After a few moments, the Coroner said, ‘These are always carried out early in the morning, usually at dawn, to avoid distress to the public. That would mean Monday morning at the very earliest.’
‘That’s too long to wait. It would mean a whole thirty hours before we could even begin to start searching for any forensic evidence that might help us. We’d be looking at the middle of this coming week, at the very earliest, on any possible matches. I think every hour could be crucial. We can’t leave it that long. This really could be the difference between life and death.’
There was a long silence. Grace knew he was asking for a massive leap of faith. He was taking a huge personal gamble in making this request. It still was not 100 per cent certain that Jessie Sheldon had been abducted. The likelihood was that, after twelve years, there would be no forensic evidence that could help his inquiry anyway. But he’d spoken to Joan Major, the forensic archaeologist that Sussex CID regularly consulted, who told him that it would at least be worth a try.
With the pressures on him at this moment, he was willing to clutch at any straw. But he believed what he was requesting now was much more than that.
Her voice becoming even more imperious, the Coroner said, ‘You want to do this in a public cemetery, in broad daylight, on a Sunday, Detective Superintendent? Just how do you think any bereaved people, visiting the graves of their loved ones on the holy day, might feel about this?’
‘I’m sure they’d be very distressed,’ he replied. ‘But not half as distressed as this young woman, Jessie Sheldon, who is missing. I believe the Shoe Man may have taken her. I could be wrong. We could be too late already. But if there’s a chance of saving her life, that’s more important than temporarily hurting the feelings of a few bereaved people who’ll probably leave the cemetery and head off to do their shopping in ASDA or Tesco, or wherever else they shop on the holy day,’ he said, making his point.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll sign the order. Just be as discreet as you can. I’m sure you will.’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ll meet you at my office in thirty minutes. I take it you’ve never been involved in one of these before?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘You won’t believe the bureaucracy that’s involved.’
Grace could believe it. But at this moment he was more interested in saving Jessie Sheldon than in worrying about pleasing a bunch of pen-pushers. But he didn’t want to risk saying anything inflammatory. He thanked the Coroner and told her that he would be there in thirty minutes.
105
Sunday 18 January
Jessie heard the familiar grating clatter of the side door of the camper van opening. Then the vehicle rocked slightly and she was aware of footsteps right beside her. She was quaking in terror.
An instant later, she was dazzled by the beam of a torch straight in her face.
He sounded furious. ‘You stink,’ he said. ‘You stink of urine. You’ve wet yourself. You filthy cow.’
The beam moved away from her face. Blinking, she looked up. He was now directing the beam on to his own hooded face deliberately, so she could see him.
‘I don’t like dirty women,’ he said. ‘That’s your problem, isn’t it? You’re all dirty. How do you expect to pleasure me when you stink like you do?’
She pleaded with her eyes. Please untie me. Please free my mouth. I’ll do anything. I won’t fight. I’ll do anything. Please. I’ll do what you want, then let me go, OK? Deal? Do we have a deal?
She was suddenly desperate to pee again, even though she had drunk nothing for what seemed an eternity and her mouth was all furred. What time was it? It was morning, she guessed, from the light that had momentarily filled the interior of the van a few minutes ago.
‘I have a Sunday lunch engagement,’ he said. ‘I don’t have time to sort you out and get you cleaned up, I’ll have to come back later. Too bad I can’t invite you. Are you hungry?’
He shone the torch back on her face.
She pleaded with her eyes for water. Tried to form the word inside her clamped mouth, inside her gullet, but all that came out was an undulating moan.
She was desperate for water. And shaking, trying to keep control of her bladder.
‘Can’t quite understand what you’re saying – are you wishing me bon appétit?’
‘Grnnnnmmmmmoooowhhh.’
‘That’s so sweet of you!’ he said.
She pleaded with her eyes again. Water. Water.
‘You probably want water. I’ll bet that’s what you’re saying. The problem is, if I bring you some, you’re just going to wet yourself again, aren’t you?’
