32: The Graveyard

I huddled beneath my umbrella by the side of Kris’s grave and looked down. The coffin was still visible beneath the scattered dirt and flowers. The mourners were dispersing now and the undertakers waited in the background. When we had gone they would fill in this hole.

I didn’t want to go. Not yet.

Isaac joined me in the rain-smeared graveyard and his hand slid into mine. The clasp of his palm was warm.

“Time to go, Danni,” he said.

I nodded and let him lead me round to the front of the church. Robert was waiting for us with the vicar, and a woman.

I stopped in my tracks.

“What is it?” Isaac whispered.

I tipped my head close to him. “It’s Lucy.”

Robert smiled when he saw us. “Ah, there you are, Danni. Look who’s here.”

“I gather you found what you needed in Cambridge?” said Lucy. There was a smile in her eyes.

I blushed. “Yes. We did.”

“That’s a lovely hat.”

“Thanks. Isaac gave it to me.”

“It’s a trilby, isn’t it?”

I nodded. It really was gorgeous – green and gold check with a black silk band. I wore it everywhere.

Lucy took hold of Robert’s hand. I looked at the ground and shuffled my feet.

“Robert here owes you his life,” said Lucy. “And I owe you my thanks. You’re a very brave girl.”

I swallowed. “Was it totally destroyed?” I asked.

“The machine?” said Lucy. “As far as we know.”

“And...” I couldn’t finish the sentence. Isaac gave my hand a squeeze.

“I’m sorry, Danni.” Robert put his arm around my shoulders. “We don’t know. Gracie and Pew have disappeared. MEXA are claiming that the building was destroyed by an electrical fire.”

“Is she dead?”

“We don’t know. There are no reports of any casualties, so who knows. Maybe she got away.”

I really hoped he was right.

“Gracie did a very brave thing, you know.”

I nodded. “Pew had Kris murdered, didn’t he? “

“I believe so,” said Robert.

“Did he murder my parents?”

Robert sighed and shook his head. “Perhaps. The police have reopened the case. There’s been some sort of cover-up.”

“It was Pew. It has to be.”

Lucy placed her hand on my arm. There were tears in her eyes. “They’re concentrating their investigation on that monastery. It seems more likely that it was the monks.”

“Monks?”

Lucy looked round at Robert and he gave a quick nod of his head. She rubbed her hand up and down my arm.

“This order of monks was guarding a great secret. I imagine that they thought killing to protect it entirely justified.”

“I still think it was Pew,” I said.

“It couldn’t have been Pew,” said Isaac, wiping the rain from his eyes. “Think about it. You led MEXA to those scrolls. They didn’t know about them before. So it had to be the monks.”

Lucy took her hand away.

“They will find who did it, Danni. They won’t get away with murder.”

Robert glanced up at the sky. The rain was coming down heavier and the village was shrouded in mist. “We’d better be getting home.”

I blinked back my tears and squared my shoulders. Robert and Lucy followed the other mourners back up the lane towards the village. But I lingered in the rain. Isaac waited with me.

“Look at them all,” he said. “They’ve no idea how close they came. They’ll never know that we saved them.”

I looked round at him.

“It was Gracie who saved them,” I said. “Gracie saved everyone.”