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  LAUGH OUT DEAD

  An Urban-Smith Mystery

  Rupert Harker

  Laugh Out Dead

  Copyright © 2018 by Rupert Harker.

  All Rights Reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover designed by Rupert Harker

  Images courtesy of pixabay

  Please visit my website at http://r-harker.com/

  ISBN 978-1-913006-00-6

  For my wonderful wife, Jo, and all our beautiful animals.

  SPECIAL THANKS TO

  Becky Stewart

  Jeff Haddow

  Paula Matsumoto

  Rachel Mankowitz

  Elodie Cure

  Shelley Tokelov

  Melanie Fritz

  Katia Jennings

  Thank you all for your helpful suggestions.

  CONTENTS

  1. A MEETING OF MINDS

  2. HE WHO LAUGHS LONGEST

  3. PROFESSOR GORSHKOV LAID BARE

  4. A BEAUTIFUL WIDOW

  5. THE HUMMINGBIRD’S WRISTWATCH

  6. DEAD AS A DOLFIN

  7. CURRICULUM INCOMPLETAE

  8. THE MUNCHKINGRAD CONNECTION

  9. THE CADAVEROUS CONSUL

  10. IT JUST ISN’T QUEENSBURY!

  11. THE MEDICAL MIRACLE

  12. PLAYING THE WAITING GAME

  13. HE THAT WOULD MEET THE COLONEL MUST CRACK THE NUT

  14. PROJECT TREMBLE

  15. THE FERVENT FIST

  16. THE MELTING LOTUS

  17. PUSHING UP DAYZEE

  18. DEM PHONES, DEM PHONES

  19. THE GAME’S AFOOT

  20. FAQ’s

  21. PAPAMORSUPHOBIA

  22. SOLILOQUIES

  23. THE FOURTH ATMAN

  24. SCOURGE OF THE SHIRES

  25. FIFTY GORILLAS AND A MONGOOSE

  26. ABOUT THE POLE

  27. URBAN-SMITH RECEIVES AN INTRIGUING TELEPHONE CALL

  1. A MEETING OF MINDS

  Of course I had heard of him, even before I moved to London. Who hasn’t heard of the legendary Fairfax Urban-Smith, author, detective, paranormal investigator and one-man cause célèbre?

  It was the summer of 2006 when I took up my post of staff-grade pathologist at the London Metropolitan Forensic Pathology Unit, based at St Clifford’s Hospital. I was forced to leave Sir James Sprogget’s Infirmary for Sick Children after contracting a severe case of viral Tourette’s. For several months, my vocabulary was rendered so unpalatable that my career was despaired of, and I was instructed to seek an alternative speciality.

  I readily admit that pathology had never been my forte, but we Harkers are made of stern stuff, and my cramped accommodation reverberated with Tourettian obscenity deep into the night as I toiled and laboured in my studies.

  The next two years proved arduous, no doubt, but ultimately I prevailed, securing this prestigious fellowship in the face of stiff competition and even stiffer clientele.

  I first encountered Fairfax Urban-Smith during my second month at St Clifford’s. On this particular morning, I was about to begin an autopsy on the victim of a circular saw to the head when I became aware of an unexpected presence. I turned to find an unfamiliar face peering over my shoulder.

  He stood almost a clear foot taller than I, with straight brown hair, light-blue eyes and a long nose which appeared to have been broken more than once. Despite his casual trousers and shirt, he held himself with the bearing of a gentleman. My eye was drawn to his Eton tie and the laminated visitor’s badge pinned to his lapel.

  Irked by this unannounced intrusion, I drew myself up to my full three score and five inches to address him.

  “Who are you?” I demanded.

  He smiled benignly. “Fairfax Urban-Smith. Please call me Fairfax. And who might you be?”

  “I am Dr Rupert Harker, and I happen to be the pathologist overseeing this case.” I sniffed haughtily. “I don’t recall inviting you into my mortuary.”

