the door. ‘By which I mean, leave, before I perish beneath this avalanche of papers.’

Theodore exhaled excitedly once they were out on the steps of the Mayoral Offices in the muggy May air.

‘Can I say it?’ Theodore asked solemnly. ‘I think my—Our! Our case will go well if I get to say it.’

Mallory nodded before anyone else could ask what the fuck he meant, a smile crossing her lips.

Although Cornelia had not been able to fully forgive Theodore for what he did to Mallory last year, Mallory seemed to have. Theodore had behaved utterly normally – which was a strange baseline to begin with – since he’d helped them escape Wrackton during the emergency lockdown. Back to his wholly usual dramatic self. Until Mallory had said it earlier, it hadn’t occurred to Cornelia that being rehired in the Offices might’ve contributed to Theodore’s miraculous recovery. She’d always love Theodore, but she currently loved him like one might love a shark: from a distance, with eyes wide open.

Theodore pulled himself up to his full height, cat ears quivering with delight.

‘Undetectables, it’s time,’ he said grandly. ‘To the murder board!’

FOUR

There really was nothing like the smell of a clean murder board in the morning to make you glad to be alive.

‘Right. Two “victims”,’ Mallory started.

‘I’ve got this,’ Cornelia said, taking up a whiteboard marker. ‘Multitasking.’

‘Never mind that you have both the worst attention span and also the agency’s least-legible handwriting,’ Diana said. Cornelia snapped her fingers and Diana shrieked as the words ‘FUCK’ and ‘OFF!’ appeared on her knuckles in whiteboard marker.

‘Careful you don’t die like that,’ Theodore said, stroking his marker-drawn whiskers.

‘Freya Evans and Paul Blackburn. Both already deceased,’ Cornelia said. ‘Paul Blackburn was married to a previous client of ours.’

‘Though our conclusions from that case were that he died of natural causes, not from poisoning like our former client insisted,’ Mallory said.

‘Really didn’t think we’d ever have to say that poor man’s name again,’ Cornelia said.

‘Funny how life is full of macro and micro coincidences,’ Theodore said. ‘That was a time when you were dealing with a poisoning of sorts, and she brought you a poisoning case. What a world.’

‘It very specifically wasn’t a poisoning case. He was, like Mallory said, a hundred and three,’ Diana said. ‘And Dr Ray agreed.’

‘As Dr Ray said, Freya Evans died last February from—oh,’ Mallory said, her brow furrowing. Cornelia once again fought the urge to smooth it out with her thumb. ‘Cancer. Complications associated with her treatment.’

Cornelia felt a pang of recognition. ‘Was that the Evans family that live over on Aster Lane? I had no idea, we should’ve put in a donation to—’

The words died on Cornelia’s lips as an unsettling sense of horror rained down on her.

‘Don’t worry, you’ll come to terms with it soon,’ Diana said cheerfully, patting her on the shoulder.

Diana was being much nicer than she probably wanted to be, given that she had every right to be standing on a table shouting I told you so! for every time she’d reminded Cornelia that the Undetectables as an entity were in serious trouble if she ever somehow lost her family’s money.

It had, truthfully, been unconscionable. The Broadwicks were rich in a way that made other people’s eyes widen, which made Cornelia determined to spend it as fast as she could. She’d taken a few minutes while Diana set up the murder board to call the family financial advisor – at Mallory’s behest – but whatever he said washed over her because she’d never really had to think about money before.

She didn’t know where it came from – investments, probably, or stocks, or maybe there were just piles of money sitting somewhere in a vault that had now been shut in her face. The idea that there were people who felt this clawing panic every single day was sickening. She’d always tried to be as generous as possible. Scrolling social media at night when she couldn’t sleep – in between web searches for a whole day’s worth of random thoughts and questions – she’d randomly donate to fundraisers of all sorts, from bugs to debt to escaping war. But she hadn’t been certain it was doing anything to help anyone. Money was just a number on a screen.

‘Maybe, when we’ve looked into this case and you’ve got your UBI set up, you can send them some flowers or something,’ Mallory suggested gently.

Cornelia nodded, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth.

‘It’s going to be okay,’ Mallory continued, lowering her voice so only Cornelia could hear. ‘I promise.’

Theodore cleared his throat. ‘So they’re unrelated deaths! Buried within a couple of weeks of each other last year, and grave-robbed just over a year later.’

‘That could be the linking factor – maybe someone is stealing organs?’ Diana asked, but both Mallory and Cornelia shook their heads.

‘You take this one,’ Mallory offered.

‘Putrefaction,’ Cornelia said shortly. ‘Even with the embalming process, it’ll set in within a couple of weeks. Organs are best kept fresh. There’d be no reason to take the whole corpse if they were after something specific. Besides, I doubt there’s a market for centenarian eyeballs. I don’t know what the protocol is for harvesting organs from someone who died of cancer, though.’

‘She was an organ donor,’ Mallory said, examining the file. ‘So even if there had been organs safe to take, they’d have done so when she died.’

‘This is a horrible conversation, I hope you know,’ Theodore said. ‘I was to be an organ donor, but alas.’

‘Alas?’ Cornelia asked.

‘They couldn’t bear to part me from my kidneys when the time came. Thought I might start appearing in the body of whoever got them. Patient privacy disaster, you’d have all kinds of lawsuits. Haunted by the Ghost of the Guy Who Previously Owned my Kidneys. I think I should take up writing. That’s a great book title and a hooky concept.’

‘You should,’ Diana said. ‘Not like you sleep, it could occupy your latter hours.’

‘Would you even be able to haunt the person, if they weren’t in Wrackton?’

Theodore drifted to his desk, muttering and rummaging around in a stack of notebooks identical to the one he’d picked up earlier until he found a clean one. He curled up on his iron chair and started scrawling feverishly across the pages, his hand a static blur. Diana had insisted on ‘homogenising the Undetectables branding’, and at her behest Mallory had ordered stationery. They were, admittedly, very nice notebooks – soft, smooth lavender covers, each with the agency logo embossed on the lower corner and exactly the right weight paper inside. He closed it with a snap.

‘Let us continue! Cornelia, you were saying?’

‘Neither in a condition to donate, or have their organs forcibly donated. Different ages, different assigned sexes. Different causes of death. Are there any obvious links between the victims? Where did Blackburn live? And how far away from each other were they buried?’

It felt like playing a mystery board game, simulating a real case. As much as Cornelia agreed with Mallory – that this was good for Theodore – it was hard not to blurt out all the answers.

‘I have something that might help Theodore there. A visual aid,’ Diana said somewhat mysteriously as she ran off upstairs, returning with a diorama so big that she could barely hold it. ‘We’re going to need a permanent display place for this.’

Cornelia jumped up to help her before Mallory could. Over the last year they had renovated the lab and the research room to both maximise the space and minimise the ghostly interference Theodore ran on the machines. They were now kept behind a permanent iron partition, so Theodore could pass freely through the lab and not need to stand on the iron plate – apparently this was a grievous indignity he could no longer bear to suffer, much less think about, though he managed to bring up the former existence of said iron plate on a daily basis.

The research room was now wider, with a proper seating area to greet clients, and the windowed partition wall was fitted with a sliding door that meant they could shout back and forth to each other through the doorway without having to get