 Usually, if I have a good story, I give it to a newspaper. That's what I do. I'm a journalist in London. I write features, true crime, human interest. But I couldn't pitch this story to any of my contracts because, though it's a good story, I got too involved. I broke the law, but I'm putting it here because I want everyone to be clear about one thing that Norwood Cemetery is not haunted. Why would you care that somewhere you've never heard of isn't haunted by things only gullible people would believe in anyway? Because I want to show you how easy it is for even very rational people like me to have their doubts leap to bizarre, frightening conclusions until they look at it the right way. Norwood Cemetery is in London. If you've ever been to London, you'll know there's a lot of history here. Go for a piss down the right alley and you'll look up and see graffiti from the 17th century. Sit on a bench to eat lunch and when you look at the plaque, you'll realize you've been sitting on something older than the United States of America. I live in Norwood in South London. The history is deep here, even in the name Norwood. It's a remnant of the Great North Wood, which in the 12th century stretched south from the River Thames. Along with its own tributary, all the way down to a place called Gypsy Hill. And in Norwood, a lot of history is buried in the cemetery and apparently sometimes it doesn't stay there. One drizzly November afternoon, Jay and Keith, not their real names, were in the park on Gypsy Hill just south of Norwood. The night before, Keith had gotten into trouble with a gang for selling weed somewhere he shouldn't have. So he was checking his phone constantly and at first missed what Jay saw washed up on the edge of the pond. At first, Jay thought it was the wreckage of a rowing boat. Then he thought people don't row in the Gypsy Hill pond. On closer inspection, they found the structure was a large wooden box. It was broken up with loose planks floating in the water. They realized what it was. A coffin. Keith was the boulder of the two and he did stupid things. He grabbed a stick and he approached the semi-submerged coffin. Jay told him to leave it alone. But Keith poked into the dark box simply because it would upset Jay. Then the two of them covered their mouths because there was a stench the worst they'd ever smelled. Jay screamed. A gray blue arm floated from the coffin. But even as they both yelled and discussed, they noticed a flicker of something golden half an hour later after Jay and Keith left the park. A dog walker saw the coffin and rang the authorities. 40 minutes later, I was standing where Jay and Keith had. Only moments after the first two police officers arrived. One of the benefits of getting my career started in local journalism is that friendly police officers still give me a tip off if there's an interesting call out. This was an interesting call out. When the criminal forensics team arrived, they told the investigating officer what was obvious to everyone that this was an old coffin and an old cadaver and not a contemporary homicide. I didn't look at it too closely. I just saw a flash of grayish something floating in a distressingly lifelike way. I concentrated on the central question. What was this doing in the pond at Gypsy Hill? I knew the second in command in the forensics team. And once I'd plied her with a takeaway coffee, she told me that based on the plaque on the side of the coffin, the poor old bastard in the pond was Benjamin Poltus deceased 1869. And according to the plaque, he was very much meant to be in West Norwood Cemetery where he was buried 151 years ago. In journalism, we call that a lead. I drove to the cemetery immediately. My plan was to get pictures of the desecrated grave before the authorities could stop me. Obviously, I wouldn't be so tasteless with a contemporary murder case. But this had a curious Gothic Victorian ring to it. And I thought a national paper might buy the story if I could get the right picture to go with it. The details of what mad man had dug up and carried an old coffin half a mile south to Gypsy Hill would have to come later. The attendant at the cemetery, a jocular 60 something man called Trevor, got off his map and pointed out to me where Benjamin was buried or was meant to be. I hadn't been to the cemetery in a few years and was sad to see how dilapidated it had become. The grass was overgrown and crumbling pieces of tombstone lay scattered across the path, but it still had its charm. High gate cemetery might get all the tourists, but Norwood Cemetery is essentially untouched since Victorian times. Decades of earth displacement has made all the graves stand at different angles like jagged teeth. It started raining, which made it harder to find my way. I was a little on edge after seeing the body. I did a double take whenever an angel statue loomed out of the mist. But then I found Benjamin's grave site and my mouth fell open. I couldn't believe it. There was the moss covered tombstone of Benjamin Poltus 1799 to 