Page 3 of The Girl in the Grave
Carl laughed. ‘I know you do, but it doesn’t take a hotshot DS to figure this one out. Sorry to take away some of your glory. You do, however, have a chance to redeem yourself. I’ll leave it to you to figure out who the body belongs to and how it got there.’
Josh felt the beginning of a headache set in. Jodie was going to go mad; friends of hers were celebrating their wedding anniversary, and they were supposed to be going to the meal tonight. This was going to be a long one. There was no way he was going to be clocking off work on time. Unzipping his suit, he reached inside his trouser pocket to find his phone. He’d better ring her now and get it over with: there was no point making her wait until last minute. He stared down at the partially buried body; his eyes widened as he felt his stomach churn. The victim was a girl, judging by the torn tights and the lurid green nail varnish he could see on the two fingers that were sticking through the soil. From what he could make out of her somewhat crushed face, she didn’t look much older than nineteen or twenty. Around the same age as his younger sister. He shuddered; too young to be dead. Questions he couldn’t answer were flowing through his mind, the most pressing,who are you, andhow the hell did you get down there?
‘What’s wrong?’ Jodie’s voice shouted down the mobile clamped to his ear and he pulled the phone away a little, so she didn’t deafen him.
‘Nothing’s wrong.’
‘You only ever ring me during the day if you’re going to be late home or if you want something. So, what’s wrong?’
He paused for a moment wondering if she was right. Did he only ever ring when it was bad news? He stepped away from the grave. It didn’t seem right to have his angry wife shouting at him in front of the dead. It felt somehow disrespectful.
‘Something’s come up. I’m not going to be home on time.’
‘I bloody knew it, always the same with you, Josh.’
‘I’m sorry, but this is important.’
‘Everything is important, except for me that is.’
He cringed, hoping no one else could hear her. ‘I’m sorry, Jodie, go to dinner without me. If I can get away I will, but don’t wait for me.’ The line went dead, and his heart sank. Things had been getting worse lately. She’d never truly understand, but with recent cuts in the department he was on call more than he was off duty; she only stopped complaining for a moment when his wages went into the bank. One day he’d pluck up the courage to confront her: he was running out of reasons why they were still together. They had nothing in common any more; he knew he needed to sort it out because there was no way he was spending the rest of his life living like this. If there was one thing dealing with murders and sudden deaths had taught him, it was that you only get one shot at living and you should really make the most of it.
Sam, who had finally plucked up the courage to take a look at the scene, walked towards him. ‘Everything okay, boss?’
‘Yes, thanks. Let’s get this sorted. We need a pathologist. We’ll probably need an anthropologist as well, but we’ll wait and see what Doctor Adams suggests. Do you know if she’s been called out?’
Sam nodded. ‘Control messaged whilst you were on the phone to say she was on her way.’
‘Good, that’s good.’ Josh felt his stomach unclench a little knowing it was Beth who would be attending. She was the best forensic pathologist he’d ever worked with and a good friend. She was also a professional of the highest standards which made his life a little bit easier. There was nothing else he could do apart from speak to the witnesses whilst he waited for her. The scene was hers; she would dictate what needed to be done and by whom.
A large raindrop landed on his face as he walked towards the two men standing next to the private ambulance, both wearing high-vis safety vests. The older of the two had no colour in his face and looked as if he could do with a shot of brandy for the shock. Josh felt bad for him; it must have been terrible enough having to exhume a grave without the added extra surprise of finding another body in there. Looking up at the rapidly darkening sky he felt more drops of rain fall on his head. It was about to lash it down. He heard Carl and Claire shouting as they ran towards the CSI van, and he hoped they had a tent in there to cover the grave or they were liable to lose any trace evidence.
Different scenarios were playing through Josh’s mind, but the only one that made sense was the one that told him this wasn’t an accident. Whoever this girl was, she had been put there intentionally, seemingly by someone who’d thought she wouldn’t be found. He had to hand it to them, it was clever; hiding a body in a grave which had already been dug for someone else was sick and twisted, but brilliant in its own terrible way.
Four
Beth stared at the huge, rusted cast iron gates that sealed off the east side of Fell View Cemetery as she pulled up and a police officer checked her ID.
‘Afternoon, ma’am, they’re up on the hill near the church. A bright yellow digger truck with a coffin dangling from it: you can’t miss it.’
She tried her best not to let the small smile which played across her lips turn into a smirk: dark humour was prevalent throughout the police and her own medical profession.
‘Thank you. Can you tell me if the duty DS is here yet?’
She nodded. ‘Yep, he turned up thirty minutes ago.’
Beth smiled again, driving through the imposing Victorian gateway into the cemetery. It was one of the most breathtaking places to visit in the Lake District and was often filled with tourists. Not today though: they’d all have been ushered out. The windscreen wipers swished the heavy rain off the glass, giving her a clear view for a second before it was covered again. She looked around; nature was fighting a battle against the council to take control of the grounds and from this perspective it seemed that nature was winning. The Gothic monuments and crumbling gravestones from this side looked like something out of a horror film; they were in desperate need of renovation and repair. Long, overgrown grass and weeds hid the faded names on the majority of the graves making them hard to read. Before she’d become such a recluse she’d spent many hours wandering around the area. There was something so calming about a walk through this part of the cemetery. It was like stepping back in time and history, looking at names and wondering what the people were like, what sort of lives they had led before their deaths. Centre stage was a sunken circular row of mausoleums owned by the area’s wealthiest families. Last time she’d walked around, it had been sealed off because of the state of disrepair they were in. This part of the cemetery was closed off for public burials and pretty much everything else until the council and the volunteers who had decided they wanted to take control of it came to an amicable agreement about maintaining it.
She carried on driving up the hill to the newer part of the graveyard, which was where the good citizens of Windermere and the surrounding villages were laid to rest. The boarded-up chapel, which had never been consecrated, served only as a funerary chapel. It had never been used as a place of worship and sat at the peak of the hill, surrounded by much smaller, modern graves than the ones she’d just passed. As she rounded the bend she muttered: ‘Holy shit’. The dangling coffin against the backdrop of the grey, ominous clouds was certainly a sight to behold. Near to the digger was the private ambulance belonging to the undertakers, a police van with ‘CSI’ emblazoned across the side and a group of people standing around, huddled under umbrellas. On the opposite side of the church, along the main thoroughfare, were a couple of unmarked police cars, a police van and a huge carrier van which no doubt held the search team. She parked behind the carrier, got out and went around to the boot of her car so she could get dressed into her crime scene uniform.
‘Hi, Beth.’
Looking up, she smiled. ‘Josh, how are you?’
‘Could be better, I’m glad you’re on call.’
‘I was about to say the same thing; I don’t think I could cope with your colleague and his continual grumbling about everything.’
‘You mean you don’t like working with Sherlock? But he’ssucha good bloke.’
