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Leanne:

Wasting Company Time presents Tell No Tales, Episode Three: Part of the Family

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[SFX: Recording Begins]

Leo:

Audio diary of Leo Quinn, assistant to Frank Williamson, and terrible, terrible friend to Riley Matkins. (GROANS) I had to tell them part of the truth in the end. Not enough to explain exactly what I’m working on or why, just that I’m working on something techy and that I need to gather as much EMF data as possible to get it to work. It still felt like a lie though. And despite it all, when I got into the office this morning there was a file on my desk, part-hidden beneath my keyboard and mouse pad, with a little sticky note on it that just said this one won’t get you caught. I’d like it stated for the scientific record that Riley Matkins is a better person than I’ll ever be. My platonic soulmate. My one true bestie. God, I really hope these notes don’t ever have to go up as evidence in a formal court or anything. If they do, Riley’s definitely getting the transcripts somehow. That’d be very them. And how embarrassing would that be? We don’t say nice things to each other. Our love language is ‘eat glass and die, bitch,’ said with a smile. Just in case though, thank you for the gift of files and friendship, Riley, if you’re reading this illegally obtained transcript from a court of law. Hopefully my plan’s worked and we’ve gone freelance together on some ghost outreach program or something by now. Ugh, nope, no, Leo, stop. One step at a time. Let’s take a look at this case file.

[SFX: Pages Turning]

Huh. Weird. Case NA#1704, Category 3 (unconfirmed), Case status­-Report received. This is a strange one. Three individual tips submitted over the last few years, starting in 2017. The first is from a plumber who visited the home to fix a burst pipe, he reported sightings of knocked over tools, floating pens, and clattering from unknown sources while he worked. The second was a delivery guy, says the door opened by itself before the food was taken from him by unseen hands, hovered for a moment, then was promptly dropped, just in time for a woman to come rushing out of the bathroom in a towel, scooping up the food with frantic apologies before she ushered him away and closed the door. The third, well, the third is unusual. I’ll just read the transcript of the call.

Better Place Customer Services, how can I help?

Hi, hello, do you take anonymous tips?

What is this regarding?

My, well, the thing you need to understand is that my daughter is a very respectable woman. But her, well, her life ­partner is a bit odd. She calls herself a witch. And she messes around with all of those things, you know, the cards and the weejee boards and, well, it’s important you know this before I begin. This is likely her fault. But, well, I think their home ­­— they moved in a few years ago with my grandkids, a lovely little maisonette in Islington, shouldn’t have been within their budget but Lynne told me it was an absolute steal which, in hindsight it makes sense now ­­— but, essentially, I believe they’re living with a poltergeist. My grand­daughter, their eldest, she’s getting too old for imaginary friends now, almost ten, but she often talks about a man called Stephen. I think possibly she forgets herself, doesn’t mean to mention him, as when I press her on the subject, she goes quiet. I don’t visit often, usually Lynne comes to visit me, but the few times that I’ve dropped by the house there have been… incidents. A lamp toppling over in an empty corner of the room, a table shuddering like it’s been bumped into. And I swear, the one time I dropped by unexpectedly, Kara ­­my daughter’s partner ­­was playing chess alone, and the pieces were moving of their own accord. I’m willing to pay whatever it takes, just please get rid of this whatever it is.

Ma’am, I’m afraid if you aren’t the owner of the property you aren’t able to authorise us to send dispatchers. All we can do is attempt to reach out to the homeowner. If they are willing to grant us access, then we can be in touch with you regarding billing, but­­—

No, no, you don’t understand, this is the problem. They won’t hear it. It’s Kara, with all of her, you know, her interests. She’s gotten in their heads.

I’m sorry, ma’am but once again, all we’re able to do at this stage is reach out­­—

This is ridiculous, my grand­children are in danger here, do you have a manager I can speak to? Or a complaints department?

Er, so there’s more to the transcript. But it’s actually kind of painful to read? It’s mostly just poor Beth from the complaints team making comforting sounds and explaining the same thing back to her. Customer services did try to follow up with the two women who own the house but they were apparently told not to contact them again. I could get into a lot of trouble for this, if anyone finds out I’ve taken the info from this file, but… God, it just seems worth the risk doesn’t it? He was playing chess. He’s just so… Adjusted. Not a chance in hell I’m passing this up. Frank’s in a meeting right now in the conference room down the hall, but he’ll be back soon. So I’ve got to go. But I’ll be going to check this out straight after work.

