Rose felt a cold chill as they walked through. Some of the graves were maintained, most weren’t, and the occasional one had flowers on top of the headstone, or laid on the grave. Brad would admit to not feeling as brave as he had, as it was dark in the cemetery, whereas out on Harrow Road it had been bright with the street lights and the traffic. Even though they were only halfway through, only two hundred yards from where they had entered, the ever-present noise of the bustling metropolis of London had dimmed, replaced by a low hum in the distance.
‘I don’t like it,’ Rose said as she grasped Brad’s hand tighter.
Neither did Brad, but he wasn’t about to say that there was something that was freaking him out.
A man walked hurriedly by, his hat down low, his coat collar turned up high.
The two young lovers quickened their pace; the exit of the cemetery on Kilburn Lane visible not more than fifty yards distance.
Rose let out a scream. ‘Over there,’ she pointed.
Brad, feeling calmer once again, thinking to the night’s event, especially after they had drunk the wine, didn’t react at first.
‘Brad, over there, on that grave.’
Brad looked briefly before averting his gaze; after all, his mind was elsewhere. He looked again. ‘It’s a body,’ he said.
Rose ran out of the cemetery; Brad stood transfixed.
Slowly, realising the situation, Brad walked closer to the grave. He pointed the small light on his smartphone at the body, saw that it was a woman and that in her body there was a knife.
Once out of the place of death, the two of them hugged each other, the street light shining on them, a bus passing by on the other side of the road; the bus they would have caught. Rose crying and Brad shaking like a leaf.
It was Rose who spoke first. ‘We have to call the police.’
‘Your parents?’
‘It’s a dead body, we have to tell someone.’
Brad took out his smartphone from his pocket, and shakingly dialled the emergency number. ‘There’s a body, Kensal Green Cemetery, the Kilburn Lane entrance,’ he said.
After three minutes, the sound of a police car.
‘Do you want to stay?’ Brad said, conscious of Rose’s parents' reaction.
‘They’ve got your phone number, and yes, we must stay.’
Brad knew that she was right. So much for a romantic evening, he thought but did not say it to Rose.
Chapter 2
Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook, the son of Jamaican immigrants to England, had hoped for a quiet night at home with Jenny, his wife, but it was not to be. As a DCI in Homicide at Challis Street Police Station, as well as being the senior officer in the department, it was up to him to take the lead after the phone call from his second-in-charge, Detective Inspector Larry Hill, a man too fond of drinking beer, although after the last run-in with Isaac, and another ultimatum from his wife, he was now on his best behaviour.
Isaac had been surprised when he arrived at the crime scene to find Larry sober. He hoped it would stay that way, but he wasn’t confident. His inspector, Isaac knew, had a regular habit of falling off the sobriety wagon. Larry was a functioning alcoholic, and one beer didn’t stop there. They continued till he was barely capable of standing, and on one occasion he had attempted to drive home, only to be stopped after twenty seconds by a patrol car that had been waiting outside the pub.
Also at the crime scene was Detective Sergeant Wendy Gladstone, the most senior member of Homicide, in terms of her age and her time in the police force, not in rank.
‘What do we have?’ Isaac asked. Even though he had been casually dressed at home, he had changed into a suit; Larry had not. Another bone of contention, Isaac knew, but it was not to be discussed that night. Tonight was for murder.
‘Female, white,’ Larry said. ‘A knife wound to the back.’
‘Anything else?’
‘We’ve not disturbed the body, and it’s still warm. We’ll leave that to Gordon Windsor and his team.’
Isaac could only concur, as Windsor, the senior crime scene investigator, would have reacted badly if an inexperienced police officer or a seasoned detective inspector had disturbed the body. As he would say, ‘If the body’s clearly dead, then leave it to us.’
On a previous murder case, two wet-behind-the-ears and overzealous police constables had almost destroyed vital evidence, although, by the time they had reached the body, they had had the good sense not to touch it.
Wendy left them and went over to where the two who had discovered the body were sat. She could see they were young, a couple out for a night, minding their business, looking for a little romance.
‘Rose’s father’s going to be angry with me,’ the young man said.
‘And you are?’ Wendy asked as she sat down beside them on the bench at the side of the street.
‘Brad Robinson. I live in Compton Road with my mother.’
‘Your age?’
‘Sixteen, almost seventeen.’
‘Let’s take this from the beginning,’ Wendy said, looking down at the bag to Brad’s side, seeing the bottle of wine, the two plastic glasses. ‘And be honest with me. You two are in trouble, aren’t you?’
‘We didn’t kill the woman,’ Rose said.
Wendy saw a pretty young woman, similar to her at that age.
‘How old are you?’
‘Fifteen. I’ll be sixteen in two months.’
‘Brad would have been in trouble if you hadn’t found the body. Lucky in
