A Stranger's Grave Read online

  Elton pulled over a hard wooden chair and sat beside the hard bed that smelled of old sweat. He placed the paper on the bed and began circling jobs. There was a cleaning job. Someone was looking for a live-in gardener on a big estate, which sounded perfect but not promising – ex-con on the country manor? He didn’t think so.

  But he tried it anyway, later that week, because now he was out he knew what he wanted to do, and it wasn’t sitting in a doss house, it wasn’t living in some shit council flat, it wasn’t living out the rest of his life lonely under a bypass drinking cheap cider. He wanted to work and he didn’t care what it was, because out as well as in he’d always paid his way.

  His least favourite circle was the one around a job as the custodian and groundskeeper of the local cemetery.

  He circled plenty of jobs, but things fall into place and angels have a way of getting what they want, whether they be guardian angels or the other kind – the kind carved of basalt and polished black as night.

  *

  Respect for the Dead

  There’s a cottage in a cemetery in a small Norfolk market town. It sits by the west entrance to the cemetery by a set of wooden gates wide enough to admit a hearse. It was built in 1905, before the Great War, the war to end all wars. The first custodian ‘borrowed’ a pew from the chapel, and to this day it sits under the window overlooking the cemetery, the seat worn thin by decades of custodians sitting on a quiet summer evening, watching over their charges.

  From 1914 to 1925 the cottage was empty, but maintained vigil. From 1939 to ‘41, it sat empty again, until the previous keeper’s wife – the only woman to ever hold the position of custodian – took up residence and kept the cemetery’s grass tidy and the graves clean. She recorded each and every name and date and location of every grave in the cemetery while she waited for her husband to return from the Second World War. He never did and she never recovered. The cottage was soon filled in 1946 by an old man named Joe O’Connelly who swore he saw her ghost, hanging from the rafters, but nobody took his word for it because he was an Irish immigrant.

  The cottage was empty again from 2007, when the second person to commit suicide in the cottage vacated the post, but didn’t travel too far. He was buried five hundred yards away, in the new portion of the cemetery, hallowed ground not denied to those who committed such a sin in the twenty-first century.

  Not far, in fact, from a trio of angels, there to watch over him.

  Elton Burlock took the job of custodian in 2011, only the fifteenth man to ever hold the position. The weight of history sat in the cottage, and like the pew by the window, he was a man worn thin by use and time.

  *

  6.

  The cottage that came with the job was covered in dust and grime. The kitchen was coated in a patina of ancient grease. It was a small kitchen that would have barely been functional for a couple, but was more than enough for a man used to a cell behind a pink door and pink bars.

  An open fire waited, idle, in a small living area. Off to one side was a toilet, to the other side a bedroom, so that the house was laid out like a misshapen and uneven crucifix. Some cupboards boasting nothing to speak of, save cobwebs and dark fat spiders. The cottage was in no way fancy, but it was beautiful, in its way. Elton could feel the weight of history in the cottage. He could see it in the work people had done before him. The cornices and ceiling roses were covered in cobwebs, these yellowed by old smoke, but the paint job underneath had obviously been carried out with pride.

  The heavy oak work tops in the kitchen and the cupboards underneath were all good quality. They looked like they’d been made from old wood and cobbled together – maybe from pews, years ago. The handles were tarnished where countless hands had grasped them, but it was all quality work. There was no running gas. The cooker ran from the canister round the back. The cottage had electricity, but the circuits and fittings were dated. Old circular switches made of Bakelite plastic or something similar, like the old phone in the corner with a dial instead of a touchpad. Some of it probably wasn’t legal anymore but it all worked, apart from the light in the kitchen, but that was just because the bulb had blown.

  The place had been empty for four years. He knew the old owner had killed himself. The place hadn’t had a good cleaning or airing in four years, and he could feel it. The dust in the air, the musty smell, the grease and the cobwebs and the balls of dust in the corners. A mouse hole in one skirting board and rustling sounds from somewhere up near the eaves.

