Grace walked past several coffins.
He saw a tiny old lady in one, her face so white it blended, ghostlike, with her hair color. The undertaker had stopped beside a plain pine coffin. Lying inside, between the cream, quilted satin sides, wearing a plain shroud, was a very attractive young woman, with flowing, titian red hair.
Pulling out a pair of protective surgical gloves from his pocket, he snapped them on, then with the undertaker’s nodded assent, he lifted away the shroud completely. Everything else of her beautiful and well-endowed body was intact. Crude stitches right down her midriff showed she’d had a postmortem, and further marks were visible at the start of her hairline.
But her feet were missing.
They’d been severed at the ankles by an instrument that both detectives could see, with their naked eyes, had a serrated blade.
A pile of what was obviously her clothing lay alongside the coffin so she could be dressed for the funeral.
He found his phone and snapped several close-up photographs of the leg stumps. He e-mailed them to the crime scene manager and asked him to send them straight to DCI Carol Jordan.
“What can you tell us about this young lady, and the circumstances,” he asked Houlihan, as he watched the e-mail sending on his screen.
The undertaker led them through to his small, overly cozy and plush office, Grace dropping his gloves in a trash can on the way. There were more flowers on display, pictures of a smiling woman, presumably Houlihan’s wife and two small girls, also happy, and a stack of leather-bound books, which Grace presumed contained photographs of coffins, urns, and other funeral accoutrements. They sat in red leather armchairs in front of his desk, while Houlihan settled on the far side and glanced down at some notes.
“Her name is Sarah O’Hara, twenty-three, a waitress in Brighton, who was trying to become a fashion model. Tragically broke her neck when her boyfriend crashed his motorcycle.”
“What about the breakin during the night?” Glenn Branson asked.
“When I first got here to deal with the alarm, and everything, I thought it was vandals. Drunks. Kids. We do get a bit of trouble here in this area. I thought maybe they’d just been fooling around with the coffins.” He broke off for an instant. “How rude of me, I’ve not offered you gentlemen anything. Tea, coffee?”
“I’m fine, thanks,” Grace said.
Branson smiled at him. “I’m good.”
“But the thing is after finding this terrible thing, this dreadful desecration of this poor young lady’s body, I’ve begun to change my mind.” Houlihan cradled his head in his hands and fell silent for some moments. “How am I going to tell her family? What am I going to say? This will ruin my business. One hundred and forty-nine years my family has run this company, and we’ve never had a problem, ever. We were planning big celebrations for next year. Now will we even be in business?”
“I’m sure there’ll be ways through this for you. But if we could just focus for now on establishing the facts we need.”
“Of course.”
Grace pulled out his notebook. “You don’t believe it was vandals, you said? What are your reasons for that?”
“I was called out because the alarm was ringing. But I’m not the first keyholder contact. That is my embalmer, Rodney Tidy. I have a deal with him. I pay him a little bit of cash to come out if the alarm goes off. It’s worth it not to have a disturbed night. Usually it’s something silly, mice chewing through the wire, or a spider’s web across a sensor that’s set it off—that sort of thing.”
“Mr. Tidy’s away, is he?” Branson asked.
“No, he is not. So this is the strange thing. I got telephoned by the alarm company because they said they could not get an answer from Rodney.”
“This was around 2 a.m.?” Grace asked.
Houlihan nodded.
“Late for someone to be out on a midweek night,” Branson commented.
“Extremely unusual behavior for him.”
“What do you know about him?” Grace asked.
“He’s a bit of an oddball. But then again, embalming isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, so to speak. He’s somewhat of a loner. Not married and he really does not have good social skills.”
“You haven’t been to check up on his address, to see if he’s ill or anything?” Ken Anakin asked.
“I did. About 4 a.m. I waited here just to ensure whoever had done this didn’t come back, but I was careful not to touch anything, as I was instructed by the officers who attended. Then I went to his address over in Portslade, but I couldn’t find his house.”
Grace carefully watched the man’s face and his body language. It wasn’t surprising he was in an agitated state, but it seemed there was something the undertaker was holding back.
“Couldn’t find it?”
“I thought I must have written it down wrong. But when I got back here and checked it, I had it down correctly.”
Grace let it go for a moment. “How many people do you employ here?”
“Just a few. We are a real family business. My wife, Gudrun, my son, Kevin, his wife, Gemma, my bookkeeper—her name’s Eleanor Walker—and Rodney Tidy.”
“This may be a difficult question for you to answer,” Grace said, continuing to watch him carefully. “Could this have been done by a member of your staff.”
Houlihan leaned forward, lowered his voice as if scared he might be overheard, and said, “There is only one person who could possibly have done this. Actually, there is something odd. When I was called here, because the alarm was ringing, the first thing I did was switch it off. Then I went around the entire premises with the two police officers and we couldn’t find any unlocked outside doors, or open or broken windows.”
“Meaning someone either had a door key or picked a lock?” Grace said.
“After the officers left, I checked the alarm. I know a bit about technology. On the control panel you can access the history of when it has been switched on and off.” He raised a finger in the air, conspiratorially. “Here’s the strange thing: The alarm was switched off at 1:10 a.m. this morning, a full fifty minutes before it was set off.”
“Someone came in, switched the alarm off, did the damage, perhaps including sawing off the feet, then activated the alarm and left. Is that what you’re saying?” Glenn Branson asked.
“Either activated the alarm accidentally, or perhaps deliberately to make it look like there had been a breakin.”
“What time is Rodney Tidy due in for work?” Grace asked.
Houlihan checked his ornate antique watch. “He should have been in over an hour ago. We start early here, because sometimes relatives or partners want to come in on the morning of a funeral to view their loved one just one more time before they are interred or cremated.”
“Did you ever check on Rodney Tidy’s address previously?” Grace asked.
“Never had any reason too. He had excellent references when he applied for the job. Like I said, he’s an oddball, but always a hard worker.”
Grace looked at Branson. “I think we should go and pay Rodney Tidy a visit.”