‘Can you both go to East Cemetery on Geneva Road?’
‘What are we looking for?’ Grearer asked.
‘We think Stockdale is buried in the ground inside a coffin. Go there. Look for any areas which look like they’ve just been laid. If you see anything, ring me immediately. Go.’
Timms and Grearer both nodded and backed away, grabbing their keys and jackets, then left the office.
Byrd said to Tanzy, ‘Guess we’ll start with Carmel Road?’
Fallows leaned over, noticed the top one. ‘Where’s Carmel Road?’
‘Come on,’ Byrd said. ‘You can come with us.’
66
Monday Afternoon
West Cemetery, Carmel Road
Byrd decided to drive when they reached the car park and Tanzy rode shotgun, with Fallows in the back. Byrd reached the end of Park Place in seconds, took a left on to Yarm Road, and put his siren on, going through the next red light at the bottom of Yarm Road. They overtook a string of cars, quickly making their way around the ring roads, joining Woodland Road, then flew through the red lights at the crossroads of Greenbank Road.
At the end of Woodland Road, Byrd went left at the mini roundabout, pushing through the gears, hitting nearly fifty going up the hill, veering around a handful of vehicles. It wasn’t long before he slowed and took a right into the cemetery, almost colliding with a car slowly pulling out, which forced Byrd to slam his brakes on, throwing them all forward. ‘God…’
Fallows let out a quiet yelp as her belt dug into her shoulder and gripped the door handle to steady herself.
‘Easy, boy!’ Tanzy said, noticing Byrd’s frustration.
The car moved out of the way of the entrance and Byrd went through.
‘Jesus, this place is huge!’ Fallows said, looking out the side window at the rows and rows of gravestones, then through the front windscreen at the length of the road. ‘Does it go all the way back?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Byrd admitted. He hadn’t been there in a while. His parents were buried at North Cemetery.
He slowed the car, pulled it over to the side so other vehicles could pass. He knew there was a car park further down but they had to cover all of it. ‘We’ll start here. See if there are any fresh burials.’
Tanzy jumped out. Fallows got out the back and closed the door.
They split up and started with the ones closest, taking a row each.
A man standing at the small building on the right, dressed in stained overalls, somewhere in his late sixties, stopped what he was doing. ‘Excuse me?’ he shouted over.
Byrd and Fallows were out of earshot, but Tanzy glanced his way.
‘Who are you looking for? You shouldn’t be parking there…’
Tanzy jogged over, pulled his badge from his pocket. ‘Detective Inspector Orion Tanzy. Are you in charge? Do you know if there have been any burials in the last day or so?’
The man had whispery hair and a short, grey stubble, and eyed his ID with furrowed brows. ‘There’s been three today.’
‘Okay.’
‘Why?’
‘We believe a police officer is in real trouble. We think he could be buried somewhere here.’
The man looked bewildered. ‘We have names of all the people who have been—’
Tanzy shook his head quickly, silencing him. ‘No. He’s been buried alive.’
‘Oh, God…’ the man sighed, edging back. ‘Here?’
‘It’s possible – are there any graves that have been dug, waiting for a burial in the coming days?’
The man looked around, thinking hard. There were multiple plots. ‘There’s a couple.’ He turned, looking down the long narrow road as if searching for the plot in his head. ‘If you go down the road. When you pass the crematorium, there are three spaces that have just been dug.’
Tanzy thanked him and started sprinting down the road, his feet slapping the dry concrete as he ran.
Byrd, who was carefully passing a row of graves, heard the noise and glanced up. ‘Ori?’
‘Where’s he running to?’ Fallows asked Byrd.
‘I – I don’t know.’ Byrd had a quick look around at the graves near him. They all looked intact and settled as if they’d been there for years. ‘Come on, let's follow him.’
Fallows met Byrd back on the narrow road and started slowly trailing after Tanzy. She wasn’t exactly dressed for running in heels, jeans, and a white long-sleeved t-shirt, but Byrd went at her pace, watching Tanzy power on. It wasn’t long before he disappeared from their view, taking a left after the crematorium.