  But it was beautiful, and it was a success.

  The interview hadn’t gone easy. A convict, ex or not, in a small Norfolk town, the pallor of jail still in his face facing a board of stern council members, fat and soft in the jowls.

  The thing that’d swung it was his obvious fitness, and maybe the fact that he’d gone to the effort to obtain a second degree in prison, but something else he couldn’t put a finger on at the time.

  Now he thought about it, he knew what it was, that kind of feeling, kind of smell, kind of intuition he got from them.

  They’d been desperate.

  He wondered about that, but either way, a success, and a welcome one.

  He checked out all the cupboards and found them empty but for a mug. The mug had a picture of an old motorbike on it. He put it back.

  Elton sighed, but he was smiling, too. A big smile that looked good on his face, even though it was seldom used. It lit up his face.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. He nodded.

  He picked up his coat, hanging from an old cast iron hook by the door, stepped out into the fresh air, breathed deeply, still smiling. He locked the door behind him and left on foot, limping gently, as he would for the rest of his life.

  There was just one person in the cemetery. Well, two. An old guy with a pram was walking round the outside path. He turned a corner and saw Elton. They passed a nod and that kind of guarded smile that strangers exchange, and then Elton left for the closest shop.

  *

  7.

  Expecting stares in the shop but getting none, Elton made his way round the supermarket with a small trolley. The trolley didn’t squeak, and ran true. He smiled.

  He’d seen people with tiny little phones on the street, marvellously small devices that shocked him at first. A young girl had walked past on the way out of the supermarket, walking like she was dancing, with tiny earphones tucked into her ears. People in prison didn’t have the latest technology. They had old Playstations, old TV’s mounted to the walls. The computer he’d used in the common room to complete his dissertation when he achieved his second degree had been an old thing that ran Windows 98. All the technology, miniature, was shocking, but none of it pleased him as much as a shopping trolley that ran true.

  Still smiling, he roamed the store until he found the housewares, where he picked up some essentials. A pan. A set of knives and forks and spoons and teaspoons because you couldn’t find just one. A set of four plates and four side plates and four bowls, again, because you couldn’t just buy one.

  His good mood wavered for a moment, just a moment. Hardly anything was for sale for a lone man. That fact drove home his situation in a way that he hadn’t thought about before. He would be alone for the rest of his life. Once he’d had a wife and a daughter, and now they were both dead. Once he’d been angry about that, but time had mellowed him. Mellowed him a lot. But underneath? He was still the same man. The kind of man that could maybe get a little angry about not being able to buy just one plate or one set of cutlery in the supermarket.

  He pushed it down and found it was easy, because what was the point of being angry with a supermarket?

  He bought some tins, but just enough, because he thought his arms could take a heavy load on the two mile walk back, but his knee, aching after the long walk into town, worse than it had in years, couldn’t.

  He took coffee and a cafetiere because he didn’t drink tea. The cafetiere was in a box, so he wouldn’t have to worry about breaking it with his bags bashing
against each other on the way back to the cemetery.

  No milk, no butter. A loaf of bread, but sliced, so he wouldn’t have to buy a bread knife.

  Went back to the utensils aisle and picked up a can opener, one of the cheap metal ones. Put it back when he realised the tins he’d chosen all had ring pulls on them.

  Not one person gave him a dirty look.

  Then Elton went to the cleaning products aisle and chose the products he’d known from before. Brass cleaner, for the door knob and door handle and number on the front door, and for the handles in the kitchen. Polish. He thought about a mop for the tiled floor, but decided on three packs of cloths and some scourers and some disinfectant solution. He didn’t want to carry back a mop and bucket, but he could use the sink and good old fashioned hard work.

  Bleach, generic, a toilet brush because after years of cleaning toilets he didn’t ever want to put his hands down one again. Thinking about that, he bought a few packs of rubber gloves, extra large, of which they only had three packs, but he bought them all.

