Thorn (19 page)

‘Oh yes,' said the cemetery manager with evident relief.

‘Exactly as I said in the first place,' said Leo impatiently. ‘We'll need spades and a toolbox as well. I suppose you've got such things here, have you, Williams? Good. Well, gentlemen? Are you coming with me, or have I got to do this on my own?'

As they set off, the inspector said to Frisby, ‘Would he really have done it on his own?'

‘I'm only surprised he bothered to contact us in the first place,' rejoined Frisby drily.

The grave was exactly as it had been left, and PC Porling was standing guard at one end.

‘Is someone on the gates, Constable?' asked Frisby.

‘Yes, sir.'

‘And you've got your torch?'

‘Sir,' affirmed Porling.

‘Then I think that first of all we need to take a photograph of the grave as it is. Have you the camera, Mackenzie? Only a couple of shots, I think. Here and here.' Frisby looked across at Leo. ‘Is this the disturbance you referred to?'

‘Yes.'

‘And this is how you found it when you and Imogen Ingram arrived?'

‘Yes,' said Leo, perjuring himself unhesitatingly.

‘But look here, that's not evidence of any movement from beneath,' protested Mackenzie.

‘Do you want to take a chance on that, Inspector?' demanded Leo. ‘For goodness' sake, let's make a start. Shine the torch, Porling, and hand out the spades – that's unless the inspector wants to come up with any more unnecessary police procedure to delay us, or Mr Frisby feels like reciting the last act of
Hamlet
to provide atmosphere.'

‘All in good time, sir. And there's plenty of atmosphere without any recitations.'

‘So there is, Inspector.' Leo looked across at Mackenzie. ‘Well, shall we make a start? Will you take shovel or spade, Inspector?'

T
he rain had stopped, but as they began to dig, a thin mist drifted over the graveyard, spangling the trees and dripping from the branches. The air was clammy and dank on their faces, and there was a stench of wet earth.

Leo had entered into a half-world where time no longer had any meaning, where the only reality was the crunch of the soil beneath the spades and the only people in the world the other men with him. None of them spoke much but there was an air of grim doggedness about them. Once Mackenzie swore as his spade hit a large stone, and once Leo sent Porling back to the little office to check on Imogen. The constable returned within a few minutes, carefully balancing six mugs of coffee on a biscuit-tin lid. All was well, he reported. Mr Williams had said not to worry and to send for him if he could help, and in the meantime here was a hot drink for everyone.

They stopped briefly, grateful for the coffee and the respite, and then returned to work, taking turns to dig, even old Huxtable taking a brief spell. To begin with John Shilling worked with them, but after only a few minutes he broke off, sick and shaking, wiping his face with the back of one trembling hand. ‘Can't do it. The thought of what's down there, what we might find . . . Sorry, Mackenzie, Sterne, don't think I'm up to it.'

Leo looked at him contemptuously. ‘You'd better stand watch instead of Porling then. Porling, take Dr Shilling's spade and lend a hand, will you?'

As Porling grasped the spade, Mackenzie said softly, ‘Aren't you being a bit hard on Shilling, Doctor? Don't forget he knew the lady.'

‘Don't forget he signed her death certificate,' said Leo.

As the soil level went down it was necessary to go down with it, so that within a short time they were waist deep and then chest deep in the open grave. There was a black, sour stench, and a damp clinging miasma of mould. The noisome breath of the grave, thought Leo. The stink of decay and putrefaction. He knew this was absurd; the coffins had only been in the ground for a day and a half, but the impression persisted. They were neck deep in the grave now, and it felt as if they were sinking inexorably lower and lower into a black, yawning maw. This is the stuff that nightmares are made of, Imogen, thought Leo grimly. I'm right out on that limb for you now, and a dangerous and precarious limb it is.

He was beginning to think they must be nearing the bottom when Huxtable leaned over and said, ‘Keep well to that side from now on if possible. Royston Ingram's side.'

‘Why?'

‘To cause as little disturbance as possible to the – to Eloise Ingram's coffin. So that we get as true a picture as possible.'

‘Oh yes, I see. I hadn't thought of that.'

Leo thought he was prepared for the scrape of the spade on the coffin lid, but when it came it jolted his heart into a painful too-fast beating once more, betraying the raw state of his nerves.