  The smile broadened, and I bristled. Had the man no sense of propriety?

  “I received a text from Danny, the mortuary technician, advising me of the new arrival.” He stepped around me to make a closer inspection of the deceased. “Power-tool suicide is very unusual in the UK,” said he, oblivious to my vexation. “I have written several monographs on the subject.”

  “Suicide?” I was appalled. The poor man’s head had been cleaved almost in two. The idea that someone could inflict such a heinous wound upon themselves was unthinkable. “What makes you say it was suicide?”

  Urban-Smith turned to me, incredulous. “You do claim to be a pathologist, do you not?”

  “Are you questioning my integrity?” I growled.

  “My dear Doctor, I have yet to see it.”

  His remark struck me as violently as any physical blow, and I all but reeled from it. My God, the nerve of the man! The bile rose to my jowls and my hackles stood to attention as I peeled off my rubber gloves and hurled them to the floor. I began to roll up my sleeves so as to teach the upstart some manners, but mercifully Danny intervened before any blood had been shed.

  “Come on, Fairfax,” said Danny, placing himself between us. “Show some respect. This is Dr Harker’s turf now.”

  Urban-Smith opened his mouth to retort, but Danny silenced him with a raised hand.

  “Please, Fairfax.” Danny leant forward and lowered his voice. “How about that wound?” Both heads swivelled towards the gurney and then back again. “Don’t you fancy a closer look?”

  Urban-Smith’s scowl dropped away, leaving the expression of a child told that he must wait until after dinner to open his Christmas presents. He sighed deeply and bowed his head. “Of course, Danny. You are quite correct.” He directed his comments to me once more. “I am sorry, Doctor. Please accept my apologies. I forget that not everyone is accustomed to my manner.”

  I began to simmer down. “Accepted!”

  “Excellent.” The smile returned, broader than before. “Now, where were we? Oh yes. You asked how I knew it was suicide.” Urban-Smith ambled around to the far side of the gurney and indicated the victim with a sweep of his hand. “You see what I see, Doctor. What say you?”

  “Alright then.” I straightened my tie and spectacles and reached for another set of gloves. “Let us take a closer look. According to his toe-tag, he is a Mr Ed Cleaver; forty-nine years of age, Caucasian, five-ten, eighty two kilos.”

  I commenced my examination at the head.

  “He has suffered a horrendous facial wound,” said I. “The entire face has been bisected, with the wound running far back into the cranial vault. The injury is compatible with having been made by a power-tool of some description. There are also minor cuts and abrasions upon his upper body, probably sustained when he fell to the ground.” I beckoned Danny to me. “Can we turn him onto his side, please?”

  Ed Cleaver’s back was a ruddy burgundy, indicating that he had lay in the supine position after his death. Beyond this, all appeared normal. “I see nothing to indicate suicide,” I concluded.

  “Perhaps you will change your mind after you inspect his hands.”

  “Hmm,” I murmured sceptically, lifting one of the waxen hands and holding it in the glare of the overhead strip lights. “Nails short but uneven, bitt
en or broken rather than trimmed, callus on the palms, a few splinter haemorrhages, multiple small abrasions on the knuckles. Manual work, most likely.” I looked to Urban-Smith. “So he knew his way around a toolbox. How does that prove suicide?”

  “Surely the lack of defensive wounds to the hands and forearms is suggestive?”

  “True, but he may have been rendered incapable or unconscious before the final blow was delivered.”

  Urban-Smith inclined his head. “What of the wound, Doctor?”

  I moved to the head of the gurney and gently separated the two halves of Ed Cleaver’s bisected cranium. The injury was remarkable in its symmetry and depth, extending backwards through the longitudinal fissure (the deep groove which divides the hemispheres of the brain) almost as far as the foramen magnum (the opening at the base of the skull).

  “One has to admire the workmanship,” said I. “The blade has been inserted at the centre of the forehead and driven backwards with considerable accuracy.”