‘Where’s he gone?’ Fallows panted, a few metres behind Byrd, her voice wavering in an attempt to catch her breath.
‘Keep up, Linda.’
‘I’m trying…’
They passed the crematorium and Byrd glared to the left, seeing a cluster of trees and more gravestones. He couldn’t see Tanzy yet.
After Tanzy passed the crem, he kept going, his eyes frantically darting around, trying to spot the open graves the man at the front mentioned. It wasn’t long before he spotted them, about sixty metres down a walkway on the left.
But there weren’t three. There were two.
Standing near them, was a bald man in his late thirties, around six foot tall. He had a stocky build, wearing a tight fitting black t-shirt, blue jeans, and white trainers, looking down at a grave. Only this grave he was looking at didn’t have a headstone.
He heard Tanzy’s footsteps and snapped his neck in his direction.
Tanzy kept going but had slowed a fraction, watching the man. He looked familiar. When the man had figured out who it might be, he turned and darted across the grass towards the wall.
‘Hey!’ Tanzy shouted at him.
There was no doubt in Tanzy’s mind it was Mackenzie Dilton. He remembered his face from the house fire in Napier Street, remembered the way he moved, his body shape. By how he reacted and bolted off confirmed it.
Dilton had at least forty metres head start. Tanzy bolted after him.
Once Byrd and Fallows rounded the corner, they saw Tanzy sprint across the field, chasing someone.
‘That’s him!’ Byrd shouted. ‘That’s Dilton.’
Fallows, struggling for breath, followed Byrd’s finger, and noticed them on the field, heading for the wall at the back.
‘Ori!’ Byrd shouted, struggling for breath himself.
Tanzy heard his call and turned but kept running, pointing back at the walkway where he’d seen the buried grave.
Byrd shrugged, unsure what he meant.
Then his phone rang. It was Tanzy.
‘Ori – what’s happening? Who is it?’
‘It’s Dilton. I’ve got him. The guy at the front said there were three open graves. There are only two. Stockdale could be in there, Max. Check it out. I’ll get this bastard.’
Byrd slowed near the two open graves, put his phone away, and noticed the third one that had been freshly filled, judging by the difference in colour to the ones near it. The others had settled to a lighter colour, no doubt dried by warmth and direct sunlight over time. This was a darker shade of soil as if just put down in the last day or so.
The area in front of them was roughly four feet wide, eight feet long. The ideal size of a hole that a coffin would fit into.
Byrd fell to his knees, panting hard, and starting digging at the soil, grabbing hand fulls and moving it out the way. He had no idea how deep it would go and didn’t stop to think either.
Fallows, standing behind Byrd, bent over with her hands on her knees, breathing hard. She’d hadn’t run like that in a long time. Over the field, Tanzy was only metres behind Dilton, approaching the far wall.
‘I’ll help Ori,’ she told Byrd, who was throwing up the dirt like a man possessed, desperate to get to Stockdale, if he was under there.
Fallows struggled into a jog and headed across the field.
Tanzy was a few strides behind Dilton.
‘Fucking stop now!’ he bar
ked.
Ignoring him, Dilton jumped up the wall, grabbing the top and heaving himself up. It was high, maybe six feet. Tanzy made it in time and grabbed his left foot, preventing him from pulling himself all the way over.
‘Get here…’
Dilton kicked a leg out and caught Tanzy hard in the chin. As Tanzy stumbled, Dilton jumped the wall. Tanzy was dazed and disorientated. The kick to the face felt like a sledgehammer.
‘Help me over,’ he heard Fallows say behind him.
Tanzy leaned against the wall and interlocked his fingers for her to use as a step up. She got hold of the wall, used everything she had, and climbed it. Tanzy took a few steps back, took a quick run and climbed it with ease, dropping down the opposite side. There was a path that led down to an abandoned house.
They watched Dilton go inside.
‘Come on, there he is,’ Tanzy said, pointing through the bushes. ‘Let’s go.’
