Whispers of the Dead dh-3

by Simon Beckett

  You’re sitting on a bench, reading during your lunch break. The book is a translation of St Thomas Aquinas‘ Summa Theologiae you stole from the library. It’s heavy going and naive, of course, but there’s some interesting stuff in it. ‘The existence of something and its essence are separate.’ You like that, almost as much as you liked Kierkegaard’s assertion that ‘death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent.’ All the theologians or philosophers you’ve read contradict each other, and none of them have any real answers. But they’re closer to the mark than the sophomore posturings of Camus and Sartre, who hide their ignorance behind a mask of fiction. You’ve outgrown them already, just as you’re already on your way to outgrowing Aquinas and the rest. In fact you’re beginning to think you won’t find the answer in any book. But what else is there?

  There’ve been whisperings at home lately about where the money’s coming from to send you to college. It doesn’t bother you. It’ll come from somewhere. You’ve known for years that you’re special, that you’re destined for greatness.

  It’s meant to be.

  You chew and swallow the packed sandwiches mechanically as you read, without enjoyment or taste. Food is fuel, that’s all. The most recent operation cured the nasal drip that blighted your childhood, but at a cost. By now your sense of smell is all but burnt out, reducing everything but the spiciest of foods to the blandness of cotton wool.

  Finishing the tasteless sandwich, you put the book away. You’ve just gotten up from the bench when a screech of brakes is followed by a meaty thud. You look up to see a woman in the air. She seems to hang for a moment before crashing down in a sprawl of limbs, almost at your feet. She lies twisted on her back, face tilted to the sky. For a second her eyes meet yours, wide and startled. There’s no pain or fear in them, only surprise. Surprise and something else.

  Knowledge.

  Then the eyes dull and you know instinctively that whatever force had animated the woman has gone. What lies at your feet now is a sack of meat and broken bone, nothing more.

  Dazed, you stand there as other people crowd round the body, jostling you aside until it’s screened from view. It doesn’t matter. You’ve already seen what you were meant to.

  All that night you lie awake, trying to recall every detail. You feel breathless and shaken, on the verge of something immense. You know you’ve been given a glimpse of something momentous, something both everyday and profound. Except that for some reason the woman’s face, the eyes that seemed to burn into yours, now maddeningly elude you. You want—no, you need—to see that moment again in order to understand what happened. But memory isn’t up to the task, any more than it was when you stared into your grandfather’s casket. It’s too subjective; too unreliable. Something this important demands a more clinical approach.

  More permanent.

  Next day, withdrawing every cent of your college savings, you buy your first camera.

  CHAPTER 6

  DAWN WAS JUST a pale band on the horizon when we set off for the cemetery. The sky was still dark, but the stars were slowly disappearing as they were overtaken by the new day. The landscape on either side of the highway was starting to take form, emerging from the darkness like a photograph in a developing tray. Beyond the stores and fast food restaurants, the dark bulk of the mountains rose up as though to emphasize the flimsiness of the man-made facade.

  Tom drove in silence. For once he wasn’t playing any of his jazz CDs, though whether that was because of the early hour or a reflection of his mood I wasn’t sure. He’d picked me up from the hotel, but after a wan smile he’d said little. No one looks their best at that time of day, but there was a greyness to his face that seemed to have nothing to do with lack of sleep.

  You probably don’t look so good yourself. I’d lain awake into the early hours the night before, apprehensive about what lay ahead. Yet it was hardly my first exhumation, and certainly not the worst.

  Years before I’d worked on a mass war grave in Bosnia where entire families had been buried. This wouldn’t be anything like that, and I knew Tom was doing me a favour in asking me along. By rights I should have jumped at the chance to take part in a US investigation.

  So why wasn’t I more enthusiastic?

  Where I’d once felt confidence and certainty, now there were only doubts. All my energy, the focus I used to take for granted, seemed to have bled out of me on to the floor of my hallway the year before. And if I felt like this now, what would it be like when I was back in the UK, working on a murder inquiry by myself?

  The truth was I didn’t know.

