and whatever foul gasses need to escape have escaped, then we'll have a look and see what we can find. I've got a jemmy to open the tin if we find it.'
Nigel drew the last from his cigarette before it burned his fingers. Will there be anything left of her?' he asked, flicking the stub away.
Foster raised his broad shoulders and let them fall.
'Depends. If the undertaker did a good job, then there might be a fair bit of her left. We'll soon find out, won't we?'
Nigel sensed he was enjoying his discomfort. Foster checked his watch once more. Nigel looked at his. It was midnight. They waited for a few more seconds to elapse, before Foster whirled his hand above his head and the excavator's engine roared into life. Foster gestured for Nigel to stand beside him at the side of the grave.
The wet soil yielded easily, the jaw of the machine tearing it in chunks. The operator worked swiftly, clawing lumps of soil, depositing them to one side, before slicing out another layer. Each bite at the earth caused Nigel's chest to tighten and his breath grow shorter. The hole grew deeper and wider, less of the excavator's arm visible above the ground until the unshaven man at the side of the grave leaned over to see, and then held his arm up. He made a few gestures to the unsighted operator, who responded by wielding the jaws with almost surgical care, a scratch of earth here, and a small handful there. Five minutes later, the unshaven assistant held up his hand to stop and the engine died, the silence afterwards profound and ominous to Nigel's ears.
The assistant looked at Foster, nodded downwards, grabbed a spade and jumped in. The pair of them walked to the edge of the pit and looked in. There was a simple mahogany coffin, muddied and worn, but otherwise in good condition, the lid closed. The excavator had cleared a shelf to the side of the coffin on which the man stood, looking up at them. Foster walked round and lowered himself in. Nigel's heart hammering against his ribcage, mouth dry as a bone and the taste of fear in his throat, he climbed in, too, almost slipping as he turned. Eventually his feet found the shelf. He didn't care about the layer of mud that was now caked on his front. He turned, trying to keep his footing on the slippery mud. The only scent was the heady smell of wet soil.
There was a brass plate on the coffin lid. The assistant crouched down and with a gloved finger carefully wiped away the grime. Foster and then Nigel crouched, too. They were so close that Nigel caught a whiff of damp that came from Foster's sodden raincoat. The assistant finished cleaning the plate. The inscription was clear: Sarah Rowley
Nigel tried to wet his mouth but there was no moisture, just a dry, clacking sound. Foster's previous jocularity appeared to have evaporated, too.
We know it's the right one,' he said softly. 'Go on, Jimbo -- do your worst.'
He stood up and with his arm ushered Nigel back from the edge of the shelf. He put a gloved hand over his nose and Nigel did likewise.
'I should really have brought masks,' he said, voice muffled.
Nigel
felt the first leapings in his stomach that indicated he might be sick. He took away the glove and sucked in a deep lungful of the moist night air while it was still clean.
With a crowbar, Jim eased away the lid at various points along its side, a faint cracking sound audible each time he lessened its grip. He worked quickly and respectfully for a minute, Nigel unsure whether to watch or look up at the sky. At one point Jim stopped and looked away; a second later Nigel knew why. A choking, acrid smell invaded the air around them. He closed his eyes, tried not to vomit.
Nigh on a century of decomposition had just escaped into the atmosphere, he knew. He felt light-headed, whether from the stench or the fear and apprehension he was unsure.
Jim nodded to Foster again.
'The lid's about to come off,' he said to Nigel. 'Don't look at her, look around her and see if there's anything there. Then we'll get it out.'
Nigel nodded, incapable of unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth to speak. Foster nodded to Jim to open the coffin.
Nigel felt himself calm. His focus was on what was beside the body, not the body itself, and there was work to do. If only he had some water to moisten his lips. Jim knelt down and slowly opened the lid, pushing it away from him. Then he moved aside.
There she was. All that was left of her earthly remains was a skeleton. Her eyeless sockets gazed skywards, jaw set in that mirthless grin common to all skulls, hands still crossed in front of her like they would have been after being placed in the box. The skeleton appeared small, no bigger than that of a teenage girl. A few threads clung to the bones, their colour impossible to tell. Nigel found himself gazing at her for several seconds, lost in thought, no longer in fear.
Foster's voice shook him out of it. 'Look,' he said simply.
Nigel followed the direction of his finger. By the bones of her right foot lay a silver container no bigger than a shoebox. Metal. It was padlocked. A rusting Yale 'cartridge'
lock, state of the art in its day, Nigel noted. She really had gone to great lengths to seal this secret from the prying eyes of the world, and here they were foiling her.
Foster leaned down and gathered it up. 'It feels empty,'
he said, weighing it in his hand. He put it on the surface and hoisted himself up. Nigel followed suit. He went back to the side of the excavator and laid it down on the footplate.
He pulled hard at the lock but it was not so corroded as to give way that easily.
'Hold that,' he said to Nigel, eyes burning with intent.
It felt cold and damp. Nigel could feel his heart beating fast once more. It was all he could do to stop his hands shaking. Foster produced a set of bolt cutters. Nigel hoped his hands weren't shaking as much as his own, or he might lose his fingers.
'Hold it tight,' Foster urged. Nigel applied as much downward pressure as he could. Foster placed the jaw of the cutters around the lock and snapped. The lock broke.
Foster placed it in his pocket.
'You can let go now,' he said to Nigel, who was still grabbing the tin with all his might.
'Oh,' he said.
'Go on then,' Foster added impatiently. 'You're the expert in handling old stuff. Open it up.'
Nigel produced a pair of pristine white cotton gloves from his pocket. He had a stock of these back home for handling old objects and aged documents, but the truth was he always forgot to take them with him and ended up borrowing those belonging to whichever archives he was working at. He slipped them on.
'Open the lid, please,' he said in a hoarse whisper, excitement once again drying out all the moisture in his mouth.
Foster lifted the lid.
The box was empty.
At least, it appeared to be at first glance. The bottom was lined with yellowing paper. Nigel picked it up carefully, feeling it crinkle slightly between his fingers. There was nothing on it. But then he looked beneath it, on the floor of the box.
A photographic print, though it was impossible to make out what it showed in the graveyard gloaming. It was black and white, he could see that. Behind him Foster switched on a torch, careful not to shine the beam directly on to the picture, but illuminating the print. The image came into focus and it chilled Nigel to his core.
A row of hideously charred bodies, more than a dozen, some tiny, obviously children, were laid out on the ground in a row, in front of a burned-out building.
While Nigel continued to stare, Foster shut the box, took it back to the grave to put it back where it had been found. In the background Nigel heard him make a phone call to the vicar, telling him he could come in now and perform the burial rites as requested by the diocese before Mickey and Jim filled in the pit.
Nigel continued to stare at the gruesome picture. Rictus grins on each of the burned bodies, some frozen in contorted agony, the rigor mortis hands of others held rigid out in front as if in supplication. Who were these people?
he thought.
The secret had been unearthed. Now it had to be deciphered.
The image of those blackened bodies haunted the few snatched minutes of sleep Nigel had that night. He