She shook her head.
‘No? Well, we’ll see then. If you promise to be a very good girl, then maybe I’ll bring you some.’
She continued trying desperately to control her bladder. But even as she heard the sound of the sliding door closing, she felt a steady warm trickle again spreading around her groin.
106
Sunday 18 January
The Lawn Memorial Cemetery at Woodingdean was located high up, on the eastern perimeter of Brighton, with a fine view out across the English Channel. Not that the residents of this cemetery were likely to be able to appreciate it, Roy Grace thought grimly, as he stepped out from the long, blue, caterpillar-shaped tent into the blustery wind, and crossed over to the smaller changing room and refreshments tent, his hooded blue paper suit zipped to the neck.
The Coroner had not been wrong when she had talked about the bureaucracy involved in an exhumation. The granting and signing of the order were the easy parts. Much harder, early on a Sunday morning, was to assemble the team that was required.
There was a commercial firm that specialized in exhumations, its main business being the removal of mass graves to new sites for construction companies, or for churches that had been deconsecrated. But they would not be able to start until tomorrow morning without punitive overtime charges.
Grace was not prepared to wait. He called his ACC and Rigg agreed to sanction the costs.
*
The team assembled for the briefing he’d held at John Street an hour ago was substantial. A Coroner’s Officer, two SOCOs, including one forensic photographer, five employees of the specialist exhumation company, a woman from the Department of the Environment, who made it clear she resented giving up her Sunday, a now mandatory Health and Safety Officer and, because it was consecrated ground, a clergyman. He’d also had present Joan Major, the forensic archaeologist, as well as Glenn Branson, whom he had put in charge of crowd control, and Michael Foreman, whom he had made an official observer.
Cleo, Darren Wallace – her number two at the mortuary – and Walter Hordern, who was in charge of the city’s cemeteries, and drove the Coroner’s discreet dark green van to body recoveries, were also present. He only needed two of them, but because none of the mortuary trio had been to an exhumation before, they were keen to attend. Clearly, Grace thought, none of them could get enough of dead bodies. What did that say, he sometimes wondered, about Cleo’s love for him?
It wasn’t only the mortuary staff who had been curious. He had received phone calls throughout the morning from other members of the CID as word had spread, asking if there was any chance of attending. For many of them, it would be a once-in-a-career opportunity, but he’d had to say no to all of them on the grounds of lack of space, and, in his tired and increasingly tetchy state, he had nearly added that it wasn’t a bloody circus.
It was 4 p.m. and absolutely freezing. He stepped back out of the tent, cradling a mug of tea. The daylight was fading rapidly, and the glare of the mobile lights, situated around the cemetery, illuminating the vehicle path to the tent covering Molly Glossop’s grave, and several around it, was getting brighter.
The site was ring-fenced by a double police cordon. All entrances to the cemetery were sealed off by a police guard and so far the public reaction had been more one of curiosity than anger. Then there was a second line
of police tape directly around the two tents. No press had been allowed closer than the street.
The team inside the main tent were getting close to the bottom of the grave. Grace hadn’t needed anyone to tell him, they all knew from the worsening stench. The smell of death was the worst smell in the world, he always thought, and he was catching whiffs of it now, as he stood out in the open air. It was the reek of a long-blocked drain suddenly being cleared, of the rotten meat in a fridge after a two-week power cut in the summer’s heat, a heavy, leaden smell that seemed to suck your own spirits into it as it sank to the ground.
None of the experts had been able to predict what condition the body in this coffin would be in, as there were too many variables. They did not know what body – if any – was in here, or how long it had been dead before being buried. The humidity of any burial ground would be a major factor. But with this one being on chalky soil, on high ground, it was hopefully above the water table and would be relatively dry. Judging by the worsening smell, they would find out in a few minutes now.
He finished his tea and was about to go back inside when his phone rang. It was Kevin Spinella.
