It appeared to her that Wilson had sensed her need for solitude, and he had decided to bring her here. He was sharp, alert and at the same time she felt he was in charge, and she thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
In her enthusiasm to break free, riding high onto the ridge of the moors to survey the domain, Charley leaned down over Wilson’s neck and called for him to respond to the clenching of her thighs, to encourage his full speed ahead. As his trot turned to a canter, so a high snorting noise came from Wilson’s flaring nostrils, and his excitement heightened hers, resulting in an overwhelming energy coursing through Charley’s body. For the first time in a long time her mind was crystal clear. The incredible high gave her strength, resolve and freedom from the constraints recently placed on her by her mind and body. She felt more alive than she had in a while, but that brought with it the rawness of an open wound. Charley fancied she could feel Wilson’s wordless feelings, primeval instincts, and his carefree spirit more acutely as they rode on. Soon her doubts and fears were stored neatly away, not erased, but in a place where accessing them required a conscious effort, and for that she was thankful.
Tightening Wilson’s reins, she allowed him to continue at a gait that would cool him down, until at last they arrived back at the stable yard. Effortlessly she jumped down from the saddle and quickly removed it. Rubbing the bay down, she brushed him until her adrenaline wore off. Patting his neck she spoke soothingly as she buried her face in his mane, took a mint from her pocket, put it in the palm of her hand for him to take, and reluctantly said goodbye.
Having spent every emotion and ounce of anxiety she had unwittingly suppressed for some time, Charley was breathless and sweaty, but she felt good.
* * *
Charley’s alarm clock brought her out of a deep sleep at six thirty the following morning. With one eye open she silenced it with the swipe of a flailing hand, and the clock tumbled to the floor. Both eyes instantly wide open, she caught a breath, and at the same time grabbed hold of her hot-chocolate mug that had been in its flight path. Holding the handle a little too tightly, she noticed her hand was shaking, and it reminded her of the strain her body had endured yesterday. With a groan, she threw back the covers and slid out of bed. Hobbling to the bathroom, she wished that she had paced herself – riding for so long, and so hard was not for the novice, or one who had not been in the saddle in a while. Biscuit crumbs on the floor felt like grit under the soles of her feet. Charley cringed.
She saw nothing to smile about in the bathroom mirror. A puffy, pale face looked back at her. She had gone to bed early, as well. ‘What’s happened to that fun-loving person?’ she asked herself. Early nights, she decided, were not good for her!
Her sore muscles made getting dressed harder. She struggled into her dress, straining for the zip at the back; it was at times like these she wished she didn’t live alone. Her determination to succeed however could be likened to her desire to keep the double murder enquiry’s momentum going – she refused to give up.
A message in Annie’s handwriting, from James Thomas, awaited her at the office: Not a happy bunny! He wants to know when it’s likely he can get on with the demolition at Crownest?
Screwing the note tightly up in the palm of her hand, Charley aimed it at the bin until she realised that Annie stood, leaning on the door jamb, her expression questioning. ‘Until such time as we know for certain that there is nothing else to find on the site JT Developments will not be allowed back on site,’ Charley stated before she sat behind her desk. Annie sat opposite her.
Eyes down, flicking through the post, Charley continued, to reassure herself, ‘It’s still early days. The identities of the bodies are still unknown.’
Ricky-Lee tapped on the SIO’s door waving a bag in his hand, like a white flag. ‘Bacon, and egg, with tomato sauce; just as you like it,’ he said. He was smiling broadly. Charley eyed him suspiciously. ‘What’ve you done?’
Ricky-Lee looked crestfallen, ‘Moi?’
Mike, close behind, pushed him further into the office. The sergeant’s eyes questioned Annie, who with straight lips shook her head at him in little jerky movements.
‘A win on the horses?’ Charley was not ready to give up on her questioning.
Ricky-Lee lowered his eyes and slumped in a chair.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That’s all I needed to know.’
Mike opened their meeting. ‘The intelligence relating to baby-face Brad and Brittany Dixon reads like a horror story. They’re ruthless, they’re dangerous, they’re still at large,’ he said, handing the most recent picture of them around for the others to see. ‘That big, evil-looking woman and her weasel of a husband have proved time and time again that they are loyal, but only to each other.’
