An Unhallowed Grave (5 page)

"Neil," Wesley called, and the young man looked up. A sudden grin lit his face. The pair of them, friends since their first term at university, had a lot to catch up on.

"Hi, Wcs. Wasn't expecting the forces of law and order around here just yet. Not after our protesters, are you?"

"No way. How many have you got?"

"Just a few up to now, up in the trees over there." Wesley looked but could see nothing that gave away the protesters' presence. "We're expecting more later when the diggers move in," Neil Watson added with satisfaction.

"I've heard about the development. When's it due to start?"

"When we've finished ... whenever that'll be," Neil said mischievously. "So what are you doing here?"

"There's been a murder in the village. Heard about it?"

Neil shook his head. Once his mind was focused on a dig he noticed very little about the outside world. The parade of patrol cars through the village and the yards of blue-and-white tape sealing off the churchyard would have gone quite unremarked.

"Found anything yet?" said Wesley, surveying the half-dug trenches.

"We've only been here since Thursday. The local historical society have evidence that the village extended this way until the fourteenth century. Then the village population changed black death, at a guess and the lord of the manor added this bit to his land. There are strange tales about this particular site which are best told over a pint or two. How's Pam? And Michael?"

"They're both doing fine. Pam mentioned you the other day, wondered how you were."

Neil's expression softened. He had gone out with Pam in their first year at university, until she had transferred her affections to Wesley. "If you're not doing anything tonight we'll be in the Tradmouth Arms. Bring Pam along."

There spoke a man without children. "Baby-sitters aren't easy to get but we'll see what we can do. And it depends how this case goes."

"What happened, then? Who was murdered?"

"A woman was found hanging from that big yew tree in the churchyard."

"Know who did it yet?"

"Not yet. Early days."

Rachel sounded the car horn impatiently.

"Is that the lovely Rachel you've got with you?" asked Neil suggestively, bending to peer through the car window.

"Yes, and we've got to be off. The postmortem's at half past."

Neil wrinkled his nose in disgust. "I'll stick to dry bones, thanks." He turned, then swung back as though he'd just remembered something. "That big yew in the churchyard," he began. "According to local legend it was used for public executions. It was known as the hanging tree."

The jury state that John Fleecer did trespass upon the Lord's woodland. Fined 6d and given over to the care of his father for guarantee of his good behaviour.

Indictment of Marjory Snow for keeping a common ale house of ill repute, where there was frequent drunkenness, cutting of purses and divers common whores. Fined 12d.

From the Court Rolls of Stokeworthy Manor

Dot Matherley picked up her plastic box full of polishes and dusters and walked slowly up the great oak staircase of Stokeworthy Manor. The staircase, Dot knew, was four hundred years old ... and there were times she felt that old herself. This morning her arthritis was playing up again and she could still feel the morning stiffness in her leg muscles. It was good of Mr. Thewlis to keep her on at her age There were a lot who wouldn't. And there were a lot of people in the village who called him a ruthless bastard, but to Dot he had been consideration itself... if it wasn't for that business with Gemma she would have quite liked the man.

Dot started on the children's bedrooms. Two children: Amanda and Guy. Such sweet little things and such nice manners ... no thanks to that so-called nanny of theirs. They were out on their ponies now with Mrs. Thewlis: a real lady, a cut above her husband socially.

The children's bedrooms done, Dot braced herself for the stiffest test of her skills: the master bedroom. There were oak panels from floor to elaborately plastered ceiling which had to be polished until they gleamed. And there was the fine four-poster bed to make not as easy to deal with as a modern divan. The bed had reputedly been slept in by Queen Elizabeth I herself, but it was now Mr. and Mrs. Thewlis's nuptial bed. Nuptial bed Dot liked those words: they spoke of harmony, contentment, like Dot's own marriage before her Ted had passed over.

