Dead Time (20 page)

‘Have a look on screen. We'll zoom in on parts of the images. Maybe before I do that you should say what you think we're looking for?'

‘Well, someone running away from the rose garden. Maybe this person,' she said, pointing to the image of the person on the footbridge, ‘moving through the cemetery towards the back. Heading for the cut-through into Cuttings Lane, making an escape.'

‘OK. So maybe we shouldn't look at the figures in the middle of the photographs but at the background of the photos. If she was going across the bridge at 18.20 then she could be in the background of any of these.'

Rose nodded.

‘I've got this program? It enlarges images almost down to the pixels. It's handy when analysing brushstrokes of painters.'

‘Let's see,' Rose said.

The background in the first three pictures was clear, just the rows of headstones, statues and mausoleums. It was as if she had a telescope in her hand and was looking behind the mourners; the angels emerged from the blurred background, the ornate brickwork on the mausoleums, even small details of the leaves and trees became sharper.

‘How do you do this?'

‘It's complicated.'

‘What, complicated because I'm a
girl
?' Rose said sharply.

‘No. Because you don't know enough about computers. I spend a lot of time doing this stuff.'

‘You should go out more.'

‘Shall we look at the next one?'

The fourth picture came on the screen. 18.10. Skeggsie zoomed in on the top of the photo and Rose saw something straight away.

‘Look at that.'

‘Where?'

‘Behind that headstone.'

Skeggsie zoomed in again and it showed a shoulder sticking out from behind a large white marble headstone.

‘She's hiding there.'

The next picture showed 18.13. Three minutes later. When Skeggsie zoomed in there was no sign of her.

‘Zoom in further back towards the boundary of the graveyard.'

Seconds later Skeggsie had an image. This time it showed a hooded figure kneeling by a grave. Rose felt instantly disappointed. It was just another mourner.

‘Were we wrong?'

‘Let's look at the last one. Here it is. 18.17. Four minutes later.'

This time Skeggsie zoomed right in on the hedge area. The picture wasn't as clear, being so far away from the main focus of the image. It was clear enough, though, to see the figure standing in front of the hedge area. The place where Rose thought the cut-through was.

‘There's your girl. She's going out the back of the cemetery at the same moment that you're running out of the rose garden calling out for help.'

Rose looked at it with satisfaction. Moments later this person, possibly Bee Bee, was running across the railway footbridge towards the Chalk Farm Estate.

‘Wait. Why was she on her knees in front of a grave?'

Skeggsie looked as though he was concentrating. He clicked back on to the previous photo and they both looked at the blurred kneeling figure.

‘She looks like she's praying,' Rose said.

‘Or maybe she was getting rid of the knife?' Skeggsie said.

‘But the police searched the cemetery for the knife.
If she had chucked it there they would have found it. Wouldn't they?'

‘Yeah, if she'd chucked it there. But maybe she didn't chuck it. Maybe she buried it. She must have been there for a couple of minutes.'

‘Buried it?' Rose said in wonder.

‘It is a cemetery, after all. A place of burial.'

‘You are right. You are right!'

Rose stood up, away from the computer. She was excited. In her head she remembered the newly dug grave that was near to the hedge cut-through. She'd stood and looked at it, the earth still in a mound, soft and easy to penetrate.

‘She buried the knife. That's why the police haven't found it.'

‘It's not like they can start digging up every grave. Even if they wanted to. And let's face it, a couple of teenagers from a rough estate in London getting stabbed and killed, why should they trouble themselves? It's not such an unusual thing. My dad used to say that these crimes are often solved by people boasting to others about what they've done. So maybe the police are waiting for a few weeks until the killer gets too confident. Why should they dig up a whole graveyard when they can find the same stuff out if they just wait?'

‘You are so right!'

Rose was buzzing. She had to walk up and down. There
was a noise from the other room and after a moment Joshua appeared at the door.

‘Skeggsie has found the knife!' she said.

‘It's just a theory.'

‘No, it's right. I feel it in my bones.'

