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Leon:

Wasting Company Time presents Tell No Tales, season two. Episode Twenty-One: Beg Forgiveness.

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[SFX: Classical music playing, pages turning]

Frank

We have a lot to pursue here. Shall we consolidate, Leonardo?

Leo

Sure. Sure, yeah. So we know both rituals needs to be on a full moon. Eveline Weaver confirmed that there’s some truth in that, at least. Even if it seems like some weird sci-fi trope.

Julia

I like the idea that it guides the spirit’s way.

Frank

Most likely it has something to do with the plane’s gravitational field.

Julia

Spoil sport.

Frank

Well, it would make sense. If the moon can affect the ocean, is it such a stretch to presume that the spirit plane, famously fragile and malleable-

Julia

Oh sure, let the science bro explain paranormal theology to the paranormal theologist, why don’t we?

Leo

Alright, guys. Whatever the reason, it’s safe to assume the full moon thing is mandatory. So for the antipossession ritual, the next thing is… poison. I don’t like the idea of using deadly nightshade. It didn’t seem like Whitley was entirely confident about how possible it is to actually heal the person who’s been poisoned.

Riley

I’ve been looking into that. From bed, calm down, I have wifi from bed, see? Laptop. It goes on my lap. While I’m resting. Anyway, I think our best bet is funnel-web venom.

Leo

Like from a funnel-web spider?

Riley

Nah, from the funnel-web goat. Yes from the fucking spider.

Frank

That is an intriguing proposition. There is a very effective anti-venom for that. I believe I have heard somewhere that there have been no deaths since the anti-venom was introduced.

Riley

Mmmm… there has been one death, according to this one scientific article. But that was because of delayed presentation. This shit can kill in fifteen minutes. But with the anti-venom, and good timing, we should be fine. Not great, because the anti-venom has some wild side-effects of its own. But it’s an option.

Julia

I don’t like it.

Leo

It’s better than nothing.

Julia

I didn’t say we shouldn’t do it. But I don’t like it.

Riley

I, on the other hand, am so looking forward to it. Like, I used to write in my cildhood dream diary, oh boy, I sure wish I could fill my body with deadly poison, that sounds like a treat.

Julia

Alright, I see your point.

Riley

Good. Only problem is how the hell we can get our hands on either the venom or the anti-venom.

Frank

Leave that to me. So, the next component is anti-possession protection for the rest of us. We need our minds to be addled. I imagine opium is not a viable option.

Julia

I can get us something.

Leo

What?

Julia

I said what I said. I’ll make a call.

Leo

Okay. Uh. We just need enough for me. I think I should be the one to do this grounding ritual, if you’ll let me Riley.

Riley

Makes sense.

Leo

I need you both to be sharp, to help them afterwards. And to do the moving on ritual.

Julia

Actually, I don’t think we should do the second ritual right away. That needs to be done somewhere emotionally important to the spirit, right? But if Riley needs actual medical attention, that won’t be ideal. So I vote we boot Nathaniel out in the lab. Me and Frank can still keep our distance, and I’ll just do my thing as a dispatcher. Sure, I’ve been off sick for a while, but it’s like riding a bike, right?

Leo

Could you get more of the equipment that we brought to break into the warehouse? If we’ve got the nano-particle guns we could just put him straight into a stasis capsule.

Julia

Yeah, I can shoot at him from a distance and Frank can open the capsule from a good distance too. If you’re the closest person to Riley, he’ll go for you first. And it only takes a few seconds to shoot at him.

Frank

Yes, and the full moon lasts three nights. We can perform the antipossession ritual on the first, then use the mobile tether to release Nathaniel into a space of importance to him on the second night.

Leo

Okay, so all that’s left then is to find out more about Nathaniel. We need a place and an object of emotional importance.

Riley

I can help with that. I’ve been doing a deep dive into Nathaniel Gilbert’s life. And trust me I mean deep dive. Found a few names from people in his life. Cross-referenced them all with Better Place’s extensive case archive, and got a list of spirits you might be able to chat to. Since we, y’know, now know they’re all just hanging out in the warehouse. Jury’s out on how well any of them knew him, but worth a shot.