‘Has the Argus hot-shot been having a Sunday lie-in?’ Grace said, by way of a greeting.
There was a lot of wind roar, and the rumble of the huge portable generator, close by.
‘Sorry!’ the reporter shouted. ‘Couldn’t hear you!’
Grace repeated what he had said.
‘Actually I’ve been doing a tour of local cemeteries, trying to find you, Detective Superintendent. Any chance I could come in?’
‘Sure, book a plot here, then go and get hit by a bus.’
‘Ha-ha! I mean now.’
‘I’m sorry, no.’
‘OK. So what do you have for me?’
‘Not much more than you can see from the perimeter at the moment. Bell me back in an hour, I might have more then.’
‘Excuse me, but I thought you were hunting for a young lady who disappeared last night, Jessie Sheldon? What are you doing here digging up an eighty-year-old lady?’
‘You do your work by digging stuff up, sometimes I do mine that way too,’ Grace replied, wondering how, yet again, the reporter had such an inside track.
Joan Major suddenly emerged from the entrance to the main tent, waving at him. ‘Roy!’ she called out.
He hung up.
‘They’ve reached the coffin! Good news. It’s intact! And the plaque on it reads Molly Winifred Glossop, so we have the right one!’
Grace followed her back in. The stench was horrific now and as the flap closed behind him he tried to breathe in only through his mouth. The crowded interior of the tent felt like a film set, with the battery of intense bright lights on stands all focused around the grave and the mound of earth at the far end, and several fixed video cameras recording all that was happening.
Most of the people in here were having problems with the stench too, with the exception of the four officers from the Specialist Search Unit. They were wearing white bio-chemical protective suits with breathing apparatus. Two of them were kneeling on the roof of the coffin, screwing heavy-duty hooks into the sides, ready to attach cables to block and tackle lifting gear once the sides of the coffin had been cleared, which the other two were now manoeuvring into position, a good yard above the top of the grave.
Joan Major took over the excavation work, for the next hour painstakingly excavating down the sides, and under the base at each end of the coffin, for lifting straps to be placed there. As she worked she carefully bagged soil samples from above, the side and beneath the coffin for later examination of any possible leaked fluids from the contents of the coffin.
When she was finished, two of the exhumation specialists then clipped ropes to each of the four hooks, and to the underneath of the coffin front and back, and clambered out of the grave.
‘OK,’ one said, moving clear. ‘Ready.’
Everyone moved back.
The police chaplain stepped forward, holding a prayer book. He asked for silence, then, standing over the grave, read out a short, non-denominational prayer, welcoming back to earth whoever it might be that was in the coffin.
Grace found the prayer strangely touching, as if they were greeting some long-lost returning traveller.
The other members of the exhumation team began heaving on a sturdy rope. There was a brief, anxious moment when nothing happened. Then a strange sucking noise that was more like a sigh, as if the earth was only very reluctantly yielding something it had claimed for its own. And suddenly the coffin was steadily rising.
It came up, swinging, scraping against the sides, the pulley creaking, all the way until the bottom of the coffin was several inches clear of the grave. It swayed. Everyone in the tent watched for some moments in silent awe. A few clumps of earth tumbled and fell back into the grave.
Grace stared at the light-coloured wood. It did look remarkably well preserved, as if it had been down there for only a few days, rather than twelve years. So, what secrets do you contain? Please God, something that will connect us to the Shoe Man.
The Home Office pathologist, Nadiuska De Sancha, had already been contacted, and would head straight to the mortuary as soon as the body was loaded into the Coroner’s van.
Suddenly there was a deafening crack, like a clap of thunder. Everyone in the tent jumped.
Something that was the shape and size of a human body, shrouded in black plastic wrapping and duct tape, plunged through the bottom of the coffin and disappeared into the grave.
107
Sunday 18 January
Jessie was fighting for breath again. Panicking, she thrashed about, frantically trying to turn her head sideways to clear her nose a little. Benedict, Ben, Ben, please come. Please help me. Please don’t let me die here. Please don’t.
