The Estate of Lucinda Devere

Good evening.

I’m forever saying that to visitors, mainly because I rarely admit company in the morning. The same applies to you, I’m afraid, so make the most of my hospitality.

Tea? Biscuit? I’ll call for a maid.

My name is Lucinda Devere and I am the heiress of an unthinkably large fortune that shall remain nameless for the time being. In order to understand me there are two things you must know. I don’t tell everyone these delectably autobiographical tidbits, for reasons that will become obvious, so pay attention.

Firstly: I murdered my first and last husband. It was not at all grisly as murders generally go, but he certainly had to: on the back of a dustcart. I suppose that is what you get for being addicted to sleeping pills and cavorting with my air-headed, densely-braed younger sister, who spent so much of her life lying down that she really ought to have worn a mattress strapped to her back...the syphilitic, pustule-ridden whore...

Oh my, I am sorry to be vulgar! But fear not. I did the trollop over with a pickaxe soon after. She was still conscious, I believe, as I pressed her covetous eyes into her pretty little skull. Thank goodness for the daschunds and their unnatural hunger for flesh!

I shouldn’t say Ma is happy looking at the way things turned out from her cloud in Heaven, me killing her little girl and disposing of my husband like that. But then, I always reason, her own little girl killed her coming into the world, so it was a case of ‘swings and roundabouts’, as my gardener might say. As for Pa, well, the last we heard of him was in North Africa. It is well known that I was Daddy's girl, so well known in fact that whoever posted his foot from Morocco took the time to address it to me with all my middle names: Theresa Josephine Esmerelda Mary Philomena. I do owe that person an awful lot, for the proof of his death enabled me to bequeth his fortune.

Secondly: I am quite possibly in possession of the only, and certainly most eclectic (if I do say so myself), library of Zombie-related research, lore, biography and fiction. A great deal of it once belonged to the Vampire-loving author Bram Stoker and was scheduled to be transferred to the Psychic Scientist Harry Price’s 'Library of the Occult' in the '30s, but it got lost along the way...four transit-men met a horrific and unexplained death... you can read all about it in Price's archives at Senate House if you'd rather...

Happily the collection has since landed quite safely and securely into my estate. I spend most of my time researching, indexing and cataloguing my collection. Do consult me, I am something of a self-appointed Professor. I fear we are entering a dangerous epoch of zombie attacks.

I hope your tea is not too hot?

Delicious? You’re most welcome. I believe in good manners. Really, it’s all we have.