  He remembered the light bulb. He was used to fluorescent lighting, not this. After a few minutes staring at the array of bulbs on sale, he decided on the old kind, because he didn’t understand the new kind at all.

  Some other stuff, but he figured he had the basics. He tried to work out in his head if he had enough, but he reckoned he could carry a little more, so he also bought three t-shirts, three pairs of trousers, a pair of shoes, a pack of underwear, a pack of socks, and a jumper.

  He got his first dirty look at the till when he asked for bags they didn’t give him. He looked around, trying to figure out what it was. Everyone had their own bags, except him. Some bags hung on the end of the till, so he bought a few of those too.

  Money wasn’t a worry. Twenty-six years of jail. The first sixteen of those years on 20p an hour. The last ten on 30p an hour. Thirty-three hours a week at 20p. £6.60. Wasn’t a lot. But a year? Over twenty-six years? He had near enough ten grand in the bank and few needs.

  He wasn’t worried about the money.

  He bought the bags and smiled at the checkout woman and carried his bags home, happy enough, looking forward to getting back to work.

  *

  8.

  DS Fredrickson picked at the dirty clods scattered around the dug-up grave. The digger hadn’t gone far enough to do any real damage. The swastika would wash off. He probably could have done it with a bit of spit and a hanky – it was a marble headstone – but he wasn’t a fucking cleaner.

  If the paper got hold of the story, they’d have a field day. Kid’s grave, swastika...he could see the headlines. He thought about cleaning off the symbol with his handkerchief again, but decided against it. He’d send out someone from the council.

  Fredrickson Figured he should take a shot on a small digital camera he kept in his pocket and write it up. He took the shot. Making work for himself, for some piss-pot crime.

  ‘Fucking Nazi wannabe twats,’ he said. He didn’t say it to anyone in particular, because there wasn’t anyone else to say it to. The cemetery was pretty much deserted. The sun sat low in the sky, daylight savings a way off. An old lady he’d watched walking in with flowers walked back the same way without.

  ‘Twats,’ he said again, in case the dead hadn’t heard him. He wanted them on his side, because the cemetery freaked him out. He wanted to get back to the station, too, because the cemetery after dark really freaked him out. There was supposed to be a patrol, but fat fucks like Davis and James never bothered, just wrote it up like they’d done it.

  Fredrickson stuck a Royal between his lips and lit it with a lighter he’d pinched from evidence that morning. Blowing smoke out through his nostrils like he’d seen someone do in a movie some time before, he scanned around for a clue.

  A fucking clue.

  Piss-pot crime and he was looking for a clue. It was the kind of crime you saw in soft cop TV dramas. A waste of time.

  He stubbed his fag out in the grave and stood up. Thought better of it. Someone came along he didn’t want them thinking his Royal, his DNA, was a clue. A little paranoid, maybe, maybe just wise. But then if he deleted the picture...wiped it off...James and Davis wouldn’t make a fuss. Lazy twats.

  He pocketed the stub in a jacket that already stank of smoke. Took out the camera and deleted the snap he took and rubbed the swastika from the grave. Someone else could fill in the dirt. That was taking it a little too far.

  ‘Twats.’

  Waste of time. Nothing doing.

  Now, with no evidence and nothing to waste time investigating, all he was doing was standing around in a cemetery with night coming, the sky darkening, and rustling and whispering trees.

  ‘Twat,’ he said, like it was an incantation against weird graveyards, but he was spooked.

  He shrugged his jacket higher on sloping shoulders and walked toward the east exit. On the way out he saw the groundskeeper’s cottage window was open a crack, wondered if they’d finally found some freak to babysit the dead. Good job, too. If they had this...spate...of crimes would probably dry up on its own.

  Still, this one he didn’t have to write up. The other...desecrations...

  Well, if there was a new groundskeeper, it’d clear up on its own. Case closed.