‘What knife?'

Joshua looked sleepy and his hair was sticking up oddly.

‘I'm going to St Michael's. Now.'

‘What knife?'

‘The knife that killed Emma.'

‘Don't get your hopes up, it might be nothing …' Skeggsie said.

But Rose had already walked out into the hall and grabbed her coat off the hook. Joshua followed her out, looking perplexed.

‘Come with me,' she said.

‘You're going to the cemetery
now
? No. I'm not going back to that place.'

‘I'll go on my own.'

‘Just ring the police if you think you've found something.'

‘I want to find this myself.'

‘Rosie, you can't just go off … The police deal with these things!'

‘What? Like my mum and Brendan disappearing? Like the way they dealt with that? You're not happy to leave that. Then I'm not happy to leave this.'

‘There's a difference!' Joshua said, raising his voice. ‘Five years have passed …'

‘No difference. I'm going now.'

She picked up her rucksack and headed down the hall.

‘Wait! Hang on. Wait!'

She looked round to see Skeggsie standing there. He was holding some rubber gloves and a plastic bag.

‘I'll come with you.'

She looked at Joshua, who shrugged his shoulders and turned off into his room. Skeggsie unhooked his coat and walked towards her.

It was raining when Skeggsie parked his car along from Parkway East station. There was a yellow line but it was after 7.30 so it didn't matter. Rose left her rucksack in the car and just took the bag and gloves that Skeggsie had brought. Skeggsie took a torch from the boot of the car and put it in his inside coat pocket. Passing the station she glanced at the train arrivals board and saw that it was 19.48. She pulled her hood up and so did Skeggsie. They turned down Cuttings Lane and walked along to the place where the hedge was thin and brown.

Skeggsie had hardly said a word the whole drive and she'd been wrapped up in her thoughts. Finding the knife
herself
was important for reasons she couldn't quite explain. If Skeggsie was right and the police weren't treating this case as a priority, then she didn't want to waste her time telling them. In any case any tip she gave them would be viewed as suspect because of the way in which she and Skeggsie had got their information. Skeggsie had
hacked into CCTV footage. It was a criminal thing to do and although they had been doing it for good reasons the police wouldn't see it like that. They had their own CCTV footage, of the bridge and the cemetery. It was up to them to search it thoroughly.

She'd also been thinking of Joshua. They seemed to have had a row almost every time they'd met and this upset her. The first few times Joshua had made a joke of it, made light of Rose's outbursts. Tonight he had just walked away into his room. Was it possible that she and Joshua might fall out completely? It was unthinkable.

Now, standing at the tatty, frayed hedge in Cuttings Lane, she paused. The rain had stopped and a stiff breeze was blowing. She held on to the edge of her hood.

‘I really appreciate you coming,' she said.

‘'S OK.'

‘I mean, I know you don't go out a lot.'

‘I do go out!' he said, looking affronted.

‘I know, but Joshua told me that you're not that comfortable among people … That you prefer to stay at home.'

‘Are you trying to say that I'm odd?'

‘No. Well, truthfully, you aren't like anyone else I know.'

‘You aren't like anyone else I know. As soon as you start talking you manage to insult a person.'

‘I didn't insult you. I was just being truthful. That's what friends are for, right?'

‘Yes. And if you
were
a friend of mine you
could
be truthful with me,' Skeggsie said.

She stared at him. How had
this
conversation ended up as a row? Was it her? Was
she
the difficult one?

‘Come on, let's do this,' he said, pulling the torch out of his pocket.

She went to speak but didn't. Then she looked up and down the lane to make sure no one was around. Her eye paused on one of the CCTV cameras. It seemed to be angled at the centre path of the lane. She looked to the other side and saw another. It may well pick up on them both going into the cemetery. They both had their hoods up though and in any case they weren't about to commit any crime so there should be no need for anyone to check the footage.

‘Come on!'

