by S J Bolton
She waited for him to go on. ‘What happened?’ she asked, when he didn’t. ‘You had a road-to-Damascus moment?’
He was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, he wasn’t comfortable talking about this. ‘Sort of,’ he said. ‘People kept telling me that I’d make a good priest. There was just this little problem of faith.’
The rain came from nowhere, thudding down on the soft roof of the car like small stones. ‘You didn’t believe?’ she asked.
He ran a hand through his hair. ‘I was almost there,’ he said. ‘I could tell myself that I believed in all the distinct parts, but they were still just a whole load of separate theories. Does that make any sort of sense?’
‘I think so,’ said Evi, although it didn’t really.
‘And then one day, something happened. I… saw the connection.’
‘The connection?’
‘Yep.’ The engine was on again, he was reversing away from the Tor’s edge. ‘And that is all you’re going to see of the inner man for one night, Dr Oliver. Fasten your seatbelt and prepare for take-off.’
They drove down the moor at a speed that had Evi wishing she believed in a deity she could pray to: for her own personal safety. She didn’t dare try to talk to him again, to say anything that might distract him. Besides, she’d just been ridiculously indiscreet. How could she tell herself she wasn’t involved with him, when she knew that the skin of his neck smelled of lime and ginger, and the exact point on his chest her lips would touch if she leaned towards him?
Within minutes of the rain starting, small streams were racing down the sides of the road. A quarter of an hour later, they’d left the moor and were depressingly close to her house.
‘So where do we go from here?’ asked Harry as he turned into her road.
‘I’m seeing Tom later this week,’ she said. ‘He seems to be relaxing more around me now. Maybe he’ll open up a bit. If he’d just admit the existence of-’ Harry had stopped the car outside her building.
‘I wasn’t talking about the Fletchers,’ he said, in a voice that seemed to have dropped an octave.
‘I should go,’ she said, bending down to find her bag. ‘I have an early start in the morning and… it was a good suggestion about tonight. Thank you, I think it will help.’ She turned her back on him and found the door handle, conscious of being watched. She was going to have to do this quickly, she could call goodnight over her shoulder as she walked up the path. It was a short path, hardly two yards to the porch.
The engine fell silent. Behind her, Harry’s door was opening. He was much faster than she was, he would make it round the car before she was even standing up. Yes, there he was, holding out a hand, and was there any point in telling him she could manage? Probably not, and in any event, this was a new Harry, with darker eyes and who seemed to have grown taller; a Harry who didn’t speak, whose arm was around her waist as he hurried her along the path, through the downpour, to the shelter of the porch. Definitely a new Harry, who’d turned her to face him, whose fingers were reaching into her hair and whose head was bending towards her as the world went dark.
Oh, this couldn’t be a kiss – this was a butterfly, bruising its wings against her mouth, settling lightly on the curve of her cheek, the point where the smile begins.
Was this a kiss? This soft stroking of the lips? This crazy feeling that she was being touched everywhere?
And this certainly couldn’t be a kiss, not now that she was spinning away into a place lined with dark velvet. Hands were tangled in her hair – no, one was at the small of her back, pressing her closer. The rain against the porch roof felt like drums in her head. Fingers stroked the side of her face. How could she have forgotten the smell of a man’s skin; or the weight of his body, pushing her against the wall of the porch? If this was a kiss, why were tears burning in the back of her eyes?
‘Do you want to come inside?’
Had she said that out loud? She must have done. Because they weren’t kissing any more, just close enough for it to make no difference and his breath was swirling around her face like warm mist.
‘There’s nothing I’d like more,’ he said, in a voice that was nothing like Harry’s.
The keys were in her pocket. No, they were in her hand. Her hand was reaching out for the lock; his was closing around it, slowing her down.
‘But-’ he said.
Why was there always a but?
He’d brought her hand back, was holding it to his lips. ‘We still haven’t done the pizza or the movie,’ he whispered. She could barely hear him above the rain.
And you are a priest, she thought.
