Tainted Ground by Margaret Duffy

‘That’s not to say we won’t find it dumped just down the road somewhere.’
    I said, ‘So whoever it was gained entry through the rectory drive because they failed to knock down the churchyard wall?’
    â€˜You’re probably right, Ingrid,’ Carrick said. ‘Yes, that would explain it. Why would anyone want to desecrate the grave of that poor old man? A grudge against his son?’
    â€˜There was the chap whom he sacked because he thought he was stealing diesel,’ Patrick pointed out. ‘Shaun Brown.’
    Frowning into the hole, the DCI said, ‘There’s a list, I assure you, of folk Brian Stonelake’s upset, assaulted, sacked, short-changed and almost certainly stolen from over the years. It’s disgusting, though. The people who do things like this are filth.’
    â€˜I called you because I think there might be a connection with our current investigations, including the murders. There
has
to be: everything going on round here has Stonelake written all over it.’ Patrick gestured angrily in the direction of the upended headstone.
    â€˜There could well be a connection,’ Carrick agreed. ‘Or is it vandalism, pure and simple?’
    Normally, I knew, we would not have so closely approached what was, of course, a crime scene for fear of destroying valuable evidence, footprints and so forth. But the despoiler had done his work well, seemingly obliterating any possible incriminating traces by scraping up the turf surrounding the excavation into a small pile and then driving over it.
    â€˜Is there much damage at your parents’ place?’ Carrick asked Patrick.
    â€˜It’s quite bad,’ Patrick answered. ‘The new borders were only finished last week. If you’d be good enough to have SOCO take pictures I’d like to arrange to have it put right, today if possible. My father’s pretty cut up about it.’
    â€˜There’s nothing to stop you having it put right today even if I don’t think it serious enough to call in SOCO – but you might invalidate any insurance claim.’
    â€˜Bugger insurance,’ Patrick said quietly.
    Shortly afterwards Patrick and Carrick departed in the latter’s car and the house went quiet. I had thought I would work on the screenplay but found myself unable to concentrate on it. All I could see in my mind’s eye were those three ghastly still figures hanging in the barn. Later again, the doctor having come and gone, I made sandwiches for everyone’s lunch. John was all right but had orders to rest for the remainder of the day: apparently he had run full tilt down the drive with the bad news, not yet recommended. Then, at just after three, I asked Elspeth if I could use the phone and rang Patrick. I had had an idea.
    â€˜Gillard,’ said that well-remembered voice.
    â€˜What’s happening?’
    â€˜James and I are just outside Shepton Mallet at a roadside cafe having a well-earned mug of tea and a bun. Someone’s found the coffin.’
    â€˜Really? Where?’
    â€˜In a ditch. It’s empty, though – there’s no body.’
    â€˜That’s ghastly!’
    â€˜We’re on our way back to the nick now. D’you want to drive into Bath?’
    You bet I did.
    We arrived almost together, the men mounting the steps at the rear entrance as I was cruising around looking for a parking space. Carrick waved me to a slot nearby with someone’s initials painted on it, explaining afterwards that whoever it was was on leave.
    â€˜A woman walking her dog on the outskirts of Oakhill found the coffin,’ he said to me when we were seated in his office. ‘She immediately rang the police as it obviously wasn’t a new one that had fallen off a lorry delivering stuff to an undertaker.’
    â€˜Surely someone didn’t drive a JCB all the way from Hinton Littlemoor to Oakhill in the middle of the night with a coffin in the