Welcome to the Case-Book of Adam Cole!
Below is the first Adam Cole short story, Memento Mori. It was originally published in the August 2017 issue of Mystery Weekly Magazine. Copies of the complete issue are still available through the Mystery Weekly Magazine website in print and on Kindle through Amazon.
I’ve added my story here, free to read, for any one who might want a taste of the character, setting, and my writing before deciding to subscribe:
Set in the autumn of 1886, Adam Cole is tasked with tracking down a photographer who takes before and after photos of his victims - in life then in death - and sends them to the victims’ families:
Memento Mori
London
October 1886
The old man pulled back his jacket and reached inside. Ancient dust and sweat rolled out in a nauseous wave as he pulled a brown envelope from an inner pocket. He held it a moment longer than he should have and his hand trembled once he handed it over.
Adam Cole, not yet thirty, took the envelope and immediately noticed its thick quality and hard backing. There were no markings but he knew it was the sort issued by professional photographers. He pulled back the flap.
The old man closed his eyes and turned away. “My wife only ever had one photograph taken, many years ago,” he said. “It was a wedding gift for me, and is one of my dearest possessions. She spoke of, one day, doing another in old age. But I never imagined this.”
Two cabinet-sized photographs slid out into Cole’s hand, face-to-face, so that only the cream-coloured, glossy backings showed. Curiously, they lacked the photographer’s monograph – quite unheard of. Otherwise, they seemed to come from a reputable studio for they were of heavy cardstock with gold-bevelled edges.
“I warn you, Mr. Cole,” the old man croaked, keeping his head turned away, “they are not pleasant.”
Cole flipped them over on to the round table that separated him from the old man, his client. The left photograph was a matte-finished, sepia-toned image of an old woman, withered with unkempt, wiry hair. Her face, blurred by the prolonged exposure process, was a mask of dismay, mouth agape and eyes bulged with terror. Her small, naked body was lashed to a chair large enough to swallow her.
The second showed the same woman, in the same chair, with the same sepia, matte-finish. But now there was no blur of movement; she had been much more still this time. Her face was calm, head angled down with eyes closed, jaw slack and strands of hair hanging loose across her face. Deep, black gashes and inky smudges of blood over her pale torso betrayed why she had held so still.
Cole gasped, caught himself. “You received these this morning?” he asked.
The old man sobbed. “They were slipped beneath our door. I found them just after six. They could have been placed there any time over night.”
“Your neighbours, they neither heard nor saw anything?”
“I was so distraught when I pounded on their doors – in tears, you understand. But none could tell me anything.”
Cole studied the photographs for another minute, absorbing every detail and setting his subconscious to seek significance from them with the precision of a chess master analysing an impossible endgame. He noted the plain backdrop, as blanched as the dead woman, and the dark ornate curves of the chair and the thick cord that bound her to it with good, strong knots.
Then he folded the photographs together and slipped them into the envelope. The tortured face of the old woman remained burned in his mind, as if the photograph still sat out before him.
“My wife,” the old man said, “she just went out yesterday morning, on an errand. Who could have done this to her? Why? She had no enemies. She is a good woman.”
Cole slipped the envelope into his jacket. He assumed the old man wouldn’t want them back – would never want to see them again.
“What about you?” he asked.
The old man blinked. His lips searched. “Me? You think I -- ?”
“No. I mean do you have any enemies – someone you may have crossed? The delivery of the photographs to you suggests you have been made to suffer, along with your wife.”
“Aye, I’ve wondered that myself, but can think of no one.”
“No one, in all your years?”
“Now I’ve not been a saint, but I think myself a decent man, and my wife – ” he sputtered – “was always a decent woman.”
“Very well. But I cannot lie. The more random this assault against you, the more difficult it shall prove to solve.”
“I’ve not much money – a pensioner of Her Majesty’s navy, you see – but I will pay what I can, Mr. Cole.”
“It is not the money,” Cole replied. “Even £1000 could not guarantee an answer. I will happily accept whatever fee you’ve negotiated with my solicitor. But I cannot help but ask, why me? Why not the official detective force?”
The old man stared with reddened eyes. “Because you are the best at finding answers, Mr. Cole. Better than the Yard, even. And I just want to know who did this to her – and why.”