Leo

That is incredibly helpful. Email me the list, I’ll get right on it.

Julia

Okay, so it’s looking good, right?

Frank

I shall see how quickly my contact can get us the venom. That may be down to the wire. But the rest, yes, it does appear to be falling into place.

Julia

Great! And I should maybe go back to work for a bit. If I need to nick equipment from the armoury, it doesn’t look good to be signing in while off sick.

Leo

Sounds like a plan.

Frank

I will call my contact.

[SFX: Frank leaves. Julia stands]

Julia

Guess I’ll go call my guy too. See what’s on the menu for mind-addling. Something hallucinogenic, maybe? We’ll see.

[SFX: Julia begins walking away, but stops when Riley speaks]

Riley

Julia? could you pay a visit to Arthur and Stephen today too? It’s been a while, I’m sure they’re missing each other.

Julia

Yeah, I was thinking about that. I’ll go this afternoon, and maybe leave my recorder with Kara, if she’s willing to do the back-and-forth for a bit while we focus on you.

Riley

Sounds good.

[SFX: Julia leaves]

Leo

Should we be worried that Frank seems so confident in his ability to smuggle funnel-web venom into the UK?

Riley

Definitely. Though I’m more worried that Julia apparently has access to hallucinogens. Her brain is the last brain I’d like to see on mind-altering drugs.

Leo

Yeah. That’s kind of a scary thought.

Riley

I mean. It would be fun. Maybe one day, maybe after all this is over. That would be fun to see.

Leo

She’s mentioned having a dealer before, I always assumed it was just for study drugs or something.

Riley

That woman contains multitudes.

Leo

Yeah… (LONG, SIMPY PAUSE) (CLEARS THROAT) Uh, do you need anything? I know you don’t do well being stuck in bed.

Riley

Honestly, I’m so tired these days it’s actually kind of a blessing. Might even take a nap while you go look up some of the case files on the list.

Leo

Okay, if you’re sure.

Riley

Yeah, just… lock the door behind you. Y’know. Just in case.

Leo

Yeah. Alright.

[SFX: Background music fades out. Short pause, then recording begins]

Leo

Audio diary of Leo Quinn, Specialist Surveyor. I went through and found all the case files on Riley’s list. There aren’t a lot of names on it, but there are more than I would have expected. Compared to how many deaths there are each year, not many people at all stay behind as spirits. Our record is… I think maybe ten thousand cases in a year? Not all of them recent. Compare that to the some 5/6 hundred thousand deaths a year in the UK, the odds of one person leaving behind a trail of spirits who knew them are… low. But Nathaniel Gilbert knew a lot of people.

Riley said we don’t really know how well he actually knew any of them, so some of these cases might not be anything more than passing acquaintances, but… well, I suppose we just work our way through and find out. Anything helps. So. Alphabetically it is.

CaseBG#06103, category one, case status: resolved. Better Place were called in 2004 to remove a spirit haunting a campsite just outside of Leeds. The report was raised by the owners of the site, and it was a fairly cut-and-dry case.

Research found the spirit belonged to a Melanie Cameron, who lived in one of the stationary caravans on the site in the seventies and eighties. She was a single mother, who moved into the caravan shortly before her son was born, and raised him there until he was thirteen, when due to a windfall of indeterminate origin, she was able to buy her own home.

The case file includes a lot of info on her son, Simon, which makes sense – if this is where she raised him for the first thirteen years of his life, then he’s probably a large chunk of the reason she stayed behind there. But… uh, but I guess I don’t need to know why she stayed behind. I just need to know how she knew Nathaniel Gilbert. So I’m going to get Frank’s help finding Melanie’s stasis capsule, and hopefully will have something worth reporting once I bring her to the mobile tether.