[SFX: Recording Ends]

[SFX: Recording Begins]

[SFX: Classical Music Begins Playing]

Leo:

Holy crap. Last night, after leaving Kara and Lynne’s, I forgot to even take notes. I just went straight home and stayed up late going through the data I managed to collect. There was so much of it. Holy crap ok. ok. (CLEARS THROAT) Ok. Let me start at the beginning. So, I went to Islington after work, and I didn’t really have a game plan. Which, in hindsight, yeah, a bit daft, but whatever. I knocked, and a tall blonde woman in one of those badass power-­suit getups answered. And she just looked at me like, hello? can I help you? And, I’ll admit. I blanked. Just kind of blurted out, hi, my name’s Leo, and she just kept looking at me, and, okay, look, I panicked, okay, and I told her I work for Better Place. And of course she just went instantly hostile. “I thought we told you people to leave us alone,” she hissed, before craning her neck back into the house and shouting for Kara. A smaller woman, with short lilac hair appeared down the hall, smiling a little in confusion, until the taller woman —­­ Lynne, I assumed —­­ turned to her, nodded her head at me, and said through gritted teeth ‘Better Place.’ The pleasant look on Kara’s face was gone too, then. I hurried to save the situation. “Sorry, no, listen please, I’ve er, I’ve gone a bit rogue, actually.” That didn’t do much to make them look any more welcoming if I’m honest. So I pressed on. “I think, I­ sorry, I think we’re on the same side. The report we received said you and your partner­“ “Wife,” Lynne corrected. “Oh, god, sorry, of course. Well the report said you live with a category three, it kind of sounded like you live… in harmony with it, him I mean. Stephen, was it? Look I’m not here to try to get rid of him. I’m working on­“ “What report?” Kara asked suddenly. Which. My bad. Really just working my way through a checklist of GDPR rules to break here. “Who else?” Lynne rolled her eyes. “My mother of course. She called Kara my life­-partner, right?” “I, er, I really shouldn’t say.” I admitted. “I kind of… shouldn’t have had access to the file in the first place.” “Why are you here?” Kara asked then, and for the first time I saw curiosity just starting to battle with suspicion. I took a deep breath, and I tried again. “I don’t think we, Better Place or anybody, have a right to remove ghosts the way we do. I don’t think all ghosts are dangerous. And I’m working on a device that will allow me to record the statements of spirits, so that I can prove it. I think Stephen can help me get some of the data I need­­“ I caught the disgust in Kara’s eyes just in time to claw myself back from it. “No, no not like, testing or anything. I just need him to speak to me.” I showed her the EMF reader. “My recorder works, or, will work, using data from this. If I can get enough information about how vocalisations from spirits affect the readings on this, I think I can get the recorder to actually pick up Stephen’s voice someday. Someday soon. Sooner if I can talk to him now?” Kara hesitated, exchanging a glance with Lynne. That kind of glance, you know the one? With someone you love. Someone you know as well as you know yourself. You lock eyes and you can have a whole conversation with only the slightest crease of the brows, and the smallest widening of the eyes. “It would be nice to hear his voice, yeah.” Lynne sighed. And they still looked wary, but they let me in.There were two kids in the living room, a little girl, and a younger boy. Lynne hurried off to shepherd them out of the room and away from the stranger they’d just let into their home, which, fair enough. And Kara hovered in the living room, waving me in. “Stephen?” She called out. “It’s safe, this­- sorry, what’s your name?” “Leo, Leo Quinn.” “Leo’s here to help, can you let us know you’re here?” There was a whiteboard hung on the wall near the couch, I’d barely noticed it before, but then the pen stuck to the side of it detached, held by invisible hands, and wrote in a neat old­-fashioned cursive, “Hi, Leo. I’m Stephen.” I’m not sure what my face was doing, but Kara cracked up at it. “Yeah. Me too,” she said. “You get used to it.” As she spoke, the writing on the board was being wiped away, and the pen was raised to scrawl new words ­­ “I’ve been told I’m an acquired taste.” A delirious laugh bubbled past my lips. “Sorry, just not used to the spirits I speak to being, so, er…” I fumbled for the word for a moment. “Civilised?” Kara offered, a skeptical look returning to her face. “Maybe you should try treating them like people then.” “I- I do!” I scrambled to defend myself. “I’m not a dispatcher, I’m just in admin, I’ve only spoken to two spirits so far, or at least only two on the job, and I’ve been nice enough, considering all the maggots and the hammers and whatnot!” “And where exactly is the bar for treating them like people, over at Better Place?” She asked. “Not killing them on site?”Before I could answer we both shuddered, that now familiar static feeling whispering over my skin. I instinctively looked over to the whiteboard, which now read “Less of that, please.” I was in shock. Because, I mean. Did he do that on purpose? That icy cold feeling in the air, was that like, Stephen’s version of calling out to us? “He doesn’t do that very often,” Kara sighed. “He doesn’t like to draw attention to himself.” So, okay, note to self: try not to completely lose it at this entirely new information that centuries of paranormal academia hasn’t unveiled, that the creepy ghost feeling is an intentional choice. it’s f i n e, I was f i n e. I like to think I kept my cool, or, y’know, what little cool I had to begin with, while I explained to Stephen ­— who, by the way, was sitting in an arm chair with a cushion on it embroidered with the words “Stephen’s chair” and I could only tell he was sitting in it because the little cushion was squashed down by his weight which was just about the coolest thing I’ve ever­ seen— (CLEARS THROAT). Anyway, I kept it together while I explained what I was trying to build, I sat on the couch next to him, Kara perching nearby with watchful eyes as I took out the EMF reader and explained what I needed to collect to get the recorder working. When I finished explaining, he spoke. The EMF reader lit up, and it’s tempting to say the patterns were the same as those I’d seen from the last two spirits but that wouldn’t quite be right. It’s more like, with the last two ghosts, the lights on the EMF reader were weak imitations of what I watched in that house in Islington. This was a symphony of colour, the lights —­ I swear —­ glowing brighter than the cheap bulbs I bought for it should ever have been able to glow. The lights fluttered and sang and didn’t for a moment hold steady or flicker out entirely, they just kept on rising and falling in that beautiful erratic rhythm. He talked for a long time. It’s hard to imagine, really. A different kind of isolation to the others. He’s here, he’s part of the family in every way, but he can never be heard. Never be truly seen. I just watched and waited while he spoke, and when the lights tapered away, we all just let the silence settle over us for a moment. Kara brushed a hand over her cheek a couple of times when she thought I wasn’t looking. I think I get it. Even without being able to hear him speak, just seeing the evidence there, knowing that he is speaking, in the moment, it’s… well it’s not nothing.In the stillness, a framed photo caught my eye, beside the whiteboard on the wall. “Is that you, Stephen?” I asked, nodding at the photo, a black and white image of two smiling young men, both looking very dapper in tuxedos, raising champagne flutes but looking only at each other. The pen rose again to the whiteboard. “On the left, yes.” It read. “Arthur is on the right.” Kara cleared her throat “We found it online from a digitised archive of an old newspaper,” she said. “Stephen’s obituary from the seventies, that’s him and his…” She hesitated, before Stephen drew a little smiley face on the board, and she laughed. “Stephen and his partner, Arthur. The photo was taken at some high society fundraiser in the fifties. Arthur outlived him by a few years, and Stephen thinks that’s why he’s stuck here. He couldn’t leave Arthur behind.” I was beginning to feel my own eyes swim with tears, which felt distinctly unscientific, but I couldn’t see myself putting a stop to it any time soon, so I stood, faster than necessary, I thanked Stephen for talking to me, and Kara gave me her number so that I can call her when I get the recorder working, and I went straight home and absolutely pored over the data. The data didn’t make me cry, at least. The data didn’t have a tragic lifelong love only to be trapped for nearly five decades in a house alone with only the memory of that love. The data didn’t finally find happiness in the form of two women who love each other and their kids, a found family willing to accept the data, queer solidarity for the data who loved a man in the fifties who now gets to see how much the world has changed for people like us, but doesn’t get to live in that world with the man the… data… loved. You know? The data just… needed inputting. So I did that last night, instead of thinking too hard about all that other stuff. There was a lot, at least. I really think it’s a huge step in­­—

