by M J Lee
‘No,’ said the father.
‘No,’ echoed the son.
‘You didn’t think long.’
‘Listen, son, I’ve dug over 2,000 graves in my career. After the first one, they’re all pretty much the same. Only the weather changes.’
Silence, followed by two long slurps of tea.
Ridpath was about to finish the interview with his speech about typing up the statement and getting them to sign it, when the elder man spoke again.
‘I will say one thing though.’
Ridpath waited. And waited. ‘What’s that?’ he finally asked.
‘Wellllll…’ – the word was dragged out – ‘that grave ain’t been dug since.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That grave ain’t been disturbed since last time it were dug.’
Ridpath tried to get his head around what the man was saying. It was the son who helped him out.
‘The grave ain’t been dug since we dug it in 2008.’
Ridpath thought for a moment. ‘How do you know?’
The elder man harrumphed. ‘After digging over 2,000 graves, I knows about soil and digging. That grave ain’t been touched since the day it was first dug.’
‘So you’re saying the coffin went into the ground like we found it today?’
The elder gravedigger nodded once, taking a slurp of tea.
‘It was empty when it went into the ground?’
‘Oh, it weren’t empty. It had three breeze blocks in it.’
Father and son nodded to each other, both slurping their tea.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
After two hours the forensics team had bagged and marked all the clothes, sampled the soil on the coffin and in the grave, and taken enough photographs to fill up a Grattan’s catalogue. Protheroe had swabbed the inside of the coffin and then used a square of clear plastic tape to go over every inch of the ivory satin lining.
The lid was replaced and the coffin placed carefully on a gurney, before being moved to the forensics transit van.
Ridpath had been watching all this with DS Castle. As soon as the coffin was safely on the gurney, Protheroe began to peel off his gloves and walk towards them. ‘That’s me done. We’ll do more tape work back at the lab – conditions will be better there. You can close up the grave, DS Castle, but leave the sheeting around it until you’ve finished. From experience, there are always a few ghouls who come hunting at crime scenes for ‘exhibits’.’
‘OK, I’ll get the gravediggers.’
‘There’s a problem there,’ said Ridpath. ‘He’s taken their boots.’
‘Not to worry, lay a tarpaulin over it and they can close it tomorrow. Make sure it’s surrounded by a cordon though,’ said Protheroe.
‘Why did you use the clear plastic tape inside the coffin?’ asked Castle.
‘Are you going to tell her, Ridley, or shall I?’
‘It’s Ridpath. Detective Inspector Ridpath.’
‘Of course it is. Well, do you know?’
Ridpath thought for a moment, working out the answer. ‘We’re looking for a missing body—’
‘That’s right. I was using the tape to check if it hadn’t fallen down the gaps in the lining.’
‘Let me finish…’
Protheroe held his hands up.
‘According to the gravediggers, the grave hadn’t been disturbed since the coffin was buried. So the question is…’ He scratched his head, trying to stimulate his copper’s brain – a way of thinking that had become ossified in the last nine months. ‘The question is, whether the body had ever been in the coffin in the first place.’
‘Correct, Inspector. If it had ever been there Locard’s exchange principle would come into play.’
‘Every contact leaves a trace,’ interjected DS Castle. They both looked at her. ‘Hello, I did a forensics course at uni.’
‘Oh God, not another one…’
Sarah Castle stared at him.
If looks could kill, he’d be in the electric chair. Ridpath liked her already.
‘Anyway, I couldn’t see anything but it doesn’t mean something wasn’t there. Hence the tape.’
‘But what about the swabs?’ Ridpath asked.
‘He was looking for traces of blood.’
It was Ridpath’s turn to stare at her.
‘The clear squares of tape are used to look for skin samples or oils that may have come off the body if it had touched the satin inside the coffin. The cotton buds had luminol sprayed on them. The chemical reacts with blood. If any was inside the coffin, the ends of the buds would have gone purple. Was the bloody uni course worth it?’
Protheroe nodded. ‘Ten out of ten, Sergeant.’ He turned to Ridpath. ‘You can come to the lab tomorrow afternoon. I should have the results by then. Or I can just send them across to you?’
‘No, I’ll swing by. Around 4.30 OK?’
‘Should be done by then. It’s pretty straightforward, not brain surgery.’
‘Can I come too?’
They both looked at her.
She blushed again. ‘I just want to learn more…’
‘Will Charlie mind?’
‘I don’t think so. Anyway, until the name of the victim is found, there isn’t any family to liaise with.’
‘I’ll see you there at 4.30.’ He turned and began walking back to his car. Then he stopped. ‘There’s one thing you can do for me though.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Those breeze blocks, can you check where they were made?’
‘Sure, should be easy. Common or garden breeze blocks.’
Something flashed across his mind: an image, a memory he didn’t have time to process. And then it was gone, like a whisper on the wind. ‘Just check them out, will you?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was close to lunchtime before he managed to get back to the Coroner’s Office, grabbing a quick salmon and cream cheese sandwich on the way. The doctors had told him to eat more fish, so salmon sandwiches had become his standby, even though he hated them.
