She hurried around the building, which revealed a large expanse of open farmland. ‘Alright, guv. There’s a large shed just over there. Follow me.’ She hurried over, stepping on the uneven slabs that led to it. ‘You can see through the window. There are reels of red material, just like the lining in the coffins. It’s leaning up against that corner.’ Just short of pressing her nose against the glass, she managed to peer through the grime. Despite there being loads of wood and material stacked up, there was no sign of a person in the shed.
‘See there?’
Jacob leaned in for a closer look. ‘It’s a dust outline. It’s the size of a coffin or a stack of coffins. And next to it, a fold-up trolley that has no dust on it at all.’ A trail led from the door to the spot. It had been put there recently.
‘What the hell? We’re going in. Cherie might be in that cellar or buried on these grounds but I can tell you something, we can’t lose another person to the coffin killer.’
They ran across the long-overgrown garden, taking a shortcut straight through. Stingers and brambles pierced the tracksuit bottoms that Gina was still wearing. She flinched as pinpricks of pain attacked her ankles and legs.
She nodded to Smith who stood poised with the Enforcer. ‘Police. Stand back, we’re coming in.’ On the third strike, the solid door bounced open. Gina hurried through the old tiled hallway, taking in the grand staircase and large stained-glass window ahead. She turned to what appeared to be a library and felt a shiver run down her back as her gaze locked on the body in front of her.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Gina crouched down to check Bill’s pulse but he was cold. His stiff wrist and the curl in his index finger told her that rigor mortis had set in. ‘I’d say he’s been dead between two and six hours.’ That much she knew. The bluish tinge to his greying skin, with a backdrop of floor-to-ceiling bookcases gave her the creeps. She looked away from his open mouth. ‘The coffin maker, dies in the library with a cord around his neck.’
She stood and hurried back into the hallway. ‘Lucy, it’s the police. Come out. It’s over, Lucy.’ They all waited for an answer. She took a few more steps into the kitchen. The old range stood at one end of the room. ‘Wyre, you take the lead upstairs with Kapoor and O’Connor. There are two floors. Jacob, Smith, you come with me. We’re heading down to the cellar.’ As they crept around the house in their teams, Gina pushed at the cellar door but it was locked.
‘Clear.’ Wyre leaned over the bannister. ‘There’s no one upstairs. We’ll call the body in.’
‘We need to get into that cellar. Let’s get the Enforcer on it.’
As Smith poised himself, Gina called out one more time. ‘Lucy, Cherie, we’re coming through now. Stand back.’ No one answered. Gina swallowed and took a deep breath as the wooden door split on the first blow; the second had the door open. Smith pulled the tangled light cord but the cellar remained in darkness. Gina brushed past him with her pocket torch as she took the first few creaky steps. ‘Cherie, it’s DI Harte. Make a noise if you’re down here.’ She heard a scuffle.
As she reached the concrete floor, a bit of light came from the tiny window she’d peered through while standing on the drive. The dirt, coupled with a stormy dark day, still made it difficult to see too far ahead. She could make out the racking. Wood panels of all different sizes were haphazardly slotted into shelves, dusty like they hadn’t been touched for years. As Gina passed them, a flurry of dust motes danced in the light.
She heard the same scuffle coming from a pile of bin bags. Beckoning Smith and Jacob to follow, she turned the corner to see an old sack moving. She grabbed a thin piece of wood and lifted the edge of the sacking, disturbing a bag full of wood shavings that spilled everywhere. The rat escaped from the pile and scurried between her legs, making its escape.
‘Bloody things.’ Jacob let out a startled cry.
Gina hurried over and lifted the sack. There was nothing but more wood. She threw the strip of wood to the floor and let out a frustrated roar. ‘Where the hell has Lucy taken Cherie Brown?’
‘Guv,’ O’Connor called her from the top of the house. ‘Come here quick.’
She nudged between Jacob and Smith and ran up three flights of stairs until she reached a narrower flight.
‘Up here, guv. In the attic.’
Taking two steps at a time, she gasped as she entered the room with the door at the end. Wyre was poring over a board, a bit like the ones they used in the incident room. There were photos of Alex, Penny and Cherie on the main board; each of them had black crosses through their faces. Then there was another board beside it. Gina stared at a photo of herself, but her face had a red ring around it. Her heart rate started to rev up. Copies of the letters to the press were stuck underneath. She spotted a few old articles in the local papers that involved the cases she’d worked on in the past and the one of her receiving an award while in uniform. Lucy had been delving deeply into her life. A map was stuck to another board, a pin in the woods, a pin in the building site and one more pin. ‘Where’s this? Anyone know this location?’
O’Connor pointed his torch at the board and squinted as he looked a little closer. ‘It’s about a mile from the park, off the edge of a housing estate. The woodland here is sandwiched between an estate and the bus route. It’s quite the danger spot really. It should have been fenced off years ago. There’s a pond, a dirty old pond there.’
‘Brilliant, O’Connor. Look at that last pin.’ She grabbed a ruler from the desk. Each line, equal in length, the angles looked to be the same too. Something Christian Brown had said to her clicked. It was an equilateral triangle – not an isosceles or right-angled. These locations had been chosen with precision. ‘We had the burial sites under our noses all this time – simple maths. Wyre, stay and wait for forensics. Get a search up and running of the grounds just in case we’re wrong about the pond. Cherie could still be buried here and I want you to take the lead on it. Get some dogs in too; it’s a large area to search. We have to go. Now!’
Her phone rang. It was Briggs. ‘We know where the body is, sir.’
‘The old pond off Cobble Lane?’
‘How did you know?’ Gina shrugged her shoulders at the team.
‘Isaac Slater just decided to tell us on the advice of his solicitor. He said you asked about a ghost in the interview. The kids used to call it the haunted pond, something about a lady in the lake.’
‘We’re heading straight there now.’ She ended the call.
Wyre turned to leave the attic room. ‘Stay safe, all of you. I’ve got this.’
‘Right, what are we all waiting for? A life is at stake!’ Gina raced down the stairs and back to her car, hoping it wasn’t too late to save Cherie.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