1869 fondly remembered and there perfectly untouched was his grave. The grass was overgrown at exactly the same length as the surrounding area. It seemed the soil hadn't been disturbed at all since the day he was buried. I was convinced I'd been given the wrong information by Trevor or by my forensics contact. I stood there for what felt like a long time just glancing about as though expecting the answer to come striding over to me between the crooked gravestones. Eventually the police turned up and they too were stumped. Over the course of the afternoon they checked every angle and they confirmed the coffin in the pond was indeed that of Benjamin Poltus and that he was indeed meant to be in his coffin under that perfectly undisturbed earth. We got Trevor the attendant to look at the grave. He said he was certain it hadn't been touched at least as long as he'd worked there nearly 30 years. Why has he gone walkies? Trevor joked and gave us a smile flashing his missing tooth. None of us felt like laughing. After that day, the local pubs were filled with stories of Benjamin Poltus' mysterious journey. The pubs around Norwood are very old-fashioned. Open fires, candles, red-nosed Londoners eating a slice of pork pie and gossiping over an ale. And as the parchment-like leaves fell and scuttled along the pavements that November, stories of Benjamin Poltus' staggering undead body spread like a disease. I overheard the gossip every time I went to my local. But let me be clear, Norwood's cemetery is not haunted. That's the point of the story. The story of Benjamin's coffin is exactly the kind of thing that the credulous among us would say was inexplicable and so therefore somehow proof of something impossible. Well, it is explicable. In fact, the more rationally-minded might be able to figure out what really happened just from what you've read so far. Like I said, in London, history is just below the surface. And like I said, the Great Northwood used to run from the Thames down south all the way to Norwood with a tributary. Well, the Great Northwood is now Norwood, and the tributary is now underground. It's called the River Ephra. It splits from the Thames at Lambeth Bridge and flows south underground under Norwood's cemetery, all the way to Gypsy Hill. When the authorities reburied him with just a police officer, a vicar and Trevor in attendance, they found the soil had eroded and the coffin had collapsed into the water and been carried away south all the way to an outlet and the pond at Gypsy Hill where Jay and Keith found it. Old Benjamin Polkis had been on an unexpected posthumous boating trip. So everything fell neatly into place. And I wrote up the story of the underground river and the coffin. I got my piece in a Sunday newspaper for 400. The local authorities were embarrassed into commissioning an investigation into soil erosion at the cemetery. The end. But it was strange, and this is where the story truly becomes strange. I felt like there was unfinished business. That name, Polkis, I'd heard it before. I'm a journalist, so I work my anxieties out with research. My desk overlooks our back garden, and when I can't sleep, my wife finds me there with my lamp on, staring out onto the moonlit lawn, hand resting on my notebook, laptop open on some historical record site. That's where she found me, three nights after my story had appeared in the Sunday paper. Is that Benjamin Polkis? She asked. Yeah, it feels like there's more to the story. You've already been paid, love. Don't think unless someone's paying you. My wife is a lawyer. She went to bed. Unable to heed her advice, I turned to my laptop and hunted for Benjamin Polkis. I found out he wasn't a pleasant guy. He was a slum landlord in Norwood, known for his heartless treatment of tenants. He became wealthy, but he never married, never had any children. And his funeral, according to the local church records, was attended only by his brother, sister-in-law, and nieces. But I recognize the brother-in-law's name, Alfred Polkis. That's where I'd heard the polkis name before. But who was Alfred Polkis? By this point, I had a glass of bourbon, and there was no way I was going to sleep. I remembered I'd come across Alfred when I was cutting my teeth in local journalism. Sometimes I did historical pieces. And that's when I came across him. He was a lawyer and man of letters, and a very different example of a polkis compared to his brother. He was a compassionate man known for his charitable work, and for publishing a small print run of his diaries. The next day, as I finished a long overdue feature, I kept thinking about Alfred's diary. And when the piece was finally done, I went to Norwood Library. Like a lot of London libraries, Norwood Library was in a beautiful old Victorian building next to the cemetery. The local history archives were housed there, and I knew the system well enough to track down Alfred's diaries with the help of the librarian. She brought them to where I sat by a window in the corner of the library, which overlooked the