  “But what of the wound?” he repeated.

  “It is ragged and irregularly shredded as one would expect.”

  “Look closer, Doctor,” insisted Urban-Smith, frustration creeping into his voice.

  And then I saw it. On either side of the wound, mostly obscured by blood; traces of black ink. I stood back to take in the entire length of the injury.

  “It is a broken line, precisely drawn,” I said.

  “Indeed it is,” agreed Urban-Smith, “and I will wager that there was a black marker pen tucked behind Mr Cleaver’s right ear, as is the workman’s habit.”

  “He’s right, Doc,” confirmed Danny, leafing through the preliminary police report that had accompanied Mr Ed Cleaver’s arrival.

  “Furthermore,” continued our visitor, “I would be very much surprised if the body was not discovered in front of a mirror.”

  “Right again,” said Danny.

  A guideline! The man had traced a guideline upon his face to direct his final cut. I grasped at the dead hand again. There, on the fingertips; the same black ink.

  “My God,” I whispered. “It really was suicide.”

  “It is not enough to look,” said Urban-Smith. “One must also be able to see.”

  “You do realise that it is not the pathologist’s role to determine the circumstances of death, merely its cause?”

  “But your observations will inform the investigation,” was the determined reply. “If you allow your prior expectations and experience to colour your observations, they will prejudice your conclusions.” His voice softened, almost pleading. “Try not to filter what you observe. Absorb it in its entirety before you apply your reasoning.”

  My mind was awhirl. I could make no sense of it.

  “But how is it possible?” I protested. “How could a man so resolutely saw his own head in half? It defies all reason.”

  “And yet the evidence lies before you. You have mistaken unfeasible for impossible and approached this autopsy expecting foul play. It is fortunate that I was here.”

  I could not help myself; I laughed heartily.

  “My dear fellow,” I chortled, “you could tie girders into knots with your logic. If I understand correctly, you are saying that, even though such a grisly suicide may be beyond my comprehension, it does not preclude its occurrence.”

  “Exactly, Sir! Exactly!”

  And so it was that I was first introduced to Mr Fairfax Urban-Smith.

  *

  Over the next fortnight, I met him twice more at the mortuary, and it was on our third meeting that he asked me something utterly remarkable; to join him at his lodgings. I was quite taken aback.

  “My dear Fairfax, we hardly know one another. What makes you think we will tolerate each other’s company?”

  “When unprovoked, you are a man of few words, Rupert. In addition, you appear clean and well attired. These are the qualities I covet most highly in a potential lodger.”

  “What happened to your last lodger?” I asked. “Did he commit suicide with a circular saw during one of your protracted monologues?”

  “Nothing so macabre, no. My brother and I inherited the house from our uncle and have lived there since we left home. We each attended universities in London, and neither of us had seen a necessity to relocate until two months ago, when my brother accepted a Professorship at Crumble College, Cambridge. I now find myself in the unenviable position of having to buy his half of the property, and unfortunately I do not have a spare six hundred thousand pounds. I must take a lodger to help to cover the mortgage.”

  Having spent the previous ten weeks in hospital accommodation, and being unable to afford a flat of my own, I decided to venture further. “Where is this house?”

  “Marylebone; a stone’s throw from Baker Street Underground Station. Number sixteen, Chuffnell Mews to be precise. It is a lovely little three-bed terraced. Just you, me and Mrs Denford. Mrs Denford takes care of the cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing. All meals included, two hundred and fifty per week.”

  “It sounds ideal,” I conceded. “When can I see it?”

  “Come over tonight, about seven.”

  *

  Chuffnell Mews is a quiet street, owing largely to the concrete bollards that divide it halfway down its length, halting any through-traffic wider than a motorcycle. Number sixteen was an inoffensive mid-terraced with a red front door upon which I rapped loudly for attention. It was answered by a grey-haired lady sporting a white pinny and a stern frown, whom I estimated to be in her seventh decade.