[SFX: Recording ends, short pause, then recording begins again. Ghost recorder is already running, and a stasus capsule is opened]

Leo

Hi, Melanie? Am I speaking to Melanie Cameron?

Melanie

Yeah, that’s me. Where am I?

Leo

You’re in the warehouse at Better Place, the ghost removal company.

Melanie

Oh, okay. So not hell, then? Just… somewhere different.

Leo

Not hell, I promise. Do you remember what happened, before you came here?

Melanie

You mean do I remember dying? Yeah. And then, it all kind of blends together a bit, but I was back in the caravan. It was empty for a while, but I couldn’t leave. Figured out I was a ghost, eventually, but knowing didn’t make it any less confusing. Then a new family moved in, a dad and his daughter and her little toddler. Reminded me of my Simon. But they noticed me. Called people about me. Then… Yeah, it was Better Place, people in uh, whatsit, those little boiler suits, they shot at me. And then… just… (LONG PAUSE)

Leo

You’ve been in a stasis capsule. It’s how they remove spirits at Better Place. There’s, uh, a bit of a backlog before we can move some spirits on, so that’s where you’ve been while you’re on the- the waiting list.

Melanie

Right. Feels like it’s been a while, but it’s hard to tell. So I suppose I can’t complain. Is that what you’re doing now, then? Moving me on?

Leo

No, not exactly. I need to ask you about someone you might have known in life. He’s uh, he’s an important figure in an investigation. Did you ever meet a Nathaniel Gilbert?

Melanie

That dickhead? Yeah. Yeah I knew him. He gave me the money to move out of the caravan.

Leo

Oh! He did? But he was a… you uh, didn’t like him very much?

Melanie

God no, he only gave me the money so I’d join his little cult. He was obsessed with me. He was staying on the site, said he moved around a lot, some evangelist thing he had going on, and I’d been kicked out by my parents, can only hide a baby bump so long when you’re a skinny teenager, you know? So I’d been kicked out, started job-hunting, moved into a shithole of a caravan, and tore my body to shreds giving birth, all in the space of something like four months. And then this twat shows up, telling me I’m going to hell, with a smile on his face.

Leo

Yeah. That certainly sounds like… the reports we’ve had of him. If he thought you were going to hell, why give you the money?

Melanie

Oh, I’m getting to it. This was like a decade apart bearing in mind. This was just how the man introduced himself. Obviously I told him to get fucked. But he just kept smiling. He stayed on the site for, I think maybe a year or two? And he’d come speak to me every day. Hi Melanie, how are you doing? Oh good, good, you’ll burn in hell do you know that? Have a great day. Weird, messed up little man. Always trying to take my hand, like he really meant it with kindness or something.

Every Sunday he’d invite me to church, every Sunday I turned him down. Until eventually I snapped. Told him if I’m hell-bound anyway, what’s the point? Not going to risk bursting into flames the moment I step over the threshold. And bloody hell, the way his eyes just lit up, like you could just tell he’d been waiting a year and a half for me to ask. Every time he spoke to me, every time he invited me to church, he’d just been biding his time until I asked that question. And he tried to take my hand again, but I was holding Simon, so I pulled back, but he didn’t care. Grabbed my shoulder, got really close and said… but that’s just it, Melanie. You aren’t dead yet. There’s still time to beg forgiveness.

I remember he used the word beg, specifically. And I mean, Simon was almost two by this point. Little chatterbox. Absolute light of my life. I couldn’t imagine begging anyone, or anything, forgiveness for him. Yeah, I was tired all the time, flat broke, whatever. He was still the best thing that ever happened to me. Nothing about him demanded forgiveness. So I didn’t go. He kept bothering me a few more months, then moved on.

Leo

Nathaniel left?

Melanie

Yeah, he was always moving on. He didn’t come back for… not until Simon was already in school, maybe six years later? Did the same thing. Still just, unfailingly sweet about it. Tried it on Simon a couple of times before I could drag him away. Cupped his little cheek andsmiled wide as anything and he said your mother’s going to hell. Creep. Did the same back and forth for another year or so before he moved on.

