The Skinner's Revenge. Chris Karsten

      Four municipal workers leant on their pickaxes and shovels beside a pile of clay soil. PARKS & RECREATION stencilled on their yellow plastic raincoats, hoods over heads as they took their smoke break, rubber boots caked with red mud, hands cupping damp cigarettes. Wet and bedraggled. But curious.

      Two pickaxe wielders had started the digging. Despite the rain, the earth had been dense and firmly compacted, having lain undisturbed for years. The other two workers had then shovelled the loose earth out of the hole with easy, practised swings, before clambering out and making way once again for their colleagues with the pickaxes. Deeper and deeper they had dug the hole, the pile of muddy soil on the edge growing higher and higher.

      With the first drops from the leaden sky, the digging had ground to a halt, and a canvas awning supported by aluminium posts had been summoned and erected over the hole. The four men had resumed taking turns inside the hole, thankful for the shelter.

      The caretaker slurped his coffee, huddling in the crowded space under the canvas, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He’d had to jostle for space with the two beefy police officers and the two tall, reedy funeral directors, all of them silently observing the excavation. The girl, he noticed, had decided to capitulate, standing out in the rain as wet as a rat, head bowed and absorbed in thought.

      At the stipulated depth of two metres, the group under the awning heard a shovel strike something hard. The caretaker lowered the plastic cup of the Thermos flask he was drinking from, leaned forward to peer down the hole and issued a brusque warning to the two diggers.

      “Careful now.”

      And then the grave was open, the coffin exposed.

      Around the graves in this old part of the cemetery, the police had marked out a large square with plastic tape, with the warning: NO ENTRY – CRIME SCENE. A bit over the top, in the caretaker’s humble opinion. This was his cemetery, and in his sacred domain no crime had been committed. Late on this dismal afternoon, this was merely a sensitive, perhaps even poignant, operation to retrieve an old coffin – without the presence of a single loved one.

      His gaze travelled over the graves to the fence around the cemetery. The colonel had been adamant: no one was to be allowed inside while the digging was in progress. On the far side of the wire fence and cypress trees a small crowd of inquisitive bystanders had gathered, pointing, wondering what was going on, speaking in furtive whispers because the exhumation of a body demanded respect.

      By now the rain had abated and under the awning the next step was being discussed, also in muted tones. The caretaker shot the dregs in his coffee mug sideways onto the ground and ran a thumb over the stubble on his chin. He stood to one side, pushed against one of the corner posts, not part of the conversation. His job was digging holes and filling them up again…well, supervising the workers who did the actual work. His job description did not require of him to do manual labour, nor to shave every morning – except maybe on Mondays, and again on Fridays, in readiness for the weekend. He seldom received visitors in the Wendy house that served as his office under the cypresses at the cemetery’s entrance, and he never mingled with the mourners who came to pay their respects or lay loved ones to rest.

      He screwed the plastic cup back onto the Thermos and glanced furtively at the slight figure of the drenched young woman beyond the canvas canopy, who was hugging herself against the chill. Her short hair was wet, shiny raindrops trickling down her cheeks, nose, throat and neck.

      He’d been surprised, a few months ago, by the arrival at his office of this young detective of the city’s Murder and Robbery squad. A woman, no less, and during his lunch hour, without a prior appointment, tersely commandeering the grave register, and his chair. While she was searching for names and grave numbers in the files, he’d had no option but to stand while he ate his Marmite sandwiches, washing them down with coffee. At half past four, when he’d packed up to leave, she was still wandering amongst the graves, camera and notebook in hand.

      And here she was again, not so cheeky today, taking no part in the conversation under the awning. Her fingers fidgeted at her stomach while she peered distractedly into the open grave, as if she was trying to fathom the contents of the cheap wooden coffin, all muddy and rotting.

      His gaze shifted to the big cop with the gravelly voice. He had the stature, the voice and the moustache, the caretaker reckoned, of a man who did not put up with shit from anyone. And was clearly in charge of these unusual proceedings.

      The caretaker listened with divided attention to the predicament the cops and the undertakers were discussing. He took his cellphone from his pocket, and stole a sly glance at the screen. The phone very seldom rang, but the alarm was a handy reminder of lunch hour and quitting time. The damp air was settling in his joints, aggravating the gout in his big toe.

      The older of the two undertakers leaned slightly forward to survey the grave with his pale, watery eyes. “Uh-huh, pine, unvarnished. The coffin is in bad shape. Damp and borer beetle…the wood is in an advanced state of decay.”

      The caretaker was familiar with Mr Poppe Senior, with his long, thin neck. A good forty years in the undertaking business, almost as long as he himself had been a caretaker. He knew the bony man at Mr Poppe’s side as well: his son, Mr Poppe Junior. The “Junior” was deceptive. Difficult to guess, but Junior could be in his early sixties, and a bit of a windbag, the caretaker thought. An embalming specialist, so he’d heard. Junior had studied in Mississippi at the State Institute for Embalmers and Morticians, Mr Poppe Senior liked to boast when he came to inspect a grave before an interment. Check the specifications were up to code. Fussy old fart. The caretaker didn’t know where Mississippi was, and didn’t give a shit.

      “We can’t stand here arguing all bloody afternoon,” said the moustached police officer, who was addressed as Colonel Sauls. “What do you suggest? You’re the experts!”

      The Messrs Poppe Senior and Junior put their thin heads together in a hushed but animated discourse. The caretaker took another peek at the time on his phone. Next to the muddy pile of red earth, the pickaxe wielders were grinding out their cigarette butts, the diggers shifting their weight as they leant on their shovels. Everyone was getting restless, the caretaker thought.

      At which point Mr Poppe Senior turned back and announced triumphantly: “We have a plan!”

      The female detective had moved to where the headstone had been removed and solemnly laid down before the first pickaxe strike. She, too, was looking expectantly at the undertakers with the plan. Both dressed in black suits and white shirts, their grey ties fastidiously knotted around their wrinkly necks, each with an open umbrella in his hand.

      “Yes?” the colonel snapped.

      “’Er…am I still needed here?” asked the caretaker.

      The