On Cold Ground (Detective Karen Hart) Read online

  But that was her detective’s instinct causing her to question everything. It was none of her business. He’d tell her about the property if and when he wanted to confide in her. Karen didn’t want him to think she was interested in his financial position or eyeing up what he was worth.

  She looked up at the sky. A flurry of snowflakes swirled in the air above them. ‘I think this snow is getting heavier,’ Karen said. ‘Do you think it’ll settle?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It feels a bit too warm,’ Mike said, looking at the slush on the cobbles. ‘Shall we go back to mine?’

  ‘Actually, I’m going to head home,’ Karen said. She’d stayed at Mike’s for the last three nights, and she really needed to get home and do some washing.

  ‘Is that because I pushed you too hard on the grief counselling thing?’

  Karen went up on her tiptoes and kissed Mike’s cheek. ‘No, I’ve just got stuff to do at home, and I’m back to work tomorrow.’

  He put an arm around her shoulders, and they started to walk to her car.

  Karen leaned into him and couldn’t help thinking that, if he’d only stop bringing up the grief counselling, things could very well be perfect.

  They were walking by the west front of the cathedral, passing the barriers at the renovation works, when they heard the scream.

  They stopped short and turned to look. A middle-aged woman stood just outside the arched entrance. She raked one hand through her shoulder-length grey hair and used the other to cover her mouth. As the woman turned, Karen realised she’d met her before, just a few weeks earlier. What was her name again?

  Panic contorted the woman’s face as she took rapid, jerky breaths.

  ‘Eunice?’ Mike said, his arm slipping from Karen’s shoulders.

  Of course. Eunice. That was her name. Karen smoothly slid into work mode, moving away from Mike and striding up to Eunice.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Karen asked, though it clearly wasn’t.

  Eunice was shivering. She wore a long green cardigan but no coat, and had a lanyard around her neck with a symbol and her name printed on the card.

  Eunice grabbed Karen’s arm, opened and shut her mouth a few times without any noise coming out, and then finally managed to say, ‘He’s dead.’

  Karen put her hand over the woman’s. ‘Who’s dead, Eunice?’

  ‘He’s inside.’ Eunice pointed to the cathedral entrance. ‘In the chapel. I nearly t . . . trod on him. I think he’s been murdered.’

  Karen turned. ‘Mike, would you mind standing here and making sure no one enters or leaves until I get back?’

  He took up a sentry position by the door. Karen tried to persuade Eunice to go back inside.

  ‘I can’t go back in there!’

  ‘Just into the entrance,’ Karen suggested. ‘It’ll be warmer. You don’t have to go into the chapel. I just need you to point the way.’

  Eunice swallowed and raised a hand to her throat. ‘I don’t know. I think we should wait for the police.’

  Karen rummaged around in her handbag for her ID. ‘I am a police officer, Eunice. Detective Sergeant Karen Hart of the Lincolnshire Police. We met a few weeks ago.’ She held up her ID. ‘If you show me where you found him, then I’ll call it in.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Eunice blinked, recognition dawning. ‘I remember. You’re Mike’s partner. It was lucky you were passing,’ she said, glancing at Mike then peering at Karen’s ID. She took a deep breath, trying to gather herself.

  ‘Are you working today?’ Karen asked, as the woman slowly edged inside.

  ‘Yes. There aren’t any group meetings at the weekends, but I’m taking the donations today. It used to be a voluntary contribution, but now if people want to see all areas of the cathedral open to the p . . . public, we ask them to pay. H . . . helps with the upkeep.’ Eunice spoke quickly, gulping shallow breaths between sentences.

  ‘I imagine it does,’ Karen said, as they walked across the large stone slabs of the entrance and into the main cathedral. Two huge Christmas trees stood either side of the vast space. It was an impressive sight.

  ‘I sit at that desk there.’ Eunice pointed at a small desk, set back against the wall. There was a till on the counter and stacks of leaflets, as well as a pile of large glossy guides to the cathedral.

  Eunice led Karen to a small arched entrance close to the desk. The woman’s breathing had become ragged, and she was gripping Karen’s arm.

