Grave Offence, chapter 18

09.30 Monday 2^nd November

‘Peter! I want you to take Davenport and Lepage and get over to Wolvercote Cemetery right away.’

Peter looked up from the pile of Leave Request Forms that he was studying preparatory to drawing up the December off-duty rota, and saw Superintendent Alison Brown standing over him.

‘We’ve had reports that they’ve found a body in one of the graves and they need CID over there right away.’

‘No problem. I’ll do this later.’ Peter, grateful for the excuse to set aside the thankless task of deciding who would be permitted to spend Christmas with their family and who would be condemned to turn in for work, paper-clipped the forms neatly together and put them away in a drawer. ‘But did I hear you right? Aren’t graves supposed to have bodies in them?’

‘Not before the funeral takes place,’ Alison explained. ‘And only the one specific body that the grave was made for. Apparently, one of the cemetery staff went out this morning to get things ready for their first funeral of the day and found that the grave they’d prepared for it on Friday already had an occupant. Nobody knows who it is or why anyone would have put it there.’

When they arrived at the cemetery, on the northern outskirts of Oxford, Peter saw that the small tarmacked area around the chapel was congested with vehicles and people. A police patrol car with its familiar blue and yellow stripes stood between a shiny black limousine (presumably one of the funeral cars) and the ancient soft-topped Citroën 2CV belonging to forensic pathologist Mike Carson. Standing in front of the door of the small, stone-built chapel was a hearse, with its rear door gaping open to reveal a coffin surrounded by floral tributes. Four men in dark suits and long black coats, whom Peter judged to be the pallbearers, stood in a line as if guarding the casket. A little way away, he could see another man in black, apparently deep in in conversation with a uniformed officer, whom Peter identified as Sergeant Jordan Fox. Next to them stood a short, dumpy woman in a black trouser suit and clerical collar who kept looking anxiously back and forth between the hearse, the entrance to the chapel and the driveway down which he had come. Her face looked vaguely familiar, but Peter could not recall where he had seen it before.

Seeing Peter and his assistants getting out of their car, Sergeant Fox excused himself from the man in black and hurried over to greet them. He was a tall gangling man of around thirty with rusty brown hair and deep brown eyes that looked anxiously into Peter’s green ones. Peter knew him well and, despite a rocky first encounter[1], had great respect for his conscientious and caring approach to policing.

‘I’ve taped off the area around the grave where they found the body,’ he told Peter. ‘Constable King is there with the men who found the body. Oh! And Dr Carson’s there too. The big problem at the moment is the funeral. The undertaker’s wanting to know what they can do with the body – their body I mean, not the unidentified one in the grave – and what to say to the family. The guests are all in the chapel, but they don’t know whether to have the service or … Please, sir, could you come and have a word with them?’ He half-turned towards the man in black and the woman in clerical costume.

‘Yes, I think I’d better do that,’ Peter agreed, speaking in a low voice. ‘And while I’m talking to the funeral director, will you show DS Davenport and DC Lepage where the body was found? After that, come back here. I may need you to keep order when the funeral party discover that they won’t be able to bury their loved-one today after all.’

Peter watched as Fox escorted Anna Davenport and Andy Lepage to the area of the cemetery where the most recent graves were. Peter noted the piles of flowers, lying on the tops of low rectangular heaps of orangey-brown earth. Then, they came to a larger pile of soil and he could see that it was cordoned off with blue-and-white tape, indicating that this was the centre of the crime scene. He saw another uniformed policeman stepping forward to speak to his colleagues.

Peter recollected himself and walked over to the man in black and his clerical companion. He held up his warrant card as he introduced himself.

‘I’m DI Peter Johns,’ he told them. ‘I’m the officer in charge of investigating how a strange body got into the grave and who it is. I gather that you are in charge of the interment that was supposed to be taking place here?’

‘Yes. That’s right. I’m Raymond Ferris of Ferris and Blythe.’ The man in black handed Peter a business card. ‘And this is Reverend Barfield,’ he added, gesturing towards the woman in the clerical collar.

‘Mandy,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘I’m here to take the service. The family are all waiting inside. They’ll be wondering what the holdup is. I do hope it won’t be long before …’

‘I’m sorry,’ Peter said, still trying to remember where he had seen this woman before. ‘I’m afraid it won’t be possible to go ahead with the burial today.’

