them, was bent over doing something to the padlock. A loud click, then a groaning of hinges as the door was pushed open. A torch flashed and the man disappeared inside the burial vault.
‘Still taking a short cut?’ scoffed Gilmore, smugly. He moved quietly round to the side of the building and squeezed through the railing by the tap, where Paula Bartlett’s killer squeezed through with her body. Frost, slower, followed.
Round to the door where the newly fitted brass padlock still held the hasp firmly, but as before, the screws had been prised from the rotting door frame. Intermittent splashes of light spilled from inside. Echoing in the confined space, sounds of something heavy being dragged across the stone floor.
Gilmore and Frost looked at each other. What the hell was he doing?
Cautiously, Gilmore edged his head until he could see inside. Pitch black, then the man’s torch clicked on again and lit up a scatter of something on the floor. Bones. Human bones. And on top of them, a grinning, yellow-toothed, human skull.
Gilmore’s involuntary gasp was enough to make the man spin round, the glare of his torch hitting Gilmore straight in the eyes, momentarily blinding him. Then, with a yell, the man charged and Gilmore found himself flying through the air, his back, then his head hitting the stone floor with a teeth-jolting crack making pin-points of light dance in the blackness at the pain.
Crouching, ready to give him a second dose, the man moved forward.
‘Stay where you are. Police!’ yelled Frost, dragging his torch from his mac pocket and kicking bones out of the way as he advanced into the vault. The man blinked into the beam and Frost stopped in his tracks. Gilmore’s assailant was wearing a clerical collar.
The curate gawped surprise at the sudden appearance. ‘Mr Frost!’
Gilmore creaked open his eyes and saw a skull and a thigh bone within inches of his face. He sat up, gingerly touching the back of his head then studying the blood on his fingertips.
‘I’m terribly sorry, Sergeant,’ apologized the curate. ‘I thought you were one of the vandals.’ He helped Gilmore to his feet and examined the cut on his head. ‘Only a graze, I think.’
With an angry jerk, Gilmore shook him off. ‘Perhaps you’d care to explain what you’re doing here at this time of night?’ He picked up the torch and swept the stone floor with its beam. The lids of two coffins had been unscrewed open and the skeletal bodies inside tipped out with bones and pieces of shroud strewn all over the floor. ‘And how do you propose to explain this?’
‘I use the graveyard as a short cut to get back to the vicarage. I’ve been sitting with another sick parishioner. She died, I’m afraid – this terrible influenza epidemic.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘So many deaths.’
‘Let’s have the address of this sick old lady,’ said Gilmore, pen poised over his notebook. He wrote down the details. ‘Right. Now explain this.’ He nodded at the mess.
‘Does it need explaining?’ said the curate bitterly. ‘You’re supposed to be protecting us against vandals. I passed the crypt and saw the door was open. I came in to investigate and found this.’ He shook his head. ‘Such pointeless desecration. One tries to be forgiving, Sergeant, but this is sick.’
Gilmore snapped shut his notebook. ‘All right, Mr Purley. That’s all, for now.’ He emphasized the ‘for now’.
They followed him out and watched as he tried to make the door secure. ‘You’ll need a new door frame,’ said Frost.
‘Yes, Inspector. More expense.’ Another sigh. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow and try and fix it. I’ll tidy up inside as well.’ Round to the side of the building where they squeezed through the gap in the railing.
They watched him picking his way between the graves before veering off towards the vicarage.
‘I don’t trust him,’ growled Gilmore. ‘He’s always out too late at night for my liking. If there’s been another Ripper murder . . .’ Frost was pinning his hopes on the coach driver, but Gilmore had serious doubts. ‘Let’s go. This place is giving me the creeps.’
‘It must have given Paula Bartlett’s killer the creeps, coming here at dead of night with a body in his arms.’ Frost poked away at his scar and stared at the ranks of white headstones crowding in on the crypt. ‘He knew how to find the crypt, son, and he knew he could get in.’ He pushed his hands deep into his mac pockets