‘And I really don’t want to rush this.’ He released her hand and tilted her chin upwards so that she was looking directly at him.
‘That’s rather sweet,’ she said. ‘And more than a little womanly.’
At that, Harry was back, grinning at her, scooping her up and holding her tightly against him. ‘There is nothing remotely womanly about me,’ he hissed into her ear, ‘as I fully intend to prove before too much longer. Now get inside, you baggage, before I change my mind.’
When the phone rang, Harry’s first thought was that he’d only just fallen asleep and that it would be Evi, asking him to come round. He turned over in bed, unable for the moment to remember which side the phone was on. You know what? Sod it. Sod the pizza, sod the movie, sod everything, he was going.
No, that side had the clock. It was 3.01 a.m. He turned over and reached out. He could be dressed in two minutes, at her place in ten. By 3.15 he could be…
‘Hi,’ he said, pressing the phone against his ear.
‘Vicar? Reverend Laycock?’ It was a man’s voice. An elderly man.
‘Yes, speaking,’ he said, his stomach cold with disappointment. He’d be going out after all, but not to a woman’s warm bed.
Someone was dying. Sex or death – the only reasons to call someone in the middle of the night.
‘Renshaw here. Renshaw senior. My son asked me to call.’
Tobias Renshaw, his churchwarden’s father, ringing him in the small hours?
‘My son apologizes for not calling himself, and for waking you, but I’m afraid you’re needed at St Barnabas’s straight away. You’ll see the police vehicles in the lane. When you arrive, you should make yourself known to Detective Chief Superintendent Rushton.’
49
3 November
SIMBA, MILLIE’S BLUE TEDDY BEAR, LAY ON HIS BACK AT THE bottom of the stairs. When Tom had seen him last, not five hours ago, he’d been clutched in his little sister’s arms. So either the soft toy had developed a taste for midnight strolls or something was very wrong. Tom ran across the landing to Millie’s room. The cot was empty.
Downstairs, a door slammed shut. Tom glanced towards his parents’ room. No time to do anything but yell as he ran across the landing, down the stairs and through the kitchen. He’d heard the back door. Whoever had Millie had only just left the house.
He felt a rush of cold air as he dodged his way around the kitchen table. The back door had bounced open again and the wooden floorboards of the cloakroom were wet. It was still raining hard outside and, even in the doorway, looking out over the mass of mud that was the back garden, the wind battered against him, sending volleys of ice-cold raindrops to soak his pyjamas.
His eyes weren’t used to the darkness yet. He screwed them up and could just about make out the churchyard wall and the laurel trees behind it. From the direction of the yew tree and Lucy Pickup’s grave, he heard a grunt.
Someone was out there. Someone with Millie.
‘Dad!’ he yelled. No answering shout. No choice really. He had to go out.
The relentless rain over the past few hours, together with all that had fallen over the previous day or two, had turned the garden into a swamp. Thick black mud surged over Tom’s feet as he stepped away from the shelter of the back door. A few more steps and he could see better. A black figure was trying to climb the wall but it was c
arrying something in one hand, something that looked like a large, black hold-all.
‘Dad!’ he yelled, as loud as he could, trying to send his voice in the direction of the house but not wanting to take his eyes off the figure at the wall. ‘Dad!’
His dad would never make it in time. Tom ran forward, sinking almost to his knees in mud, and was just in time to catch hold of one of the climber’s retreating legs. The girl – because who else could it be? – began kicking at him, but she was losing her grip on the wall. She made a grab upwards and gave one last kick that caught Tom off guard. Her booted foot connected with the side of his face and he let go. She gave a sort of leap and then she was lying spread-eagled over the top of the wall, kicking wildly as she scrabbled to her feet. She was almost away, but the black hold-all she’d been carrying was still at the foot of the wall.
She looked from it to Tom and then, with a sharp movement of her head, down at the wall she was standing on. She staggered, almost fell, and then jumped down on the other side.