When the old man had gone Cole sat a moment longer. Only once he looked past the grease-stained window to the damp and grey day beyond did he suddenly recall where he was. The rich scents and clatter of the coffeehouse awoke around him as he was drawn out from his working thoughts. He threw back what remained of the cold coffee he’d long since neglected and, accepting the case of the old man’s wife, started out into the fading daylight.
His first instinct was to hand the photographs to the police, along with the old man’s story. He was uneasy with the confidence placed in his abilities. There were no promises in investigative work, but his client seemed to think by hiring Cole he’d bought himself one. Besides, murder was for the police, not private enquiry agents.
But could it hurt him to look into it – just a little?
A steam of logical and creative pressures had by now built up in his mind, and would burn until vented through hard work.
So he began where the old man had.
The rickety doors in the mouse-eaten tenement dwelling wanted to splinter under Cole’s fist. He knocked up all the old man’s neighbours, most as rickety and mouse-eaten as the building they called home. They wanted to help – knew the old man, felt terrible about the old lady. But none had seen or heard a thing.
He checked the landing around the old man’s door and under shadowy gaslight inspected the stairs. A decade of dust betrayed a decade of footprints. Any one of them, or none, could be the tread of the man behind this.
Unsure where to go next he sat and drank and smoked and tried to build more steam to keep his mental dynamo turning. He’d once been a chess player, on the European circuit. Had played Morphy – and lost. That was years ago. Ambition had been hard won ever since. He forced it on himself as often as possible to keep one step ahead of the gutter, the cell, the workhouse – or the grave.
***
Lurid details filled the East End evening broadsheets.
Cole bought them all and sat in an ill-lit doorway along Commercial Street and read them. No words were spared to describe the awful crime – two photographs taken, one in life, one post-mortem, and left in an unmarked envelope, to be discovered and illicit horror and grief. And sensationalism, no doubt.
No other clue was given. The police were investigating.
Only, they were investigating a different crime – one that mirrored Cole’s enquiries. Unlike the old man, the young wife of the young man murdered in the news stories had gone into hysterics and went straight to the coppers.
Smarter than the old man, anyway.
The pressure, at least, should be off him. When Cole closed his eyes, the sad gaze of the old man flickered in his memories. The images of the old woman – in final life, then death – screamed in silent stillness in his mind. He sighed and cast the sheaf of newspapers into the gutter. The pressure was worse.
***
A grey dawn cried drizzled tears. The inescapable chill of the damp bit through his clothes and boots. All along the Whitechapel Road the horses and carts pounded and growled past by the hundreds. Only the voices of the newsboys and fruit-sellers were louder.
His thoughts shouted too, with that hollow shriek all creative minds heard when there should be something but there was nothing.
He sat in a public house decorated in nautical accoutrements. Over fried eggs, burnt toast and golden rum Cole considered the sorry photographs, once again laid out before him on the table.
All the while he kept an ear open to the sordid talk of those seated around him. The memento mori murders were the coal that fed the flames of popular conversation.
“What’s it mean?” a sea-weathered man asked: “Me-men-to – ”
“Mori,” a lady finished. “From the death pictures those photographers take. Of kids and stuff what’s died. The grievin’ parents, wantin’ a photo to remember their dead child by dress and make up the corpse, and have a proper picture done. The words are French,” she added with smart finality.
Latin, actually, Cole thought, meaning, “Remember, death,” or something similar.
Another man, speaking over a clay pipe, said, “Aye, I once knew a family, when I was a lad, that had done that with their girl. A sad thing.”
“But who coulda done such a thing as this?” the lady asked, stirring the coals, sparking speculation.
Most blamed the Jews. Or the Negroes. One of the men whispered of a huge Red Indian he’d seen a fortnight ago, working the docks. “Them kind are all savages,” he concluded.
Cole leaned back, lit a cigarette. Yes, but do they have the equipment, the studio, the knowledge of photography? The murderer has means and knowledge.
The elusive question was how does he benefit?
A question a smoke-filled public house could never answer.
Cole walked through the morning bustle under a canopy of wet haze and horse-tainted air. He had his head down, hat tilted low on his brow. The sepia-toned memento mori of the old woman turned over and again in his mind. Lost in thought, he nearly ploughed into a burly man in a sailor’s cap exiting a maritime shop, a coil of heavy rope lashed over his shoulder.
