Page 13 of The Girl in the Grave
She smiled at him. ‘Deal, do you think we’ll have an ID for her after it? It would be good if she was on the system.’
‘It would be a bloody miracle and yes, it would be amazing. I sent Carl to evidence the PM on Florence Wright, the body that was exhumed, just in case something wasn’t right. Claire is going to be joining him for the next one because we’ll need a wet and a dry exhibits officer. Please will you take notes so I can concentrate on what the doc is doing and saying?’ He knew she wouldn’t object, and at least that way she didn’t have to watch the entire procedure and could focus on writing.
Twenty
Estelle let herself out of the staff entrance: it was too stuffy down there. It was a shame there were no windows to throw open and let some fresh air in. She wrinkled her nose; there was a distinct odour of sweaty feet lingering in the air. She made a mental note to get some of those plug-in air fresheners – it wasn’t the nicest smell to inhale every time you set foot into the corridor. She took out her phone and texted Annie, hoping her friend had been back to her room to collect it.
On a scale of one to ten, how dead do you feel this morning? Where are you, I’ll bring coffee? x
She realised she’d better go and see her father, to sweeten him up and apologise for being silly last night, for drinking too much and letting her friends get too drunk. He liked apologies, always said it showed the true inner strength of a person if they could admit when they were wrong. What a load of crap. She was only doing it so he wouldn’t spend the next three days in a mood with her and send her to every shitty meeting and event that was booked in. She really hated working here and wondered if Annie fancied going backpacking with her. She had quite a bit of money stashed in her rainy-day fund that Daddy didn’t know about. More than enough that they wouldn’t have to slum it whilst travelling the world. In fact, this was the best idea she’d ever had; if she could convince Annie to go with her it would be amazing. They could face the music when they got home: Daddy would only be angry with her for a short time. He’d forgive her and give her a job, then she could give Annie her job back. It was perfect, they couldn’t lose: it would be like a Willy Wonka golden ticket if they could escape for six months and see the world. As soon as she’d grovelled enough she was going to hunt Annie down and surprise her.
The hotel reception was heaving with an entire coach load of tourists who were all trying to check in. She headed straight for them, smiling and pointing to them to get in a line instead of all trying to talk to Gary the receptionist at once. He looked at Estelle and smiled, mouthing the words ‘thank you’. She’d miss Gary and the rest of the team: he was so funny and made them all laugh. But hopefully he’d still be working here when they got back, or maybe he’d want to come with them. She stopped herself; if she upped and left with all the best members of staff her dad would come after her and drag her back. Bad idea, she’d get away with just her and Annie.
This thought kept her going for the next few hours as they got all the tourists booked in and taken to their rooms. Then she walked into Bowness to go to the bank and get some cash to top up the till. Stopping off to buy coffee and cakes for her and Annie, she headed back down to the staff quarters to go and tell her friend her fabulous idea. The smell of sweat still lingered in the air and it was even hotter down there because it was now warm outside. She reached Annie’s room and knocked on the door: no reply. Putting the paper bag of cakes and two coffees on the floor, she hammered on the door, shouting: ‘Annie, open the door!’ She was greeted by silence. Taking out her phone, she rang her number and could hear the phone vibrating from inside the room. This wasn’t good. Since the day Annie had started working at the hotel she’d never seen her without her phone. She would have realised and come back for it by now.
The door next to Annie’s opened and Paula stuck her head out of the gap. ‘What’s wrong? You gonna wake the dead shouting like that. Some of us were on night shift last night; we need our sleep.’
‘Sorry, have you seen Annie?’
She shook her head, then shut her door. She began knocking on the other doors, but no one answered. She realised they were all probably working. What did she do now? Wishing she hadn’t shut the door behind her earlier, she decided to go upstairs and get the master key. Leaving the drinks there she ran upstairs, asking Gary if he’d seen Annie today as she passed. He shook his head as she grabbed the set of master keys off the hook behind the reception desk. Then she ran around to where the housekeeping team kept their supplies in the huge walk-in linen closet on the ground floor. Two of the assistants were refilling their carts with towels and toiletries.