  The eastern horizon was streaked with gold as Tom turned off the highway. We were heading for the suburbs on the eastern fringe of Knoxville, an area I wasn’t familiar with. The neighbourhood was a poor one: streets of paint-peeling houses with overgrown and junk-filled front yards. The reflective eyes of a cat gleamed in our headlights as it broke off from eating something in the gutter to glare at us warily as we drove past.

  ‘Not far now,’ Tom said, breaking the silence.

  After another mile or so the houses began to give way to scrubland, and not long after that we came to the cemetery. It was screened from the road by pine trees and a tall, pale brick wall. A wrought-iron sign proclaimed Steeple Hill Cemetery and Funeral Home in an arch above the gates. Cresting it was a stylized angel, its head piously bowed. Even in the half-light I could see that the metal was rusted, its paint flaking.

  We drove through the open gates. Gravestones marched along in rows on either side, most of them overgrown and unkempt. They were set against a backdrop of darkly oppressive pine woods, and up ahead I could make out the outline of what must have been the funeral home itself: a low, industrial-looking building topped with a squat steeple.

  Off to one side a cluster of parked vehicles announced our destination. We parked by them and climbed out. I shoved my hands in my pockets, shivering in the early morning chill. Mist hung over the dew-silvered grass as we made our way towards the centre of activity.

  Screens had been erected in front of the grave, but at that time of day there was no one to see it anyway. A small excavator chugged and juddered as it lifted out another scoop of raw earth, clods dripping from the shovel as it deposited the soil on a growing pile. The air smelled of loam and diesel fumes, but the grave had been almost dug out, a gaping black wound in the turf.

  Gardner and Jacobsen stood among a handful of officials and workmen who waited as the excavator cleared another load of earth. Standing slightly apart from them was Hicks. The pathologist’s bald head protruded from an oversized mackintosh that made the resemblance to a turtle more striking than ever. His presence was little more than a formality, since the body would almost certainly be handed over to Tom for examination.

  It was obvious from his face that he wasn’t happy about it.

  Another man stood nearby. He was tall and smartly dressed, wearing a camel hair coat over a sombre black suit and tie. He watched the excavator’s progress with an expression that could have been either aloof or bored. When he noticed us he seemed to become more alert, his gaze fixed on Tom as we approached.

  ‘Tom,’ Gardner said. The TBI agent’s eyes were pouched and bloodshot. By contrast Jacobsen looked as fresh as though she’d had nine hours’ undisturbed sleep, her belted mac crisp and immaculate.

  Tom smiled but said nothing. Slight as the hill was, I could see that he’d been winded by the short walk up from the car. Hicks gave him a jaundiced look but didn’t offer any greeting. Ignoring me altogether, he took a grubby handkerchief from his pocket and loudly blew his nose.

  Gardner indicated the tall man in the camel hair coat. ‘This is Eliot York. He’s the owner of Steeple Hill. He helped organize the exhumation.’

  ‘Always glad to assist.’ York hurried forward to shake Tom’s hand. ‘Dr Lieberman, it’s an honour, sir.’

  The reek of his cologne cut through even the diesel fumes from the excavator. I’d have put
him in his late forties, but it was hard to tell. He was a big, fleshy man, with the sort of unlined features that seem to grow heavier instead of ageing. But his dark hair had a matt look that suggested it was dyed, and when he turned I saw it had been carefully brushed to conceal a bald spot on his crown.

  I noticed that Tom detached his hand as soon as possible before introducing me. ‘This is my colleague, Dr Hunter. He’s visiting us from the UK.’

  York offered me a perfunctory greeting. Up close the cuffs of the camel hair coat were worn and frayed, and from what I could see of it underneath, his black suit needed cleaning. Judging by the bloodied nicks and tufts of missed whiskers he’d shaved either hurriedly or with a blunt razor. And even his eye-wateringly strong cologne couldn’t disguise the cigarette breath or the yellow nicotine stains on his fingers.

  He was already turning back to Tom before he’d even released my hand. ‘I’ve heard a lot about your work, Dr Lieberman. And your facility, of course.’

  ‘Thank you, but it isn’t exactly “my” facility.’