  ‘He’s in there,’ she whispered. ‘Between the pews.’

  It was warmer inside than out, but Eunice was still shivering.

  ‘Okay. Are you all right to wait here for a minute while I go in?’ Karen asked, gently disentangling herself from the woman’s hold.

  Eunice nodded but kept her wide eyes fixed on the entrance to the chapel.

  Karen didn’t want to disturb a possible crime scene, but she needed to know there really was a victim before she called it in. She grabbed a pair of gloves from her handbag. It paid to be prepared.

  ‘Can you look after my bag?’

  Eunice blinked and, with trembling hands, took the handbag from Karen.

  Karen stepped inside the chapel, taking a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. A yellow cleaning sign had collapsed by the entrance. She stepped over it. The chapel was small, with pews running either side of a central walkway. The floor was made of stone slabs, worn smooth by the footfalls of centuries of worshippers.

  At the back of the chapel, candles had been pressed into sandboxes. A prayer request station had been set up in a dark corner. Under other circumstances, the darkness could have been soothing, even meditative, but now Karen wished for some powerful crime-scene lights.

  There was no body visible immediately, but as she moved further forward, she saw a man’s shoe between the first and second pews on the right side.

  She stood at the end of the pews and looked down. The body of a man with brown hair, greying at the temples, lay between the benches. His forehead was a bloody mess. Karen peered closer. What looked like a ligature mark snaked across the front of his neck.

  Had he been strangled? Tried to commit suicide? She looked up to see if there were any cords attached to the rafters or the ceiling. If he’d tried to hang himself and the rope had broken, he could have fallen to the floor and hit his head. That would explain both injuries, but there was no sign of any rope or cord.

  Karen manoeuvred herself around the first pew, trying not to lean on anything, and reached down to press her gloved fingers against his neck.

  It was possible he was still alive. If she detected a pulse, then she’d need to start CPR and call for an ambulance. The space was tight and uncomfortable, but she waited, hoping to detect his heart beating.

  He was freezing cold, though his body wasn’t stiff.

  She felt no pulse and shifted her fingers, hoping for a different result in the new position. She took her time, making sure, following her training, methodically checking for any sign of life.

  But the man was dead, and going by how cold he was, likely had been for over an hour.

  Eventually, with a sigh, Karen straightened and left the chapel. She ripped off her gloves and then grabbed her phone from her pocket to call it in.

  She smiled sympathetically at Eunice. ‘Why don’t you go and sit at your desk? You’ve had a bit of a shock.’

  ‘He was murdered?’ Eunice asked as she gave Karen her bag back. ‘I don’t know when it could have happened. I’ve been at the desk most of the day.’

  ‘Once I’ve spoken to my colleagues, I’ll come and have a chat.’

  ‘Was he killed here?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet.’

  ‘What an awful thing to happen just before Christmas, and here of all places,’ Eunice said grimly. ‘It’s sucked the Christmas joy right out of me.’

  Karen turned away as her call was answered. As she gave the control team the details, she couldn’t help agreeing with Eunice. Her Christmas spirit had vanished too.
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  She’d had a few days’ respite, but crime didn’t stop for Christmas.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The scenes of crime officers had set up in the chapel by the time the pathologist arrived. Karen was glad to see Raj was the attending pathologist.

  ‘Had a promotion, Karen? Are you the SIO on this?’ he asked, smiling broadly so his large moustache tilted up at the edges.

  ‘No, but I was passing when the body was discovered.’

  His eyebrows lifted. ‘Off-duty?’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded towards the chapel – though there was little need, as the location of the body was evident from the number of police staff milling about and the extra lights being wheeled towards the scene. ‘Not sure how long he’s been there. A cathedral employee found him, and I went in to check for a pulse. I tried not to disturb the scene any more than necessary.’

  While Raj went to look at the body, Karen decided to go back to the reception desk to talk to Eunice Greene again. She hadn’t managed to get much information from the woman earlier. The shock had taken hold, and she’d grown less and less talkative as the minutes passed.