[SFX: KNOCKING, THEN DOOR OPENS]

Leo:

Jesus Riley, I thought you were Frank, you scared the life out of me.

Riley:

Oooh, should I be complimented or offended? It would be nice to radiate menacing Director Daddy vibes

Leo:

Never say the word daddy in relation to Frank every again I’m begging you. Or at all, preferably.

Riley:

He’s not…. is he?

Leo:

No, he’s out, gone for the day.

Riley:

Oh, excellent then, time for you to skive off early, we’re going to that cocktail bar down the road, come with us.

Leo:

Depends who we includes.

Riley:

Well, me, plus a bunch of people you don’t know because you have all the social skills of… Oh, you know one of those shaky little rescue chihuahuas that hates men and loud noises? Yeah, we’re taking the new girl for drinks.

Leo:

(OVERLAPPING) I­— that’s­— I take—­ (SIGHS) No, that’s pretty accurate actually. Wait, the new girl?

Riley:

Yup, new dispatcher, Hannah’s replacement.

Leo:

I’m sure Frank was still doing interviews like, yesterday.

Riley:

(MAKES I DUNNO SOUND) She started today, did all the onboarding stuff, I gave her a little tour of research. Her name’s Julia.

Leo:

Huh. I had no idea she’d started already.

Riley:

Well maybe if you got our of your fancy private office every now and then…

Leo:

Alright, alright, point made, let me just…

[SFX: Recording Ends]

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Leanne: Episode Three of Tell No Tales, Part of the Family, was written and performed by Leanne Egan. You also heard the voice of Phil Thompson as Riley Matkins.If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to support the show is to spread the word. Leaving us a rating and review in your listening app of choice is a huge help, or you can follow us on Twitter or Tumblr @tellnotalespodLinks 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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