She stepped into the gap in the hedge and slid through to the other side. She stood very still and waited until Skeggsie had done the same. She looked round. The cemetery was stiller than she remembered, the lights on the path glowing, the rest of it pitch-dark. It was twilight when she and Joshua had come the previous Friday but now it was night time proper. Seconds later Skeggsie was beside her.

‘This place is big,' Skeggsie said.

‘Twenty-three acres,' Rose said.

‘Where's the grave?'

‘Over here.'

She walked on a few steps. The newer grave she'd noticed had been close to the edge of the lane. She stood by it and tried to remember the CCTV photo that they had looked at earlier. Was this the grave that they had seen the person kneeling by? She looked at the cross with the name inscribed on it.
Gerald Rossiter 1970–2012
. The man had been forty-two years old when he died. The same age as her mother when she disappeared.

‘No headstone on this grave,' she said.

‘They don't put headstones until later. The ground has to settle. Then six months, a year later, a headstone is laid.'

‘How come you know so much about absolutely everything?' she said.

‘It's what happened when my mum died.'

Rose was thrown.

‘Your mum's dead?'

Skeggsie nodded. ‘Ten years ago.'

She didn't speak. She'd stumbled on this new information after calling him an
odd
person.
I'm sorry
was hopelessly inadequate. Her face must have looked pained because Skeggsie attempted a reassuring smile.

‘I don't know what to say.'

‘Forget about it. It was a long time ago. I'm all right about it.'

‘You've had such a bad time.'

‘No more than you or Josh.'

‘You know that I really was sorry about that time when I said … when I was unkind about you being bullied …'

‘Forget it.'

‘The thing is I had a bad time at school. Nothing like you. I was never physically hurt but I had this friend who just walked all over me. Her name was Rachel Bliss and I thought we were close but she wasn't what she seemed and she treated me badly.'

‘Now
I
don't know what to say,' Skeggsie said, pulling at his collar.

‘Schooldays are the best days of your life, they say!' she said.

‘Come on, let's get started with this search.'

Skeggsie turned the torch on and pointed it at the ground. The grave was surrounded by wreaths and flowers that had faded and dried, some with ribbons that were fluttering in the breeze.

‘This has been here for a couple of weeks at least,' he said.

‘How do we go about this?' she said, looking round at the silent, empty graveyard.

‘I'll hold the torch and you put the gloves on. Then just feel gently around. If it is here I don't suppose it was buried deep. There'd be no need. Just enough earth to cover it up.'

Rose put the gloves on. The torch threw a circle of light on to the mound. She knelt down. The ground was
wet. The knees of her jeans would end up damp. She found herself looking at the cross and the name, Gerald Rossiter.
Sorry
, she mouthed silently and holding her palms downwards she began to pat the mound of earth starting with the top right-hand corner, the place where Bee Bee would have knelt if they were right about the photo.

The earth was soft and had a kind of mulchy smell. The wind blew her hood back and she used her knuckles to try and pull it back into place. She looked up at Skeggsie from time to time and saw that he was concentrating, moving the torch very slowly so that she could cover every section.

A noise broke the silence and made her turn quickly. Skeggsie turned the torch off. It came from outside in Cuttings Lane. It was the high tinny sound of an MP3 player. Someone who had earphones in but still had the music as loud as possible. She waited for it to pass but it didn't. It was as if the person was standing still at that very part of the lane. Then the hedge started to rustle and she realised that whoever it was was coming into the cemetery.

‘Quick,' she said, moving swiftly past the mound of earth to the next grave, which had a substantial black marble headstone.

She knelt on the damp earth next to Skeggsie. Looking out from behind the headstone, she saw two people, a boy
and a girl. They looked young, still at school. The boy had his arm around the girl's neck and he was talking quietly to her and she was giggling.

‘Who is it?' Skeggsie whispered.

She put her finger to her lips and waited a second before looking again. This time they were standing very still, sandwiched together in a deep kiss. The boy and girl continued for what seemed like minutes and she was holding her breath, watching the boy's hand slip inside the girl's coat.