‘Did Annie turn up to work today?’
They both shook their heads. ‘Nope, haven’t seen her. She left us short staffed, so we’ve had to cover her check-outs as well.’
Estelle felt the panic begin to fill her chest, making it hard to breathe. This wasn’t like her friend, where the hell was she?
Twenty-One
Beth had examined Florence Wright from head to toe, scrutinising every internal organ by eye before dissecting them to look for any abnormalities. She had found no evidence of blood clots or tumours and had taken the smallest samples she could to retain for further microscopic examination. Samples of body fluids had been taken to be sent off for further analysis, but as far as she could tell Florence’s death matched the conclusion on hospital records: that she had died in hospital with complications from pneumonia. There was no evidence of foul play. Unless the toxicology reports came back with something, she couldn’t say that Florence’s cause of death was suspicious. This left someone with some explaining to do: why had she been exhumed in the first place? Stepping back from the table, she looked at Abe, who had all Florence’s internal organs in a biodegradable bag ready to be stuffed back into her abdominal cavity before he sewed her back up.
‘Have I missed anything?’
He shook his head. ‘Definitely not, you were as thorough as always, Doc. I couldn’t see that there was anything suspicious about her death.’
‘That’s what I think. I don’t understand why she was exhumed. The death certificate listed pneumonia and the fluid in the lungs confirms this. She was ninety-three years old; nothing about her death aroused suspicion with the hospital staff.’
Abe shrugged. ‘At least now you’ve confirmed that she died from natural causes, nothing suspicious.’
‘That’s true. DS Walker should be here soon for the Jane Doe’s PM; I’ll let him know we support the original findings. Please can you get her put back into the refrigerator whilst I go and make some phone calls.’
She turned to the body lying in front of her. ‘Florence, I’m so sorry you’ve had to endure this final indignity for no good reason that I can think of. Please forgive me.’
Stripping off her apron and gloves, she screwed them up, lifting the lid on the special waste bin to drop them inside. Leaving Abe to finish up, Beth walked down the corridor to the office she sometimes used when she worked down here. Her mind was buzzing with questions: why had permission been given to exhume Florence? Which family member had wanted their elderly relative dug up from their final resting place? And what did it all have to do with the young girl whose body was next in line, waiting patiently for her to begin her post-mortem? Did whoever request the exhumation know about the other body in the grave? It was hard to say; she wanted to think it was unlikely but – and this was a big but – it was a huge coincidence that they’d found a body inthatparticular grave. Beth didn’t like coincidences. They needed to be found and their exact motive questioned. Sitting down at the desk and opening the file she began to read through the scant notes again. There was nothing at all in here to suggest anything other than death by natural causes.
A knock on the door made her look up and she smiled to see Josh standing there with another detective she’d met on a couple of occasions but had forgotten her name.
‘Afternoon, Doc; have you met DC Sam Thomas? How did the exhumation go?’
‘I have, hi, Sam. Come in and take a seat, and I’ll tell you what little I’ve discovered.’
He frowned at her once she’d outlined her findings. ‘You didn’t find anything evidential at all?’
‘I’m afraid not, Josh. Florence Wright died as a complication of the pneumonia she had been admitted into hospital with. There was no evidence of anything other than an elderly lady dying of natural causes.’
His mouth fell open. ‘According to the application, we gave permission to exhume the body because her relative came into the station and spoke to a senior officer. The relative wanted to report that he thought there might be suspicious circumstances surrounding her death, and he wanted it investigated. It was all a bit cloak and dagger, to be honest. I assumed the reason for the exhumation was because once we’d had the complaint the force had to rule out the possibility of foul play. The relevant paperwork was submitted but it was all kept very hush-hush. I don’t understand how this could have happened, though. How did we end up with two bodies? It’s all a bit too much of a coincidence.’
She shrugged. ‘That, my friend, is exactly what I’d like to know.’