After checking that she had the right cleaning equipment (Dot liked to be well prepared) she pushed at the heavy oak door. At first she couldn't quite place the noises that came from the room: the rhythmic creaking of the bed and the soft groans. As the door opened wider Dot stepped across the threshold and the scene revealed before her seemed unreal, dreamlike. The young woman was naked, kneeling upright astride the man who lay on the bed. The man grabbed the white sheet and swiftly covered his head before Dot could identify him. The young woman, little more than a girl, turned slowly, a smile playing on her lips, her expression impudent, challenging. She looked Dot directly in the eyes and gave her a wide grin of triumph. Then she began to laugh, resuming her rhythmical gyrations astride her hidden partner.

Dot clutched at her chest as her heart began to pound uncontrollably and backed out of the room, leaving the door wide open. As she hurried across the landing and down the staircase she could hear the girl's tinkling, mocking laughter in her ears.

"Nanny," mumbled Dot, her hands shaking. "Calls herself a nanny. A common little whore more like."

It was then that the baize door leading to the kitchens opened and the children rushed into the hall, breathless with excitement. Their mother, Caroline Thewlis, followed closely behind, taking off her riding hat.

"What's the matter, Dot? Is everything all right?" Caroline asked, her accent well-bred county.

Dot took a deep breath. "Oh yes, madam. Everything's fine."

Wesley Peterson was from a medical family. His parents had both come over from Trinidad to study medicine in London. Now his father was a consultant heart surgeon, his mother a GP and his younger sister, Maritia, an overworked junior doctor at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. But as Wesley stood watching Colin Bowman make the Y-shaped incision down the front of Pauline Brent's naked body, he felt some relief that he had not kept up the family tradition. The medical gene must have passed him by.

"Come over here and have a look at this." Gerry Heffernan obeyed Colin Bowman's hearty command. Colin looked up and saw Wesley hesitating in the background. "Come on, Wesley. You too. It's very interesting."

Wesley took a deep breath of formaldehyde-laden air and followed his boss.

Bowman was leaning over the corpse's neck. "See here. There are two marks. The mark made by the hanging ... classic inverted V shape. See?" The two policemen nodded in unison. The rope had cut deep into Pauline's neck as she had hung from the yew tree, her body weight dragging downward and carving the pattern of the rope into the soft flesh. "Now look here." He pointed to faint red bruises encircling the neck below the more pronounced marks of death. "It's as I suspected last night," Colin continued. "Full marks to Dr. Palmer for spotting it. Someone strangled her first then hung her from the tree to make it look like suicide. I can't tell yet whether she was dead or just unconscious when she was hung up there. I don't suppose whoever killed her was too bothered."

Wesley turned away as Bowman casually put his hands into the body and pulled out the vital organs for weighing, as someone washing dishes pulls crockery from the kitchen sink. Gerry Heffernan scratched his unruly curls and watched the procedure comparatively unmoved. But Wesley couldn't watch: only yesterday this had been a living, breathing woman with feelings, likes, dislikes, achievements, family and friends. He spent the rest of the postmortem studying his shoes.

"She wasn't a virgin. But she'd never had a child," said Colin conversationally. Wesley had to add lovers to his list of the things in Pauline's life ... but not children.

"She was in fairly good shape for her age. Late forties, early fifties, I should say. No signs of serious illness. I'll let you have the toxicology and stomach contents results as soon as I get them, but at this stage I'd say this was death by strangulation. Murder by person or persons unknown."

"So it's definitely not suicide?" asked Heffernan. He was a man who liked to know what he was dealing with.

"Definitely not. Sorry to add to your workload with the tourist season almost upon us."

Gerry Heffernan gave his sergeant a hearty slap on the back.

"Right, then, Wcs. Back to Stokeworthy. I think I'd like a word with those two lasses who found her. I'd better take you and not Steve Carstairs: I wouldn't trust him with a pair of teenage girls. Just imagine the comments."

"About taking down more than their statements." Wesley grinned. He had heard it all before. He himself had been on the receiving end of DC Carstairs' racist wisecracks when he had first arrived in Tradmouth. Although Wesley was now accepted by most of those at the station who had once shared Steve's jibes at his expense, and was now a popular member of the team the man to be consulted about crossword clues and pub quiz answers -Steve still kept his distance.

