‘There’s nowhere to park close by. You’d never get a car here. The closest parking place is at the roadside to my right and that would take several minutes to walk through the thickets. It would be hard for one person to navigate their way through, let alone if they were dragging a body or a casket. I’ve just had a fair walk from the main road where the ambulance is parked. It took me ten minutes and that route is easier. It’s the route most people take when they’re walking to town. Imagine carrying a coffin and or a body all this way.’
‘Maybe whoever did this used some sort of trolley.’
‘Best to keep an open mind. I don’t think we’ll find the answers to that one here, looking at how soggy the ground is.’ She looked down. If someone had parked up and used some sort of trolley to put the coffin and the body into place, any tracks in the earth would be long washed away after tonight.
‘Jake.’ Jennifer called him over and smiled at Gina. ‘Step on the plates.’ They hurried across, clunking on the metal plates and Jacob looked like he was about to instinctively kiss her, but then he stepped back. They’d been a solid couple for a while now. Her white forensics suit swamped her.
‘Jennifer. How’s it going? Dinner’s ruined.’ Jacob swiped the rain from his eyes and smiled at her.
‘You mean another dinner’s ruined. We should be used to it by now.’ She gave him a little laugh and brushed her fringe back under her hood. ‘Well, tents up. I just hope it holds. We have the casket open if you want to step inside.’
Jacob stood back and waited for Gina to step in. She stood before the shallow grave.
‘We’ve started boxing the soil as you can see.’ Jennifer placed her hands by her sides.
Another crime scene investigator nudged through the tiny gap and he began taking photos.
Gina pulled a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose, noting that the sensation in her fingertips was barely in existence, especially through the gloves. ‘Can you get those emailed over to me as soon as you can?’
The man smiled and nodded before continuing to zoom in on everything. Flashes filled the tent as photo after photo was taken.
Gina bent over a little and squinted in the poor light to see the body. A hoodie was tied up at the neck and pulled over the victim’s eyes. His stiff fingers were clasped around something she couldn’t see. She gazed further into the box and spotted a tiny burnt stick. ‘That looks like it was once a match.’
Jacob came in a little closer. ‘There’s another.’
The victim’s mouth was open in a pained expression like he’d died terrified. Earth and muddy water had slipped through the slight gap in the coffin lid. It had seeped through the red lining and had spread into a huge dirty damp patch around the man’s chest. His bloodied fingernails told a story of the torturous hours he’d lived out in this box, or had he been placed there post-mortem? Maybe the person who placed him there had killed him already and made it look like he’d died after being buried alive. Maybe they made the claw marks on the casket lining. Not likely, but something she had to consider at this stage. There was something about his shoes that were familiar. Her gaze was drawn to the scuff marks.
‘What are you thinking?’ Jacob almost made her flinch.
‘I want to see his face.’
Jennifer leaned in and with a gloved hand, gently lifted the hood as the man with the camera took another photo. ‘There we go.’
Gina scrunched her brow. ‘I recognise him.’
‘You know him?’ Jacob got his notebook out and began writing.
She shook her head. ‘Not exactly. I saw this man in the café at the top of Cleevesford High Street a few days ago. He was being really rude to the person serving and I ended up giving him a piece of my mind.’
Rain began to pelt against the roof of the tent.
‘He really unnerved me. Did DCI Briggs mention the incident?’
Jacob nodded. ‘He said something about a gang of kids picking on another kid after you’d been having a drink in the café.’
‘That was it. I chased a couple of them and when I came back this man, here, almost bumped into me at the back of the gardens – scared the hell out of me. Then, he weirdly turned around and started walking the way he came. When I arrived back at the scene, he was standing at the other side of the road just staring at me. I thought I’d upset him when I basically told him to stop being rude to the woman serving at the café. Something’s really off about this.’
Jacob closed his pad. ‘Although, if he’s generally that rude, maybe he had a lot of enemies.’
‘Stands a chance. We need to get back to the station and work on identifying him. If we find some ID on him that would really help. If not, we’ll need to cross his features with those of all missing persons from around the county and if we come back with nothing, maybe we can look to take a screen grab from some of the CCTV and release it to the press. Someone has to know him. Can you make a note to task O’Connor to chase up CCTV outside Lucy’s Café and the church, dating back to Monday the twenty-sixth?’ Gina remembered that the victim looked to have a crew cut. She leaned over a little and studied his features. He had blue eyes and quite dark bags under them. Two of his bottom teeth looked to be crooked.
Bernard entered the tent, the redness of his nose telling of how the chill was biting. ‘Rigor mortis has set in which means he’s been there over three hours but there’s not much sign of decomposition yet. There is evidence of a struggle and it looks like he has bits of red cloth under his bloodied nails, suggesting the struggle was from within this box. You can see the damage to the upper part of the lining.’
Gina’s shoulders tensed and she swallowed. ‘How long would it have taken for him to die?’
Bernard shifted the hood of his forensics suit slightly. ‘An average person would take about five and a half hours to die in these circumstances. The oxygen would run out. He looks to be pretty average in size.’ He stepped around the body, avoiding Jennifer and the photographer.
‘This looks to be a good quality coffin. Where would a person buy one of these?’ Gina made a mental note that the wood was darker and reddish, possibly mahogany or made to look like mahogany. Brass handles finished it off.
He nodded a few times. ‘That will be the problem. You can even buy coffins from eBay. I’m hoping there will be some marking that gives away the maker or the make. Maybe there will be something sewn into the lining. Who knows? When we get it back to the lab, we’ll be able to pull it apart and take a better look.’
‘Do you know what he’s gripping in his right hand?’
Bernard shook his head. ‘I haven’t got a clue yet. As soon as I find out, I’ll let you know. I’ll email any relevant findings as they come through and as soon as I have a time for the post-mortem, you’ll be the first to hear.’
Jacob stepped from foot to foot in his saturated boot covers. ‘How does death play out in this instance? If it is all how it looks.’
‘If he was buried alive? Not good. With every breath, the oxygen in the air is replaced with carbon dioxide. Totally harmless, say, in your bedroom when you’re sleeping. But here, our victim may have sped the process up by panicking, hyperventilating and lighting matches. His breathing will have deepened. Then there would be twitching muscles, an increased pulse rate and his judgment would start to diminish. Unconsciousness and death would have followed. I’d say it would come within the top ten of most feared deaths. A post-mortem will be needed to confirm all this though.’