Leo

He came back again, I assume?

Melanie

Yeah, another four or so years after. Except this time he was more… I want to say frantic about it. Practically pleading with me to come to church. I think maybe he was sick or something.

Leo

He died about ten years later. Might have been something long-term? I’m not sure myself, I’ll need to ask research.

Melanie

That wouldn’t surprise me. He looked rough. And he was getting more unhinged. Eventually I agreed to go to church, just the once, if he promised to never go near Simon ever again. Simon was getting old enough to cut about on his bike with his friends by that age, and Nathaniel was always accosting him when I wasn’t there. I said I’d go, if he left Simon alone. And he was so relieved.

Leo

What happened?

Melanie

At the sermon? Well, nothing. Just an hour of bullshit. I mean, more bullshit than the usual. Foaming at the mouth level raving about sinners and hell and redemption and all that. But at the end, I left, no problem. Didn’t try to rope me into coming back next week or anything. And the next day he was gone. I came home to a bag of cash outside my caravan. A lot of cash. I’d saved a bit, living on the campsite, especially since Simon had started school and I was able to work more hours. But this tripled what I’d saved. Enough for a deposit on a house. Just all that cash, and a little note saying “it’s never too late.” So obviously I took the cash and bought a house miles away from there. Never saw Nathaniel again. Never went back to church either.

Leo

Wow. Okay. That’s… wild. I… Did you ever talk about anything else? Did he ever talk about his personal life at all? Anywhere or anything that might have been important to him.

Melanie

Other than his religion? I don’t think there was much. But I can’t be sure. We didn’t really branch out much from the topic of my eternal damnation.

Leo

Right. Right okay. Thank you for your help. For what it’s worth, your son is doing well.

Melanie

He is, is he? (SHORT PAUSE, THEN SHAKILY) What’s he up to?

Leo

He’s a sociology lecturer at the University of Cardiff.

Melanie

(CHOKED UP) Oh, good for him. He loved uni. He always said he wanted to go back. I died before he managed it, but I’m… I’m so glad he managed it in the end. Do you know anything else about him? Is he happy?

Leo

I think so. He’s married, they have two kids. Live in a nice house in Cardiff. Uh… here, let me just…

[SFX: Phone being unlocked, brief typing]

Yeah, here’s his Facebook. Last post was a holiday to Lanzarote, him, his wife Jenny, and their kids, Katie and… Mel. Oh, that’s… She’s named after you, I assume.

Melanie

(WATERY LAUGH) Unless he met some other Mel between me dying and her being born. Oh, they’re all so precious. I’m… you know, I’m so happy it’s making me… Are ghosts supposed to feel lightheaded?

Leo

Oh, that’s- I’m sorry but that’s the tether you’re in. It doesn’t keep you stable for long. I have to put you back. Next time we see each other, though, it won’t be about Nathaniel, okay? When the, uh, the investigation’s over, I promise we’re going to change how things work around here, okay? I’ll help you then.

Melanie

Sure. Yeah. Just don’t leave it too long? I want to see my son again.

Leo

Of course. I won’t.

[SFX: Stasis capsule opens and Melanie returned]

Leo

(SIGHS)

[SFX: Ghost recorder is switched off, background music fades out]

Closing theme begins

Leon:

This episode of Tell No Tales was written and produced by Leon Egan. In it, you heard the voices of Asher Amor-Train as Frank, Leon Egan as Leo Quinn, Shannon Kelly as Julia, Phil Thompson as Riley, and Beatrice Vincent as Melanie. If you enjoyed this episode, we’d love it if you let someone know. It doesn’t have to be us, but it would be a nice ego boost if it was. You can find us on Twitter or Tumblr @tellnotalespod and as always, links and information about transcripts can be found in the show notes. Tell No Tales is distributed by Wasting Company Time Productions, under a Creative Commons attribution non-commercial share-alike 4.0 international license. Thank you for listening, and remember: the dead don’t bite.

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