Blood Harvest (29 page)

The girl was continuing to back away. Tom took a step forward and something landed heavily beside him, missing him by inches and throwing him off balance. Falling to the ground, he recognized the edge of a coffin, a fraction before the wood collapsed completely and revealed its occupant.

The skull grinned at Tom with tiny white teeth. Pieces of flesh, like old yellow leather, still clung to it. Tom scrambled away from the corpse, feeling the scream build inside his head and knowing that if he let it out he might never be able to stop.

A fresh flood of earth poured down on him, filled with pale-coloured objects that he knew could only be bones. He threw back his head and got ready to let the scream out when a beam of light hit his face and an arm grabbed his shoulder. Tom whirled round. A small figure, wearing a yellow raincoat with its hood pulled up tight and carrying a flashlight, knelt beside him. It was Joe.

Tom pushed himself to his feet. Everything in his head was yelling at him to get back to the house, wake his mum and dad, call the police. As he set off for the back door, Joe pulled him back.

‘No, wait,’ Joe shouted, straining to make himself heard above the wind. ‘We have to find her.’

‘It’s too late,’ Tom yelled back. Up in the churchyard there was no sign of the dark figure. ‘She’s gone. We have to get Mum and Dad.’

Joe shone the flashlight on the ground around their feet. Tom wanted to yell at him to stop. It was all so much worse when you could see it properly. The skull, now broken away from the rest of the corpse, lay a few yards away. Lucy’s tiny statue had fallen along with the rest of her grave. Pieces of coffin were scattered around. He saw what he thought was a human hand, the finger bones clenched in a fist.

Joe seemed to be looking for something. At last, the torch flickered on the black bag which the intruder had tried to escape with. It was half buried beneath a pile of mud and stones. With a
cry, Joe ran towards it and started tugging at the handles. Still desperate to get away, Tom had a sense that this might be important. Gingerly, he picked his way over to help.

With a glooping noise, the bag came free and the boys staggered backwards, still clinging to the straps. Joe dropped to his knees and started to tug at the zip. Squeaking with frustration, he finally managed to wrench it back. Then, in the pale light of the torch, Tom could see him grinning. He dropped to his knees beside his brother and peered inside. Millie lay in the bag. As the boys watched, her eyes flickered open. She blinked up at her brothers in astonishment as raindrops began to fall on her face.

S
OMETHING WAS THUDDING
LOUD INSIDE HARRY’S CHEST.
Not his heart, though, his heart never made this sort of racket. Should he say something, tell them he knew the identity of one of the dead children?

It was almost painful, this pounding against his ribs. If it was indeed his heart, he had a serious problem. Hearts weren’t supposed to beat this hard.

He couldn’t say anything now, he’d sound ridiculous, hysterical even. Tomorrow would be soon enough. He glanced down to make sure he would step on matting, and moved away from the cordoned area. The white-clad figures around him got back to work.

The Fletchers’ back garden was a quagmire. Harry followed in Detective Chief Superintendent Rushton’s footsteps, along the loose-weave steel path that had been laid over the mud. Above their heads a makeshift PVC shelter was holding back the worst of the weather. Powerful lights on steel poles had been positioned in the four corners. Now that he was facing the house, Harry could see lights on in the downstairs windows. The blinds and curtains had all been drawn.

‘As crimes scenes go, this is as bad as it gets,’ said Rushton as they walked back towards the house. ‘We’re working in the dark, in shocking weather, the mud’s close to a foot deep in places and it looks like there was quite a lot of contamination of the site before we got here.’

One of the white-clad figures was moving slowly round the outside of the inner cordon, taking photographs. Another figure, which Harry thought might be a woman, was using a measuring tape. She stretched it from the wall to the smallest of the three bodies, then began scribbling, or maybe drawing, on a clipboard hanging around her neck.

‘The forensics people you see have just arrived from Manchester,’ explained Rushton. ‘We don’t have that sort of specialism locally. Luckily, the first officer on site was a bright lad. He sealed off the area until the team could get here. Did the same up in the churchyard.’

Harry looked up. More white figures could be seen on the other side of the stone wall. Up there, too, efforts were being made to control the weather. An awning had been stretched across metal poles. One of the officers was struggling to fasten plastic sheeting around the edges. In this wind it was close to hopeless.

