Page 6 of The Girl in the Grave
‘Sorry, did I scare you?’
She laughed. ‘A little; I tend to get lost in the lake sometimes.’
He nodded. ‘I can imagine, I think I would too. That view is magnificent.’
She felt the heat rise up in her face. ‘Thank you.’
‘Anyway, I’ve managed to fix your outside camera. There were a couple of loose connections. The internal one, I’m not so sure about. I’ll have to order some new parts and see if they fix it. Unfortunately, that could take a couple of days. As soon as they arrive I’ll come back and get it sorted for you.’
‘Thank you so much. It’s funny, I’ve never had any problems with them before and then two of them go down at once. Did you manage to get the light fixed?’
‘Yes, that was easy. It just needed a new bulb. It’s always the way with these things. At least everything else is working okay. And thank you for the coffee; it was the best I’ve tasted.’
‘Blimey, if that was the best you’ve had I feel sorry for you. I’m more of a tea drinker so I have no idea if my coffee is even palatable.’
‘Well it was perfect.’ He winked at her, and she felt the warm blush begin to rise further up her cheeks.
‘Take care, Ms Adams.’
‘Bye, Steve.’
She walked him to the front door, closing and locking it behind him. Then went to watch the cameras. Nice as he’d seemed, she had to make sure he drove out of the gates and didn’t do anything to arouse her suspicion. Men, in particular, had to earn that trust from her. No one could blame her for that after what had happened.
She looked at her watch, time to get going. Doctor Corkill should be arriving at the cemetery in the next hour. Josh had texted to say he’d meet her there. A few more hours for their Jane Doe wasn’t going to make much difference. At least they’d found her. It might take a while, but once the site was properly processed and the girl’s body removed, they’d be able to work on identifying her so that her own family could give her the burial she deserved. Life was cruel. The girl was far too young to be lying in a grave, crushed under the weight of someone else’s coffin.
She opened the drive gates and watched the van leave. She didn’t bother to shut them again: she needed to get going if she was going to make it back to the cemetery on time.
Shrugging on her favourite black linen jacket, she put on a pair of walking boots and tucked her jeans into them. The heavy rain which had set in yesterday afternoon had eased off, but today it was still drizzling, which would make the grave site slippery and forensically a bit of a challenge. That was the thing with the Lakes; it had its own distinct weather pattern. One minute the sun would be burning hot, the next clouds and rain. Still, she wouldn’t swap it for the world. She realised how lucky she was that she could afford to live in such a beautiful, secluded area. At first she’d thought about buying a house in the middle of a busy town where she’d be surrounded by people and never truly alone, but then she’d realised that she’d always be on edge, wondering who her neighbours were. What the noise was. Who was outside. At least here, even though she was miles from another living soul, nobody knew where she was. With her cameras, alarms and self-defence skills she’d be ready. She knew the statistics. Christ, she’d spent a lifetime researching violent crimes. How many post-mortems had she completed on innocent people killed by someone else, for no apparent reason? Too many to count. But she’d nearly died once, and she wasn’t going to let it happen again.
She set the alarms and did her usual checks before locking up and getting into her car, waiting to see the electric gates shut in her rear-view mirror. The cemetery was fifteen minutes from her house on a good day when the roads weren’t full of coaches carrying tourists.
Heading to the crime scene, she let her mind wander to Josh for a moment as she drove. There were rumours that his marriage wasn’t working out, and she wanted to tell him she was there for him should he need a place to crash or someone to talk to. It was the least she could do for him, but she knew deep down that she wouldn’t mention it. She laughed at herself; these days the deepest conversations she had were with the dead who came into her mortuary. Glancing at her reflection in the rear-view mirror, she checked herself.You need to claim back your life, Beth. It doesn’t matter that you survived; he’s still won if you keep living in fear like this.
Eight
The story had broken on the local paper’s Facebook page this morning, and it would no doubt be front page news in the papers tomorrow morning. Pictures of the freshly dug up coffin dangling from the jaws of the digger filled her phone screen, but the reporter didn’t know the full extent of the story, and the police were doing their best to keep it that way. The family of Florence Wright, the poor woman inside the coffin that had been dug up, were going to be horrified. It was bad enough that a question mark over her cause of death had resulted in the exhumation in the first place.
Inching her car through the crowds of onlookers – she supposed the local cafés and gift shops had never seen so much custom – she drove back through the east gate and flashed her ID for the police community support officer to wave her through. The coffin, thankfully, had been taken away to the mortuary late last night after the scene above ground had been processed. Florence Wright’s post-mortem had been pulled forward to first thing tomorrow morning, to make room for an examination of the surprise second body. It was cold and clinical, but this was how Beth’s world operated. Grieving was a luxury for the family and friends; her job was to determine how, and why. Beth would grieve in her own way, but only when the case was closed.
She parked behind Josh’s Mini Cooper, smiling to herself as she wondered, not for the first time, why someone so tall would choose to drive a car so small. She got out and made her way towards the white tent which had been erected over the open grave yesterday, to provide privacy and preserve any evidence. And in a case like this which, thanks to the Facebook scoop, was going to be headlines in all the national newspapers, they needed to keep a lid on it for as long as they possibly could.
Someone exited the tent just as she was approaching and, despite being dressed from head to toe in protective clothing, she knew it was Josh from the way he stooped on the way out. He lifted his hand in greeting.
‘Is Dr Corkill there?’
Josh nodded. ‘He is, with one of his archaeology students. I think we should be good to move the second body in the next hour.’
Beth felt relieved that Corkill was on the case. He was good: one of the best. She would poke her head inside and see how he was getting on. If he needed her assistance, then she’d suit up and dive right in. If not, she’d go to the mortuary to wait for the body to arrive. She had two assistants who were more than capable of booking the body in, but she felt as if she needed to be there for this one. This girl deserved more than the end she’d been given, and it would make Beth feel a little better knowing she’d been the one to take care of her every need from now on.
The tent opening pushed aside once more, and Beth smiled as she locked eyes with the doctor.
‘Chris, it’s good to see you.’
He pulled back the hood of the white paper suit he was wearing, grinning at her with the smile of a guy half his age.
‘Beth, you too. It’s just a shame we only ever meet under such tragic circumstances. You’ll be pleased to know the body is intact. Apart from the usual decomposition, she’s pretty well preserved. I won’t have an awful lot of input once we’ve removed her and sieved the soil for trace evidence. She’ll be all yours unless you need help with identification. There are signs of some dental work and a couple of older scars – one on her forearm, another on her right shoulder – that suggests it will be straightforward.’
‘Ever the optimist, Chris.’ Beth smiled.
