Page 1 of The Girl in the Grave
Prologue
The sudden vibration of the ground beneath her head followed by a thudding, scraping noise woke her. A shiver ran down the full length of her spine and she realised that she was freezing cold. Not just cold as if she’d kicked the duvet off in the night; no, a blood-chilling coldness was seeping through her entire body. Her bones ached. Reaching around her for the light switch, she immediately realised that she wasn’t in her bed. Touching the hard surface beneath her, she realised that she wasn’t inanyone’sbed.
It was dark. No, it wasn’t just dark, it was pitch-black. Turning her head from side to side she couldn’t see a thing. The air felt as if it had been pulled from her lungs. She knew she was panicking.It’s okay. You’re not at home, but it’s okay. You’re going to stand up and walk out of here as if there’s nothing wrong. Deep breaths, stand up and walk out.
As she tried to sit up a wave of dizziness hit her, but she kept on pushing: up onto her elbows until her head hit something hard.What the hell?Lifting her hands, she reached up and tried to push whatever it was that was blocking her from sitting up. It wouldn’t move. Scrabbling around, suddenly in more of a panic, her hands and feet met cold concrete all around her.
She was boxed in.
As fear set in she opened her mouth and screamed: the sound was so high-pitched that for a moment she wondered if it had really come from inside her.
It was then she realised that the box she was in had a shape to it: a coffin shape.
One
Barry had been a cemetery groundskeeper for the last six years. As a child he’d wanted to be a cowboy, only there was no need for them in the heart of the English Lake District. Instead, he’d settled on being a self-employed landscape gardener until the permanent position of groundskeeper had come up, offering a fixed wage, no more worrying about making enough to pay the bills. It had taken some getting used to, but he’d managed.
He took a bite of the cheese and pickle sandwich he’d got up early to make for his dinner and couldn’t help but wonder what the world was coming to when bodies that should be left in peace were being exhumed. The papers were full of terrible stories and the TV news wasn’t much better, which was why he didn’t buy them or watch the news on TV. Life was hard, occasionally cruel, but on the whole it was good.
His wife worked nightshift at the local nursing home; he’d often be leaving for work as she walked through the front door. Which was probably why they were still married after twenty years: they didn’t see enough of each other to ever have the time to dislike one another. She was off work this weekend and he was looking forward to spending some quality time with her. They were going to go to Manchester for some shopping and to drink some of those fancy cocktails she liked so much.
He finished the last of his sandwich and tipped the crumbs from the crisp packet into his mouth. Far better to have eaten his dinner now, before the exhumation. He might not have an appetite later when he would need all the energy he could muster. He drained the last dregs of tea from the cracked Costa mug someone had bought him in the Secret Santa last year. Rinsing it under the tap, he left it to drain and dried his hands on the rough tea towel that was as crusty as the bread he’d just consumed.
Leaving the small wooden hut that doubled as the office and staff room, he began the walk towards the hill. The heat from the sun felt good on his face. It was a shame it didn’t warm the chill that had formed around his heart at the thought of what he was about to do next. He let out a sigh. He’d never known anyone have their grave exhumed. It was unheard of, especially around here. It was the kind of thing that happened on television, not a quiet cemetery in the middle of the Lake District. Still, it made for an interesting afternoon for him. It was going to be fascinating watching those crime scene investigators working around the burial site and taking photos of everything that was happening.
There was already a small welcoming committee standing around the grave waiting for him and he felt a twinge of guilt for thinking about his belly and holding things up. One of the guys wearing a black fleece jacket with ‘CSI’ emblazoned across the back of it was still faffing around with the camera around his neck, so this made him feel better.
Barry nodded at Jason, who tapped his watch and rolled his eyes at him. Normally he’d have told him to bugger off, but it didn’t seem right today, not in front of these police people; it might sound disrespectful, and that wasn’t him. He had the utmost respect for the people he buried and for their families, always polite and ready to answer any questions they may have for him. Lifting his hand, he waved at Jason, who climbed into the cab of the digger. Jason was better at operating the machine than he was; Barry preferred digging with a spade. Harder work, but so much more precise.
The guy in the black fleece photographed the mound of soil they were all gathered around. Florence Wright, the woman in the grave, had only been buried eight weeks ago so the soil hadn’t been levelled. She didn’t even have a headstone yet. Barry gave the signal and Jason brought the heavy arm of the digger down and began to scoop up buckets of soil, depositing them into another pile on the overgrown grave next door. Good job that family only visited once a year; he wouldn’t like to see his gran’s final resting place being made a mess of like this.