‘But some of the family have travelled down from Darlington,’ Mandy Barfield protested in the quiet voice of someone who does not like to make a fuss on her own account, but is quite determined to protect the interests of other people. ‘We arranged to have the funeral early so that they could get home afterwards and not have to stay for another night.’

‘I really am very sorry,’ Peter repeated. ‘I do realise how distressing it is for them, but I also have to think of the family and friends of whoever it is that is lying dead in that grave right now. At the moment, we don’t know who it is or how they died or who put them there. And in order to find out those things – and to give that person, whoever it is, justice – we have to carry out a minute investigation of the grave and the ground around it, as well as allowing our experts to examine the body in situ.’

‘Is there another grave that we could use?’ the woman asked, turning to the funeral director.

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘These days interments are relatively uncommon. Most of our clients choose cremation. It would take several hours to prepare a new grave – always assuming that we can get permission from the cemetery authorities to do so.’

‘In any case,’ Peter intervened. ‘I’m afraid that I couldn’t sanction that. We need our forensics team to check over the whole cemetery for evidence of exactly what went on. I’m going to be closing the cemetery completely until that’s done. What I need to discuss with both of you is the best way of getting you and your funeral party off the premises with as little distress to them and as little disruption to the police investigation as possible.’

‘I suppose we could still go ahead with the service in the chapel,’ Mandy suggested. ‘And then, could you take the coffin back to your chapel of rest?’

‘I suppose so,’ Raymond Ferris agreed, reluctantly at first and then more supportively. ‘Yes. I think you’re right. That will be the best plan. Perhaps you could come in and explain to everyone?’

‘Of course,’ Peter agreed, trying not to sound as reluctant as he felt. ‘Unless …,’ he turned to Mandy. ‘Might it not come better from you? I mean – you know them.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t really,’ she bit her lip and looked uncomfortable. Peter could see that she felt much the same as he did about the prospect of explaining to a group of bereaved relatives that the burial could not go ahead as planned and that it might be several days before they could finally lay their husband, brother, father or whatever to rest. ‘It’s one of those difficult funerals where none of the family had ties to any particular church and they left it to the funeral director to find a minister.’

‘The widow was clear that he wouldn’t have wanted the Church of England involved,’ Raymond added. ‘So …’

‘So I’m a random non-conformist brought in to co-ordinate the proceedings and say a few words,’ Mandy finished for him, with a wry smile. ‘I’ve met the widow and the younger son, but that’s all. The rest of the family live at some distance and have travelled specially.’

‘OK.’ Peter braced himself to face the unwelcome task. ‘Well, we’d better get on with it. They must be wondering what on earth is taking so long. Do you think you could ask the widow to come out here, so we can speak to her in private? I mean – it’s all very well us coming up with a plan, but she may have different ideas. She might prefer to abandon the funeral altogether for the time being and do it all at a later date, for instance.’

In the end, the business of explaining to the widow that her late husband’s burial would have to be deferred proved less difficult than either Peter or Mandy had anticipated. Mrs Pemberley, a spritely eighty-seven-year-old with a lively sense of humour and a keen liking for detective fiction, seemed excited rather than upset at being told about the trespasser in the grave. She readily agreed with the suggestion that they should complete the service in the cemetery chapel and then go back to her home for refreshments as per schedule, leaving the interment to be carried out on a separate occasion.

Her older son, Brian, was not so easily mollified. He had made the journey from Darlington for the purpose of seeing his father laid to rest, and he did not understand why this was not possible. His first suggestion was that the police should remove the offending corpse forthwith so that there need be no delay. Surely, he maintained, it would only take a few minutes to carry it away and prepare the grave for its rightful occupant. Peter patiently explained that there was rather more to it than that, at which Brian conceded that perhaps it would be more realistic if the funeral party were to partake of their refreshments and come back for the burial later that morning. He shook his head in disbelief when Peter told him that it could be several days before the cemetery was back to normal and the police cordon around the grave could be removed.

Fortunately, his mother was firm with him and it was not long before Peter found himself leading the way into the chapel to make the official announcement of the new funeral arrangements. The organist, an elderly man with white hair and blue-veined hands, looked up with an expression of relief on his face as they entered, a few bars into the slow movement from Mozart’s clarinet concerto, which he was playing for the fourth time. He had also treated the waiting mourners to three renderings each of Air on the G-string and Handel’s Largo, and he was beginning to become anxious that there would be complaints that he had not brought a more extensive repertoire of voluntaries to fill the lengthy waiting period before the service began.