It hurt like hell, every muscle in her neck feeling as if it was being torn free from her shoulders. But at least now she could get some air. Still not enough, but her panic momentarily subsided. She was desperate for water. Her eyes were raw from crying. The tears trickled down her cheeks, tantalizing her, but she couldn’t taste them with her mouth clamped tightly shut.
She prayed again. Please God, I’ve just found such incredible happiness. Ben is such a lovely man. Please don’t take me away from him, not now. Please help me.
Through her living hell, she tried to focus her mind, to think clearly. Some time, she did not know when, but some time, probably soon, her captor was going to return.
If he was going to bring her the water he had talked about, unless he was just taunting her, he would have to untie her – at least enough so she could sit up and drink. If she was going to have a chance, it would be then.
Just one chance.
Even though every muscle in her body hurt, even though she felt exhausted, she still had her strength. She tried to think of different scenarios. How clever was he? What game could she play to fool him? Play dead? Pretend to have a fit? There must be something, something she had not thought of.
That he had not thought of.
What time was it? In this long, dark void in which she was suspended, she suddenly felt a burning need to measure time. To figure out what time it was, how long she had been here.
Sunday. That was all she knew for sure. The lunch he had talked about must be Sunday lunch. Was it an hour since he had gone? Thirty minutes? Two hours? Four? There had been faint grey light but that had gone now. She was in pitch darkness.
Maybe there was a clue in the sounds she could hear. The endless, mostly faint clangings, clatterings, squeakings and bang-ings of loose windows, doors, panels of corrugated iron, sheet metal or whatever it was outside the building. There was just one that seemed to have a rhythm to it, she noticed. One of the banging sounds that reverberated. She heard it again now and counted.
One thousand and one, one thousand and two, one thousand and three, one thousand and four. Bang. One thousand and one, one thousand and two, one thousand and thre
e, one thousand and four. Bang.
Her father was a keen photographer. She remembered as a small child, before digital photography had taken over, her father had a darkroom where he developed films himself. She liked to stand in the darkness with him, either the total darkness, or in the glow of the weak red light bulb. When he opened a film roll, they would stand in total darkness and her father would get her to count the seconds, the way he had taught her. If you said, One thousand and one slowly, that equalled, quite accurately, one second. It worked the same for all numbers.
So now she was able to calculate that the banging occurred every four seconds. Fifteen times a minute.
She counted out one minute. Then five. Ten. Twenty minutes. Half an hour. Then a surge of anger ripped through her at the futility of what she was doing. Why me, God, if you bloody exist? Why do you want to destroy the love between Benedict and me? Because he’s not Jewish, is that what this is about? Boy, are you one sick God! Benedict’s a good man. He’s dedicated his life to helping people less well off than himself. That’s what I try to do also, in case you hadn’t sodding noticed.
Then she began sobbing again.
And counting automatically, like the banging was a metronome. Four seconds. Bang. Four seconds. Bang. Four seconds. Bang.
Then a loud, sliding clang.
The vehicle rocked.
Footsteps.
108
Sunday 18 January
The Brighton and Hove mortuary had recently undergone substantial building works. The reason for this was that more people were eating themselves to death and then were too fat to fit into the fridges. So now new super-sized fridges had been installed to accommodate them.
Not that it required an extra-wide fridge to accommodate the desiccated remains of the woman who lay on the stainless-steel table, in the centre of the newly refurbished main post-mortem room, at 5.30 p.m. this Sunday afternoon.
Even after half an hour in here, Grace had not got used to the horrendous smell and breathing though his mouth only helped a little. He could understand why almost all pathologists used to smoke and carry out their work on corpses with a cigarette between their lips. Those who didn’t put a blob of Vicks just above their upper lips. But that tradition appeared to have stopped along with the smoking ban a few years back. He could have sure done with something now.