After a few minutes, Barry saw a glimpse of wood through the soil and waved his hands, shouting, ‘Whoa, whoa lad.’
The arm of the digger stopped mid-air and a hushed silence fell around them as everyone gathered around to look down into the grave. Barry glanced down then stepped back. They were lucky this was a fresh one. The coffin was relatively new, so would be in good condition. He wasn’t too sure about the body inside it. He didn’t like to give much thought to what lay inside the holes he’d dug once the coffins were down there. It freaked him out. When he’d first started working here he’d had terrible nightmares which woke him in the night. Eventually, his wife had dragged him to the doctor’s for some sleeping tablets, told him she couldn’t take the tossing and turning on her nights off work. He’d done as he was told, got his pills and took them every night, supressing his dreams about being buried alive in one of the graves he’d dug, unable to claw his way out.
‘What now?’ The voice in his ear startled him. He stared at the woman with the camera, wondering if she was addressing him or asking a general question. He certainly didn’t know what now. Jason had jumped out of the cab. It was him who answered.
‘Well, someone is going to have to get down in that hole, clear the rest of the soil and put the straps around the coffin. Seeing as how I’ve used up all my skill in getting the soil out without breaking the coffin in half, it looks as if that’s a job for you, Barry, lad.’
Barry stared at him in horror. He wasn’t about to jump down into someone’s grave. Sleeping tablets or not, that was going to give him nightmares for sure. Jason stood opposite him with his arms crossed, staring at him. Barry realised that the CSI team had stopped what they were doing and were also staring at him. Shaking his head, he muttered ‘Christ’s sake’and jumped down into the grave, holding out his hand for Jason to pass him the spade.
Once he had cleared the rest of the soil around the coffin, Jason passed him the straps to secure around it then helped him back out of the hole. He hadn’t realised how much he’d been sweating; his forehead was damp with beads of perspiration and his hair wet. All he could smell was the earthy, coppery smell from the soil tinged with an underlying darker, sweeter odour that wasn’t familiar and it made him feel sick. He was so glad he wasn’t the one who had to open the coffin and examine the poor old woman’s remains; he wouldn’t be a pathologist for any amount of money in the world. The thought of having to cut into dead bodies made him shudder. He looked over to where the private ambulance was parked up on the small road as near to the gravesite as it could get. Two undertakers got out and pulled the trolley from the back. They would transport the coffin to the hospital mortuary, so the body of Florence Wright could be examined.
He watched as Jason used the heavy machine to lift the coffin from the grave. It had been raining heavily the past few days and a waterfall of rainwater cascaded down from inside of it. He’d always imagined that coffins would be watertight.The price they cost they bloody well should be, he smiled to himself as the undertakers, now in protective suits and gloves, guided the casket down towards their waiting trolley.
Barry glanced down into the empty grave and gasped, his eyes suddenly wide and alert; there was something else down there. Moving closer to the edge, he stood staring as a wave of hot bile filled the back of his throat. He wobbled as he tried to stop his legs from giving way underneath him. Finally finding his voice, he yelled so loud that everyone stopped what they were doing, and all turned to stare at him. He pointed down into the grave.
‘She’s… she’s fallen out; she’s not inside the coffin.’
Jason clambered out of the cab and strode towards him, closely followed by the CSIs, an environmental health officer, the priest from Florence’s local church and the two undertakers, until all of them were standing in a circle staring down into the dark, sodden grave. There, poking through the soil, a pair of mottled green and blue legs were clearly visible, the remains of a torn pair of tights still clinging to parts of them. Higher up, a hand with green-painted fingernails and half a face were also partially exposed; one milky, glazed eye with long eyelashes stared up at the sky.
‘How did that happen?’ said one of the undertakers, his voice much higher pitched than normal as the flash of a camera illuminated the body.
Jason could only shake his head. ‘Is that even possible? I mean, how did she getunderthe soil?’
A member of the CSI team ran over to the coffin, still dangling in the air, and knocked on the bottom of it. ‘She didn’t, it’s solid. The bottom hasn’t come away at all. Could it be…anotherbody?’
Barry felt his stomach lurch. How the hell had a body got into this grave? He’d dug this one himself: prepared the hole and shored up the sides ready for the burial. There hadn’t been a body in the grave when he’d finished. He’d even been the one to fill it back in because lazy bastard Jason had thrown a sickie. But he hadn’t noticed anything amiss. Wouldn’t he have noticed another body down there?
