There was only one police car at the graveyard, its blue flashing beacon reflecting eerily off the rain-soaked marble markers. Gilmore parked tight behind it.
‘There!’ pointed Frost.
Ahead of them, right off the main path, was the Victorian crypt they had spotted earlier, an ugly little building, looking like a small, ivy-covered boiler house and guarded by tall, sharply spiked, cast-iron railings. Two marble angels with naked swords stood sentry on each side of the entrance gate where a uniformed officer, PC Ken Jordan, was talking to an old man in a flat cap who was supporting a push bike. Jordan left the man to meet the two detectives.
‘Who’s the old git with the running nose?’ asked Frost.
‘He’s George Turner, the churchwarden. He phoned us.’ Jordan filled them in on what had happened. ‘I’ve had a quick look around. No sign of anyone.’
‘Ah well,’ said Frost, anxious to get back in the car and the dry, ‘I’ll leave you to handle it.’ He jerked his head to Gilmore. ‘Come on, son.’
But Gilmore was rattling the heavy iron gates. They were held firm by the lock. ‘So how did he get in?’
‘There’s a couple of broken railings round the back,’ said Jordan.
‘Show me,’ demanded Gilmore. They followed Jordan to the rear of the crypt. Next to a stand-pipe supporting a dripping tap, two of the cast-iron railings had been broken away leaving a gap wide enough to squeeze through. They squeezed through, Frost reluctantly bringing up the rear, and marched round to the entrance to the crypt.
The door, solid oak some 3 inches thick, bore a crudely sprayed skull and crossbones in still-wet purple paint. It should have been secured by a heavy duty padlock and hasp, but the screws fixing it had been prised out of the door jamb and the door yawned open.
‘Vandals!’ bawled Turner. ‘I’d horsewhip them till they screamed for mercy.’
‘Ah well,’ said Frost, flumbling for a cigarette, ‘not much harm done.’
‘What I want to know,’ continued Turner, ‘is where were the police who were supposed to be on watch? Something should be done about them. They should be taught a lesson.’
Frost nodded his agreement. ‘They should be flogged until they screamed for mercy, then castrated without an anaesthetic.’
‘Aren’t you going to look inside?’ asked Turner. ‘They might have done some damage.’
‘Right,’ grunted Frost, without enthusiasm. The old man leading, and guided by Jordan’s torch, they went in, down two steps to the stone-floored chamber.
Jordan’s torch prodded the darkness. It was a very small chamber with some six ornate, black-painted Victorian coffins stacked on stone ledges along the walls on each side. From the roof the bell rope was still quivering.
‘I’ve never been inside a crypt,’ observed Gilmore. ‘I thought it would be bigger.’
‘What for?’ asked Frost. ‘They aren’t going to get up and bleedin’ walk around, are they?’ His nose twitched. ‘What’s that smell?’
‘I can’t smell anything,’ said Turner, ‘but then I’ve got a cold.’ To prove it he foghorned into a large handkerchief.
‘It smells like a corrugated iron urinal in a heat-wave,’ Frost said. ‘When did you bung the last corpse in?’
‘The crypt hasn’t been used since 1899,’ he was told.
‘It’s coming from over here,’ said Jordan, his torch sweeping the floor.
‘There!’ called Frost, grabbing the torch and directing it towards the far corner. The light bounced off a large, bulging bundle wrapped in black polythene sheeting, criss-crossed with 2-inch wide brown plastic adhesive tape and tied with cord.
‘That didn’t ought to be here!’ said Turner.
As they dragged it to the centre of the floor it trailed foul-smelling liquid. Frost bent down and prodded it gently with his finger. The bundle felt cold and squelchy and the stench of putrefaction belched out. Frost’s pen-knife slashed open the plastic sheeting. So strong and sickening was the smell that they all had to retreat back to the door to inhale the clean, rain-washed night air.
They steeled themselves to go back in. Holding his breath, Frost cut the slit bigger and peeled back some of the, plastic. A gas-bloated putrefying face looked up at him.
PC Jordan gagged, his hand shaking so much that he nearly dropped the torch. Frost snatched it from him and handed it to Gilmore. ‘If you’re going to throw up, Jordan, do it outside. It stinks enough in here as it is.’ Gladly, the constable charged up the steps. ‘Are you all right, Sergeant?’
Fighting hard to control his stomach, Gilmore nodded. If the inspector could stand it, so could he.
Jordan returned, white and sweating, wiping his mouth. ‘I hope you haven’t desecrated someone’s grave?’ said Frost sternly. Jordan didn’t answer. He hadn’t looked and he just didn’t care.
‘Nip upstairs,’ Frost told Gilmore, ‘and radio through to the station. Tell Sergeant Wells we’ve found a body in the churchyard. When he stops peeing himself laughing and saying, “But the churchyard is full of bodies,” tell him “ha-bloody-ha” from me and I want a doctor, Forensic, Scene of Crime Officer and a gross of air fresheners.’
The mobile generator grunted and coughed before chugging away contentedly, and the Victorian vault was bathed in electric light for the first time in its life. Duck boarding had been placed down the centre of the steps and over the floor and footsteps clacked as they crossed it. Frost stood outside, keeping well out of the experts’ way as they measured and photographed, took samples and dusted for prints. The body remained tied up in the sheeting awaiting the arrival of the police surgeon.
A cursing as someone stumbled unsteadily down the path. Frost grinned to himself happy to see that Dr Maltby was still on duty and not that jumped-up, toffee-nosed sod, Slomon.
‘Welcome to the boneyard, doc.’
Maltby waved his bag and lurched over. ‘What have you got for me this time?’
‘Body in a sack. It’s past its best.’
‘Aren’t we all,’ said Maltby, following the inspector down the stone steps. ‘Any progress with my poison pen writer?’
‘Give us a chance, doc,’ pleaded Frost. ‘I’ve been tripping over corpses all day.’
Maltby dropped to his knees and bent over the body ‘Well, he’s dead,’ he announced.
‘I should hope he is,’ grunted Frost. ‘if I smelt like that, I wouldn’t want to live.’
Gilmore snorted his disgust. Frost seemed to thrive on bad taste remarks.
‘By the way, Jack,’ said the doctor casually as he gently prodded the puffy flesh through the torn opening in the plastic, ‘you know that dead girl — the suicide…’
‘What about her?’ asked Gilmore.
Pointedly addressing Frost, the doctor continued. ‘Tear up the report I did on her. I’m writing a new one.’
‘What was up with the old one?’ asked Frost.
‘I missed something. The morgue attendant tipped me the wink. He spotted it when he undressed her.’ He stood up and wiped his hands on a towel from his bag. ‘This one’s been dead at least eight weeks — possibly longer.’
‘What did the morgue attendant find?’ asked Gilmore. He knew there was something dodgy about that suicide.
Maltby’s head twisted to the detective sergeant. ‘There were marks on her buttocks — weals — about a week old, fading but still visible. She’d been quite severely beaten with a whip or a cane. And there were needle marks on her left arm.’
Gilmore’s eyebrows shot up. ‘And you missed it?’ He pulled the inspector to one side. ‘Surely you’re not going to let him get away with this?’
‘When you’ve made as many balls-ups as I have, son you don’t hesitate to help fellow sufferers,’ Frost told him.
Maltby snapped his bag shut. ‘I can’t tell you any more about this one unless you unwrap it.’
‘Might be best to wait for the pathologist,’ suggested the man from Forensic who had been hovering, ears flapping. ‘You know how fussy he is about bodies being left untouched.’
‘Sod the pathologist,’ snapped Frost. ‘It’ll be hours before he gets here. Cut it open.’