And then, on Wednesday – the day Tom returns to work – the police call.
‘I’m afraid it’s not good news,’ says the male detective with a gruff voice, whose name I instantly forget.
I stiffen, waiting.
‘Two bodies have been found.’
I nearly drop my phone. ‘Two bodies?’
‘I’m afraid so, yes. All the bones were recovered and forensics could determine that one was a male and the other a female. We could also work out the ages of the victims based on the bone formation and maturing. Both victims were between thirty and forty-five.’
I can’t speak, nausea rising.
‘Unfortunately,’ he continues, ‘the female victim died of blunt trauma to the head. We’re still trying to ascertain how the man died. The decomposition of tissues makes this more difficult. With the female skeleton it was more obvious due to the fracture to the skull.’
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying not to imagine it.
‘That’s … that’s awful.’ I can barely take it in. ‘Are … are you sure there aren’t any more?’ I suddenly have visions of the whole garden being dug up to reveal a mass grave and shudder at the thought. Other ‘houses of horrors’ as the press luridly describe them, come to mind – 25 Cromwell Street and White House Farm. Will our cottage become as infamous? Will we be stuck here for ever, nobody ever wanting to buy it? My heart starts to beat faster and I swallow, trying to concentrate on what the detective is saying.
‘We had cadaver dogs at the site. We are confident there are no more bodies.’
‘How … long have the bodies been there?’
‘We can’t be sure for definite, not yet. The soil in your garden is more alkaline based and the conditions, therefore, have preserved some of the clothing and shoes, but we think no earlier than around 1970, and by the decomposition, no later than 1990.’
Goosebumps ripple over my skin. Two people were murdered in my house. In my idyllic cottage. Everything suddenly takes on a dark, surreal quality.
‘And, of course, we have to speak to everyone who occupied the house between 1970 and 1990,’ he continues. ‘I’m afraid, being the previous owner of the cottage, we will need to speak to Mrs Rose Grey.’
The room tilts.
Rose Grey is my grandmother.
3
May 2018
I can’t stop thinking about the bodies. It’s on my mind when I take Snowy for his daily walks around the village, when I’m watching TV with Tom, when I’m working on a project in the tiny room with the 1970s flowered wallpaper at the front of the cottage that I use as an office.
It didn’t take long for news to get around the village, and even though it’s been more than ten days since the excavation, people are still speculating about it. They won’t yet know the latest information, about how and when the victims died, but while I was in the corner shop earlier, I heard old Mrs McNulty gossiping about it to one of her elderly friends – a stooped woman wearing a headscarf and pushing a checked bag on wheels. ‘I can’t imagine the Turners being responsible,’ she’d said. ‘They’d been there years. Mrs Turner was very mousy.’
‘Although,’ Mrs McNulty lowered her voice, her beady eyes flashing with excitement, ‘wasn’t there all that business a few years ago? With his nephew and the stolen goods?’
‘Oh, yes, I remember that. Well, they did leave in a bit of a hurry,’ said Headscarf Woman. ‘When was it now? Two year ago? And I heard they left the cottage in a bit of a state.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Hoarders, apparently. Although they kept the garden nice. Mrs Turner liked to plant bulbs.’