The sailor glowered, spat at Cole’s feet and went on his way, toward the river.
Cole stood at the top of the street, watched him go. The sailor fought to keep the rope from sliding down his arm with each step.
His mind turned back to the old woman, bound by rope to the chair, first to keep her restrained, then to keep her corpse from slumping to the floor.
Yes, the rope. Ordinary rope – not the thick kind the sailor carried. But the strong knots that bound it. Not a simple knot – not one an ordinary man might use. Not even one a stable-hand would use.
In desperate hours, Cole had worked the docks for the pennies needed to earn his bread and gin. He’d seen countless ships and sailors and miles on miles of rope – and the specific knots sailors used to tie them.
The ropes in the photographs were tied with a sailor’s sturdy bowknot.
But photographers and sailors were not of the same stock. Like comparing gorillas to housecats. Photographers were men of a learned trade. How many might also be sailors?
***
Newsboys cried out the afternoon’s headlines from every street corner. A boy of seven, missing since yesterday, was the newest victim – but not as yet dead. The parents had been left the customary photograph – only one – of the boy, alive and crying, lashed to the same chair as the others. Detailed lithographs had been made. Posters were plastered everywhere and constables were passing out handbills, thrusting them on all passers-by. They hoped somebody would recognise the boy in time, before the final, fatal photograph was delivered. Somebody, somewhere, must surely have spotted him?
Cole studied one of the handbills, the ink on it staining his fingers. It was not a perfect reproduction, the image somewhat dark, but enough detail was there – the chair and the rope, the same skilful knots. Below the image, a paragraph stated that the cabinet photo had been done in the “new style of the gelatin bromide process,” as had the young man’s photographs the day before.
The old lady’s too, undoubtedly.
But while some things remained the same, one important detail had changed. Why the one photograph now? To tease and torment? Again, where was the benefit – the motivation – in such an act? He’d first believed the old man had been made to suffer for some misdeed. But there seemed no link between his hapless client, the young husband, and now this small boy.
What did the murderer want – what might he gain?
Cole folded and tucked the handbill in with the envelope.
His afternoon was productive. First, he’d gone to the Photographic Society and filed an enquiry: he was looking for a photographer, one with a knowledge of ships and sailing, for a book he hoped to compile. It would help if the photographer used the new gelatin bromide process, for the pictures would appear much better in print.
“And he should preferably work in the East End,” Cole added. All the victims were in East London; the murderer might be too.
The clerk at the society was eager to help and consulted his register for photographers in East London.
He came back with two names.
Cole visited the first, found him a wizened and weak-framed man of eighty who enjoyed taking photographs of ships – his studio was filled with such images – but he’d never set foot on one.
After, Cole returned to the old man’s tenement to deliver news that progress was being made, and justice for his wife, surely, was not far off. The door rattled when he knocked, but there was no stir from within. He waited two minutes, called out twice, but when no answer came he set off.
***
The evening light was dim behind gunmetal clouds. Cole stood at the edge of a park, collar turned up, hat tipped low. Leaves the colours of Hell scattered and danced around his feet. Few clung to the skeletal trees that swayed in the autumn wind. Across the roadway, windows blazed orange with gaslight in a terraced shop front. The peeled hoarding above the windows stated J.B. BROWN PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIOS. A shadow stirred behind the grime-smeared glass and went out of view.
This was the address of the second listing he’d been provided.
Cole steeled himself and entered the shop. A bell tinkled overhead. A strong smell of harsh chemicals greeted him with a slap. Gaslight hissed and guttered in their sconces and mice scratched unseen through the wainscoting. A long counter and walls brimming with dozens of photographic portraits yawned. Whomever the shadow had belonged to was not in sight. Wavering black curtains across a doorway opposite hinted at recent movement.
“A moment!” a man’s voice called from beyond the curtains.
When they parted, a large man, more gorilla than housecat, emerged. Cole put him at fifty. Wispy, swept-back orange-grey hair and matching arched eyebrows and whiskers framed the heavy, round face. Brown eyes beamed behind wire spectacles as fat lips curled into a wet smile, exposing crooked, yellow teeth. His complexion was sunburnt and salt-weathered – the tattoo of a man who had known years at sea.
“Good evening, sir,” he greeted.
Cole smiled as his eyes probed. “Good evening,” he said. “I trust you are Mr. Brown?”