Wesley drove back to Stokeworthy. Gerry Heffernan didn't drive, not on dry land. He saved his navigational skills for his boat, the Rosie May, caring for her as much as any classic car enthusiast cares for the object of his passion.

This time they passed the church and turned into a small cul-de-sac of council houses. Some of the expansive front gardens were impressive: a display of colour worthy of any French Impressionist's canvas against the dull cream council stucco.

But one of the gardens let the side down. The only flowers visible among the overgrown grass and rusty car parts were a few pioneering blooms on a pair of ageing unpruned rosebushes. Even the birds that sang so merrily in the neighbouring gardens thought this one beneath their attention. Heffernan pushed open the wooden gate and marched down the cracked concrete garden path.

Wesley saw the greying net curtains twitch. They were being watched. Heffernan beat a tattoo on the front door, loud enough to wake the dead. They waited. He was about to knock again when the door opened.

The woman stood in the doorway, her chubby arms folded. Wesley found it hard to guess her age. Like that of many overweight people her skin was smooth, her plump face almost baby like Her small eyes regarded the newcomers with suspicion, particularly Wesley. "We're C of E," she announced belligerently.

"So am I, love. Police." Heffernan thrust his warrant card in her face. "Can we come in for a quick word, or do you want a reference from me vicar?"

The woman held the door open resentfully. "I thought you were them Jehovah's Witnesses," she explained defiantly, looking Wesley up and down.

"Sorry to disappoint you, love. I'm Detective Inspector Heffernan and this is Detective Sergeant Peterson. We'd like a word with your Joanne. Nothing to worry about: just routine."

The woman made no comment. She led them through the cluttered hall into the sitting room. Here, as in the rest of the house, the pattern on the carpet was camouflaged by a layer of dirt. On a grubby Dralon sofa, which seemed to dominate the small room, sat two girls, aged about fifteen, scantily dressed to titillate the Steve Carstairses of this world: their midriffs were bare, their navels pierced by matching gold rings; and their skirts were short to the point of indecency. If Heffernan's daughter, Rosie, had attempted to dress like that when she was their age, he would have ordered her upstairs to put on something decent.

"Mind if we have a word about last night, love? Nothing to worry about. Just a few questions." The two girls stared at him indifferently. "Are you Leanne Matherley, by any chance?" he asked the slimmer of the pair. Joanne Talbot bore such a resemblance to her mother that he didn't have to ask which one she was. Leanne nodded. Neither of the girls seemed particularly traumatised by the events of the previous night.

Heffernan nodded to Wesley. He'd let him deal with these two for the moment. "Can you tell us what you were doing in the churchyard last night?" Wesley leaned forward, expecting a nervous answer. To his surprise the girls caught each other's eye and began to giggle.

"A woman was murdered," said Heffernan. "It's nothing to laugh about. Just answer the question."

"We were doing this ritual."

The two policemen looked at each other. This was one the tabloids would love to get their hands on: midnight rituals in churchyards below the body of a hanging woman. They could see the headlines now.

"What kind of ritual?"

The girls at last had the good grace to look sheepish. What had seemed amusing at the time now looked somewhat pathetic. "It was something my gran told us about," said Leanne. "She did it when she was young. You scatter some seeds on the church path at midnight and you're supposed to see your true love. We thought it'd be a laugh, you know."

Heffernan nodded. He did know. He'd done a lot of daft things when he was a lad in Liverpool, and he recalled some of them now with a blush.

"So what happened? Take your time," coaxed Wesley. "I'm assuming your true loves didn't put in an appearance?"

The girls shook their heads solemnly. "We'd done the ritual, like," Jo began. "Then we turned round and saw her up there in the tree. The moon was bright and we could see her face: it was all..." Leanne nodded in agreement. "Then I screamed."

"What happened then?"

"There were some people we knew neighbours on their way back from the Ring o' Bells. One of them went to fetch my mum and they rang the police. That's it really."

"Did you know the dead woman?"

"I knew who she was: the receptionist at the doctor's. But I'd never spoken to her, like."

"What about you, Leanne?"