  Before Karen reached Eunice, she was stopped by a uniformed officer. Young, tall and fair-haired, with cheeks rosy from the cold, he looked inexperienced. He cleared his throat nervously.

  ‘DS Hart?’

  Karen turned to him. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m PC Ray Watts.’

  Karen waited for him to continue.

  ‘Sorry. I just wanted to ask if you need anything. Coffee perhaps? That lady looks like she could do with something warm.’ He glanced at Eunice, who was shivering.

  ‘Thank you, PC Watts. That’s a good idea.’

  Eunice sat hunched over, clutching her cardigan around her body, as Karen approached.

  They’d first met under very different circumstances. Eunice helped to organise the counselling meetings at the cathedral, and Mike had engineered an encounter between her and Karen at a coffee shop.

  It had been presented as an accident, but Mike was not a natural liar and Eunice was as transparent as glass. After a few exclamations of disbelief from Mike, and comments from Eunice about what a small world it was, Mike had invited Eunice to join them for coffee. At first, Karen had been amused. Mike scheming to introduce Eunice so that Karen would suddenly decide the counselling group was a good idea after all was hardly an evil master plan. But when neither of them backed down after Karen’s polite but firm refusal to reconsider her aversion to group therapy, she’d lost her temper, leading to her first proper row with Mike.

  They’d called an uneasy truce that evening, but even days later, Mike had refused to drop the subject.

  ‘Can you tell me what happened when you found him, Eunice?’ Karen asked gently when she reached the woman.

  Eunice looked up and blinked at her. ‘I was going to light a candle in the Morning Chapel. I do that once a week for my friend, Sally. She’s not been well. I noticed someone had left a “Cleaning in Progress” sign at the entrance, which was odd because it’s usually cleaned in the mornings. I looked in, and at first I thought the chapel was empty, but then I saw him. The light’s not very good in there. But I saw his shoe sticking out of the end of a pew. I thought he’d had a fall and hit his head.’ She raised a hand to her forehead. ‘You know, all the blood.’

  Karen nodded.

  Eunice took a deep breath and swallowed. ‘Well, when I got closer, I saw he had marks on his neck.’

  ‘Did you touch the body?’

  ‘I checked for a pulse but couldn’t find one. I touched the side of his neck, but that was all.’

  ‘And did you touch anything else in the chapel?’ Karen asked, thinking that Forensics was not going to have an easy job with this one. The Morning Chapel probably had a steady stream of visitors all day, every day. There would be a mass of fingerprints and a tangle of forensic evidence to decipher.

  Eunice frowned and looked up. ‘I leaned against the pew to steady myself. I might have touched the floor with my hand as well when I knelt beside him, and I knocked the cleaning sign over as I rushed out, but I don’t think I touched anything else.’

  Her teeth were chattering now.

  ‘Eunice, do you have a coat with you?’ Karen asked.

  ‘It’s out the back.’

  ‘Okay, why don’t you get it.’

  ‘Do you think the carol service will be able to go ahead tomorrow?’ Eunice asked, getting to her feet.

  ‘I’m not sure, Eunice. Possibly not. It depends on how long the crime scene team need access to the cathedral.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And we should probably speak to who’s in charge, so that would be the dean?’

  ‘Yes, the dean. I’ll telephone her and tell her what’s happened.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Two coffees.’ Karen turned to see PC Ray Watts proudly holding two Costa Coffee cups. ‘Oh, where’s she going?’

  ‘Just to get her coat. She’ll be back. Thanks,’ Karen said as she took the coffees from him.

  She put Eunice’s on the desk. It felt wrong to drink inside the cathedral, so she carried her cup outside. PC Watts stuck to her like a limpet, talking about his hopes of becoming a detective.

  ‘It’s been my dream since I was a little kid,’ he said. ‘Any advice for me?’

  She smiled as she approached Mike, and then took a sip of her coffee and frowned.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ PC Watts’s gaze dropped to the takeaway cup, then back up to Karen’s face.

  ‘Milk, no sugar,’ Karen said.

  PC Watts’s face fell. ‘Isn’t that how you take it?’

  ‘It is, but how did you know that?’