The phone rang, and Charley picked up.
‘Eira White from Forensics,’ said the sharp, curt voice at the other end. Charley’s eyes turned upwards, and rested on her colleagues’ faces.
‘Go on,’ said Charley. A phone call from Forensics so early in the morning could only mean one thing – there was news.
‘The dagger,’ said Eira.
‘What about the dagger?’
‘We’ve found traces of human blood in the shaft.’
For a moment it felt like her heart had stopped beating. ‘The victim’s blood?’ she said.
‘Most probably, but whilst we were working on the DNA profile this brought up not just one blood type, but two. We will know which is the victim’s when we can match that to the DNA from the skeletal bones. When that’s confirmed then we can run the other through the national database to see if there are any hits.’
‘That’s great, it’s just what we need this morning, something positive.’
No sooner had she replaced the phone, than it rang again. This time it was Ballistics. Liam told her that the 9-milimetre casing was confirmed to be from a semi-automatic pistol, a Baikal handgun, of Russian origin, the criminal’s choice of weapon and one that was easily adapted from guns that were originally used for firing gas canisters, not bullets.
Charley’s heart sank. ‘Does that mean we’re looking for a needle in a haystack?’
‘No, not at all,’ said Liam. ‘The striation marks on the casing are tell-tale signs, like fingerprints, and will give us an indication as to whether the gun has been used previously. If it has, it’s going to be on the database.’
Charley’s spirits rose. The type of weapon was confirmed! Good news came in threes, and she wondered what the third would be?
‘Ricky-Lee, I want you with me today,’ said Charley. The detective frowned. His expression seemed to say, Why me? ‘While Wilkie and Annie are visiting Lily Pritchard at St Anne’s Church, I could do with a lift.’
‘A lift?’ he said. Putting a hand to his lower back, he pulled a face and groaned.
‘I want to see if there is any way of getting inside Seth Alderman’s grave to see what’s inside.’
‘By anything inside, I presume anything other than a coffin?’
‘That’s right! You’ve got a problem with that?’ she asked.
Ricky-Lee shook his head ‘No, no… not at all, boss. How do I do that?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure all that time that you spend at the gym recently will have considerably strengthened those muscles of yours.’
Chapter 21
From where Charley and Ricky-Lee stood at the gate to the graveyard, they could see Lily Pritchard opening the door of her home, within the cluster of church buildings, to Annie and Wilkie. When the old wooden door closed with a judder, and Charley heard the latch drop, she beckoned Ricky-Lee to follow her. Carefully she negotiated the moss-covered gravestones, which, in the absence of a path, formed a slippery walkway to Seth Alderman’s resting place. ‘Tell me, what else do you think we might find in his grave?’ Charley asked, in a hushed tone.
Hands in the pockets of his suit trousers, Ricky-Lee shrugged his shoulders. ‘A skeleton?’
Charley turned sharply
, ‘No one likes a smart Alec!’ Then she paused, one eyebrow raised at the detective, before she turned and walked on. ‘That’s the best you can come up with, is it?’ she said, over her shoulder, ‘a skeleton’? Her voice sounded flat and controlled, which was far from what she felt inside towards him.
At the perimeter of the gravestones, the two detectives stood in silence looking down at the exposed cracked limestone slabs that lay on top of displaced broken bricks. Ricky-Lee was the first to lift his head, and in doing so, scanned the rest of the graveyard through slitted eyes. He looked at his watch, delved into his jacket pocket, and pulled a single pill out, immediately throwing it to the back of his throat.
Charley could feel the tremble of rage creeping over her. ‘Am I boring you DC Lee, because I can soon get you off the case, and back in uniform today, if you’d rather be elsewhere?’
Ricky-Lee jerked as though he had been electrocuted. ‘No! ’Course not,’ he said. Unable to meet her eyes, he made a half-hearted attempt at a laugh.
‘Course not what?’ she said crossly.
He hung his head, ‘Course not, boss.’
