gone about their business in broad daylight.’ He turned back down the hill and faced the reporters.
‘Press conference at three, ladies and gents, I’ll be happy to talk to you then,’ he called. ‘Right, my lovely lads,’ he said, squaring his shoulders and addressing his colleagues. ‘What have you got for me?’
The thin-haired detective, whom Harry had just learned was named after a Roman god, took Harry’s place at Rushton’s side and indicated that they should walk back up the hill towards the churchyard. Harry and the sergeant he remembered from the postmortem followed. No longer in surgical scrubs, the sergeant’s powerful build was more evident. His trousers stretched tightly around his waist.
‘You’ll get a better view up here,’ Jove explained, as they walked through the entrance and along the church path. Harry couldn’t see the top of the tower. Even the crests of the higher archways were lost in grey mist. ‘They’ve taken the awnings down for as long as the rain holds off,’ he continued. ‘Trying to take advantage of the daylight.’ He looked up. ‘Such as it is.’
‘Anything else shown up yet?’ asked Rushton. The four men were walking fast, passing the church and turning towards the tented area close to the wall. A uniformed constable stood guard at the doorway.
‘Other half of the pyjamas,’ said Jove in a low voice. ‘With some evidence of blood-staining. They’ve been sent to the lab. So have a couple more bones. Couldn’t tell you what they were, but they looked tiny. Oh, and you know the grave on the right-hand side of the collapsed one, as you look at the house, belongs to a family called Seacroft?’
‘Aye,’ encouraged Rushton.
They’d arrived at the police tent. The constable stepped back and allowed them inside. Harry was the last. The polyurethane walls only covered three sides. He could see directly down into the Fletchers’ garden. Three crime-scene investigators were working down there. Two of them seemed to be carrying the stones that had been dislodged from the wall over to the edge of the garden. A tiny stone statue of a child had been placed among them. The blinds in the house windows were still drawn.
‘Well, the coffin can be seen now,’ said Jove. ‘There you go, nice bit of oak panelling. We didn’t spot it last night, but most of the side is in plain view, as you see.’
Harry looked at wood, stained with damp, crumbling in places. ‘We can’t leave it like that,’ said Jove, ‘so we’re going to lift it and get Clarke out here to have a look. Anything suspicious and the whole lot goes down the lab.’
‘Very good,’ said Rushton. ‘We need to do the same with the other side. Has someone filed an exhumation request?’
‘I think so, sir, but I’ll check.’
‘There’s a massive cellar beneath the church,’ said Harry, unable to keep quiet any longer. ‘Cold and dry. The sort of place you might expect to produce mummified bodies. It’s been shut up for years. Did you search it when you were looking for Megan?’
‘We did.’ Rushton gave a nod. ‘Sinclair unlocked it for us. All the old sarcophagi were opened up. We took the dogs down too. Not a sniff, if you’ll pardon the expression. They did get quite excited in the church itself for a while, on the steps leading up to one of those old bell towers.’
‘And?’ prompted Harry, turning to look at the church. Only the closest of the four towers, the one on the south-west corner, could be seen from that angle.
‘Three dead pigeons,’ said Rushton. ‘I could smell ’em myself before I was halfway up the stairs.’
‘Will you check the cellar again?’ asked Harry. ‘They were local girls. They were taken from here and found here. They must have been kept somewhere nearby.’
Rushton barely glanced at him. ‘Thank you, Reverend, the force has some experience of conducting murder investigations.’
A radio started crackling. Jove pulled the receiver off his belt and turned away from the group. ‘DI Neasden,’ he muttered. After a moment, he turned back to his chief. ‘Needed in the house, Guv’ nor,’ he said. ‘They’ve found something.’
‘How long will she be out for?’ asked Gwen Bannister.
‘Hard to say,’ replied Evi. ‘Temazepan is a very mild sedative and I didn’t give her much. Someone a bit fitter, maybe with greater bodyweight, would just feel very drowsy, maybe a bit spaced out. Gillian must be exhausted to have fallen asleep so quickly.’
Gillian’s face had relaxed, lost some of the tension of