cemetery. It was dark now, and it was lit only by the occasional lonely lamp. She shook her head. I hear bad things about that cemetery these days. No one wants to sit in that window anymore. I smiled politely and dug into the diaries, and she left. Alfred's compassion glowed from every page, and even though he was deeply religious, he was also a very rational man. He tried to apply this compassion and reason to his brother, whose needless cruelty was evident whenever he was mentioned. One passage stood out from 1860. This is what it said. Benjamin once again sent his apologies at a dreadfully late hour and failed to attend our dinner with the Isaacs. Alfred's wife, Mary, was, as always, an angelic host, but once our most pleasant guest had departed, she was distraught and rather angry at Benjamin. I told her that I shared in her disappointment, though we must, of course, forgive my brother. Mary, in her frustration, told me that was precisely the kind of thing I always said, and would I please join her in her anger? She went on to relate how she'd heard a rumor about Benjamin, which, while absurd, is instructive as to the extent his public esteem is mutilated by his unchristian behavior. She said that an acquaintance of hers had heard that Benjamin had bought a dilapidated house on Gypsy Hill for a keen price, whereupon he found that an elderly woman of strange reputation was residing in the property, unknown to any authority. Sad to say, Benjamin allegedly forcefully evicted the poor creature, with the assistance of local men and his horrid dogs so much is regrettably believable. However, the rumor was further embellished by the incredible detail that the woman, who was alleged to be involved in affairs of the occult, had cursed my brother in some manner as punishment for his wicked treatment of her. It is an absurd tale, but I am saddened that people could so easily believe it and pass it on, such is his reputation. Things haven't changed much since Alfred's Day. Rumor and mystery still spreads faster than the truth. The library closed, and I had to leave the diary. I had some missed calls from a number I didn't recognize, but I ignored them. At home, I used the internet to fill in background on Benjamin Pultus. One source from a contemporary newspaper covered a time that a charitable lawyer in a similar vein to his brother tried to have him convicted for abusing his tenants. The details were horrible. One incident for which there were multiple witnesses stood out. Benjamin demanded that a sick tenant who was late with rent had to wear a chain leash around his neck. Benjamin led him around on all fours, yanking occasionally at the man's throat to make him yelp. Benjamin was found innocent on all charges, and went on to make even more money the next year. I was the first person in the door at Norwood Library the next evening, a foggy cold day. I had begun to plan a feature about Benjamin. Maybe I would use the coffin story as an opener, then tell a broader story about money and power in Victorian London. But the story had its own ideas. I came across this entry from Alfred several years after the one quoted above and around a year before Benjamin's death. This is what Alfred's entry said. Saw Benjamin this morning and was afflicted by the sight of him. He's grown thin and scratches at his eyes incessantly. He talks only of wealth and small malices that he intends to enact on those who have deprived him. And all the time, he clutches a golden pocket watch. I remarked that the thing seemed dearer to him than his own heart. And he reacted in the most peculiar way. He looked frightened and asked me what I meant. I explained it was a light hearted remark. And he looked at me suddenly solemn and asked me that I remember many years ago when there was such malicious gossip about him leaving homeless a certain elderly woman in Gypsy Hill. I said yes, I recalled having heard such nonsense. He told me and my brother has rarely looked so serious. He told me that the old woman had indeed practiced the occult as the rumors had said and that on the evening he came with the dogs and men to chase her from the property. She stood before the red sunset and raised her arms in a contorted manner and told him that he loved money more than his own heart and that therefore his precious golden pocket watch which he liked to display to those he tormented would become his new heart and that if he was ever separated from it even in death he would have to raise his tired bones and seek it out or suffer the pains of hell. I laughed or tried to and said surely you do not believe such things you such a rational man who's always scolded me for my religion and he said this is my religion brother I believe it for never have I left the thing more than an arms reach away without feeling the most extraordinary pain and he made me swear there and then that I'd have him buried with it insisted that I swear which I did and it calmed him. I finished reading the entry and I read those three words again. Buried with it there'd been no