Head down, he kicked the grass with the toe of his scuffed shoe. Suddenly a shaft of sunlight burst through the heavy, low-lying clouds and settled on Ricky-Lee’s face. It showed Charley the dry flaky skin on his pink eyelids, the dark rings underneath his eyes, his chapped lips, and the cold sores at the corners of his mouth. His hands were shaking uncontrollably; all the signs told her that trouble was lurking around the corner.
For a moment or two it seemed as if time stood still. Eventually, he lifted his eyes to see her tight-lipped expression, and looked at her in an apologetic, heavy-eyed way. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’
‘Well, it would be nice if you could at least offer me your thoughts on the job in hand, even if you don’t want to tell me what’s going on with you.’
Ricky-Lee’s face broke out into a tired smile. His attention, it appeared, was secured for now.
Disarmed, Charley almost smiled back. ‘Let’s start again, shall we?’ she said, more softly. ‘We know that a tunnel from Crownest leads to this point in the graveyard, and it has been suggested by Josie that Seth Alderman dug this extension himself. Have you any thoughts as to why?’
Ricky-Lee frowned. For a moment he looked disconcerted. Then she saw a spark appear in his eyes. ‘Maybe this plot was already chosen for him, and he made use of it by digging the secret passage to the outside, before it became the site of his grave?’
‘Why would you build a second tunnel so near the first?’
‘This exit is outside the church, the other inside,’ Ricky-Lee said matter-of-factly. ‘Perhaps it was built after the first was bricked up?’
‘Smacks of desperation though.’
‘Surprising what one does, if despairing enough,’ he said, with feeling.
Charley swallowed hard and moved on quickly, desperate for Ricky-Lee not to lose his train of thought.
‘OK,’ she conceded. ‘Maybe, for some unknown reason, he wanted to visit the graveyard, but didn’t want anyone to know?’ She paused to consider what that reason might be. ‘I’m curious,’ she said, looking down into the sunken grave. ‘Why would the grave be sucked up into the ground so?’
His eyes told her that he was surprised that she’d remembered that he knew about such things.
‘What?’ she said, to his unspoken question. ‘Why wouldn’t I make use of your Master’s degree?’
Touched, Ricky-Lee swiftly leaned in to touch the cold, flat side of the gravestone. ‘Well, at a guess the roots from that tree are a contributory factor,’ he said, nodding in the direction of the fallen tree near to the collapsed dry-stone perimeter wall.
‘Meaning?’ said Charley.
‘Considering its location, in what must be one of the wettest parts of the graveyard, I think this is absolutely natural, in fact practically unavoidable, but something else strikes me here. Although this has happened to other graves in this graveyard, it’s not quite as obvious. You see, when soil is replaced into a grave following the coffin going in, it will inevitably contain more air pockets than the compacted soil before evacuation, hence the drop when it settles.’
‘Ah, but what you’re saying is that in your experience, this grave is different from the others?’
‘Well, no, not necessarily. I suggest that since the ground was excavated, it wasn’t compacted with soil as well as the others when the burial had taken place, and it was filled back in.’
With rounded shoulders and hunched back, Ricky-Lee raked his damp fringe off his face. He looked at his watch again, and back at Charley.
‘I knew it.’ Charley cocked an eyebrow and her nostrils flared with rage, as she observed him. ‘Tell me, the horses, the dogs, are they not thrilling enough for you these days? Maybe you’re betting on land snails now?’
There was no mistaking the look in her eyes.
Colour rose in Ricky-Lee’s face. ‘Terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs,’ The words quietly rolled off his tongue.
Charley’s rage flared higher. ‘What the hell?’
Ricky-Lee’s throat was parched, his mouth dry, and his hands shook uncontrollably. Sweat poured from his forehead and neck. ‘Snails and slugs.’
‘I know what they are. I’m a farmer’s daughter for goodness’ sake!’ Momentarily Charley closed her eyes that stung with tears. ‘How can you be so fucking smart one minute, and yet the next so fucking distracted? What the hell has happened to you?’ she said. ‘Look at you, you used to take pride in your appearance. Tell me, are you taking unprescribed drugs? I need to know!’
