A Breach of Promise (52 page)

In accordance with custom and law, the exhumation was to begin at midnight. Five minutes to twelve found them at the graveyard gates with an ashen-faced sexton, Dr. Loomis, three local police from the station along High Street, including, of course, Sergeant Byrne, three grave diggers, Monk, and after much indignant protest, Hester as well.

It was a chilly night with a damp wind blowing up from the river and the distant sound of foghorns like lost souls out of the rising mist over the water.

The sexton unlocked the gates, and their lanterns swayed as they made their way through and up the path. A constable, blessing his luck, was left on guard in case any curious person should be drawn to investigate what was happening. The grave diggers carried their spades over their shoulders, their feet making soft thuds on the earth path. As if in silent commiseration they walked in unison, unhappy shadows denser against the shifting darkness of the sky.

The sexton stopped at Samuel Jackson’s grave.

“Right,” he said, grunting. “Yer’d best be gettin’ started, then. Nowt ter wait fer.”

Obediently the grave diggers set to work.

Monk stood close to Hester, Loomis on the other side, shivering, arms folded across his chest, Byrne beside him. There was no sound but the faint whispering of the wind around the stones and the noise of the spades and the fall of earth.

It seemed to go on forever.

Hester moved a little closer to Monk, and he slipped his arm around her. She must be cold. The lantern light reflected on her face, eyes wide and dark, mouth closed, lips pressed together.

The noise of foghorns drifted up on the wind from the river again.

One of the lanterns guttered out. It must have been short of oil.

At last the spades struck the wood of the coffin lid.

A grave digger standing on the side taking a moment’s rest crossed himself.

They put the ropes underneath and began to pull the coffin up, grunting with the strain, and after a short awkwardness, laid it on the earth beside the gaping hole.

It was Loomis’s turn to act. He moved forward, rubbing his hands together to try to get the circulation going again.

The sexton opened the lid for him and stepped back.

One of the constables came forward, holding up a lantern but looking away.

Monk could feel his heart beating almost in his throat.

The silence prickled.

Byrne shifted his feet.

Loomis looked in. His skin was garish in the yellow light of the lantern, impossible to read. He moved aside what was left of the clothes. They could not see what he was doing, only the tensing of his shoulders and the expression on his face.

No one spoke.

Monk held Hester even closer, hardly aware that he was almost crushing her.

Minutes passed.

It was bitterly cold.

Loomis looked up at last.

“I’m afraid there isn’t enough left to tell anything,” he said quietly, his voice hoarse, almost breaking with disappointment. “I can take samples, but I doubt it will prove anything. Too many years … it’s just … gone!”

Hester loosed herself from Monk’s grasp and went forward to the coffin. She leaned over and looked in. Byrne lowered the lamp for her. Very slowly she put her hands down and moved the strands of clothes aside herself, going deeper than Loomis had.

Monk waited. He could feel his teeth chattering.

The wail of the foghorn came up from the river again.

One of the constables whispered the Lord’s name to himself.

Hester lifted her hand high under the lantern, looking at something in it, showing it to Loomis.

“Glass!” she whispered, her voice catching in her throat. “Ground glass. It’s still here. Under where the stomach used to be. She fed him ground glass. That’s why he bled to death!”

Monk felt the sweat break out on his skin, and found he was shaking.

“Got her!” Loomis said softly and with infinite satisfaction. “Sexton, put a guard on this, exactly as it is. On pain of complicity in murder, don’t move that body! Do you understand me?”

Very gently, Hester replaced the glass where she had found it.

The sexton nodded. The police moved closer, lanterns wavering, held high.

Loomis rubbed his hands down the sides of his trousers. Perhaps he too was sweating.

Hester turned around and came back to Monk. Loomis and the others were gradually moving away. There was only one lantern left for them to follow.

“We did it,” she said softly. She held her hands down, away from him. He had to reach for them to hold them in his. She was so cold they were like ice.

“Yes, we did,” he whispered back. “Thank you.”

She turned to pull away, but he held on to her. This was not the time, after all they had seen of prejudices and facile judgments, and it was most certainly not the place, but the words came to his lips and would not be stopped.

“Hester?”

“What?” She was shuddering with cold and shock.

He wanted to hold her closer but he knew she would refuse.

“Hester, will you marry me?”

She was silent for so long he thought she was not going to answer, possibly even that she had not heard him. He was about to repeat it when she spoke.

“Why?” she asked, looking at him, although she could hardly have seen his face in the light of the single lantern sitting on the gravestone to their side.

“Because I love you, of course!” he said sharply, feeling
vulnerable and suddenly terrified she would refuse. A pit of loneliness loomed up in front of his imagination worse than the yawning grave beside them. “And I don’t want ever to be without you,” he added.

“I think that’s a good reason,” she said very softly. “Yes, I will.” And she did not resist in the slightest when he drew her closer to him and kissed her again, and again, and again.

If you liked this William Monk novel you won’t want to miss the rest….

The William Monk Novels
by
Anne Perry

THE FACE OF A STRANGER

A DANGEROUS MOURNING

DEFEND AND BETRAY

A SUDDEN, FEARFUL DEATH

THE SINS OF THE WOLF

CAIN HIS BROTHER

WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE

THE SILENT CRY

A BREACH OF PROMISE

THE TWISTED ROOT

SLAVES OF OBSESSION

FUNERAL IN BLUE

DEATH OF A STRANGER

THE SHIFTING TIDE

DARK ASSASSIN

EXECUTION DOCK

Published by The Random House Publishing Group.
Available wherever books are sold.

And don’t miss the next William Monk novel

THE TWISTED ROOT
by
Anne Perry

As private investigator William Monk listens to the young Lucius Stourbridge plead for help in tracking down his runaway fiancée, he feels a sense of heavy foreboding. Miriam Gardiner disappeared suddenly from a croquet party at the luxurious Bayswater mansion of her in-laws-to-be and has not been seen since. But on Hampstead Heath, Monk finds the coach in which Miriam had fled and, nearby, the murdered body of the coachman. There is no trace of Miriam.

What strange compulsion could have driven the beautiful widow to abandon the prospect of a loving marriage and financial abundance? Monk’s attempt to answer that question proves a challenge, as Miriam Gardiner’s fateful flight ends in a packed London courtroom and a charge or murder. And in a race with the hangman, Monk and clever nurse Hester Latterly—themselves now newlyweds—desperately pursue the elusive truth … and an unknown killer whose malign brilliance they have scarcely begun to fathom.

Published by The Random House Publishing Group.
Available in bookstores everywhere.

Dont miss Anne Perry’s other exciting series!

The Thomas and Charlotte Pitt Novels
by
Anne Perry

THE CATER STREET HANGMAN
CALLANDER SQUARE
PARAGON WALK
RESURRECTION ROW
BLUEGATE FIELDS
RUTLAND PLACE
DEATH IN THE DEVIL’S ACRE
CARDINGTON CRESCENT
SILENCE IN HANOVER CLOSE
BETHLEHEM ROAD
HIGHGATE RISE
BELGRAVE SQUARE
FARRIERS’ LANE
THE HYDE PARK HEADSMAN
TRAITORS GATE
PENTECOST ALLEY
ASHWORTH HALL
BRUNSWICK GARDENS
BEDFORD SQUARE
HALF MOON STREET
THE WHITECHAPEL CONSPIRACY
SOUTHAMPTON ROW
SEVEN DIALS
LONG SPOON LANE
BUCKINGHAM PALACE GARDENS

Published by The Random House Publishing Group.
Available in bookstores everywhere.