"Yes."
"Is she here?"
"I believe so."
"I need a mouth swab from her. Could you point her out to me?"
"When I find her."
Rosie was at the edge of the group of people, standing with the vicar and the coroner's officer. They all turned as I approached and Rosie started as she recognised me, then stepped towards me and accepted a hug.
"I didn't expect to see you," she said but I couldn't think of a reason for being there and just gave her an extra squeeze.
The vicar was called Duncan and had a handshake in proportion to the six-foot-six he stood, while the coroner's officer's was soft and warm. She'd been standing with her hands in her pockets.
"We talked on the phone," I said to her. "You must have worked hard, organising all this so quickly."
"You know what they say, Inspector: Ask a busy woman…"
I turned to Rosie. "Did you drive down?" I asked.
"Yes. Duncan and his wife are putting me up at the vicarage."
"That's kind of them. I wish I'd known, I could have brought you."
"You have work to do."
"Look at that lot," the coroner's officer said. "He'll fall in if he gets any closer."
The cameraman was pointing his huge shoulder-mounted camera down into the grave while the director endeavoured to hold him back and look over his shoulder at the same time. A third member of the team, the sound man, waved what looked like a flurry animal on the end of a pole over them. Rosie gave a sniff and a sudden swirl of a breeze stirred me tree-tops, as if some restless spirit were up there, trying — to find its way back home.
"C'mon," I said, taking Rosie by the arm and turning her away from the activity. I switched my hand to hers and she allowed me to lead her towards the church. The light was behind us, so the footing was more secure, and when we were on the paving stones I put my arm across her shoulders.
"You shouldn't be here, Rosie," I told her, when we were standing inside the doorway of St Giles. "I can understand you coming, but there's nothing else you can see, nothing you can do. I think you should go to bed."
"What about you?"
"I'll go home, or book in at the Holiday Inn if I feel tired. I'll be OK, it's you I'm worried about. Listen, Rosie. It's obviously upsetting for you. It would be for anyone. Let them get on with it in their own way. They'll take the coffin to the hospital lab and open it. Apparently they'll have it back here by lunchtime. Maybe you'll be able to say your goodbyes to your dad then, without all this… all this circus."
"That's what they said," she admitted. "Duncan said we could have a little service of interment."
"That's good of him. Would you like me to be there?"
"I don't know. No, I don't think so. I'd prefer to be on my own. Lay him to rest, one way or another, once and for all."
"That would be best," I said. "From what I've heard of him, from what I've gathered, he was a special person. That's the memory to cling to."
Rosie wiped her eyes and pressed her face against my chest. "Shall I tell them you've seen enough?" I asked, and felt her nod her acquiescence.
"Inspector!" I turned to face the voice. It was the scientist from the Chepstow lab. "Is this the lady I'm looking for?"
"Yes," I replied, releasing Rosie and making the introductions. "He needs a sample of your buccal cells," I told her, "from inside; your mouth."
The scientist produced his kits and removed the screwed lid from one of the plastic tubes. He extracted the swizzle stick with its cotton wool bud and handed it to Rosie. "Just give it a good rub round the inside of your cheek, please." Rosie did as she was told, silent and compliant, and he placed the swab back inside its tube. "And another, please, just to play safe."
He sealed the samples in their envelopes and filled in the details before saying thanks and wandering off again. It was going to be a long night for him.
"What's the purpose of that?" Rosie asked as he vanished into the gloom.
"It's just a check," I replied.
"A check for what?"
"He wants to compare your DNA with that from the body, to prove it's the right grave. We inherit half our DNA from our father, half from our mother. They'll be able to verify that you're a close relative to… to the person in the grave."
"I see." Then, after a long pause: "First Call haven't asked me for a sample."
"No? Well, let's just say that we're more thorough than they are."
The vicar insisted I go back with them for a coffee and we had it seated on high stools in his big kitchen. He wanted to make me a flask and a sandwich for the trip home, but I managed to convince him that it wasn't necessary. When I was in the car again I put Gavin Bryars' The Sinking of the Titanic in the CD player and pointed north. It's a musical description of the liner's final journey to the bottom of the sea. The roads were mercifully quiet and I hardly dropped below eighty, almost halving the time of my outward trip. As that final, sad Amen sounded and the broken hulk settled on the ocean floor I'd covered over a hundred miles and the morning sun was in my eyes.
An exhumation isn't undertaken lightly. It can only be done in a few special cases and requires the issue of a warrant by either the local coroner or the Home Office, ©ther parties with an interest are the police, just so that they know it's official and not the work of grave robbers, the environmental health officer and the Church. As this was a criminal case, a police photographer was there to record every stage, and another officer was appointed to follow through the continuity of the process, so that there was no suggestion of bones being substituted. When you added the cost of the JCB, the funeral director and gravediggers, plus a new coffin and all the various materials, it was costing First Call a pretty penny. And they wanted their money's worth.
I went straight to the nick and had a toasted teacake and mug of tea in the canteen, joshing with the dayshift woodentops as they slunk in, bleary-eyed and reluctant.
I was towelling myself dry after a shower when Gareth Adey came into the bathroom. "Morning, Charlie," he shouted to me. "Had a busy night?"
"So-so, Gareth. So-so."
I combed my hair with my fingers, hardly able to see my reflection in the steamed-up mirror, and pulled my pants on. Gareth had a pee and washed his hands.
"If you could start all over again, Charlie," he said, "what would you do differently? What changes would you make?"
That's Gareth's way of making conversation, and as profound as he ever gets. I pulled a sock over my toes, wriggled them about and pulled it fully on.
"If I could start all over again?"
"That's what I said."
"There is one thing."
"What's that?"
"I'd eat more roughage."
"Ha ha!" he laughed. "Ha ha! Eat more roughage! I like it, Charlie, I like it." He wandered out into the real world and I reached for a shoe. Another day had begun.
I went through the motions but my mind was elsewhere. We'd made twelve arrests at the dog fight and they'd all been sent home on police bail, Sir Morton being the last to go, earlier this morning. He'd brought in a high-flyer of a solicitor and admitted nothing, claiming to have been taken to the farm by one of his employees who apparently was under the illusion that a little escapism would do him good, be a relief from the pressure he'd recently been under. But she was wrong. He'd been disgusted and dismayed by the whole thing. Jeff and the CPS prosecutor had the case in hand, so I left it to them. Two burglars were in the cells but I let Dave and one of the DCs do the interviewing. Jeff came into my office to ask how it had all gone and I told him.
"You look knackered," he said. "Why don't you take the afternoon off?"
"I'm thinking about it."
"We can manage." He bent down and opened my bottom drawer. "Have a watch of this," he told me, handing me a video box, "but not before you go to bed."