Suddenly the man seemed to push against the railings and was through to the cemetery where his black shape flitted briefly across the white of the headstones before being gulped up by the darkness.
Gilmore was out of the car while Frost was still fumbling for his seat belt.
One of the cast iron railings had rusted away and could be lifted from its concrete base. Gilmore pulled it up and wriggled though, then held it so Frost could follow.
The cemetery was vast. Their man could have gone any where. ‘We’ve lost the bugger, son.’
‘Shh!’ hissed Gilmore, squinting to focus his eyes. ‘There!’
Frost’s eyes followed Gilmore’s finger. The moon pushed its way through a cloud and illuminated the cemetery in a cold blue light. Uncut grass twitched and shivered in the wind. Trees creaked and groaned. And then Frost saw him. About sixty yards away, zigzagging between the graves.
‘Follow me!’ ordered Gilmore, haring off in pursuit. Reluctantly, Frost stumbled after him. He couldn’t see what Gilmore was getting all excited about. The man could simply be taking a short cut.
They jogged on, past angels and cherubs. The path veered to the right and there ahead of them was the Victorian crypt. ‘Stop, son,’ pleaded Frost, ‘I’ve got to rest.’ They paused alongside some new, raw graves, panting, sucking in air, looking left and right where the path split. Nothing but white headstones as far as the eye could see.
‘We’ve lost him,’ said Frost happily. ‘Let’s get back to the car.’
An irritated flap of Gilmore’s hand hushed him to silence and pointed to the crypt. The man, his back to them, was bent over doing something to the padlock. A loud click, then a groaning of hinges as the door was pushed open. A torch flashed and the man disappeared inside the burial vault.
‘Still taking a short cut?’ scoffed Gilmore, smugly. He moved quietly round to the side of the building and squeezed through the railing by the tap, where Paula Bartlett’s killer squeezed through with her body. Frost, slower, followed.
Round to the door where the newly fitted brass padlock still held the hasp firmly, but as before, the screws had been prised from the rotting door frame. Intermittent splashes of light spilled from inside. Echoing in the confined space, sounds of something heavy being dragged across the stone floor.
Gilmore and Frost looked at each other. What the hell was he doing?
Cautiously, Gilmore edged his head until he could see inside. Pitch black, then the man’s torch clicked on again and lit up a scatter of something on the floor. Bones. Human bones. And on top of them, a grinning, yellow- toothed, human skull.
Gilmore’s involuntary gasp was enough to make the man spin round, the glare of his torch hitting Gilmore straight in the eyes, momentarily blinding him. Then, with a yell, the man charged and Gilmore found himself flying through the air, his back, then his head hitting the stone floor with a teeth-jolting crack making pin-points of light dance in the blackness at the pain.
Crouching, ready to give him a second dose, the man moved forward.
‘Stay where you are. Police!’ yelled Frost, dragging his torch from his mac pocket and kicking bones out of the way as he advanced into the vault. The man blinked into the beam and Frost stopped in his tracks. Gilmore’s assailant was wearing a clerical collar.
The curate gawped surprise at the sudden appearance. ‘Mr Frost!’
Gilmore creaked open his eyes and saw a skull and a thigh bone within inches of his face. He sat up, gingerly touching the back of his head then studying the blood on his finger tips.
‘I’m terribly sorry, Sergeant,’ apologized the curate. ‘I thought you were one of the vandals.’ He helped Gilmore to his feet and examined the cut on his head. ‘Only a graze, I think.’
With an angry jerk, Gilmore shook him off. ‘Perhaps you’d care to explain what you’re doing here at this time of night?’ He picked up the torch and swept the stone floor with its beam. The lids of two coffins had been unscrewed open and the skeletal bodies inside tipped out with bones and pieces of shroud strewn all over the floor. ‘And how do you propose to explain this?’
‘I use the graveyard as a short cut to get back to the vicarage. I’ve been sitting with another sick parishioner. She died, I’m afraid — this terrible influenza epidemic.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘So many deaths.’
‘Let’s have the address of this sick old lady,’ said Gilmore, pen poised over his notebook. He wrote down the details. ‘Right. Now explain this.’ He nodded at the mess.
‘Does it need explaining?’ said the curate bitterly. ‘You’re supposed to be protecting us against vandals. I passed the crypt and saw the door was open. I came in to investigate and found this.’ He shook his head. ‘Such pointless desecration. One tries to be forgiving, Sergeant, but this is sick.’
Gilmore snapped shut his notebook. ‘All right, Mr Purley. That’s all, for now.’ He emphasized the ‘for now’.
They followed him out and watched as he tried to make the door secure. ‘You’ll need a new door frame,’ said Frost.
‘Yes, Inspector. More expense.’ Another sigh. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow and try and fix it. I’ll tidy up inside as well.’ Round to the side of the building where they squeezed through the gap in the railing.
They watched him picking his way between the graves before veering off towards the vicarage.
‘I don’t trust him,’ growled Gilmore. ‘He’s always out too late at night for my liking. If there’s been another Ripper murder…’ Frost was pinning his hopes on the coach driver, but Gilmore had serious doubts. ‘Let’s go. This place is giving me the creeps.’
‘It must have given Paula Bartlett’s killer the creeps, coming here at dead of night with a body in his arms.’ Frost poked away at his scar and stared at the ranks of white headstones crowding in on the crypt. ‘He knew how to find the crypt, son, and he knew he could get in.’ He pushed his hands deep into his mac pockets and wandered along the railings, booting at pebbles in his path. ‘So how did he know?’
‘Perhaps he was someone who often used the graveyard as a short cut,’ offered Gilmore, pointedly rubbing the back of his head.
Frost chewed his knuckles in thought, then took out his cigarette packet and shook it. One left. He poked it in his mouth and flung the empty packet into the long grass. A blast of cold wind cut across the cemetery, shaking the trees and making him shiver. ‘Let’s go.’
They walked on to the path where the first of the new graves encroached. Frost struck his match on a convenient headstone. The match flared. He saw the wording, but at first didn’t take it in. Then he stared, open- mouthed, until the match burnt his fingers. ‘Where the bloody hell did this come from?’
He struck another match so Gilmore could read the inscription.
In Loving Memory Of Rosemary Fleur Bell
April 3 1962 — September 10 1990
Adored Wife Of Edward Bell MA.
R.I.P.
‘The schoolmaster’s wife! Her grave right on the bloody doorstep of the crypt and we haven’t spotted it. We must be bleeding blind as well as stupid!’
‘It’s probably only just been put up,’ said Gilmore, wondering what all the fuss was about. ‘You have to wait ages for the grave to settle before you can erect a headstone.’
‘That wispy-bearded bastard. I knew it was him all the time.’ He turned and stared at the crypt.
‘I don’t follow you,’ said Gilmore.
‘You could spit on the flaming crypt from here,’ said Frost. ‘At the funeral Bell would have had a grandstand view of that fat-gutted plumber forcing open the door to get inside out of the rain. Later he needed somewhere to hide the kid’s body. A crypt. Who’d look for a body in a Victorian crypt?’
‘You’re saying he killed her the very day of his wife’s funeral?’
‘Yes,’ said Frost.
‘But he was in the house all the time she was doing her paper round.’
‘I don’t know how he did it, I just know he did it.’
Gilmore swivelled his head towards the vault door with its solid brass lock hanging impotently. ‘Even if you are right, how are you going to prove it?’
‘Proof!’ barked Frost. He took a long drag at his last cigarette and dashed it to the ground half-smoked. ‘Everyone’s obsessed with bloody proof.’ Then his shoulders slumped. Gilmore was right. Without proof, the bastard was going to get away with it.