“At your service, sir.”
“My name is Cole. I’m here on behalf of the Maritime Assurance Company. I was told you might be able to assist me.”
“Oh?”
Cole told of his reference from the society and his need for a quality photographer with a strong knowledge of ships.
“Ah, yes,” Brown said. “Indeed, I have substantial maritime experience. You see, I plied the oceans as a young man to earn my way. Until the bug for photography bit, that is. Have spent ten years working with cameras now. So I may just be the man you want.”
“I hope so.”
They spoke a little more of Cole’s pre-textual needs and Brown’s long list of qualifications.
“You certainly seem to know the ropes,” Cole concluded.
Brown smiled his ugly smile.
Cole glanced about, studying the man’s extensive portfolio displayed on the walls. His eyes alighted on a framed portraiture of a family with young children. One child sat in the large, familiar, ornate chair.
“Tell me,” he asked, “is that one of those memento mori photographs so much has been said about?”
Brown’s brow furrowed. “Eh? No, not at all.” He laughed. “Happily, that family are all alive and well.”
“Good to know,” Cole said. “Terrible business this news about the photographs.”
He allowed an uneasy silence to creep by, which Brown felt compelled to fill: “Yes, yes, quite terrible. Had a detective in here, in fact, just today. It seems they are enquiring at all the photographic studios.”
“They would be.”
“Indeed, quite. Looking for information on the photographs to help their investigation along. Had to give my apologies, of course.”
There was something wrong about the man. Wrong in that Cole doubted he could be the author of those horrible photographs; doubted he could kill a rat, let alone a human being. He was just too ordinary.
But there were the simple facts that had guided him here and they could not be ignored, even if the round, orange face of Brown seemed not to fit their suggestions.
And there was the matter of the blood.
Brown had his right arm crooked up, wiping at the sweat on his brow. The white sleeve of his shirt was mottled with fresh, rust-coloured spots.
Cole pointed: “Are you injured?”
Brown, off his guard, lowered his arm, inspected the offending stains, and withdrew it behind his back, smiling. “Oh that, yes. Earlier, earlier. Quite all right now. Just a scrape.” He blinked uneasily. “So, yes. You seek a photographer?”
Cole wanted to see more. More of the shop, more of the man. “I am certainly interested in your experience,” he said. “Your work here looks splendid. Perhaps you might indulge me further?”
“How so, sir?”
“A photograph of myself – for my sweetheart. It would make a nice surprise for her. I will pay, of course.”
“Delightful idea, Mr. Cole, delightful! You would like a cabinet sized portrait? I use the latest gelatin bromide techniques. Quicker exposures, developed in minutes. At one-and-six they’re a bit more expensive than a matte collodion.”
Cole asked to see the cardstock.
Brown shuffled behind the counter and laid out a sample. Square. Heavy weight. Creamy-yellow with gold-bevelled edges.
“Many studios use identical stock,” Brown said. “But I will add a matte and gloss finish, front and back.”
“Sounds wonderful,” Cole said, fishing coins from his pocket.
Brown guided him past the curtain. A narrow corridor, nearly lost to darkness, ran beyond. Closed doors regarded both men with dead eyes.
The photographer opened the first door on the left. A small, square studio with a heavy backdrop strung across the far wall, an armrest stand before it, waited inside. A sturdy wood tripod and table with an assortment of bulge-eyed brass lenses sat opposite the blank backdrop.
“You may make yourself comfortable,” Brown said. “Perhaps find a pose you like, to impress your sweetheart. What is her name?”
A portrait of a country landscape bathed in morning light hung on the wall beyond Brown’s shoulder.
“Dawn,” Cole replied.
“Ah! A lovely name and my favourite part of the day. Oh, if you could – ” Brown collected a stub of pencil and scrap of paper from the table. He gave them to Cole. “Please record an address where you and your lovely Dawn might be found. I am always hoping to build my clientele, you see. Meanwhile, I will go a fetch my camera from the back studio. A moment!”
He left, the floorboards in the corridor moaning under his heavy tread. A door further down groaned on its hinges and shut again. Cole scribbled down an address, smiling as he did so, and left the paper on the table.
Brown returned, the mahogany box of a large camera in his hands. He extended the leather bellows and affixed it to the tripod. Cole noticed his pockets bulged, and expected to see the photographer draw out a lens for the camera. Instead he selected one from the table, and fit it into the brass socket on the camera’s face.
