Boyd started the car, checked his rear-view mirror and prepared to pull out.
‘Wait a minute,’ Lottie said, putting her hand on the steering wheel to stop him. ‘There’s the funeral cortège coming up the road. We’d better be respectful and wait until they go in.’
‘You’re the boss.’ He switched off the engine.
She sat back and watched as Fahy unlocked the wrought-iron gates. They swung slowly inwards, and the hearse, containing a simple pine coffin adorned with a spray of lilies, passed through into the cemetery. Eight cars remained outside the gate and parked up on the opposite side of the road.
A priest in a black coat with a purple stole hanging from his shoulders alighted from the first car. He was slightly crouched, as if there was an invisible weight resting on his shoulders.
Shit, Lottie thought.
‘Is that who I think it is?’ Boyd said.
‘Come on,’ she said, ignoring the obvious. Father Joe Burke was back. ‘There’s only a small crowd; we can add to the numbers.’
‘We have enough work to be getting on with without gatecrashing a stranger’s funeral.’
‘Jesus, Boyd, will you ever shut up?’ Lottie banged the door on his words and followed the group of about thirty people down the hill to Mrs Green’s final resting place.
‘This is ridiculous, if you don’t mind me saying so.’ Boyd kept pace with her.
‘I do mind. Keep quiet. I want to see what Mr Fahy gets paid to do.’
‘He digs a grave then fills it in when the family leaves. You know that. We’re wasting our time here.’
‘God give me patience!’ she cried. ‘Go back to the car and wait for me.’
‘No need to be so antsy. Now that I’m here, I might as well go with you.’
She slowed down when the hearse stopped at the end of the narrow roadway. Two undertakers opened the rear door, and the family lined up to receive the coffin. Lottie’s shoulders quivered. She hadn’t attended a burial since Adam’s, except for the interment of her brother’s bones. This was a stranger. Someone she had no connection with. She should be okay. But she wasn’t.
And there was Father Joe Burke, with his fair hair cut shorter than she remembered, his fringe swept back from his forehead, and his eyes as clear as sapphires. Pulling up the hood of her jacket, she turned away. She wanted to see him, and at the same time she didn’t. You’re such a contradiction, she told herself. Early last year he had been her friend when things had been tough. He’d even helped her with her investigation into the murder of Susan Sullivan. But he’d left Ragmullin crippled with sorrow when he’d discovered the truth about his parentage and she’d thought she’d never see him again. Now he was back. Was that a good thing? She wasn’t at all sure.
Six men, three on either side, laid the coffin down on the laths of timber that Fahy had placed across the open grave. Another man, in a workman’s jacket, stood beside Fahy. They both moved to the rear of the sad family gathering.
She watched as a young man in a suit a size too small put the spray of flowers down beside the coffin, on top of the mound of clay. The scent of the lilies was evocative, and she was dragged back once more to the day she had helped lower her husband into the dead earth. Would she ever be free of the memories? They clung to her like a cold sweat.
With a sprinkling of holy water, Father Joe began the prayers. He was joined in a murmur by the small crowd. Trying to keep her focus off the priest, Lottie found herself wondering about the substance she had found on the pebbles earlier. She was sure it was blood, but it could have come from a child cutting a knee or even one of the workmen as they dug the grave.
More holy water was sprinkled, then six of the mourners, among them the only two women present, took up the leather ropes either side of the opening, rolled them round their hands, knuckles whitening, and pulled them taut. Fahy stepped forward and slid the timber supports away, and the coffin was held aloft above the gaping six-foot hole.
A scream broke from the small assembly, then one of the women let go of the rope and sank to her knees. Such grief, Lottie thought. She watched from a distance as Father Joe gripped the distraught woman’s elbow and helped her upright. Fahy and his colleague hurriedly repositioned the timber laths to take the weight of the coffin again.
The woman cried out once more and Lottie pushed her way through the mourners.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
‘Lottie!’ the priest said. He stared at her open-mouthed, as if to ask a question, but the distressed woman began to speak.
‘There’s something down there.’ She pointed into the grave, her face as white as the blouse peeking out at the collar of her coat.
Peering into the space, Lottie saw only clay. ‘What did you see?’
Fahy shimmied in beside them. ‘Probably a bird, or vermin. Freshly dug graves can attract them. Especially with an old corpse already—’ He stopped as Lottie speared daggers at him with her eyes. ‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘That’s my grandfather you’re talking about,’ said a stout man who had wrapped his arm about the shoulders of the stricken woman.
‘We’ll take a break,’ Father Joe said with a nod to Lottie, and shepherded the mourners out onto the path, where they huddled at the side of the hearse.
She sensed Boyd at her shoulder.
‘Might be the banshee’s resting place,’ he said.
‘Can we have a look?’ she asked Fahy.
‘There’s nothing down there,’ he said.
Lottie turned to the sobbing woman. ‘What exactly did you see?’
‘I’m not entirely sure. Maybe I imagined it, but when we pulled on the rope and the coffin was raised up a bit, I thought I saw what looked like skin poking out of the clay at the bottom of the grave. Human flesh. Good God! Could it be my grandad?’ She shook her head wildly. ‘But he’s been dead fifteen years.’
‘Stay right here. All of you.’ Lottie marched over to Fahy, who was now standing beside the grave. ‘Can you move the coffin so that I can take a look?’
‘What? You’re not going down there, are you?’ Fahy shoved his hands deeper into his pockets.
‘I want the coffin moved. Now.’ The caretaker was needling her nerves like an irritating itch.
‘This is outrageous,’ he said.
Boyd edged in between them. ‘I think you’re overreacting, boss. We should let this family bury their loved one.’
She glared at him before turning back to Fahy. ‘You and your colleague push this coffin out of the way. I want a quick look and then you can get on with the ceremony.’
With a theatrical sigh, Fahy called to his workmate. Between them they placed an extra piece of timber underneath the wooden casket and slid it away from the grave.
The air seemed to chill and the sky appeared to darken as Lottie leaned over the edge and peered into the opening.
‘Shit,’ she said. ‘Boyd, get SOCOs here. And call Lynch and Kirby. Quickly.’
Nine
‘What about my funeral?’ Fahy asked, as Boyd corralled the mourners and Father Joe with the undertakers on the far side of the hearse.
Lottie squared up to him. ‘Mr Fahy, it’s not your funeral, it’s Mrs Green’s, and I want you and your colleague to join the family over there until I can get a cordon in place.’
‘We have to bury her,’ he said.
‘And you will. But not right now. I have a strong suspicion that there’s a body in that grave that shouldn’t be there, so I’m asking you to move away.’
‘Right so.’ He grabbed his colleague by the sleeve and took out his phone. ‘I’m calling my supervisor about this.’
‘You can call whoever you like, just stay out of my crime scene.’
Once she was alone, Lottie stared down into the darkness. Protruding from a thin layer of soil were pink-varnished toenails.
* * *