The wall was moving. It wasn’t possible, but it was happening. The bulge of stones, which for years had held back tons of earth, seemed to swell. Tom watched first one stone, then another, then several, topple from the top and fall into the garden. Through the gap they left behind, earth began to spill over from the churchyard. One of the gravestones seemed to be sliding closer. Tom wanted more than anything to run but something was rooting him to the spot.
The bulge swelled more, like a pregnant woman about to give birth to something hideous. The black figure on the other side of the wall took a few steps back as more and more of the earth started to slide away.
Then the wall just burst apart like a tower built by a toddler. Stones flew everywhere and black liquid poured out in a thick torrent. The headstone nearest the wall – Lucy Pickup’s stone – slipped closer and closer and then fell, cracking in two as it landed not three feet from Tom. Earth poured over the slope where the wall had been and a stench of drains and rotting things almost choked him.
The girl was continuing to back away. Tom took a step forward and something landed heavily beside him, missing him by inches and throwing him off balance. Falling to the ground, he recognized the edge of a coffin, a fraction before the wood collapsed completely and revealed its occupant.
The skull grinned at Tom with tiny white teeth. Pieces of flesh, like old yellow leather, still clung to it. Tom scrambled away from the corpse, feeling the scream build inside his head and knowing that if he let it out he might never be able to stop.
A fresh flood of earth poured down on him, filled with pale-coloured objects that he knew could only be bones. He threw back his head and got ready to let the scream out when a beam of light hit his face and an arm grabbed his shoulder. Tom whirled round. A small figure, wearing a yellow raincoat with its hood pulled up tight and carrying a flashlight, knelt beside him. It was Joe.
Tom pushed himself to his feet. Everything in his head was yelling at him to get back to the house, wake his mum and dad, call the police. As he set off for the back door, Joe pulled him back.
‘No, wait,’ Joe shouted, straining to make himself heard above the wind. ‘We have to find her.’
‘It’s too late,’ Tom yelled back. Up in the churchyard there was no sign of the dark figure. ‘She’s gone. We have to get Mum and Dad.’
Joe shone the flashlight on the ground around their feet. Tom wanted to yell at him to stop. It was all so much worse when you could see it properly. The skull, now broken away from the rest of the corpse, lay a few yards away. Lucy’s tiny statue had fallen along with the rest of her grave. Pieces of coffin were scattered around. He saw what he thought was a human hand, the finger bones clenched in a fist.
Joe seemed to be looking for something. At last, the torch flickered on the black bag which the intruder had tried to escape with. It was half buried beneath a pile of mud and stones. With a cry, Joe ran towards it and started tugging at the handles. Still desperate to get away, Tom had a sense that this might be important. Gingerly, he picked his way over to help.
With a glooping noise, the bag came free and the boys staggered backwards, still clinging to the straps. Joe dropped to his knees and started to tug at the zip. Squeaking with frustration, he finally managed to wrench it back. Then, in the pale light of the torch, Tom could see him grinning. He dropped to his knees beside his brother and peered inside. Millie lay in the bag. As the boys watched, her eyes flickered open. She blinked up at her brothers in astonishment as raindrops began to fall on her face.
50
SOMETHING WAS THUDDING LOUD INSIDE HARRY’S CHEST. Not his heart, though, his heart never made this sort of racket. Should he say something, tell them he knew the identity of one of the dead children?
It was almost painful, this pounding against his ribs. If it was indeed his heart, he had a serious problem. Hearts weren’t supposed to beat this hard.
He couldn’t say anything now, he’d sound ridiculous, hysterical even. Tomorrow would be soon enough. He glanced down to make sure he would step on matting, and moved away from the cordoned area. The white-clad figures around him got back to work.
The Fletchers’ back garden was a quagmire. Harry followed in Detective Chief Superintendent Rushton’s footsteps, along the loose-weave steel path that had been laid over the mud. Above their heads a makeshift PVC shelter was holding back the worst of the weather. Powerful lights on steel poles had been positioned in the four corners. Now that he was facing the house, Harry could see lights on in the downstairs windows. The blinds and curtains had all been drawn.