Cole stood in wait, leaning on the armrest. He watched with interest as Brown plucked up and read the address he’d written.
“How very strange,” Brown muttered. “I just…”
He said nothing more, turned back to Cole with wide eyes and a brow that glistened fiery against the whiteness of the studio.
Cole pretended not to notice, feigning adjustments to his hair and collar.
Brown approached. Over the natural sting of his body hair and sweat he carried a harsh, chemical cloak that had not been there moments ago. He asked, “Would you prefer a chair, Mr. Cole?”
“No, I’ve been tied to a chair all day,” he replied. “I’d prefer to stand. Besides, Dawn enjoys my height over anything else about me.”
“Yes, you are a tall man. Very admirable trait.” Brown’s damp fingers touched Cole, fine-tuning the angle of his jaw and chin and picking dust from his coat. He stepped behind him. The fingers nudged and prodded Cole’s head and shoulders.
Then they went away.
Cole stared at the blind eye of the camera. A coldness washed over him – an uneasiness about having Brown at his back. He could hear the man breathing, could smell him. That chemical odour. He’d first associated it to the man’s trade, the emulsion fluids used. No, it was more familiar than that.
Ether!
Did photographers use -- ?
An iron arm snapped around him, squeezed him tight. Cole wrestled against the grip, turning away from the other arm as it whipped toward his face. An ether-soaked rag was clutched in Brown’s free hand. He fought to clamp it over Cole’s nose and mouth. The man had brute girth, but was slow and no longer held the element of surprise that had no doubt aided him in securing his previous victims.
Cole worked fast. He lifted his legs off the floor. The sudden weight pulled on Brown and caused him to loosen his hold, allowing Cole to slip free. Brown dropped the rag as he struggled to regain control. Two sharp elbow jabs, one to the man’s upper chest, one to his jaw, sent Brown reeling back.
Cole stumbled forward, heart pounding, throat burning. He turned to see Brown, looking equally as panicked, lurch toward him. Brown pulled the small bottle of ether from his pocket and dropped it as he next dug out a six-inch clasp-knife, snapping it open. The blade pointed at Cole, a deadly steel finger in Brown’s hand.
Panting, Brown charged and swiped at the air.
His eyes fixed on the blade Cole dove and staggered to avoid each slice. He got around the table, keeping it between he and Brown. Both men paused, working out where to go next.
Cole quickly calculated his few options.
He sprang aside as Brown lanced at him over the tabletop, his shoulder striking the camera and nearly sending it sideways to the floor. Brown stepped toward him, knife poised to strike.
As he threw both arms around the tripod mount, collapsing the legs inward, Cole felt a searing cold tear down his left shoulder. He raised the heavy camera; his shoulder screamed. Brown pulled back, ready to drive the blade full-length into Cole’s back.
Cole spun around, swinging the camera box outward. A quicker man would have avoided it. Brown, reflexes slowed at the sight of his precious camera being used as a club, caught the full blow of it across his head.
A grunt and a mist of blood and spittle burst from his mouth as he stumbled aside, dazed, blade limp in his hand.
When the man did not go down, Cole wound back and swung again, harder, driving the brass-ringed lens into Brown’s skull. The wood and leather case exploded to pieces and the lens popped out and cracked on the floor. Cole wound back for another strike with the wooden legs of the mount. Only now, Brown’s eyes rolled back, the knife dropped from his fingers and he slumped sideways against the wall, sinking to the floor. Blood streamed from a gash in his left temple.
Cole dropped the splintered tripod to the floor. He gasped for air. Sweat soaked every inch of him. His ears throbbed and his shoulder, warm and sticky under his coat, burned through to the muscle. He gritted his teeth, flexed his fingers and caught his breath. Brown breathed but did not move.
Cole staggered out, toward the front door, then remembered something and turned back.
The rear studio was dim. The backdrop, the chair – it was the studio from the memento mori photographs.
The missing boy was still lashed to the chair. His white body was smeared with red from three ugly slices on his torso. He reeked of copper and urine – the blood dripped and mixed with the golden puddle beneath the chair.
Cole stepped inward but the boy did not react.
He reached for him and his fingers touched cold rubber.
Cole sighed.
