The three of them sat in silence. Outside, a motorcycle roared past, breaking the solitude for a second before the harsh sound gradually died away. Kirby sipped his tea but found that it was cold. He winced and put the cup down again, declining when Debbie offered him another.
'All right,' began Lambert, 'sticking with this idea of catatonia, how do you explain the holes in the lids of both coffins?'
Kirby shrugged. 'They were trying to get out.'
Lambert shook his head. 'Have you ever felt a coffin lid? It's about two inches thick. Solid oak. You'd need to be bloody strong to punch a hole in that. And then, assuming they managed that, they clawed their way up through six feet of earth?'
'Tom, you've just defeated your own argument. It's impossible. It had to be body snatchers, there's no other logical explanation for it.'
Lambert shook his head. 'Why does the answer have to be a logical one? There's been nothing logical about this whole bloody case ever since it started; why the hell should we start worrying about it now?' He took another hefty swallow from his glass before continuing. 'Look at the facts, John. An ordinary man in an ordinary job with an ordinary family suddenly goes crazy. Butchers his family, tears out their eyes then kills another woman, tears out her eyes. During the day he's in a torpor. At night he's like a wild animal. A brain test shows that, to all intents and purposes he's dead, but what happens when the lights go out-he gets up and kills himself and another man. Now, two weeks after he's buried, our vicar is found hanging from his own bell rope, both eyes tom out after having died of fright and the grave of the murderer is empty.' Lambert's voice had been rising steadily as he spoke but now he was almost shouting, his breath coming in quick gasps. Now, the veins on his forehead standing out angrily, he slammed his fist down on the coffee table and shouted: 'Now you tell me that's logical.'
He slumped back into his chair, hands covering his eyes, totally drained. No one spoke, then, after what seemed like an eternity of silence Lambert said, 'And there's another thing.' His voice had regained its composure; it was low, resigned almost to the horrors he had just described. 'Mackenzie had a medallion with him. It was old, very old. There was inscriptions on it, in Latin. I think that is the key to all of this.'
'Where is it now?' asked Kirby.
'Trefoile, the antique dealer in town, has got it. He said he recognized it from somewhere.'
'What makes it so important, Tom?' Kirby wanted to know.
Lambert smiled humourlessly. 'Maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps this is what's known as clutching at straws but, right now, it's all I've got.'
'What are you doing about Mackenzie and Brooks?'
'What can I do? Tell my men to be on the look out for two of the living dead? Report in lads, if you happen to bump into anyone who was buried recently, that sort of thing? Frankly, John, I don't know what the fuck to do.' He looked long and hard at the doctor. 'All I know is, it must be kept out of the papers. If the press get hold of this, we'll have half the country crawling over Medworth trying to find out what's going on.'
'Call in help.'
'Where from?'
'Tell your superiors what's going on.' Lambert laughed bitterly. 'Can you imagine what Detective Inspector John Barton would make of this? He'd have me locked up. No, I can handle it for now.' He exhaled deeply. 'Christ, if only we had a motive. I mean, what kind of person steals corpses?'
The Inspector's eyes suddenly flared. He pointed an inquisitive finger at Kirby.
'Assuming, just assuming, that someone is trying to imitate Mackenzie's crimes and also working on the assumption that that same person stole the bodies, then surely they would have taken the corpse of Emma Reece as well.'
'Why?' Kirby wanted to know.
'Because she was one of his victims.'
'Was her grave tampered with too?'
'I don't know, I never thought about her at the time.' The Inspector got to his feet. 'We've got to find out now.'
Debbie looked worried. 'Tom, what are you going to do?'
'We have to see if her body has been taken as well,' he said flatly.
'You mean dig her up?' gasped Kirby.
'We've done it twice today already,' said Lambert.
Kirby lowered his head. 'But…'
Lambert's tone was soft, but stern. 'We have to know.'
The doctor swallowed hard and looked up at Lambert. He nodded almost imperceptibly. A thin smile creased the policeman's face, and he hurried out of the house to fetch the tools. Debbie and Kirby stared at one another, neither of them able to speak. The cold draft from the open back door blew into the room, temporarily driving away the warmth and making them both shiver.
Lambert returned a second later with a spade and a garden fork. He held them out in front of him.
'Ready?' he said.
Kirby nodded. 'We'll take my car.' He took the tools from Lambert and walked out to his car. Inside, Debbie and the Inspector heard the sound of the engine being started. She pulled Lambert close and he held her head on his chest.
'Lock all the doors,' he said quietly and kissed her on the forehead. He turned quickly and ran out to the waiting Datsun. Debbie, watching from the front window, saw him slide in beside Kirby, and a few seconds later the car disappeared into the darkness.
She hurried to the back door and drew the bolts across then repeated the procedure at the front. Then she walked back into the living room and crouched in front of the fire, suddenly gripped by an icy chill which seemed to cling to her like frost to a window pane.
It was a long time before she was warm again.
The drive to the cemetery took less than twenty minutes. Kirby brought the Datsun to a halt and switched off the engine. Both men got out, their breath forming clouds in the cold night air. The doctor unlocked the boot of his car and took out the spade and fork. The latter he kept for himself, the other implement he handed to Lambert. The Inspector reached into his pocket and pulled out a torch and flicked it on, checking the power of the beam. Satisfied, he nodded and the two men set off up the gravel drive which led them into the cemetery. The noise of their shoes on the rough surface sounded all the more conspicuous in the silence.
To their right, the church. A dark mass, the huge black edifice stood surrounded by a sea of shadows. Lambert shuddered as he looked at it, remembering what he had found in there the day before.
'Where is the grave?' asked Kirby, whispering.
'Over near those trees,' said Lambert, motioning with the torch.
They continued up the gravel drive, turning with it as it curved around to the left. Finally, they left the gravel drive and took one of the muddy paths which ran between the rows of plots. It was at this point that Lambert flicked on his torch, sweeping its broad beam back and forth over the marble headstones and crosses. The mud squelched beneath their feet, and once Kirby almost slipped over. Lambert held out a hand to steady him and the two men continued on their way. A row of poplars grew with military precision along the edge of one of the paths, and it was beneath the shade of one of the trees that Lambert's torch beam picked out the chosen spot. In the cold white light, both men read the name on the headstone.
Emma Reece.
There was an urn on top of the grave, withered carnations drooping impotently over the edges. The Inspector removed it, laying it gently to one side. He rested the torch on the headstone itself, the beam giving them a little light to work by.
Standing one on either side of the grave, the men looked at each other and Lambert noted how pale Kirby looked. His face was dark with shadow and, despite the cold, the Inspector could see that there were tiny beads of perspiration on his forehead. They held each other's gaze for a second, then, with a grunt, Lambert drove his spade into the dark earth. The doctor watched him. for a second then followed his example, using the fork to tear up large clods which he flung to one side.
In the beam of the torchlight they worked, tearing away more and more earth until mounds of it began to
