Линда Ла Плант: Unholy Murder

The yellow JCB digger was backhoeing a deep trench for the concrete foundations to be laid. As Barry, the driver, started to scoop up another load of rain-sodden soil he knew, from the tension on the digger arm, the bucket had struck something solid under the ground.

Opening the cab window, he shouted to his colleague who was sitting in a large open-top dumper truck waiting for the digger to empty its next load of soil.

‘Oi, Dermot, I’ve hit something hard. See if you can make out what it is.’

Dermot did a thumbs up and slowly stepped down from the dumper truck.

‘Get a move on, Dermot,’ Barry shouted.

‘Whatever it is, it’s still under the soil. Give it a prod with the bucket so I can hear if it sounds like stone or metal.’

Barry raised then lowered the bucket. When it struck the unknown object, there was a clanging sound.

‘I reckon it’s something metal,’ Dermot said.

As Barry pulled back on the bucket the sudden unbearable screech of metal scraping on metal made Dermot wince. He frantically waved his arms. ‘Whoa, stop digging!’

Barry repositioned the bucket, so it was lower in the ground. This time he was able to pull the unknown object up so part of it was sticking out of the soil. It was still covered in dirt, so Barry jumped down from the cab into the trench and brushed away the topsoil with his hands. ‘It’s a bloody coffin!’

‘We’d better let Lee know about it. This area could be the old convent graveyard,’ Dermot said warily as he walked off.

Barry grabbed him by the arm. ‘We’ve been digging the new foundations for two weeks now and we ain’t uncovered no other coffins, so this can’t be a proper graveyard, can it?’

‘Better safe than sorry, Barry.’

‘You’ll be sorry if Lee calls the Old Bill and the site gets shut down. No work means no bloody wages. I say we dig a hole somewhere in the woodland over there and put the coffin in it. No one will be any the wiser.’

Dermot shook his head. ‘You can’t treat the dead like that. We have to tell Lee. He’s in charge of the site.’

‘Let’s have a look inside first...’

‘No way. That would be sacrilege,’ a shaken Dermot exclaimed.

‘If it’s an empty coffin, there’s no harm in moving it.’

‘I told you, I ain’t touching it.’

‘You’re frightened, aren’t you?’ Barry scoffed.

Dermot went to the builders’ hut and returned a couple of minutes later with Lee, the site foreman.

Lee looked at the coffin and sighed. ‘That’s all we bloody well need.’

‘I think we should move it or at least have a look inside,’ Barry suggested.

‘I don’t know...’ Lee said hesitantly.

‘If you do, I’m having no part of it,’ Dermot said firmly.

‘All right, Dermot, calm down. You two wait here while I go speak with Mr Durham. And don’t touch the coffin.’ Lee headed towards the walled gardens of the old convent.

Dermot waited until Lee was out of sight before walking off.

‘You going back to the hut?’ Barry asked.

‘No, I’m going to the phone box down the lane to call the police.’

‘Tosser,’ Barry muttered under his breath. He watched as Dermot got in his Vauxhall Astra and drove towards the lane. Barry nipped to his van and looked in a toolbox. ‘You’ll do the job nicely,’ he smirked as he pulled out a crowbar.

Detective Sergeant Jane Tennison was sitting at her desk in the Bromley CID office, reading the night duty detective’s report about the arrest of two young men trying to break into a house in Beckenham. As she got to the part where the two burglars were disturbed, she couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

‘What’s so funny?’ Detective Inspector Stanley asked Jane as he walked in.

Jane had known Stanley since she’d joined the force and had worked with him on a number of cases, but his Christian name was still a mystery to her and, like everyone else, she just called him Stanley — or ‘guv’, now that he was a DI. When she had first met him, he was a long-haired, scruffy-looking undercover officer, who not only looked like a tramp, but smelt like one as well. With promotion to DI, he had tidied up his appearance and now had short combed-back hair and dressed smartly in a dark blue two-piece suit, white shirt, and Flying Squad tie with its swooping eagle emblem. Present and former members of the elite ‘Sweeney’ proudly wore the tie which symbolised the way its officers would swoop swiftly on armed robbers.

Jane smiled. ‘Morning, Stanley. This night duty report is funny. Two lads broke into a house at two in the morning and disturbed the owner, who just happened to be a police dog handler. His Alsatian, Rumpus, bit one of them in the arse and he needed twelve stitches. The other lad jumped up a tree in the back garden fearing he was next on the dog’s menu.’

Stanley laughed. ‘That’ll teach the little shits.’

‘They’re still in the cells awaiting interview and their home addresses need to be searched. Me and DC Boon can deal with—’

Stanley shook his head. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort them out. The duty sergeant just informed me a coffin has been dug up on a building site in Bickley and they don’t know what to do. I need you to deal with that.’

Jane was puzzled. ‘Since when was that kind of incident a CID matter?’

‘It’s on the grounds of an old convent, which means the land might be consecrated and have other bodies buried in it.’

‘I still don’t see how it’s a CID matter,’ she said, glumly looking out of the window at the torrential rain.

‘Uniform are down to minimum strength today and well tucked up with a major RTA in Widmore Road. Besides, as you’ve only been here for four weeks it’ll give you a chance to get out of the office and do some investigation — and take DC Boon with you,’ he added, handing her a page from a police memo pad with the address on it.

‘I was just asking why CID, not trying to get out of dealing with it,’ Jane explained. ‘I’ve heard the term consecrated ground, but what’s the legal procedure?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never dealt with an unearthed coffin before.’

‘Then that makes two of us.’

‘I suggest you go speak with the foreman and see if there’s a body in the coffin for starters,’ Stanley said.

‘And if there is?’

‘Then you’ll need to inform the Bromley coroner, who’ll advise you accordingly. And maybe speak with the local Catholic church authority as well. They should know if it’s consecrated ground or not.’

Jane looked up as a dripping wet DC Boon sauntered into the office, removing the earphones from his Sony pocket radio.

‘Bloody hell, it’s wet out there’ he remarked as he removed his rain-sodden coat and shook the water off it, some of which landed on Jane and the night duty CID report.

‘Watch what you’re doing, Boony!’ she said, wiping the report with a tissue and unintentionally smudging it. ‘And keep your coat on, we’ve got an incident to attend.’

‘Anything exciting for a change?’ he asked.

‘We won’t know till we get there, but it involves an unearthed coffin,’ she replied, grabbing her raincoat from the coat stand.

‘Grave diggers?’ Boon asked hopefully.

‘In a manner of speaking, yes,’ Stanley smiled.

‘Have I got time for a coffee and bacon sarnie?’ Boon asked.

Stanley frowned. ‘No. If you want breakfast have it in your own time before you come on duty. I don’t like my detectives coming to work and going straight to the canteen for a bite to eat and a chat. It pisses off the uniformed officers who do three to four hours on the beat before they get their official refs break, so I expect you all to do the same. Refs at twelve or one for detectives on a nine-to-five shift in future and five or six on a two-to-ten shift.’