Ricky-Lee hesitated, and Charley thought he was about to talk to her. She listened expectantly.
‘No, no, just over the counter, honest,’ he said, taking a tablet container out of his pocket and rattling it in front, of her to show her the aspirin. ‘I don’t need help, I’ll be fine.’
Charley didn’t realise that she had been holding her breath until a sigh left her lips. ‘Well, I beg to differ, but if you won’t talk to me, I insist that you speak to a professional.’
Ricky-Lee shook his head repeatedly. ‘Honestly, I’m fine, boss. I had a little bad luck that caused me a few sleepless nights, and I’ve a blinding headache today, but it’ll be okay now, promise.’
Charley took a deep breath. ‘If you say so. I know you don’t want to go back into uniform, but a team is only as strong as Its weakest link, and I can’t afford to carry you, so, if you have any doubts about staying in CID, or if you give me any more cause for concern, you will be on your way, pronto. Do you hear?’
Ricky-Lee reached out and touched Charley’s arm. She flinched. He took a step back. ‘I’m ok, I promise.’
The moment passed and Ricky-Lee continued as if nothing had happened, as he looked back at the grave, but now with renewed interest it seemed. He spoke confidently. ‘I suggest, boss, that the appropriation of such a grave would not have been a reaffirmation of Seth Alderman’s social prominence and his wealth,’ he said.
‘You don’t?’ said Charley. ‘I wonder why he wasn’t buried with the rest of the family?’
Ricky-Lee pursed his lips. ‘Maybe the family tomb was full?’
‘Or he chose not to be buried with the others?’ said Charley.
‘Or maybe those who buried him didn’t want him to be buried with the rest of his family?’
Charley considered the fact. ‘Possibly, and let’s face it, there are enough reasons why not.’ Charley couldn’t conceal a smile. ‘Of course, it could also be that those who buried him wanted the burial to be a statement about his failed relationship with the church – although he is in sacred soil – just. We know his wife, Lucinda, lived here with her parents before they were married.’
Ricky-Lee frowned. ‘Didn’t Seth commit suicide? Maybe that is why his body was distanced from his family’s plot.’ He paused.
Charley smiled to herself, this was the Ricky-Lee she knew; an inte
lligent man. It was clear he desperately needed a distraction from an addiction that she feared was about to drag him under, to destroy his life, if he let it. Charley was not going to let that happen, not on her shift.
‘Well, we don’t actually know it was suicide,’ she said. ‘Although, there is evidence of someone spending time at the bricked-up wall; etchings, names and depressive quotes, and scribblings. There are also piles of bottles that have been proved by Forensics to have contained alcohol and drugs.’
‘He was known to be a drug-taking alcoholic,’ Ricky-Lee stated. He stopped, and briefly looked at her like a child who had been severely reprimanded.
‘What you mean is that he was an addict, and it’s highly likely that the addiction ruined his life, and no doubt shortened it,’ said Charley.
Ricky-Lee dropped to his haunches and started pulling away the loose bricks around the bottom edge of the grave. He pulled at the soggy, wet grass, which in turn revealed a sloppy mud mess underneath. Digging the mud out was not as hard as he expected. After a minute or two he looked up at Charley.
‘I don’t think we will find a skeleton in this grave because I don’t think it is a grave at all. Here! Look! It’s a step… and another!’ he said. ‘Soil would have been used to fill in the gaps and to restore the original to ground level, when it was filled in, hurriedly, I suggest by the amount of it.’
‘By whom though, and after Seth’s death or before it?’ said Charley.
Ricky-Lee stopped for a moment. ‘But, if Seth Alderman isn’t buried here, then where is he buried?’ asked Ricky-Lee.
Chapter 22
Delegation had never been easy for Charley, as a self-confessed control freak, but she had learnt, quite quickly, to be comfortable with it since attending a senior management course, where she had overheard an instructor shouting to another that empowerment was ‘delegation’ for grown-ups, and that if he didn’t grow up pretty sharpish, he’d be off the course quicker than he could say Robert Peel!
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