He felt like he had been back at work for years as he pushed open the door. The aches and pains from standing around a cold cemetery were beginning to get to him. Perhaps the nine months off work had taken more out of him than he thought.
The reception desk was empty again. Would he ever meet the elusive Jenny Oldfield or was she on permanent lunch break? He walked though into the main office. And then it struck him: where was he supposed to sit? Nobody had actually told him if he had a desk, a computer, what the password was or even how to log on. He supposed it was the elusive Jenny Oldfield’s job.
Four empty desks stared back at him. Which one was his? He tried to bring all his detective skills to bear on the problem but all four looked occupied and used.
‘Yours is over there.’
He turned round to find Margaret Challinor towering over him, coffee in hand. At least, it felt like she was much taller than him but that couldn’t be – he was nearly six feet tall. Then he looked down at her legs; she was wearing four-inch heels.
‘Thanks. I presume I can get all the office passwords from Jenny?’
‘She’ll be back after lunch. I heard about this morning.’
‘Oh?’
‘A little bird called Rob Campbell from Health and Safety rang me.’
She brushed past him and he smelt the faint but pleasant presence of a perfume. He couldn’t quite catch the aroma – Chanel No. 5, was it?
‘You’d better come in.’
He followed her into her office. The oak desk was as neat as yesterday, with files to the left and right in orderly piles. A computer monitor on her left. A pristine blotter and an array of pens next to a pile of unopened letters.
She sat down behind it, putting the paper cup of coffee on a coaster next to her. ‘Tell me what happened.’
‘To cut a long story short, we opened the coffin and it was empty.’
‘No family there?’
‘Not that
I saw. A few people were visiting graves, but none of Alice Seagram’s family.’
‘Good. I’m stuck in court all afternoon so you’re going to have to break the news to them. You’ve received the latest family liaison guidance, Tom?’
He nodded. ‘Actually, I prefer to be called Ridpath. I always felt Tom was such a namby-pamby name.’
‘Given by your mother?’
‘How did you know?’
‘It has a female touch about it. A woman who wants to keep her son a boy rather than help him become a man.’
He was uncomfortable with the accuracy of her insight. Had she done the same to her children? He felt it was too early to ask her directly; instead he returned to the problem they both faced. ‘You want me to go alone?’
She thought for a moment, her eyes closing slightly behind the thick lenses of her glasses. ‘I’ll get Carol to go with you. A female presence in times like these always helps.’
‘You seem calm about this.’
‘The missing body?’
He nodded again.
‘Inside, I’m seething. A fairly straightforward procedure of exhumation will now turn into a major investigation. Plus, once the newspapers get hold of this, all hell will break loose.’
‘I’ve started the investigation already.’ He looked down at his lap. ‘Charlie Whitworth asked me to handle it.’
Her left eyebrow rose half an inch, almost touching a lock of grey hair hanging down across her forehead. ‘You should have called me first.’
‘I did. Left a message with Jenny.’ Ridpath omitted to mention he had already accepted the job from his DCI.
Margaret Challinor leant forward and rifled through a neat pile of slips on her desk. ‘So you did.’
‘I interviewed the witnesses and John Gorman provided a forensics team to look at the coffin. They’ll report back tomorrow.’
‘Who’s paying for it?’
‘He is. For now.’
She tapped her fingers on the desk. ‘Good. Discover anything?’
‘Not a lot. The gravediggers were pretty certain the ground hadn’t been disturbed since the body was placed in the plot in 2008.’
‘So we’re not looking for a Charlie Chaplin copycat then?’
Ridpath understood the reference to the infamous theft and attempt to ransom the comedian’s body in 1977. ‘Doesn’t look like it.’
More tapping of fingers on the blotter. ‘So it means we need to discover if the body was ever in the coffin in the first place.’
Ridpath was impressed with how quickly she had got to the nub of the issue. ‘Exactly. The lab will let us know tomorrow.’
‘Looking for traces of DNA, hair or epithelial cells.’
‘You know your forensics. We drop flakes of skin all the time. If the body had been in the coffin, there would be traces.’
Margaret Challinor pressed the intercom on her desk. ‘Carol, can you come to my office, please?’
‘Will do.’
She looked back at him. ‘I’ll postpone the inquest pending your investigation. I can give you some time but not a lot; the high court are breathing down my neck and that particular judge has a bad case of halitosis.’
‘How long?’
‘About a week, not longer.’
Ridpath took the opportunity to raise an issue. ‘I think the Health and Safety man at the exhumation this morning is going to write a report…’
‘Campbell? Don’t worry about him, he’s a twat. Just covering his rather expansive arse.’
Ridpath found himself slightly shocked at her language. Of course he was used to it, having worked on the streets of Manchester, but enunciated in such beautifully pronounced vowels it still shocked him. Had he become a prude in his old age?
Carol Oates appeared in the doorway. She was dressed in black, as yesterday, but it was a neater, more austere look. Her blond hair was still pinned up in a chignon.
‘I need you to go with Ridpath to see the Seagram family this afternoon.’
‘I have the Sinclair suicide to depose at four o’clock.’
‘Oh, shit, I forgot.’
‘I can do it alone,’ said Ridpath.
