Maureen was no longer going to be buried alive.
She was going to be killed.
Chapter 39
GILCHRIST ENTERED THE Auld Aisle Cemetery from Woodilee Road.
He accelerated through the iron gate, sending it crashing to the side. He raced along asphalt pathways wide enough to accommodate a hearse. In the darkness, headstones passed in a shadowed blur. When he thought he was close enough, he veered onto the grass.
He left the engine running, the lights on, and stepped into the silence of the cemetery.
His feet slipped on the damp grass as he crossed beds of graves.
Nance reached him by the time he stood at Topley’s grave.
“She’s here,” he said to her. “I know it. I feel it. She’s here.” He lifted the yellow police tape and peeled back the tarpaulin that covered the excavated pit. The coffin was gone, but the SOCOs had left the grave open for the cemetery staff to repair.
Gilchrist jumped into the grave. He stood waist deep. He stamped on the bottom, but the soil was firm. The coffin containing the body of John Topley would be a couple of feet beneath him. He kicked the sides of the grave, but they were solid.
Nance eyed him from a safe distance, as if watching the antics of a madman.
Gilchrist pulled himself from the pit. “She’s here, Nance. I know it. She’s here.” He brushed soil from his clothes and scanned the dark shadows.
“Maureen?”
Nance shuffled her feet.
“Maureen?” Gilchrist cupped his hands to his mouth. “Maureen?”
“Andy.”
Gilchrist faced her. His breath panted in the cold air. He had tried to explain his rationale on the drive from the city. But she seemed unconvinced. Did she not understand? Maureen was here. Here. In this cemetery. She had to be. That’s what Bully had been telling him. It was simple.
“The coffin,” he said.
“I know. You told me.”
“That’s why they moved her from Glenorra. To bring her here. Closer to the coffin.” He lifted the yellow tape, stepped across the grass, marched along the pathway. “Maureen?”
The moon broke through the clouds and cast a ghostly glow across the cemetery. Headstones stood like silent bodyguards. A cold wind stirred in the passing, like the chilled breath of wraiths wakened by his calling.
“Maureen?”
Nance followed him through the opening in the stone wall that separated the old cemetery from the new. There, the headstones were larger, more ominous, the sky darker, too, as the moon settled behind a band of clouds.
“Why bring Maureen here?” she asked.
“It’s closer to the coffin.”
“I know that. But why here? Why not keep her in a house somewhere, and when they empty the coffin bring her then?”
“Why move her at all?” he replied. “Have you asked yourself that?”
“The neighbours were becoming suspicious? The hut in the back was becoming a liability? How would I know?”
“And from one house to another house?” Gilchrist shook his head.
“Maybe she’s in a house nearby,” Nance suggested.
“Maybe.” Gilchrist marched on.
“You could be wrong, Andy.”
Gilchrist stopped. “I’m not wrong, Nance. I know I’m not. I feel it here. Right here.” He thumped his chest with a force that should have stopped his heart. “Bully might be a murdering psychopath, but he’s not stupid. He had it planned. It was all ready. That’s what Topley said. Maybe Bully’s getting out in two years. Maybe sooner. Who knows? But with Jimmy dying, he couldn’t wait. He needed Jimmy to do his dirty work. So he started the ball rolling.”
“That’s all very well,” she said. “But-”
“Help me, Nance.” He gripped her arms. “Help me find Maureen.”
“Okay. Okay, Andy.” She stared at him. “Okay.”
Gilchrist released his grip. He knew from the tone of her voice that he was scaring her. If she did not want to help him he would find Maureen by himself. He stepped up the hill towards the oldest part of the cemetery, reached the old gate and pushed through. The watchtower stood like a miniature cathedral, an eerie grey in the moonlight. He reached its steps, bounded up them two at a time.
She was here. She had to be. Not here exactly. Not at the watchtower. But in this cemetery. Somewhere here, she was alive. Not buried. Not yet. But alive. Bully wanted to bury her alive in a coffin he had prepared for her, that would be ready after the drugs were removed. But with the coffin gone, Bully would now order Maureen to be killed instead of being buried alive.
If she was not already dead.
“Maureen?” The sound of his voice settled over the graveyard. High in the branches behind him, he heard the flutter of wings, the harsh caw of a crow. He cupped his hands again. “Maureen?”
Nance stared up at him from the bottom of the stone stairway.
Oh princess, by thy watchtower be.
He gripped the cold stone. His breath clouded the night air. Christ, it was so cold. Who could survive in cold like this? Was he already too late? But Bully had not wanted her dead. He had wanted her alive.
To bury her.
“Maureen?”
Princess. Watchtower.
She was here. By the watchtower-
He stopped, frozen by a sudden thought that blew into his mind.
The poem. Mary Morison. Why that poem? Why not some other poem?
Had Bully left clues in the other verses? But they had not been changed.
He removed the crumpled sheet from his pocket, flattened it as best he could, and tried to read it from the light of the moon. Movement by his side startled him.
“Here,” Nance said, and fingered her keyring. A weak light lit up the page.
He read out the verses. “Oh princess, by thy watchtower be, it is the wished, the trysted hour. Those smiles and glances let me see, that makes the miser’s treasure poor.” And underneath the first line, the original words printed in Jack’s sprawling hand.
It took Gilchrist a full five seconds to realise what he had missed, what they had all missed, the one word that Bully had slipped in unnoticed. Until now.
He read the original line. “Oh Mary, at thy window be.”
He read it again. “Christ,” he whispered.
At. Not by.
It meant something. It had to. Why else would Bully have changed it?
He scanned the other lines, his gaze settling, then fixing on the words … and glances let me see…
Let me see. By thy watchtower.
At thy watchtower. By thy watchtower. Did it matter?
Let me see. Was that the key? He peered into the darkness, caught the frames of iron cages and lonely headstones that guarded graves targeted by nineteenth-century grave robbers on their nightly plunders-
He caught his breath. Was that it?
Nightly plunders. The graves were robbed at night.
When the guards were in the watchtower.
… let me see…
At night? From the watchtower?
What could he see from where he stood?
He scanned the graveyard, kept his focus on the wall within view, the headstones closest to him. But he saw nothing in which a body could be kept until the coffin was ready. He turned to the gate, the main entrance to the original cemetery, next to the caretaker’s house-
Christ. The house. Why had he not noticed before?
Why had it taken until that moment for him to notice the house was derelict?
He ran down the steps and reached the front windows. A metal grille of sorts had been installed over them. He gripped it, but it was solid. He turned to the front door and shouldered it.