into a bell, suspended from a tree. ‘Here.’ She ran forward.
‘Dammit.’ Jacob began fighting with the cord as the bell clunked against the bark. ‘I walked straight into that. ‘No clapper, like all the others.’
She ran to the mound of earth, hands pushing through as she scooped it away.
The others hurried past and began helping except for Kapoor. ‘There’s a couple of shovels in the car, guv. We came prepared for this.’
‘Go get them, thank you.’ As Kapoor ran off Gina felt something wet and soft wriggling beneath her finger. Her one creature fear: the earthworm. She flinched and let out a sharp cry as she slid back in the mud, shaking her hand over and over again as she stared at it in terror. Smith ignored her and continued to scoop.
Jacob shuffled over to her on his knees. ‘Have you hurt yourself?’
‘No, I’m being stupid.’ She took another breath and got back into the soil, scooping it out. ‘Don’t stop, we’re against it. We can’t lose Cherie. Please be alive.’ With closed eyes she continued. What she couldn’t see couldn’t hurt. She listened to the grunts and groans as they all began to tire. A flick of earth hit her face.
She opened her eyes to the sight of Kapoor, pushing back through the bushes. ‘Here they are.’
Gina grabbed one and Smith grabbed another. ‘Stand back.’ With every shovelful she threw over her shoulder she thought of the time she was trapped in the shed. She wished that someone had come to her rescue and taken her and Hannah away from it all. All she wanted to do was open that coffin and show Cherie that she’d made it, that she’d live.
As she continued to shovel the earth, she called out. ‘Cherie, shout if you can hear me. It’s DI Harte, you’re safe now.’ She felt her eyes welling up as no answer came. What she was going to find in the box was another body. ‘Jacob, have the paramedics arrived yet.’
He stepped aside. ‘They should be here any moment. In fact, I can just about hear the sirens.’
‘O’Connor, head back to the road and bring them here. Cherie. Help is on its way.’ There was no response. Gina’s muscles ached with every movement and as the rain began to patter, it mingled with the sweat pouring from her head and the grit in her eyes. A flash of an image crossed her mind. The roof of the coffin with the red satin material. The feeling of claustrophobia and imminent death. Loneliness – no one misses you, no one is coming and no one can hear you. Her head was fit to burst with emotion as her body shook. ‘Can you take over?’
Jacob took the tool from her and continued where she’d left off. He and Smith dug a shovelful of earth in turn until Jacob’s tool clanked against the coffin.
‘Hurry. Cherie, can you hear me?’ Gina kneeled down as the digging continued. A moment later, she could see wood, beautifully polished wood. She held her hand up to stop them digging, then she reached for the coffin, grimacing as she flicked a worm aside. Delving further, she felt for the clasp to open the casket and smiled as she gripped it. She closed her eyes and took a breath as she lifted the lid.
‘There’s no one in here!’ The only things in the coffin were an open matchbox, three burnt-down matches and a piece of string that had been threaded through a tiny hole in the coffin. Gina fell onto her bottom as rain dripped down her face. Her phone vibrated in her pocket. Briggs was calling. ‘Hello.’
‘Gina, you have to get to the carriageway bridge, the Cleevesford Flyover. We’ve just had a report of a woman matching Lucy Manders’s description standing on the edge with another woman. Uniform are about to arrive on the scene and traffic police are in the process of rerouting cars and putting barriers up, but you have to be there. You know this woman and she likes you, I know she does. Get there now.’
Chapter Seventy
The wooziness passed as blood coursed through Cherie’s body. For a second, she visualised her body cracking as she hit the concrete below. She flinched and opened her eyes. She hadn’t been dreaming. They were still on the Cleevesford Flyover. She shook her head, trying to clear the fuzziness away.
One minute she’d been in a coffin, the next here on the dual carriageway bridge. She couldn’t remember getting