27 November 2026
Friday. Nearly saw him. Nearly.
Came on shift last night and the staff were all standing round plot one, very quiet, like at a christening. The lid was up. Inside, a top hat, tipped over the face of somebody lying very still in a frock coat, snoring. The young ones in hoodies had found him there an hour before and didn’t have the heart to wake him.
I didn’t look under the hat. Some things you’re better off not knowing. I raked round the plot very gently and put a blanket over the end of it, because the nights are still cold at that hour, villain or no villain.
By morning the hat was gone, the blanket was folded on my barrow and there was a note: “The fit is correct.” I have no idea what that means and I have put it in the drawer with the wax seal.
Tally: plots disturbed, two, one of them by the man who owns them. I don’t know what to write in the column for that. I have left it blank.
— H., groundskeeper
