The Man by the Sea (The Slim Hardy Mystery Series Book 1) by Jack Benton

Author:Jack Benton
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: AMMFA Publishing
Published: 2018-02-26T22:00:00+00:00

30

ARTHUR PICKED Slim up at 11 p.m. from outside the closed corner shop at the end of Slim’s street. No longer in his police uniform, Arthur was dressed all in brown and driving an old blue Ford Escort. After stopping at a petrol station for takeaway coffee—‘To steady the nerves,’ Arthur said, his hand trembling as much as Slim’s often did as he took the coffee and flashed Slim a smile—Arthur drove them across town and parked down a leafy farm lane just outside the town limits, then they walked the last mile to the graveyard along a public footpath leading through fields. Arthur refused the use of any light during the awkward, stumbling journey, stating that it wouldn’t do for the chief of police to be caught opening graves, so they moved much slower than they might have done, tripping on roots and ploughing through thickets of brambles until they were both thoroughly miserable.

When they had reached the graveyard, tucked away behind a church built low into a valley and overrun with grass, Arthur led them to a plot near the back and a granite headstone that had begun to list. In the torchlight Arthur now allowed, Slim read: Joanna Bramwell, 1960-1984, taken too soon, forever beloved.

Then, from a deceptively small pack, Arthur withdrew a set of metal poles, which he began screwing together.

‘No shovels?’

Arthur shook his head. ‘We can avoid that mess, I think.’ He held up the instrument. ‘This is what people in these parts used to use to drill for water. A smaller version, obviously.’

The object was a long, thin drill. The hollow shaft was an inch wide, each section two feet long. They could be screwed into each other, while on the top side of each was a fitting for a cross-piece handle three feet wide. It allowed for both Slim and Arthur to work at once, pulling one side each, then passing the handles over. A specialist screw-drill head fitted onto the end.

Arthur chose a place at one end of the plot, drove the drill’s metal tip into the turf, and looked up at Slim.

‘Let’s see if we can find oil,’ he said.

Half an hour in, Slim wondered whether using shovels might not be less strenuous. His shoulders and back felt torn open, and it seemed as though they had only gone down a couple of feet. But as the drill handle got close to the ground, and Arthur removed the handle to add another two-foot length, he realised they were now four lengths in. Six feet. Wasn’t that the standard depth for a coffin?

A few minutes later, Arthur paused. ‘Did you feel that? That momentary give?’

Slim felt only muscle ache, but Arthur was convinced they had reached the decomposed remains of a coffin.

‘Now we come to the tricky part,’ he said. ‘We have to get the shaft out without collapsing the hole we just made.’

Inch by inch, they wound the drill back out again, removing each section of shaft as it came. When the drill head appeared, Arthur replaced it with a new flat-headed piece.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.