‘Are you sure?’
He nodded.
‘Carol, give him the file on the family. Be careful with them – they have managed the press well.’
‘Manipulated the press well,’ said Carol from the doorway.
‘No cock-ups, Ridpath. I’m relying on you.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
He killed this girl with a garrotte.
They had played with her for two hours before he lost patience. Using the drill on her knees, the bit digging deep into her kneecaps, recording the screams through an ancient tape machine he had picked up for five pounds at a car boot sale.
‘Ian Brady and Myra Hindley used to listen to their victims on Sunday afternoons. They played the tapes after she had cooked him a roast dinner. His favourite was pork with lots of crackling and apple sauce. Afterwards they made love,’ he said as the girl whimpered on the ground beneath him, her left hand smashed by a hammer.
‘I’d like to do that.’
‘Do what?’
‘Listen to the tapes.’
He touched her under her chin, his fingers soft and gentle. She knew she had pleased him this time.
‘But we are not like those two criminals; we perform experiments. It’s your turn’, he announced.
The girl on the ground tried to speak, spitting blood through her broken lips.
He knelt in closer to her mouth. ‘What’s that? What are you saying?’
‘No…no more…no more.’ The words came out in a rough, broken voice. Her hair – long, dark and bedraggled with sweat – hung down over her face. Spots of blood dripped onto the ground, mixing with the sweat and spit to pool on the stained concrete.
He leant in closer. ‘I can’t hear you. You want more?’
The girl shook her head violently, spraying blood and sweat onto his trousers. He reached into his pocket, producing a clean handkerchief and wiping the spots carefully from the fabric.
‘This tart wants us to experiment more on her, Lesley. This one is a woman after my own heart.’
She picked up the ball-peen hammer from the table. It was new, bought that morning from B&Q on the outskirts of Liverpool. As he’d instructed, she chose a time when the cashiers were busy, added lots of other items to her basket, turned away from the cameras covering the till and made sure she paid in cash.
She advanced on the girl, staring down at the body beneath her.
He smiled, encouraging her to go ahead.
The first time with the prostitute she picked up in Moss Side, she had just watched while he did all the work. He had used a scalpel to slice off the woman’s lips and then her ears, finally removing the scalp and peeling back the hair from the skull like one would peel off a pair of plastic gloves.
When he had finished and the girl was dead, he had said, ‘I’ve always wanted to scalp somebody since I watched the Indians do it on TV when I was a child.’ Then a look of disgust came over his face as he stared down at the body lying on the sticky carpet. ‘This one is too ugly, Lesley – we won’t let the police find this one. She will be disposed of where she will never be found.’
With the second girl, the one with the swan tattoo on her arm, she had been reluctant to begin at first but he encouraged her. ‘Feel the joy of causing pain,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘It’s just another experiment. A frog in human skin.’
She could feel his breath on her skin and the soft plastic touching her ear. Was it only a fortnight ago? It seemed an age and half a lifetime away.
After a little hesitation and a few whispered words of encouragement, she had finally hit the girl.
Then again.
Then again, harder.
Again and again and again. Feeling the hammer crunch into the side of her head with every blow.
Finally, he had caught her arm and pulled her to him, wh
ispering ‘Did you enjoy the pain?’ into her ear.
Their third plaything now lay at their feet. This time, she didn’t need to be encouraged. She stood over the girl on the floor, seeing her as a mass of dyed hair attached to a thin body. The girl was panting, her back wracked with sobs, her shoulders tense and stressed, resting on her elbows cradling her broken index finger.
The cockiness was gone now. The swagger of the cigarette and the demand for money vanished like the posturing bully she was, replaced by a quivering, blubbering mass.
She chose her point carefully, bringing the round end of the ball of the hammer down on the middle of the girl’s radius. She didn’t swing too hard this time, letting the weight of the hammer do the work, just as he had shown her. There was the impact of the hammer against her skin, followed by the dull thud as the radius cracked into pieces.
A wail of surprise and pain erupted from the girl’s mouth.
She could see the fillings inside. Cheap National Health work – metal amalgam fillings stark against the ivory of the teeth. She should have gone to a better dentist.
The girl held her limp right arm with left arm, bringing it across her chest, still screaming in pain.
He walked across to check the reel to reel recorder. The tapes were revolving slowly, the illuminated dials flickering crazily with each one of the girl’s screams.
She brought the hammer down again. This time against the girl’s left kneecap. This time the crack was much louder as the girl howled, rolled onto her back and screamed into the empty rafters of the workshop.
He smiled at her.
He smiled at her.
She lifted the hammer again, ready to bring it down on the other kneecap, but he grabbed her hand. ‘Enough. Let’s finish this.’
He knelt down behind the girl’s head and lifted her body into a sitting position. Then he gently placed the garrotte around her neck, pulling the wire tighter and tighter.
The wire cut into her skin, the sharp edge producing a thin line of blood around the neck. The fingers of the girl’s left hand were reaching it, her legs jerking crazily, her mouth no longer screaming, just gasping for the last remnant of life.
He pulled tighter and tighter, the only effort on his face a slight tightening of the jaw and mouth.