In response, the boy rasped. His chin slowly lifted. Tired, reddened eyes, strained with fear, regarded Cole and blinked.
Purple lips trembled: “Please, sir. No more.”
The knots were impeccable.
Cole returned to the studio where Brown remained slumped against the wall and collected the clasp-knife from the debris on the floor.
Brown gasped. His head turned. Tired eyes, wide with fear, gazed at Cole from behind crooked spectacles.
Wet lips trembled: “Please, Mr. Cole – no more of this.”
Cole kneeled, holding the knife ready. He stared into Brown’s sweat and blood-slicked face: “Why did you do it?”
His head shook. “For the same reason that you eat and breathe. Because I had to.”
A chill ran through Cole. Even his shoulder went numb.
He returned to the boy. Three minutes later, with the boy wrapped in Cole’s coat, they found a constable on the street.
As night set on London, police swarmed Brown’s studio and the photographer started down the long road to the noose.
***
Morning.
Cole had not slept. The station smelled of carbolic acid, stronger even than the aroma of the ruddy coffee the inspector had just served him. At long last, the marathon of questions and statements was near its end.
The inspector lit a pipe, adding cheap tobacco to the close atmosphere. “That address you wrote for Brown,” he said. “Not your real one, I take.”
“Of course not. It’s that of the tenement where my client lives. Just wanted to see how Brown would react on reading it. He clearly recognised it – stopped himself from blurting it out.”
“You took an awful chance.”
“A calculated risk. Used to play chess that way.”
“And you lost at it in the end. Might keep that in mind next time, Mr. Cole.”
Cole smiled and sipped the steaming coffee. “You manage to get much sense from Mr. Brown?” he asked.
“Despite the dust-up you gave him, sure. No hard feelings about it on this end, by the way. I’d have completely caved his head in. No hard feelings from him either.”
“What’d you mean?”
“Mr. Brown wishes to thank you. For stopping him. Said it was all a fantasy for years. Festered like a disease in his brain, till that old woman showed up at his shop, looking for a photograph to give old dad as a gift. She were alone. Gentle. Frail. Easy prey – so he went and did it.” The inspector shrugged. “Don’t ask why. Makes no sense. Those German alienists should give him a once over, see what his brain’s all about.”
“Same story with the man and the boy?”
“Sure,” the inspector said. “Man wanted a photo for his missus, got taken out from behind while he sat to pose. Ether. Nasty stuff. Boy, too. Came in, hoped a few pennies would buy a nice photo for mum. Brown took advantage. Only now it was in the papers, a sensation. Lucky, too, for the boy. Brown wanted to keep it going. Said he found it all thrilling. Then he broke down and cried – and that’s when he said to thank you for getting on to him. Knows he’s sick, just couldn’t help himself.” The inspector shook his head, drew on his pipe. “Pray God he’s a rare breed. Hard to catch when they’ve not a clear reason for doing it.”
Cole left the station and walked into a dreary morning. Rain poured, dripped from his hat brim and down his collar. He lifted his left arm to adjust it, was greeted with fire. A doctor had stitched the neat slash but Cole had yet to partake in the recommended whiskey needed to silence the wound’s piercing scream.
So he stopped and drank at a public house off the Whitechapel High Street, hoping the rain would settle before he went back out.
It got worse. He went out anyway, one final task at hand.
He made his way up the dank stairwell of the tenement and rapped at the paper-thin door. Still no answer. Where had the old man gone?
The latch lifted when he tried it and he eased the door open.
“Hello?” he called, his echo the only response.
The flat was small. Grey muslin shadowed the window. Aged smells of dust, sweat and bad cooking tried to shove him out the door. Cole pressed inward.
The old man lay peacefully asleep on a tattered sofa. His arms were crossed, clutching a slim folder to his chest.
No, not asleep Cole discovered, but peaceful nonetheless.
He slipped the folder from the cold hands, opened it. Inside was a sepia-toned cabinet photograph of the old lady. But she wasn’t old. She sat in a big chair, but wasn’t lashed to it. And she smiled.
Cole placed the folder back where he found it, pressed against the old man’s extinguished heart.
“Remember, death,” he said, and stood to go.
THE END
For the true story behind the Victorians and “memento mori” photography, please check out my article NOTES ON VICTORIANA - 001 - “Remember, death” at the link below: