‘Toxicology will tell us what he was taking.’
Gina nodded. ‘Those results won’t be back in a hurry. We know the track marks are a mixture of fresh and old. We need to contact all local drug services, see if he has been on a methadone programme. If someone was looking after his case, they may be able to tell us more about him.’
Jacob made a note.
‘I just hope that the more we learn about him, the more we might find out about who did this to him.’
‘I’ve never come across anything like this, guv.’ Jacob stared at the corpse as the pathologist began to stitch him up.
‘It’s creepy, isn’t it? We have to catch whoever did this. I checked social media this morning and there’s a lot of scaremongering about the ghost that buries people alive. The press are really going to town on this one and Lyndsey Saunders is taking all the credit. She’s right you know.’
‘About what?’
‘Cleevesford is a dangerous place to live. It used to be a desirable town and now house prices have dropped a little. This town has a sick feel about it and it’s not getting any better. We can’t let this happen to anyone else. It’s just unthinkable.’
Silence fell between the two as they watched the pathologist remove his plastic apron and face mask.
A spark of an image flashed through Gina’s mind. Nails on wood, clawing their way out. Blood, lots of blood and gritty tears, then the letter. The smell of fear, sweat and urine. The uncontrollable shivering as she took her punishment. Who knows about her past?
‘Guv?’
She flinched. ‘What?’
‘We’re being called through.’
The pathologist pointed to the corridor. She stood and followed Jacob, fighting the need to leave and inhale mouthfuls of fresh air. She wanted to get outside and run away, anywhere.
As her signal returned her phone beeped. A flood of messages came through at once and her phone rang. She looked up at Jacob. ‘You go ahead. I’ll catch you up in a moment.’
As he walked away, she accepted the call from Briggs. ‘You need to get back to the station, now.’
‘What is it?’ Her stomach dropped and she felt a jitter running though her fingers.
‘I’d rather you be here to talk about it. Don’t talk to the press, don’t talk to anyone. Just hurry.’ He ended the call.
‘Jacob.’ He glanced back just as he was about to enter a side room with the pathologist. ‘I have to get back to the station now. I’ll get someone to come back and collect you as soon as I get there.’
He smiled and nodded. ‘Okay, see you in a while. Is everything alright?’
‘I don’t know.’
She hurried down the corridor, signed out and ran across the car park, stopping to take a few deep breaths before getting into the car. She scrolled through her messages. Lyndsey Saunders’s message flashed up.
It must be wonderful being star of this show. What do you know that you’re not telling us, DI Harte?
She clicked onto the Warwickshire Herald to see a photo of her, the one that had been taken last night. Her hair covered half of her face and her hand had crossed one of her eyes as the flash went. Tired bags underneath the eye that everyone could see and chapped lips. Her appearance wasn’t the most disturbing part. The text underneath almost knocked her sick. Her mouth watered and her throat tightened. She couldn’t breathe. Gasping, she reached for the steering wheel trying hard not to faint, not to lose herself, not to cry. She couldn’t believe what she was reading.
All she could see was a pinprick of light through each pupil. The light was about to go out. She couldn’t inhale. Her throat was blocked. The pinprick was going, going, gone, along with her capacity to make sense. Where was she?
Gasping, her woozy vision began to return, like she’d just been resuscitated. But she was alone, just her in her car with her phone. She pinched her arm and flinched. That was real.
Her mind flashed back to a moment she had hoped to forget but it ran through her mind like a film being played out. She clawed at the wood, her fingernail stuck in a groove. Skin and nail parted, leaving the whole bloody thing sticking out. The past she’d left behind was set to never leave her alone. She’d felt death knocking on her door. The coffin killer had brought Terry back into her life and made that fact almost public. This morning she had been the cat, prowling for leads, now she was the scarpering mouse looking for a tiny crack to escape through before her past came out for all to see how weak she really was.
On the night Terry had locked her in the shed, he’d been watching – he had told her from outside, ‘I watch’. He’d enjoyed every moment. ‘I wait’ – him waiting for her to learn her lesson. Answering him back wasn’t an option. ‘I am coming’ – that’s when the real terror had started. The manic wide-eyed look on his face accompanied by an ecstatic grin had scared the life out of her.
Now, she slammed her hands into the car door, on the steering wheel, and she kicked at the brake pedal until she felt the skin on her toes dampen. She knew they were bleeding.
I watch. I wait. I am coming. Three short sentences that had been buried at the back of her mind were now all she could repeat in her head.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Cherie walked through the aisles of the corner shop once again as she searched for the herb section. For a moment, she stopped and stared at the wine and spirits. Her hand brushed a bottle of vodka, the clear liquid enticing her to buy it. Saliva spread across her tongue as she imagined swigging the liquid. Last night had given her the taste again, albeit a small one. That moment plagued her thoughts.
No. She dropped her hands and checked over her shoulder. Shame burning her cheeks; thankful that no one was looking. Christian had bought the wine for their guests and, as usual, Cherie would just tell them that it didn’t agree with her as she filled her glass with flavoured water.
She didn’t need vodka. Removing her hand from the bottle, she continued walking down another aisle. When shopping the other night, her mind had been elsewhere – it still was. She doubted it would ever return to normal. Something had been set in motion and she had to fix it. When her dinner party friends, Marcus and Isaac went out for a cigarette later, she’d get her chance to find out if they knew anything about Penny.
A devil mask stared back at her. She swallowed and stepped back, glad that after tonight Halloween would be over. The kids would stop knocking and her children would stop whining to dress up.
‘Watch where you’re going. You trod on my son.’ The annoyance on the woman’s face said it all as the knee-high boy began to screech the place down.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—’
One person turned around, then another and several more. All eyes were on her. She turned, pushing the door so hard it bounced on its hinges. She scarpered past the barking mongrel that snapped at her ankles until the lead snatched the dog back towards the post.
Soon she was away from the shop and heading for a tree-lined cut through towards the edge of the woodland. The earthy smell coming from the damp ground took her back to that night. She ran for the trees before leaning against the bark, hidden from the path. No one could see her like this, not a stranger, not Christian. He already thought she was losing it and turning back towards the drink. He couldn’t know. All he should know was that as usual, like every year, her friends were coming over for dinner. It was a tradition they’d upheld since leaving school and they were her best friends. All would be fine, she told herself, but she knew in her heart that it wouldn’t be.