67
Monday Afternoon
West Cemetery, Carmel Road
Byrd was tired after only minutes of hard digging. His hair, face, and neck were drenched in sweat and his hands were burning. He sighed heavily, and pulled his jacket off, then continued to dig for a few more minutes, feeling the lactic acid burning in his shoulders from the continual movement. He was about a foot down, give or take, and had opened an area of roughly two feet. Then his fingers started bleeding.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and found DC Leonard’s number, pressed CALL.
‘Boss?’ Leonard answered.
‘Get to West Cemetery. I need help,’ he panted.
‘Okay… have you found Phil?’
‘I hope so. I’m digging a grave up with my fucking hands. Think he’s under it. Get here ASAP. Tanzy has gone after Dilton.’
‘He’s there?’
‘Yeah. Get here now!’ Byrd told him where the grave was and hung up, then found Weaver’s number and told her the same. Then he rang PC Timms who he knew was with PC Grearer, relaying the same message. No doubt, they’d arrive at different times but Byrd needed all the help he could to dig this up. It could go down six feet and he had no idea where Tanzy or Fallows were.
After five more minutes, removing another few inches, he sat up, panting heavily. He couldn’t go on like this. He’d have a heart attack soon. His fingers were bleeding badly now.
‘Where the hell are they!’ he shouted in pain.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ a voice said behind him.
Still panting, he turned to a man on the path. He didn’t recognise him but it was the same man Tanzy was speaking with earlier, the elderly man with whispery hair near the front of the cemetery.
‘Have you… got a… digger?’ Byrd said in between breaths.
‘You can’t just start digging graves—’
Byrd threw his hands in the air in frustration, his whole body drenched in sweat. ‘Sir! Have you got a digger?’
The man was taken aback and stared. ‘We have one in the shed. Why?’
‘Because I believe someone who isn’t fucking dead is buried under here. Can you get the digger please?’
‘I can’t just—’
‘I’m with the police. Please get the digger.’ Byrd took a lung full of warm air. ‘Please. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t a life or death situation.’
The man absorbed his concern and gave a brief nod, then turned, broke out into a jog away from him.
Turning back to the grave Byrd felt he was losing time. His hands were bleeding more, his cut skin breaking away.
‘Come on!’ he screamed to himself, fighting through the pain.
Footsteps approached him.
It was PC Timms and PC Grearer, dressed in their uniform.
‘Jesus, boss,’ Timms said, seeing how little he’d dug and the state of Byrd’s hands.
‘Fucking dig boys. Quick!’ barked Byrd, stabbing a swollen bloody finger at the ground.
They wasted no time following his order and both dropped to their knees, one either side and started clawing away.
‘Quicker,’ he told them.
It wasn’t long before DC Cornty and DC Leonard arrived. They settled in next to Timms and Grearer and started frantically scraping at the ground. After a few minutes, they were making progress. Byrd was relieved, but they still had a way to go. The coffin would be at least seven feet long and two to three feet wide. And God knows how deep it was. So far, they hadn’t reached anything yet.
Nearby on the path, a couple in their fifties had stopped to watch them digging. They didn’t say anything, just stared with their mouths open, wondering what they were up to. Behind them, they heard the sound of a mechanical vehicle coming towards them and moved out of the way when they saw what it was.
It wasn’t as big as Byrd had assumed it would be. He’d visualised something you’d see on a construction site, capable of removing tons of earth for building large foundations.
‘Move!’ the man in the digger said, waving a frantic hand side to side.
They made enough space, stood back, most of them doubled over, struggling for air. Byrd was panting the heaviest, with his bloody palms pressed hard on his knees.
‘You alright, boss?’ Leonard asked him, placing a hand on his back.
The digger stopped in front of the half-dug grave. One of the arms moved and made a clonking mechanical sound. It was music to Byrd’s ears. The huge claw tipped up, grabbed a chunk of earth, and pulled from the ground, making easy work of what they’d been doing.
After a few minutes of digging, the claw hit something hard, making a clunk.