Mackenzie, who had gone up to take a breather on the grave edge, slithered back down to help clear away the soil. ‘And Porling, if you and Mr Frisby will wedge the torches in the ground just there – yes, that's it – we should be able to see what we're up against.'

‘D'you want us down there with you, Leo?' This was Frisby.

‘I don't think there's room.'

‘Where's Huxtable? Oh, there you are. I think we'll need your formal identification of the coffin in a minute.'

Leo straightened up for a moment, suddenly aware of a monstrously aching back from bending over for so long, and of mounting apprehension. The inside of the grave smelt of fear and despair. In a very few minutes they would know.

As the torches were directed into the grave, the two beams met and joined, giving the eerie impression of miniature spotlights aimed on to a small stage set, with black swirling darkness beyond. Leo was perched awkwardly on the foot of Royston Ingram's coffin, and he stayed where he was. But the horror was scudding across his skin again and he felt as if a huge weight was pressing down on his lungs.

At his side, Inspector Mackenzie drew in his breath sharply, and then said, ‘Move that torch to the left a bit, Porling. Dr Sterne, can you see just there?' He leaned forward, pointing, and as Leo followed the line of his finger, he felt a surge of dread.

Huxtable and Frisby were leaning forward, both of them still outside the torchlight. ‘What is it?' called Frisby softly. ‘Leo, what have you found?'

Leo said, in a voice devoid of all emotion, ‘I think the coffin's moved,' and felt the recoil of the others. He indicated the left-hand corner and Frisby adjusted the torch again. ‘Can you see? Just there? There's a mark in the wet earth. Like the rut you get in wet ground when a car's been parked.'

‘Are you sure you didn't dislodge it in the digging?'

‘No, the coffins are lying quite tightly together and anyway we kept to the other side. But there's a definite depression in the wall of the grave surrounding Eloise. We haven't made that.' And even if we have, he thought, I'm not admitting to it. I'm not letting them give up now. If I can use anything to force them on, I will. He leaned forward cautiously. ‘It's as if the corner made a deep gouge in the earth and then shifted. And I don't think,' said Leo, infusing his voice with conviction, ‘that it could have been done by anything other than the coffin moving after it was lowered.'

Huxtable was kneeling on the edge of the grave, peering down. ‘But it's quite impossible, Dr Sterne. The weight of the earth alone would preclude any movement.'

Frisby said, ‘And there shouldn't be any movement at all. Not unless—'

‘Unless what's inside the coffin caused it. Quite,' said Leo. And then, ‘Shilling, if you're about to throw up, go and do it somewhere else.'

There was the sound of somebody blundering into the darkness, and then of being wetly sick on the ground.

Mackenzie was staring down at the coffin. When he spoke again, the others heard the extreme reluctance in his voice. ‘We'll have to get it open, won't we?'

‘Oh yes. Right away. Are we in order for that, Frisby?'

Frisby said, with an edge to his voice, ‘Even if we weren't, I don't think any jury would convict us for opening up a coffin that looks as if there's been movement from inside.'

‘You agree with me, then?'

‘I agree that we should investigate. Inspector, what's your opinion?'

Mackenzie was still examining the area around Eloise's coffin. After a moment he said, ‘I couldn't be sure about it, and I couldn't say that – that there's anything untoward, but . . .'

Leo sent him a look compounded of irony and grim amusement. ‘You're a master of understatement, aren't you, Inspector?'

‘I think the marks are suggestive,' said Mackenzie. ‘But I don't think they're conclusive.'

‘But we'll have to make sure.'

‘Oh yes.'

There was an appalled silence, and then Frisby said, ‘But look here, wouldn't it – I mean surely she would have called for help?'

‘Would anyone have heard if she did?' This was Huxtable.

‘I don't see how they could, not from – not from down there,' said Frisby, frowning. ‘Good God, she was under six feet of earth!'

Leo looked about him. ‘And it's pretty deserted here as well,' he said. ‘The nearest houses are easily a mile off. I remember noticing that on the way.'

‘There's the office,' began Mackenzie. ‘No, that's on the other side. But there'd be people coming and going a bit, surely.'