  “Dr Harker, I presume,” she drawled in a Scots brogue, extending her hand.

  “Mrs Denford?”

  “Aye.”

  Mrs Denford had a handshake as steely as her gaze.

  “Come this way,” said she, turning and shuffling down the narrow hallway towards the stairs. Midway down the hall upon the right side was the kitchen, and opposite this the living room, into which I was ushered to find Urban-Smith deep in concentration, painting with oil upon canvas.

  “Fairfax. You have a visitor.”

  “Come in, Rupert, come in,” Urban-Smith cried enthusiastically without turning around. Mrs Denford withdrew to the kitchen, and I made my way deeper into the living room. It was deceptively spacious, stretching the whole length of the house and affording an excellent view of Chuffnell Mews to the front and a paved courtyard to the rear. The room itself was conservatively decorated with striped wallpaper of gold and green, complemented by beige woollen carpet upon which sat a black leather settee and three armchairs. I spied a number of canvases, and the detritus of the artist was strewn all around, namely tubes of paint, discarded sketches and brushes. A modest-sized television set squatted in the corner, and there was a gas fire with mantel against one wall. A low coffee table and several bookcases completed the furnishings.

  “What say you of my latest painting?” he asked.

  I looked at the canvas which was liberally spattered and splashed with different coloured blobs, blemishes and brush strokes.

  “It looks like nothing on God’s Earth,” said I. “What is it?”

  “It is whatever you wish it to be.”

  “I wish it to be elsewhere.”

  “Ha!” he laughed. “Ha ha. I daresay that were I to look up ‘droll’ in my Webster’s, I should find your picture.” He laid his brush upon the easel and turned to face me. “Would you care for the tour?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Mrs Denford,” he roared at the top of his voice, causing me to startle like a fawn at a firework display.

  Mrs Denford materialised from the kitchen. “What is it, Fairfax?”

  “Would you be kind enough to show Rupert around, please? I am in a critical phase of my composition.”

  I am heartened to report that the house was very pleasing. My room was homely, yet tastefully appointed, the bathroom was clean, and I could hear no noise from the neighbours at either side.

  Mrs Denford led me back to the living room.
>
  “Do you like it?” asked Urban-Smith.

  “Very much indeed.”

  And so it was settled.

  *

  Over the next few weeks, I had much occasion to observe my new housemate and landlord, and what a curious creature he proved to be. His habits were most irregular. Sometimes he would rise with the dawn and retire with the dusk; at others he would stay awake all night and then sleep until late afternoon. He showed no interest in music, theatre or matters of romance, but had a fascination with what appeared to be the basest of popular culture and the most macabre and arcane of subjects including ghosts, extraterrestrials, human sacrifice and urban legend. In addition, he eagerly devoured the morning newspaper, speculating wildly and with abandon about the day’s events, weaving an elegant tapestry of intrigue and machination over the daily breakfast dishes. He seemed to have a remarkable talent for seeing each item, not as a disparate entity, but as part of a complex web of interconnected stratagems and circumstance.

  His interpersonal habits were equally mystifying. He had few visitors, but those whom he received were an eclectic collection of policemen, academics and, in some cases, public figures, all eager to seek his counsel behind closed doors.

  Socially his manners seemed to go from one extreme to the other, treating strangers with aloof disdain, but greeting even the most casual of acquaintances with the sort of unbridled enthusiasm usually reserved for long-lost siblings.

  I knew a little of his reputation as a private detective and investigator of the paranormal, but my curiosity as to his exact modus operandi eventually got the better of me. After several weeks’ cohabitation, I ventured to enquire as to the precise nature of his occupational activities.

  “I am,” he announced, “to the best of my knowledge, the world’s first and only consulting paranorensicologist.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Paranorensicologist,” he repeated. “Paranorensics is the criminal investigation of supernatural phenomena.”

  “Is there much demand for that sort of thing in London?” I asked.