‘As crimes scenes go, this is as bad as it gets,’ said Rushton as they walked back towards the house. ‘We’re working in the dark, in shocking weather, the mud’s close to a foot deep in places and it looks like there was quite a lot of contamination of the site before we got here.’
One of the white-clad figures was moving slowly round the outside of the inner cordon, taking photographs. Another figure, which Harry thought might be a woman, was using a measuring tape. She stretched it from the wall to the smallest of the three bodies, then began scribbling, or maybe drawing, on a clipboard hanging around her neck.
‘The forensics people you see have just arrived from Manchester,’ explained Rushton. ‘We don’t have that sort of specialism locally. Luckily, the first officer on site was a bright lad. He sealed off the area until the team could get here. Did the same up in the churchyard.’
Harry looked up. More white figures could be seen on the other side of the stone wall. Up there, too, efforts were being made to control the weather. An awning had been stretched across metal poles. One of the officers was struggling to fasten plastic sheeting around the edges. In this wind it was close to hopeless.
‘What are all these people doing?’ Harry asked.
‘The photographer is recording the scene before the trace-evidence people can get to work,’ said Rushton. ‘He’ll take pictures from every angle, then he’ll climb up into the graveyard and do the same. That girl over there, she’s sketching. She’ll measure how everything is situated in relation to everything else and then it’ll all be fed into a computer. We’ll get a very accurate model that we can use if we ever need to go to court. The main task tonight will be removing the bodies, intact if possible, and getting them to the pathology unit. Along with everything else that might be relevant. The coffin will go, of course, any bits of clothing, hair and so on. We’ll take casts of any footprints. Looks like they’ve started already.’
Rushton was pointing to a spot not far from the house. A man was kneeling on a mat of chequer-plated aluminum, pouring liquid on to the ground in front of him.
‘The other two bodies could have come from graves on either side of Lucy’s,’ suggested Harry. ‘I can’t tell you whose they were, but there’ll be a plan somewhere.’
‘We have it already,’ said Rushton. ‘Family graves on both sides, three people recorded as being in the one, four in the other. All adults. And from wh
at we can see so far, those graves are still intact.’
‘Is it possible they’ve been in the ground a long time?’ asked Harry, knowing it wasn’t. None of the corpses he’d just seen was properly skeletonized. ‘In a much earlier grave that no one knew about? This churchyard is hundreds of years old. There must be ancient graves all over this hill. Headstones got removed, people forgot who was in the ground.’ He stopped. He was gabbling. And clutching at straws.
‘Well, we can’t rule it out for now,’ said Rushton. ‘But frankly, the team think it unlikely. And you have to see their point. Did they look like ancient corpses to you?’
Harry looked back over his shoulder. ‘Do the Fletchers know what’s going on?’ he asked. ‘They’ve been under a lot of pressure lately, it won’t be the best-’
‘Oh aye, they know,’ said Rushton. ‘It was the kids that brought the wall down.’
‘What?’
‘I haven’t had chance to speak to the parents yet, so I’ve only had half a tale,’ said the detective, ‘but it seems the two boys were out in this weather, climbing the wall. They had their younger sister in a hold-all, apparently. Looks like some sort of attempt at running away from home. Job for Social Services, if you ask me. Where are you going?’
Harry was heading back along the path to the house. A hand fell on to his shoulder. ‘Hold your horses, lad. You can’t go in yet. The family GP is in there and the two youngsters are talking to one of my DCs. Let’s just leave everyone to do their jobs for a minute, shall we?’
Harry knew he wasn’t being given a choice.
‘You’re familiar with the layout of this part of the churchyard, Reverend?’ said Rushton, as they started walking again. ‘Both churches, old and new, were built at the top of a steep hill, so a lot of terracing had to be done to create the graveyard. The wall we’re looking at was built several hundred years ago, from what I’m told, but it was a lot higher on this side than on the church side. Are you with me?’