mention of a golden pocket watch by any of the police officers at the crime scene and yet I felt Alfred Poltis was a man of his word. I could picture him regretfully slipping the thing into his brother's hand before burying him what must it be worth? Google gave me an answer to that it was probably worth a new house did it lie now at the bottom of gypsy hill pond that morning I'd found a photograph of Benjamin Poltis his face did not disappoint emaciated clever cruel with big sideburns and a sunken vicious set of eyes that seemed to challenge you right from the photograph and I fought I don't mind the idea of stealing from you you horrible bastard maybe I would have gone to the pond in gypsy hill right then and there and scrambled about in the mud and dark if I hadn't checked my phone and saw the person who'd left me several missed calls had just sent me a text the text message read I've got a gold watch from the dead dude you wrote about in the paper please call that evening I sat in an armchair in the great northwood pub next to the fire opposite me was Jay one of the thieves who discovered the coffin he was fidgeting and kept looking about the pub like a bird my assumption was that he like many in norwood had heard the hysterical stories of strange sightings in the cemetery and that given his personal history with the corpse and young age he'd caught the norwood cemetery fever he'd said his aunt had put my article up on Facebook and it looked like I knew all about the guy whose body was floating in gypsy hill ponds I said yes I knew about the guy then Jay explained to me that he and Keith had been the first to find the body that Keith had been messing about and poked at it and that some golden thing had come loose and they'd grabbed it before leaving we just thought he's not going to miss it he said they thought it was the perfect crime the watch looked like real gold they googled how to tell and no one was going to know the guy had been buried with it he was long long dead they took it to Keith's flat and over some beers they googled how to sell into the jewelry black market they argued over who would get to keep it and Jay won the argument he took the watch to his flat around three in the morning the next day Keith didn't pick up his phone or respond to messages Jay was worried but then he saw a voicemail Keith was crying at the very start of the recording he can be heard saying this guy is saying he wants his watch back his pocket watch he's just sitting in my table looking at me right now his face I'm scared Jay then there was a lot more sobbing and shouting it was hard to listen to I asked Jay how Keith was now and he looked at me like I was an idiot and said Keith was found dead in his flat yesterday morning he'd been torn limb from limb it was a cliched expression but when I spoke to my forensics contact later it turned out to be horrifically accurate his cousin who'd found him had needed emergency psychiatric help I guessed at what had happened maybe Keith had been selling drugs somewhere he shouldn't have been nor would had its gangs maybe Keith had crossed them and they'd murdered him in an unusually vicious way to send a message but Jay who hadn't turned 20 yet had soaked up all the stupid rumors about the man the man that had started walking the graveyard at night the man with yellow white hair and a cruel face the searching man the angry man in the cemetery at night and then he took out something wrapped in napkins out of his pocket and he held it out to me he was crying take it give it back to him bury it with him I want out he'll come for me next maybe he still will but it's all I can do tell him I'm sorry he practically forced the bundle into my hands it felt very heavy for such a small thing the moment he gave it to me a weight lifted from his shoulders he couldn't wait to get out of the pub as if I changed my mind and forced him to take the treasure back the reason I could never put my name to this story and sell it to an editor is sitting next to my laptop right now I let that poor boy believe the horror story and I took the stolen goods I was in accessory to a grave robbery I know it's wrong but equally Jay had no more of a right to the watch than I did I've tried calling him but he hasn't picked up the phone he wants to move on and I can't blame him the watch is the most luxurious thing I've ever owned an elegant beautiful piece inside is the inscription benjamin poultice and this is amazing when you wind it up it still ticks it's surprisingly loud I don't know when but at some point I will sell it I can explain the windfall to my wife with an excuse or maybe I'll just tell her the truth I don't think anyone could feel like robbing from such a horrible man long deceased was much of a crime the sensationalist and me almost wishes that nor would really was haunted the idea is infectious if I look out into my garden just beyond where the moonlight reaches perhaps I think I see something sometimes I think it's moving and I can't help but wonder is it Benjamin poultice