The Solitary House Read Free Page A

body on the top’sa lot more recent, but the other three are like peas in a pod. Probably all went in together.”
    Charles is silent a moment, then shakes his head. “I disagree. The earth here’s been turned over more than just once or twice. And surely even in this light you can see the difference in the bones.”
    Not just the bones, in fact, but the flesh. One baby’s face is smoothed almost doll-like—unnerving the first time, but Charles has seen many times what grave wax can do. The other two underneath are withering one after the other into parched cages of separating bones, their mummified flesh dried in tight leathery tendons, the closed lids stretched paper-thin.
    Charles glances up. “Whoever this woman was, she seems to have been trying to give them a decent burial—or the nearest she could manage. This last one looks like it even had a handkerchief or something put over its face—as if she couldn’t bear to look at it. And yet she kept coming back—kept re-opening the same grave.”
    He stares at the open pit, struggling for a word to help make sense of it, and comes up only with tenderness . It jars horribly with the evidence of his own senses—not just the sight of decomposing flesh but the reek of decay eating into his skin and clothes—but the idea has caught his mind, and it will not go away.
    The other man is dismissive; he’s clearly had enough of this wild-goose chase. “Come on, it’s no big mystery. She’d have needed time, even for a shallow grave, and this is the only part of the cemetery where you’re not much overlooked. It’s just common sense. Nothing more sinister than that.”
    Charles nods; the man has a point—he should have thought of that himself. “All the same, think about what that actually meant . Imagine digging over the same piece of earth time and time again, knowing full well what you were going to find. What kind of woman could do that? It goes against every idea we have of the sanctity of motherhood—”
    The man laughs. “Sanctity of motherhood, my arse! I thought they told me you’d been in the police? Most of the women round herehave already got too many mouths to feed. Baby farms cost money; a pillow over the face is free, gratis . And you know as well as I do that unless they’re either very careless, or very unlucky, there’s virtually no chance of getting caught. I’ve lost count of the number of dead babies I’ve seen fished out of the Thames, or found rotting in the street, but I can number the women we’ve prosecuted for infanticide on the fingers of one hand. The courts have better things to do with their time. As have we.”
    He turns and waves at Wheeler, beckoning him over.
    “Come on,” he calls. “There’s nothing for us here. Just another routine child-killing.”
    Charles sticks the trowel into the ground and stands up. “So if dumping them in the river is so easy, why go to all the trouble of bringing them here? Not to mention the risk. It’s because this place is consecrated ground—that’s the only explanation that makes any sense. And that alone means this is a very long way from being just another routine child-killing .”
    There’s a snort and Charles looks round to see Wheeler staring down into the gaping grave, a half-eaten apple in his hand.
    “Jesus,” the constable says, taking another bite, “if this is your definition of consecrated, give me hellfire any day. Looks like the last one they put in over yonder had to be stamped on to get ’im in. The coffin’s rearin’ up out of the ground like the Last Trump’s already blastin’. Though at least ’e did have a coffin. Unlike these poor little buggers. Any use to you, Chas?”
    Charles sees the other man’s cool and quizzical eye; he’s clearly been wondering all this time what right Charles has to be there, but has decided to say nothing.
    Charles shakes his head. “I doubt it. The last anyone heard of the child I’m looking for was sixteen years ago,