Porling cleared his throat. ‘Begging pardon, sir, but the cemetery manager said the funeral was late yesterday afternoon. If it was their last one for the day—'

‘It was their last one,' said Huxtable. ‘They fitted it in at short notice because the family wanted a quick interment.'

‘And so the office probably closed shortly afterwards,' said Mackenzie, thoughtfully. ‘What time do they lock the gates, Mr Huxtable?'

‘Five o'clock at this time of year.'

‘And,' said Porling, determinedly, ‘if you remember, sir, it rained for most of yesterday, which means you wouldn't get many relatives visiting graves either.'

‘Yes. Thirty-six hours. My God, Eloise Ingram could have screamed until her throat burst and no one would have heard her.'

In the harsh torchlight they looked at one another. ‘We'd better get on with it,' said Leo at last.

‘Yes. Wait a bit though, Doctor, I'll need to get a couple more shots first. Porling, pass down the camera again, will you? Huxtable, while we're doing that, I suppose you have to formally identify the coffin, don't you?'

‘I – yes. I – identify it,' said Huxtable. ‘Mr Frisby? Is that sufficient? Is there anything you need me to do?'

‘If there is, I'll worry about it afterwards,' said Frisby. ‘Let's get it over with.'

The sudden white flash of the camera lit the scene to vivid and bizarre life. Inspector Mackenzie took several shots, and then passed the camera back to Porling.

‘Hold on to that as you value your promotion, Porling. Ready, Dr Sterne?'

‘Yes. And Porling?'

‘Sir?'

‘Concentrate on keeping a watch up there. We're about to break open a coffin to get at a corpse, and the fact that we're doing it with the blessing of Her Majesty's coroner doesn't make it any more acceptable to the average night prowler weirdo.'

‘And we don't want any tasteless jokes about body snatchers or Burke and Hare either,' said Mackenzie, suddenly grateful for Dr Sterne's abrasive mood, and attempting to match it.

‘The only Burke in the party is over there being sick on somebody's headstone.' Leo took the small metal toolbox from Frisby and surveyed its contents. ‘It looks as if we have quite an embarrassment of riches in the way of implements, Inspector. Which do you fancy? Screwdriver or chisel?'

‘Screwdriver,' said Mackenzie, pointing to the coffin's edges. ‘See there? Brass screws. Driven into the lid and then down into the coffin sides. The wood's pretty thick. Huxtable, your people do a good job, don't they? I'll bet those screws are all of three inches long.'

‘And there are at least twenty of them,' said Leo, peering to look more closely.

‘Would we do better to lift the thing up on the ground to work on it, d'you reckon?'

‘If the guy ropes were still around we might. But I think it would be a harder job than it looks,' said Leo, frowning at the coffin. ‘Huxtable, what's the expert opinion?'

‘I'm afraid you'll be better in situ, Doctor. I can fetch guy ropes but it will take some time.'

‘I was afraid you'd say that. All right, Inspector, it looks as if we're stuck down here.'

‘Right you are.'

It was an appalling situation. The grave was a double plot, but it was only sufficiently wide to take the two coffins lying side by side. Leo and the inspector jockeyed for position, and in the end Mackenzie half knelt on Royston's coffin, with Leo astride Eloise's. Mackenzie glanced at him and said, ‘I hope you aren't subject to nightmares, Doctor.'

‘If I wasn't before, I will be after this. Ready, Inspector?'

‘No. But here we go anyway.'

Together they began to unscrew the coffin lid.

For a long time the only sound was the faint drip of moisture from the trees and the thin, barely perceptible squeaking of the disengaging screws. Once Leo caught a movement from above, and realised it was Porling keeping John Shilling back from the grave, and once an owl flew out of a tree behind them and sent its low, whooping cry into the night. Both men jumped and Mackenzie's hand shook so badly he had to pause before going on. Leo brought up the back of his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead. Mackenzie glanced at him, and thought, so he's not as detached as he's been making out after all.

Neither of them could have said how long it took them to remove the brass screws. They were in a strange and unreal world where time seemed to have run down and stopped, or to be grinding itself into reverse. At length Leo said softly, ‘That's the last one, I think. If we both take this edge and push it across on to the other coffin . . .'