down. I stuffed myself with a big ham sandwich and a piece of fruitcake and set off. I was heading to an area of the country we refer to as the Cotswolds. It's a fairytale place, where princes live and call in the pub for the odd half pint with the locals; where pop stars inhabit castles and handsome girls called Cressinda and Tasha, their jodhpur- clad bums rising and falling in unison, give you a friendly wave as you drive slowly past their horses. It only rains at night in the Cotswolds, and the streets are dry again by seven fifteen.
The drive down was hellish. You switch off, regard it as five hours taken out of your life and keep an eagle eye on the brake lights of the car in front. Some people, I reminded myself, have to do this every day. I arrived about eight thirty and pulled off the road for a look at the map and a swig of water. As I drove into Uley the sun was low behind me, giving the lighting a magical quality.
It's a one-street village, the one street being called, simply, The Street. It clings to the valley wall rather than following the bottom, giving long views across to the other side. Cotswold stone has a yellow colour, and the angle of the sun and some obscure property of light, to do with frequencies and reflection, conspired to make the walls of the cottages glow. They were made of limestone or sandstone, or perhaps a mixture of the two. I should have paid more attention during those first geology lessons.
Rose Cottage was now an antique shop but the King's Head had seen better days. I drove slowly with my window down, heading uphill to where I could see the church with its square tower and a small, offset spire overlooking the whole valley. There was a village store and post office and some ancient petrol pumps that someone had saved from the scrap heap. The Old Crown pub, bedecked with window boxes, was straight out of the English Heritage brochure.
Marl, I thought. That was the name of the stone. I'd check with Rosie when I saw her. During my drive through the village I didn't see a single estate agent's sign announcing 'House for Sale'. The people of Uley were content with their lot, and I couldn't blame them.
I parked outside the church, St Giles, and went for an explore. There was a graveyard next to the church and another, more modern one across the road. I wandered around this one and read the dates on the headstones. 1950,1952,1969, continuing right up to the present time, many of the later ones bearing flowers in granite vases. In Heckley they'd be stolen. The grass was mown short and grasshoppers whirred away from my feet. The graves covered the period in question but I couldn't see one with the right name on it, or any sign of preparatory work done by the gravediggers. I crossed the road to the graveyard proper.
The ground here was uneven, with the graves crowding against each other as if seeking comfort in their neighbour's proximity. Some had sunk and some were still heaped up, with the headstones leaning at angles. None had flowers on them and no lawnmower could deal with this terrain. Lichen, moss and acid rain had taken their toll, making it difficult to read dates but they must have stretched back at least two hundred years. The graveyard was surrounded by high trees, firs and yew, and sloped down away from the church. Behind the church was a substantial manor house, which I took to be the vicarage or rectory. Or, more likely these days, the Old Vicarage or Old Rectory. I couldn't see Rosie's car but there was one of those miniature JCB excavators parked nearby, ready for action.
The line of least resistance took me downhill and I found myself in the lowest corner of the graveyard. There were planks of wood alongside an unmarked grave, with folded tarpaulins laid next to them and bags of lime under the hedge. I'd found the last resting place of Abraham Barraclough. The sun never penetrated this secret corner but it was a warm, clear evening, the birds were singing and the grass was dry under my feet. So why was the hair on the back of my neck standing on end? I thought of Stephen King and turned back uphill, towards my car and sanctuary.
Dinner in a pub would have made sense but I settled for coffee at the motorway services and had a snooze in the car. Uley was a different place when I returned, just after midnight, the glow of stone replaced by the soft colour of an occasional lighted window, and beyond them an infinity of blackness. It was a moonless night but the stars put on a show for us. I parked my car behind the long line of vehicles near the church and glanced up at them as I zipped my jacket and closed the car door. Maybe that's my way of praying: a casual glance up at the stars; a tacit acknowledgement that there's something out there that's beyond our comprehension and always will be.
The drone of a generator disturbed the night as it fed a couple of floodlights on a column, and blue police tape held back a silent straggle of people who were watching the gravediggers and TV crew at work. I stumbled on the uneven ground and worried about falling through into one of those sunken graves. A uniformed PC saw me approach and detached himself from the onlookers. I introduced myself and asked him to indicate the coroner's officer and the boffin from Chepstow.
'They're disappointed,' the scientist told me, nodding towards the cameras after I found him. 'The coffin's in good condition — solid oak at a guess — so we're enlarging the hole and trying to lift it out fairly intact. Saves me and my assistant getting messed up. They were hoping for some good shots of the lid being smashed open and me climbing out of the grave holding a thigh bone or even the skull.' He gave a little laugh at the thought. 'Bloody ghouls. I don't know why we're helping them. All they want to do is prove that you got it wrong, all those years ago.'
'Perhaps we did,' I replied.
He was silent for a few moments, wondering where my interest lay, then: 'Did you say that you were a friend of the deceased's daughter?'
'Yes.'
'Is she here?'
'I believe so.'
'I need a mouth swab from her. Could you point her out to me?'
'When I find her.'
Rosie was at the edge of the group of people, standing with the vicar and the coroner's officer. They all turned as I approached and Rosie started as she recognised me, then stepped towards me and accepted a hug.
'I didn't expect to see you,' she said but I couldn't think of a reason for being there and just gave her an extra squeeze.
The vicar was called Duncan and had a handshake in proportion to the six-foot-six he stood, while the coroner's officer's was soft and warm. She'd been standing with her hands in her pockets.
'We talked on the phone,' I said to her. 'You must have worked hard, organising all this so quickly.'
'You know what they say, Inspector: Ask a busy woman…'
I turned to Rosie. 'Did you drive down?' I asked.
'Yes. Duncan and his wife are putting me up at the vicarage.'
'That's kind of them. I wish I'd known, I could have brought you.'
'You have work to do.'
'Look at that lot,' the coroner's officer said. 'He'll fall in if he gets any closer.'
The cameraman was pointing his huge shoulder-mounted camera down into the grave while the director endeavoured to hold him back and look over his shoulder at the same time. A third member of the team, the sound man, waved what looked like a flurry animal on the end of a pole over them. Rosie gave a sniff and a sudden swirl of a breeze stirred me tree-tops, as if some restless spirit were up there, trying — to find its way back home.
'C'mon,' I said, taking Rosie by the arm and turning her away from the activity. I switched my hand to hers and she allowed me to lead her towards the church. The light was behind us, so the footing was more secure, and when we were on the paving stones I put my arm across her shoulders.
'You shouldn't be here, Rosie,' I told her, when we were standing inside the doorway of St Giles. 'I can understand you coming, but there's nothing else you can see, nothing you can do. I think you should go to bed.'
'What about you?'
'I'll go home, or book in at the Holiday Inn if I feel tired. I'll be OK, it's you I'm worried about. Listen, Rosie. It's obviously upsetting for you. It would be for anyone. Let them get on with it in their own way. They'll take the coffin to the hospital lab and open it. Apparently they'll have it back here by lunchtime. Maybe you'll be able to say your goodbyes to your dad then, without all this… all this circus.'
'That's what they said,' she admitted. 'Duncan said we could have a little service of interment.'
'That's good of him. Would you like me to be there?'
'I don't know. No, I don't think so. I'd prefer to be on my own. Lay him to rest, one way or another, once and