  ‘No, of course. A credit to Tennessee, though, all the same.’ He gave an unctuous smile. ‘Not that I’d compare my, ah, vocation to yours, but in my own small way, I like to think I’m also carrying out a public service. Not always pleasant, but a necessary one, all the same.’

  Tom’s smile never wavered. ‘Quite. So you carried out this burial?’

  York inclined his head. ‘We had that honour, sir, although I’m afraid I can’t recollect much in this particular instance. We carry out so many, you understand. Steeple Hill provides a fully comprehensive funeral service, including both cremation and interment in this beautiful setting.’ He gestured around the unkempt grounds as though they were a stately park. ‘My father founded the company in 1958, and we’ve been serving the bereaved ever since. Our motto is “Dignity and comfort,” and I like to think we uphold that.’

  The sales pitch was met by an embarrassed silence. Tom looked relieved when Gardner stepped in.

  ‘Shouldn’t take much longer. We’re almost there,’ he said. York’s smile faded with disappointment as Tom was deftly steered away.

  As though to prove Gardner’s point, the excavator deposited one last scoop of dirt on the pile and backed away with a final cough of exhaust. A tired-looking man I took to be a public health official nodded to one of the workmen. Wearing protective overalls and mask, he stepped forward and spread disinfectant into the open hole. Disease doesn’t always end with the host’s death. As well as the bacteria that nourish on decomposing flesh, hepatitis, HIV and TB are just some of the pathogens that the dead can pass on to the living.

  A workman in mask and overalls lowered a short ladder into the grave and began to finish exposing the casket with a shovel. By the time he’d attached straps so it could be lifted out, the sky had lightened to a pale blue and the pine forest was casting long shadows across the grass. When the workman climbed out, he and the others stood on either side of the grave and began hauling the casket out in a macabre reversal of a funeral.

  The mud-smeared shape slowly emerged, shedding clods of earth. The men set it down on the boards that had been laid beside the grave and quickly backed away.

  ‘Damn! That stinks!’ one of them muttered.

  He was right. Even where we stood, the stench of putrefaction was fouling the morning air. Wrinkling his nose, Gardner went over and bent to examine the casket.

  ‘The lid’s split,’ he said, indicating a crack beneath the caking of soil. ‘Don’t think it’s been broken into, just looks like pretty thin wood.’

  ‘That’s finest American pine! It’s a perfectly good casket!’ York blustered. No one took any notice.

  Tom leaned over the casket, sniffing. ‘Did you say this was buried six months ago?’ he asked Gardner.

  ‘That’s right. Why?’

  Tom didn’t answer. ‘Odd. What do you think, David?’

  I tried not to show my discomfort as all eyes moved to me. ‘It shouldn’t smell like that,’ I said reluctantly. ‘Not after only six months.’

  ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, that casket’s not exactly airtight,’ Hicks said. ‘Hole like that, what do you expect?’

  I hoped Tom would respond, but he seemed intent on studying the casket. ‘It’s still had six feet of topsoil on top of it. That far underground the decomposition’s going to be much slower than it would be on the surface.’

  ‘I wasn’t speaking to you, but thanks for pointing that out,’ Hicks said, dripping sarcasm. ‘I’m sure being British, you know all about Tennessee conditions.’

  Tom straightened from the casket. ‘Actually, David’s right. Even if the body wasn’t embalmed the decomp shouldn’t smell this bad, broken lid or not.’

  The pathologist glared at him. ‘Then why don’t we take a look?’ He motioned brusquely to the workmen. ‘Open it up.’

  ‘Here?’ Tom said, surprised. Normally the casket would have been transported to the morgue before it was opened.

  Hicks seemed to be relishing the moment. ‘The casket’s already breached. If the body’s as far gone as you say, I’d rather find out now. I’ve wasted enough time already.’

  I knew Tom well enough to see his disapproval from the slight pursing of his lips, but he said nothing. Until the body had been officially handed over to him, Hicks was still in charge.

  Jacobsen objected anyway. ‘Sir, don’t you think that should wait?’ she said to Hicks as he motioned for a workman to open the casket.

  The pathologist gave her a predatory smile. ‘Are you questioning my authority?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Donald, just open the damn thing if you’re going to,’ Gardner said.