‘What are all these people doing?’ Harry asked.

‘The photographer is recording the scene before the trace-evidence people can get to work,’ said Rushton. ‘He’ll take pictures from every angle, then he’ll climb up into the graveyard and do the same. That girl over there, she’s sketching. She’ll measure how everything is situated in relation to everything else and then it’ll all be fed into a computer. We’ll get a very accurate model that we can use if we ever need to go to court. The main task tonight will be removing the bodies, intact if possible, and getting them to the pathology unit. Along with everything else that might be relevant. The coffin will go, of course, any bits of clothing, hair and so on. We’ll take casts of any footprints. Looks like they’ve started already.’

Rushton was pointing to a spot not far from the house. A man was kneeling on a mat of chequer-plated aluminum, pouring liquid on to the ground in front of him.

‘The other two bodies could have come from graves on either side of Lucy’s,’ suggested Harry. ‘I can’t tell you whose they were, but there’ll be a plan somewhere.’

‘We have it already,’ said Rushton. ‘Family graves on both sides, three people recorded as being in the one, four in the other. All adults. And from what we can see so far, those graves are still intact.’

‘Is it possible they’ve been in the ground a long time?’ asked
Harry, knowing it wasn’t. None of the corpses he’d just seen was properly skeletonized. ‘In a much earlier grave that no one knew about? This churchyard is hundreds of years old. There must be ancient graves all over this hill. Headstones got removed, people forgot who was in the ground.’ He stopped. He was gabbling. And clutching at straws.

‘Well, we can’t rule it out for now,’ said Rushton. ‘But frankly, the team think it unlikely. And you have to see their point. Did they look like ancient corpses to you?’

Harry looked back over his shoulder. ‘Do the Fletchers know what’s going on?’ he asked. ‘They’ve been under a lot of pressure lately, it won’t be the best—’

‘Oh aye, they know,’ said Rushton. ‘It was the kids that brought the wall down.’

‘What?’

‘I haven’t had chance to speak to the parents yet, so I’ve only had half a tale,’ said the detective, ‘but it seems the two boys were out in this weather, climbing the wall. They had their younger sister in a hold-all, apparently. Looks like some sort of attempt at running away from home. Job for Social Services, if you ask me. Where are you going?’

Harry was heading back along the path to the house. A hand fell on to his shoulder. ‘Hold your horses, lad. You can’t go in yet. The family GP is in there and the two youngsters are talking to one of my DCs. Let’s just leave everyone to do their jobs for a minute, shall we?’

Harry knew he wasn’t being given a choice.

‘You’re familiar with the layout of this part of the churchyard, Reverend?’ said Rushton, as they started walking again. ‘Both churches, old and new, were built at the top of a steep hill, so a lot of terracing had to be done to create the graveyard. The wall we’re looking at was built several hundred years ago, from what I’m told, but it was a lot higher on this side than on the church side. Are you with me?’

‘Yes, I know that,’ said Harry, as they reached the edge of the Fletchers’ property and turned to leave the garden. ‘Gareth Fletcher has mentioned it to me a couple of times. He wanted to get a surveyor in, he was concerned about the stability of the wall.’

‘He was right to be.’ The two men were at the side of the house. Another massive awning had been stretched across from the house to the church wall, creating a dry space for the forensic team to store equipment. Unable to reach them, the weather seemed determined not to be ignored. Raindrops thundered down on the plastic roof while the wind kept it in constant, noisy motion.

‘I’m told there’s an underground stream that runs beneath the church,’ Rushton continued, removing his overalls and indicating that Harry should do the same. ‘Ordinarily that’s not a problem, but when there’s been heavy rainfall, like over the past few days, the church cellar gets flooded. The land around here gets boggy. Did you know?’

‘Yes.’ Harry was balanced on one foot, struggling to take off a boot that was too tight and looking round for his own shoes. ‘Gareth and I had a walk around the boundary a couple of weeks ago. I agreed it didn’t look too stable, but there’s a process I have to go through when any work needs to be done on church property. I’d already set the wheels in motion but these things typically take weeks, sometimes months.’

‘Well, Brian, is it my granddaughter’s grave?’

