fading rapidly, and the glare of the mobile lights, situated around the cemetery, illuminating the vehicle path to the tent covering Molly Glossop’s grave, and several around it, was getting brighter.
The site was ring-fenced by a double police cordon. All entrances to the cemetery were sealed off by a police guard and so far the public reaction had been more one of curiosity than anger. Then there was a second line of police tape directly around the two tents. No press had been allowed closer than the street.
The team inside the main tent were getting close to the bottom of the grave. Grace hadn’t needed anyone to tell him, they all knew from the worsening stench. The smell of death was the worst smell in the world, he always thought, and he was catching whiffs of it now, as he stood out in the open air. It was the reek of a long-blocked drain suddenly being cleared, of the rotten meat in a fridge after a two-week power cut in the summer’s heat, a heavy, leaden smell that seemed to suck your own spirits into it as it sank to the ground.
None of the experts had been able to predict what condition the body in this coffin would be in, as there were too many variables. They did not know what body – if any – was in here, or how long it had been dead before being buried. The humidity of any burial ground would be a major factor. But with this one being on chalky soil, on high ground, it was hopefully above the water table and would be relatively dry. Judging by the worsening smell, they would find out in a few minutes now.
He finished his tea and was about to go back inside when his phone rang. It was Kevin Spinella.
‘Has the Argus hot-shot been having a Sunday lie-in?’ Grace said, by way of a greeting.
There was a lot of wind roar, and the rumble of the huge portable generator, close by.
‘Sorry!’ the reporter shouted. ‘Couldn’t hear you!’
Grace repeated what he had said.
‘Actually I’ve been doing a tour of local cemeteries, trying to find you, Detective Superintendent. Any chance I could come in?’
‘Sure, book a plot here, then go and get hit by a bus.’
‘Ha-ha! I mean now.’
‘I’m sorry, no.’
‘OK. So what do you have for me?’
‘Not much more than you can see from the perimeter at the moment. Bell me back in an hour, I might have more then.’
‘Excuse me, but I thought you were hunting for a young lady who disappeared last night, Jessie Sheldon? What are you doing here digging up an eighty-year-old lady?’
‘You do your work by digging stuff up, sometimes I do mine that way too,’ Grace replied, wondering how, yet again, the reporter had such an inside track.
Joan Major suddenly emerged from the entrance to the main tent, waving at him. ‘Roy!’ she called out.
He hung up.
‘They’ve reached the coffin! Good news. It’s intact! And the plaque on it reads Molly Winifred Glossop, so we have the right one!’
Grace followed her back in. The stench was horrific now and as the flap closed behind him he tried to breathe in only through his mouth. The crowded interior of the tent felt like a film set, with the battery of intense bright lights on stands all focused around the grave and the mound of earth at the far end, and several fixed video cameras recording all that was happening.
Most of the people in here were having problems with the stench too, with the exception of the four officers from the Specialist Search Unit. They were wearing white bio-chemical protective suits with breathing apparatus. Two of them were kneeling on the roof of the coffin, screwing heavy-duty hooks into the sides, ready to attach cables to block and tackle lifting gear once the sides of the coffin had been cleared, which the other two were now manoeuvring into position, a good yard above the top of the grave.
Joan Major took over the excavation work, for the next hour painstakingly excavating down the sides, and under the base at each end of the coffin, for lifting straps to be placed there. As she worked she carefully bagged soil samples from above, the side and beneath the coffin for later examination of any possible leaked fluids from the contents of the coffin.
When she was finished, two of the exhumation specialists then clipped ropes to each of the four hooks, and to the underneath of the coffin front and back, and clambered out of the grave.
‘OK,’ one said, moving clear. ‘Ready.’
Everyone moved back.
The police chaplain stepped forward, holding a prayer book. He asked for silence, then, standing over the grave, read out a short, non-denominational prayer, welcoming back to earth whoever it might be that was in the coffin.
Grace found the prayer strangely touching, as if they were greeting some long-lost returning traveller.
The other members of the exhumation team began heaving on a sturdy rope. There was a brief, anxious moment when nothing happened. Then a strange sucking noise that was more like a sigh, as if the earth was only very reluctantly yielding something it had claimed for its own. And suddenly the coffin was steadily rising.
It came up, swinging, scraping against the sides, the pulley creaking, all the way until the bottom of the coffin was several inches clear of the grave. It swayed. Everyone in the tent watched for some moments in silent awe. A few clumps of earth tumbled and fell back into the grave.
Grace stared at the light-coloured wood. It did look remarkably well preserved, as if it had been down there for only a few days, rather than twelve years. So, what secrets do you contain? Please God, something that will connect us to the Shoe Man.
The Home Office pathologist, Nadiuska De Sancha, had already been contacted, and would head straight to the mortuary as soon as the body was loaded into the Coroner’s van.
Suddenly there was a deafening crack, like a clap of thunder. Everyone in the tent jumped.
Something that was the shape and size of a human body, shrouded in black plastic wrapping and duct tape, plunged through the bottom of the coffin and disappeared into the grave.
107
Sunday 18 January
Jessie was fighting for breath again. Panicking, she thrashed about, frantically trying to turn her head sideways to clear her nose a little. Benedict, Ben, Ben, please come. Please help me. Please don’t let me die here. Please don’t.
It hurt like hell, every muscle in her neck feeling as if it was being torn free from her shoulders. But at least now she could get some air. Still not enough, but her panic momentarily subsided. She was desperate for water. Her eyes were raw from crying. The tears trickled down her cheeks, tantalizing her, but she couldn’t taste them with her mouth clamped tightly shut.
She prayed again. Please God, I’ve just found such incredible happiness. Ben is such a lovely man. Please don’t take me away from him, not now. Please help me.
Through her living hell, she tried to focus her mind, to think clearly. Some time, she did not know when, but some time, probably soon, her captor was going to return.
If he was going to bring her the water he had talked about, unless he was just taunting her, he would have to untie her – at least enough so she could sit up and drink. If she was going to have a chance, it would be then.
Just one chance.
Even though every muscle in her body hurt, even though she felt exhausted, she still had her strength. She tried to think of different scenarios. How clever was he? What game could she play to fool him? Play dead? Pretend to have a fit? There must be something, something she had not thought of.
That he had not thought of.
What time was it? In this long, dark void in which she was suspended, she suddenly felt a burning need to measure time. To figure out what time it was, how long she had been here.
Sunday. That was all she knew for sure. The lunch he had talked about must be Sunday lunch. Was it an hour since he had gone? Thirty minutes? Two hours? Four? There had been faint grey light but that had gone now. She