  With a last glower at Jacobsen, Hicks gestured to one of the workmen who was standing by with a power tool. A high-pitched whine shattered the quiet as one by one the casket’s screws were removed. I looked across at Jacobsen, but her face gave no sign of her feelings. She must have felt me watching her, because the grey eyes briefly met mine. For a second I had a glimpse of her anger, and then she looked away.

  When the last screw had been taken out, another workman joined the first to help lift the lid. It had warped, and there was a slight resistance before it came loose.

  ‘Jesus H. Christ!’ one of the men exclaimed, averting his head.

  The stench that rose from the casket was overpowering, a foully sweet concentration of rot. The workmen hurriedly moved away.

  I stepped up beside Tom to take a look.

  A filthy white sheet covered most of the remains, leaving only the skull visible. Most of its hair had sloughed off, although a few thin wisps still clung to it like dirty cobwebs. The body had started to putrefy, the flesh seeming to have melted from the bones as bacteria caused the soft tissue to liquefy. In the casket’s closed environment, the resulting fluid had been unable to evaporate. Known as coffin liquor, it was black and viscous, matting the cotton shroud that covered the corpse.

  Hicks took a glance inside. ‘Congratulations, Lieberman. This one’s all yours.’

  Without a backward glance he set off towards the parked cars. Gardner was looking at the casket’s grisly contents with distaste, a handkerchief held over his mouth and nose in a futile attempt to block the smell.

  ‘That normal?’

  ‘No,’ Tom said, shooting an angry look after Hicks.

  Gardner turned to York. ‘Any idea how this could have happened?’

  The funeral home owner’s face had crimsoned. ‘Of course not! And I resent the implication that this is my fault! Steeple Hill can’t be held responsible for what happens to the casket once it’s buried!’

  ‘Somehow I didn’t think it would be.’ Gardner beckoned to the workmen. ‘Cover it up. Let’s get it to the morgue.’

  But I’d been looking at the casket’s grisly contents more closely. ‘Tom, look at the skull,’ I said.

  He’d still been staring after the pathologist. Now, giving me a questioning glance, he did as I asked. I
saw his expression change.

  ‘You aren’t going to like this, Dan.’

  ‘Like what?’ Instead of answering, Tom looked pointedly at York and the workmen. Gardner turned to them. ‘Can you excuse us a minute, gentlemen?’

  The workmen went over to the excavator and began lighting up cigarettes. York folded his arms.

  ‘This is my cemetery. I’m not going anywhere.’

  Gardner’s nostrils flared as he sighed. ‘Mr York—’

  ‘I’ve got a right to know what’s going on!’

  ‘We’re still trying to establish that ourselves. Now, if you wouldn’t mind…’

  But York wasn’t finished. He levelled a finger at Gardner. ‘I’ve given you every cooperation. And I won’t be blamed for this. I want it on record that Steeple Hill isn’t liable!’

  ‘Liable for what?’ Gardner’s tone was dangerously mild.

  ‘For anything! For that!’ York gestured wildly at the casket. ‘This is a respectable business. I’ve done nothing wrong.’

  ‘Then you’ve nothing to worry about. Thanks for your help, Mr York. Someone’ll be along to talk to you soon.’

  York drew breath to protest, but the TBI agent stared him down. Angrily clamping his mouth shut, the undertaker stalked off. Gardner watched him go with the sort of speculative look a cat might give a bird, then turned to Tom.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘You said this was a white male?’

  ‘That’s right. Willis Dexter, thirty-six-year-old mechanic, died in a car crash. C’mon, Tom, what have you seen?’

  Tom gave me a wry smile. ‘David spotted it. I’ll let him break the news.’

  Thanks a lot. I turned back to the casket, feeling Gardner and Jacobsen’s eyes on me. ‘Take a look at the nose,’ I told them. The soft tissue had rotted away, leaving a gaping triangular hole lined with scraps of cartilage. ‘See down at the bottom of the nasal opening, where it joins the bone that holds the upper teeth? There should be a sill right there, like a sharp ridge of bone jutting out. But there isn’t; it blends smoothly into the bone underneath. The shape of the nose is all wrong, too. The bridge is low and broad, and the nasal opening itself is too wide.’