Harry and Rushton both turned to see that Sinclair Renshaw had entered the tent from the Fletchers’ driveway. The fingers of his right hand clutched a cigarette. Harry had never seen him smoke before.

‘It looks that way,’ said Rushton. ‘I’m very sorry.’ Sinclair nodded his head, just once.

‘Do Jenny and Mike know?’ asked Harry. ‘Do you want me to—’

‘I’ve asked they not be told until the morning,’ Sinclair interrupted him. ‘Christiana has made coffee in the vestry. You should come up. It’s warmer in there.’

Harry pulled his own jacket back on. ‘What happens now?’ he asked Rushton.

‘Well, strangely enough, there is a protocol in cases like these,’ replied the detective, indicating that they should leave the tent. ‘When remains are uncovered on church property, they have to be removed from site and examined by a police-approved pathologist. If he determines the remains are ancient bones, a lot of them apply
the hundred-year rule: they’re simply returned to the minister in charge – in this case, you – and it becomes your responsibility to re-inter them.’

‘Yes, I think I knew that,’ agreed Harry, ‘although it’s not a situation I’ve ever come across before.’

‘It’s certainly never happened here,’ said Sinclair.

‘On the other hand, if the remains are, shall we say, fresher, we have to confirm their identity,’ added Rushton. ‘Make sure the body really is the person whose name is on the headstone. Do you follow me, Reverend?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Harry.

‘Once identity is confirmed, we hand the remains back jointly to you and the family and let you arrange for re-interment.’

‘Another funeral,’ said Sinclair, running his hand over his face. ‘It will be too much for Jenny. How can any mother be expected to bury her child twice?’

‘W
E SHOULDN’T
RULE OUT A BREAK-IN,’
SAID HARRY.
‘Tom could be telling the truth.’

Gareth was holding a coffee mug between his palms. Both hands looked unnaturally white, the fingers blue-tinged. Harry felt himself shivering in sympathy. He could hear the creak of the central-heating system, but the events of the night seemed to have brought a chill indoors.

‘No sign of one,’ Gareth answered him, shaking his head. ‘Front door was locked, no windows open or broken. The back door was open, but we keep the key in it and the bolt’s at the bottom. Tom could have opened it by himself.’

‘Where did he get the bag from?’

‘By the front door. I had it ready to take with me in the morning.’

Harry thought for a moment and then turned to walk back along the corridor to the door. Under the window he could see trainers, shorts, socks – Gareth’s gym kit had been emptied out and left behind. Footsteps behind told him Gareth had followed. Through the coloured glass of the front door Harry could see two white figures, ghostly in the orange streetlight. They walked across the road carrying what looked like a stretcher between them. As Harry turned back to Gareth he caught sight of grey dust around the front door handle.

‘What’s that?’ he asked.

‘The police have already dusted for fingerprints,’ replied Gareth.
‘They’ve done all the ground floor and Millie’s room. I think they were just covering themselves. They didn’t find anything.’

‘What about Joe?’ asked Harry. ‘What does he say happened?’

‘Joe heard Tom yelling and got up,’ said Gareth. ‘He heard banging around downstairs, put his waterproofs on – showing great presence of mind for a six-year-old – and went out. He saw Tom lying in the mud and helped him carry the bag, with Millie in it, back to the house. I’d got up for a pee, realized the back door was open and come down. Got the fright of my life. All three of them, soaked to the skin and covered in mud. Tom started yelling about this little girl of his, Alice was all for rushing them to A&E, I took a look outside and realized I’d better get the police on the blower. Just what have they found out there?’

‘Not clear yet,’ lied Harry. He’d been asked not to mention the full extent of what had been discovered in the garden. ‘I’m sorry about the wall. If I’d had any idea …’

Gareth was staring at the row of three hooks that hung by the front door. ‘That’s funny,’ he said.

‘What is?’ asked Alice, who was halfway down the stairs. Harry turned to smile at her and couldn’t bring himself to do it. That wasn’t a face someone could smile at.

‘My keys. They were missing earlier, remember?’ said Gareth. ‘Did you find them?’

Alice shook her head. ‘They were probably there all along,’ she replied.

‘They weren’t. I checked after the kids had gone to bed. I had to dig out my spare set to use in the morning. How could they have got back here?’