What Lies Beneath

Chapter 3

3

Just over a quarter of an hour later, Caroline had parked up in the nearest access car park to the church. It would leave her with a short walk along the front of the water, from the fishing lodge where she’d parked, to the Normanton Church causeway. Although she was a city girl at heart, she could see the appeal of being down here early on a Sunday morning.

DS Antoine was waiting for her at the end of the causeway that led to Normanton Church.

‘Morning, Dex,’ she said, as if she’d just walked into the office to find him at his desk. ‘Not a bad little spot, this. I never knew it was here.’

‘You do surprise me,’ Dexter replied with a wry smile.

‘Detective Inspector Hills,’ she said, flashing her ID badge at the uniformed constables who were manning the outer cordon. ‘So what have we got?’

‘Down here,’ Dexter said, leading Caroline towards the church. As they approached, she noticed that something didn’t quite look right. The church was low, almost as if half of it was underground. It appeared to be floating on the water. ‘Over here on the rocks. Ligature marks on the neck, possibly consistent with strangulation, and some sort of blunt force wound on the back of his head. I reckon that’s what finished him off. But look how he’s laid out. Bizarre, eh?’

Caroline took in the scene in front of her. The church jutted out onto Rutland Water on its own private stone jetty, surrounded on all sides by huge boulders, which sloped down towards the lapping water. The body — that of a man — lay face down on the rocks, his arms outstretched, legs straight.

‘What you thinking?’ Dexter asked.

‘Probably what you’re thinking, I imagine. There’s no way the water’s washed him up here. It’s too neat. He’s been laid out in a crucifixion pose. Besides which, he’s almost bone dry, apart from his legs.’

The man’s feet were under the water, which lapped up at his lower legs, the bottom half of his trousers sodden.

‘It’s weird. Kinda looks like he’s just crawled out of the water like some sort of zombie.’

‘Yes, Dex. That’s what we’ve got here. A zombie apocalypse.’

Dexter looked at her. ‘You serious?’

‘No. I think he’s been put there. That begs the question why. Why go to the trouble of doing that? Why not hide the body? Bury it, even? And then there’s the logistics. You can’t get a car down here, so the killer will’ve had to have used a wheelbarrow or something. Dead bodies are heavier than you think. There’s no way he was carried. That’s a huge amount of effort to go to, when it’d be easier to just dig a hole somewhere and chuck him in. This is deliberate.’

Dexter shuffled uncomfortably. ‘A message of some sort?’

‘Possibly. Look at the symbolism. Crucifixion pose, right in front of the church. And if I’m not mistaken…’ she said, walking back towards the church and peering in through the low windows, ‘yep, he’s facing the altar. I doubt it’s a coincidence the killer’s put him in that exact place. And, as my rumbling stomach has just reminded me, it’s a Sunday morning.’

‘Mmmm. Maybe. Only one problem with that.’

Caroline looked at him, waiting for his explanation.

‘It’s not technically a church. Hasn’t been for decades. It was deconsecrated years back.’

‘Deconsecrated?’

‘Long story. I’ll fill you in on the details when we get back to the office.’

Caroline smiled. ‘Quite the fount of local knowledge, aren’t you?’

‘Yeah, sometimes. Not exactly the busiest job, being a detective in Rutland, so I like to familiarise myself with the area and its history, yeah.’

‘Good. Well, hopefully that’ll come in useful. We’ll need to look more into the history of this place. Doesn’t look to me as if it’s been picked at random. Do we have ID on him yet?’

‘Not at the moment. Waiting on the SOCOs before we start going through pockets. Don’t much fancy chancing those rocks, either. Uniform leant over to check for a pulse, and even she nearly lost her footing a couple of times.’

‘Who found the body?’

‘Two old boys over there,’ Dexter said, nodding his head in the direction of a bench near the main footpath. ‘They were out on a boat. Must’ve been a shock.’

Caroline looked down at the body on the rocks and thought about the family who were about to find out they’d just lost a loved one. ‘Yes. Yes, I imagine it was.’