  The boss was looking over his shoulder, and he had a girlfriend and a wife to pay for. He couldn’t afford the scrutiny, but he could get away with the usual spiel. 'Kid’s prank, Boss,' he'd say. 'Just kids fucking...sorry Boss...mucking around.

  The boss didn’t like work any better than he did.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he said to the dead as the sun set.

  He passed a bull of a man heading up the hill on his way down. The man carried four heavy bags of shopping and wore a puff jacket, even though it was warm enough. He was puffing and sweating.

  ‘Twat,’ he said when the man was out of earshot.

  Head back to the station and make up some shit for the boss, he wondered, or round Tracey’s for a quick fuck?

  Freddy didn’t have to think about it for long.

  *

  9.

  Light bulb seated, on, Elton looked around and wondered where to start.

  Up to down. That was the way cleaning worked. It was the only way that made sense. Now, looking at the job before him, the sun already heading down, he wondered why he hadn’t made a list before setting out. He didn’t have a duster and couldn’t reach the ceiling. He didn’t have a broom, or a dustpan, he didn’t know where the bins were, he didn’t know if the cooker worked, even.

  One of those was easy to remedy. He turned the knob on the cooker and held down the button. Click, click, spark, and the gas woofed into life.

  Second job, coffee. He unwrapped the cafetiere while he ran the tap clear of turgid dirty old water. The water sputtered out because there was air in the pipes. Something rattled for a while, but then the flow settled down. With his new pan full with fresh water and on the go he got to work.

  He pulled the worn old pew into the kitchen, scrapping the wooden tiles a little on the way, but it was too damn heavy to lug into the kitchen and he was tired already from the long walk back from town, uphill, carrying four bags full of shopping.

  Elton stood on the pew to test it out when it was in the kitchen. He thought again and got down to put the lid over the pan. It’d boil quicker that way, and keep the dust out.

  The cottage needed a lick of paint, but he couldn’t do anything about that right now.

  He tore open a pack of cloths and used one as a duster in the kitchen on the ceiling, reaching up easy enough – a big man, long arms. It was done soon enough. The water boiled. He tore open the coffee and dumped some into the cafetiere, poured on water, washed up the old mug with the motorbike on it, though he’d forgotten washing up liquid, he used water and a cloth and called it good. He dusted the bedroom and the toilet ceilings and came back and poured. Took a sip. Still too hot. Did the living area ceiling, which was bigger and took a while longer. Then he w
ent back into the kitchen and sat on the floor with his back to a cupboard while he drank coffee and thought about what he needed to do next.

  His back ached a little, his bad shoulder a little more, from reaching up for so long. His shoulder and back would settle down, but his knee already felt swollen. Wasn’t anything he could do about it. He could either piss and moan, or get on with it. With a grunt he pushed himself up and put his mug on the sideboard.

  This time he washed down the woodwork in the living room. He flushed the toilet to check it out, cleaned it, urinated, flushed again.

  A line from a book he’d read for his second degree went through his head.

  So it goes, he thought. So it goes.

  Slaughterhouse 5.

  A cleaver in his hand. So it goes.

  When a job’s in front of you, do it ‘til it’s done.

  Elton went into the bedroom and took the old mattress off the sturdy wooden bed. Slats, but he’d slept in more uncomfortable places. Solitary, for one. The mattress stank and there was a fair patch of mould on the underside. He took it outside the door for tipping in the morning, or whatever people did with mattresses these days when you couldn’t even pick a light bulb.

  With his back and knee and shoulders aching, Elton gritted his teeth and carried on. He dusted the bed, dusted inside all the cupboards and a thick oak wardrobe. He didn’t have any hangers either. Didn’t have a chest of drawers. Didn’t really matter. He’d be sleeping on his clothes tonight anyway.

  He washed down the woodwork in the kitchen, the dresser and the cupboards and the worktop.

  Dust, wash, coffee, dust, coffee, scrub.

  He knew how to work. Do a job and do it ‘til it’s done or you can’t do anymore. That was how it went, until four o’clock in the morning.