‘What’s that?’ Timms shouted.
Byrd, who had managed to get his breath back, took a few steps forward and leaned over the hole. He could see the lid of the coffin. ‘There it is,’ he bellowed. ‘Keep going. Keep going,’ he told the man inside the digger.
The man gave a concentrated nod from behind the plastic viewing panel and continued playing with the levers.
‘Where are Orion and Linda?’ Leonard asked Byrd, realising they weren’t there.
68
Monday Afternoon
West Cemetery, Carmel Road
The house Mackenzie Dilton had gone into was narrow, small, and older than both Tanzy and Fallows. The brickwork made up of different sized stones had stood there a long time, weathering through decades of seasons and had looked better, but stood proud in respect to the builders who had once put it there.
The front door would have been in good nick if it did indeed have a front door, and not a gaping hole into a cold hallway made of a concrete floor leading to other open areas.
It was a place Tanzy hadn’t seen before, just off the path, beyond the hedges and overgrown grass, probably belonging to a janitor from way back.
When Tanzy and Fallows stepped onto the short path leading to the front door, he placed his arm out, indicating for her to drop back, allowing him in first. She slowed and did as he asked.
On his approach, he grabbed the truncheon he’d brought with him and looked through the open space with wide eyes, scanning for movement. The hard floor led to a room out the back from what he could see.
‘Can you see him?’ she whispered, fear creeping into her words. She was so close to finally getting Mackenzie Dilton, she could feel her heart pounding against her chest.
Tanzy shook his head, his heart racing too. His chin still throbbed from where Dilton had kicked it moments earlier, but he pushed the pain to the back of his mind. They needed to catch this sonofabitch, that was all that mattered. If what Dilton said to Byrd on the phone was true, and what he said at the end of the video of Stockdale in the coffin, he’d continue to murder people. He needed putting behind bars.
Tanzy carefully and quietly stepped through the worn, neglected threshold, the sides and top uneven with several visible sharp edges.
‘Careful,’ Tanzy whispered.
In the hall, the stairs went off to the left, and a corridor ran along the right-hand side, lead
ing to a room at the back, with another door off to the right. The doorframes had decayed, leaving exposed rocky brickwork, and the walls were bare, mostly down to the brick.
Tanzy slowed and peeped into the first room, which looked like where the living room would be. It was bare, apart from bits of rubble scattered around the edges of the concrete floor. There was, however, a cluster of flattened cardboard in the corner with an old, brown stained sheet in one of the alcoves, telling Tanzy someone had probably slept here recently.
They backed out and checked the room at the end of the corridor. Exposed pipework was fixed under the window, made from lead, mangled, and crooked. To the left, was another open void, leading to outside.
‘Check upstairs,’ Fallows said behind him.
He nodded twice. ‘Come on.’
Silently, they made their way upstairs. Tanzy was light on his feet, not only so Dilton wouldn’t hear him, but to not disturb the old, battered wood on the stairs that looked like it could give way any second.
Fallows slowly trailed him a few feet behind. Just before Tanzy reached the top, she misjudged one of the steps, catching the front of her right foot on the fourth stair to the top, and stumbled forward into him.
‘Linda…’ he gasped. ‘Careful,’ he then whispered, placing a finger over his mouth.
She gritted her teeth in apology and nodded.
Tanzy stepped up onto the landing, or what was left of it, the gaps in the floor revealing aged joists and the hallway below. To his left, was a small room with an old rusty bath inside and a sink pedestal that had come away from the wall. The toilet over to the right was brown rather than white and smelt heavily of urine. In fact, the whole place did.
Backing away, he moved into the next bedroom, brightly lit by the light coming through a window to the left. Again, the room was empty, apart from a box the size of a shoebox in the alcove, made from hardened leather. He would have gone over to see what was inside if it wasn’t for the noise they heard from the next bedroom.
A creaking floorboard.
They both froze, making eye contact with each other.
No One's Safe: DI Max Byrd & DI Orion Tanzy book 3 Page 23