  ‘I asked this gentleman.’ PC Watts nodded at Mike. ‘I found out from one of the other officers that he was your partner and asked him.’

  ‘A bit of detective work, then?’ Karen smiled.

  He blushed and shrugged.

  ‘I’m impressed. My advice would be to carry on as you are, PC Watts. I’m sure you’ll make a good detective.’

  He beamed.

  ‘Can you start taking statements and contact details from the tourists and staff inside the cathedral? Ask them if they saw or heard anything.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ PC Watts said, with such enthusiasm that Karen almost expected him to salute.

  She turned to Mike. ‘Sorry, I’m going to have to stay. It looks like a murder.’

  ‘You okay? You look a bit pale.’ Mike hunched his shoulders and turned his back against the wind as snowflakes drifted towards the cathedral entrance.

  ‘I’m fine. I’m the most senior officer until the SIO gets here.’

  ‘Who’s the duty SIO?’

  ‘Morgan.’

  Mike’s face settled into a frown. ‘I’ll stick around until he gets here.’

  Karen gave the rest of her coffee to Mike and then headed back to find Eunice, who was now sitting at the reception desk wrapped in a brown padded jacket.

  ‘That coffee is for you, Eunice,’ Karen said, sitting beside the shivering woman.

  ‘Thank you,’ Eunice said, but didn’t touch the cup.

  ‘I know you’ve had a terrible shock, but I need to ask you a few questions. Is that okay?’

  Eunice nodded.

  ‘Did you know the victim?’

  ‘Yes, his name is . . . was . . . Lloyd. Lloyd Nelson. He’s a member of my amateur choir group.’

  ‘Do you have any idea who could have wanted to hurt Lloyd?’

  ‘No, none at all. He was a lovely man.’

  ‘Were you expecting him here today? Was he here for choir practice?’

  ‘No, we practise on Tuesday evenings. He did say he would pop by to collect the new sheets of music. I print them out for everyone, you see, and then Lloyd drops them off.’

  ‘So you knew he was coming to the cathedral? Did anyone else?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know he’d come today. He just said he’d be by to collect the mus
ic at some point this weekend.’

  ‘Does the cleaning sign that you knocked over belong to the cathedral?’

  ‘I think so. They’re kept in storage near the cloisters. They’re often used near the refectory as that area gets cleaned regularly when the building is open.’ She frowned. ‘Do you think the killer put the sign there to stop people going into the chapel and discovering the body?’

  The shock hadn’t dulled Eunice’s brain. She’d put into words exactly what Karen suspected.

  She asked Eunice a few more routine questions, then gave her some privacy while she telephoned the dean.

  Karen walked back to the entrance. She wanted to keep out of Raj’s way until he was ready to talk. There was nothing worse than someone peering over your shoulder, demanding updates, while you were trying to concentrate.

  She looked up at the Christmas trees – real trees giving off a strong scent of pine. Decorated with tiny bright white lights, the twin trees were a welcoming sight for visitors. Quite a contrast to the scene in the chapel right now.

  She remembered the carving on the man’s forehead, scarlet against the white of his skin. It had looked like a cross, but it was hard to be sure. Maybe Raj could clean up the wound, and they’d have a better idea. Was it gouge marks that just happened to look like a cross, or was it intentional? Was the victim marked? A cross made sense in a religious environment like this.

  Karen shivered as a draught ran through the cathedral, and she put her hands in her pockets. Morgan should be here soon.

  She looked across at the gift shop to the right of the entrance. The manager was packing up for the night as had been requested, and PC Ray Watts was asking him questions.

  The shop was opposite the Morning Chapel. There was a chance he might have seen something. Plus, the shop might have CCTV. She’d have to ask the dean about cameras inside the cathedral. She hadn’t spotted any. Perhaps the invasion of worshippers’ privacy would be frowned upon?

  She heard footsteps on the stone floor and turned to see DI Morgan. He was frowning, and a shadow flickered over his expression as he saw Mike standing sentry at the door. He hadn’t said as much, but she knew Morgan didn’t consider Mike Harrington a good choice. Not that it was any of his concern, Karen thought.