Peter processed down the aisle followed by Mandy and Raymond, who took up positions on either side of him at the front of the chapel. He waited while Brian helped his mother into a seat on the front row and then raised his hand for silence. He delivered his message briefly and then walked back down the aisle without allowing any time for questions or protestations. As he hastened to make his exit, he overheard some of the muttered conversation among the funeral guests.

‘I told Margery that she ought to have him cremated,’ an elderly man in a dark trench coat remarked to the small woman standing next to him.

‘It was hardly worth us coming,’ a middle-age woman in a pinstriped business suit complained on the row behind.

‘Disgraceful!’ came the verdict of a tall woman in a black hat, whose face was obscured by a black netting veil. ‘But what can you expect when you put one of those lady vicars in charge?’

Peter, thankful to be able to escape back to the normality of an investigation into a suspicious death, came out into the weak early November sunshine to find that a police van had joined the vehicles clustering around the chapel. Scenes of Crime Officers were busily getting their equipment ready and setting off towards the grave to begin a forensic examination of the site.

Jordan Fox was waiting for Peter. He was accompanied by a man in a grey suit, who said that he was from the council and had oversight of all four cemeteries within the Oxford City Council area. Peter explained to him that the cemetery would have to be closed until further notice and dispatched Fox to close the gates and guard the entrance to turn away anyone seeking to come in.

The grey-suited man pursed his lips and shook his head lugubriously, but did not argue. He followed Peter as he strode briskly over to where he could see Anna and Andy in conversation with two men dressed in overalls bearing the Local Authority logo. Anna made the introductions.

‘This is Luke Thompson,’ she said, indicating a scrawny lad in his teens or early twenties with greasy hair hanging untidily over his face. ‘He found the body.’

‘No I never,’ Luke protested. ‘I found the grave’d been opened and I went at got Eric, and he found the body.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Anna gestured towards the other man, who was older, with grey hair very thin on top. ‘This is Eric Parkinson. He oversees the preparation of all the graves here.’

‘We dug the grave on Friday,’ Eric explained. ‘We had to do that, because the funeral was supposed to be first thing this morning.’

‘So the grave was left unattended over the weekend?’ Peter asked.

‘Unattended, yes,’ Eric agreed. ‘But it was covered and locked down. That’s what young Luke here found – the padlocks had been broken off.’

He showed Peter the heavy black cover and the four padlocks, which fixed its corners to the steel panels shoring up the sides of the grave. Peter peered down into the depths and found himself looking into the cheery face of his old friend Mike Carson, the pathologist.

‘I thought I heard your dulcet tones,’ Mike greeted him. ‘It’s an interesting case this. I’d say that the death occurred elsewhere and the body was brought here some time afterwards. I should be able to give you a better idea of the timings after the post-mortem. I hope I’ll also be able to tell you how she died, which isn’t obvious just at present. One very interesting feature is this.’ He held up a spray of small red roses for Peter’s inspection. As he did so, several of the petals dropped down on to the boards surrounding the grave, looking to Peter eerily like drops of blood. One of the SOCOs[2] stepped forward and carefully enclosed the flowers in an evidence bag.

‘It was lying on her chest,’ Mike explained, ‘with her hands across the top of it holding it in place. You’ll be able to see how it was from the photos.’

‘So, it’s as if whoever put her here was trying to treat the body with some sort of respect?’ Peter suggested. ‘That looks like a floral tribute of some sort.’

‘As you know, I don’t go in for that sort of speculation,’ Mike answered. ‘I don’t try to guess motives. I just record the facts and make scientific deductions. All I can say is that it must have been placed there after death and most likely, after she was put in the grave. There were a couple of petals lying outside of the plastic sheet that she’s been wrapped in. And yes,’ he added, seeing Peter about to ask a question, ‘we did get photographs before I unwrapped her.’

‘Right! Well, I’ll leave you to get on.’ Peter turned to look at Luke and Eric. ‘Is there somewhere more comfortable where we can go and talk? I need you to take me through exactly what happened this morning.’