The Drowning Ground Read Online Free Page B

now. But I’m not.
    I looked up. Dr Brewin had fixed yellow police tape around the oak trees at the top of the hill, and my step quickened when I saw it. For a moment the cold was forgotten, and I was suddenly eager to get on with it. But when I glanced up again a few moments later I saw Graves coming down the hill towards me. I stopped in my tracks and waited for him.
    Graves’s blond hair was just visible underneath a knitted hat, which he pulled firmly over his ears in a sudden gesture as he caught sight of me. Around his neck was a matching grey scarf, which he had tucked very precisely into the collar of his overcoat. He was wearing a suit. On anybody else the woolly hat with the black suit would have been ridiculous, but on Graves the combination seemed somehow to work, creating an impression that was elegant and yet roguish at the same time. Unable to help myself, I gazed down critically at my now rather threadbare trench coat and straightened my tie. Graves seemed immaculate and, I couldn’t help but think, kind of brand-new-looking too.
    â€˜Good morning, Graves,’ I said. It was an apt name for a policeman. I’d thought it the first time I’d seen it on his file.
    â€˜Morning, sir. We already know who the victim is,’ Graves said, a little out of breath but obviously pleased with himself. ‘Dr Brewin recognized him. Apparently he owns this field. He’s called Frank. Frank Hurst.’
    The moment, the very moment I heard that name, I thought of a swimming pool in summer and of a dead woman lying face up on its surface.
    â€˜Apparently he lives on the other side of this hill,’ Graves said, looking around.
    â€˜Frank Hurst. Jesus. What happened to him?’
    â€˜Someone’s rammed a pitchfork into his throat,’ Graves said, looking as if he wished that there had been a nicer way to say it.
    â€˜Jesus,’ I said again.
    â€˜You knew him?’
    â€˜You could say that,’ I said grimly. I paused, thinking, and gave him a long look. Graves had turned a little pale and was trembling inside his coat, though he was trying very hard to cover it up – not because of the cold but because of whatever it was he had seen at the top of the hill. You tried to prepare yourself for what was waiting for you, but sometimes it wasn’t enough.
    â€˜Well, you’d better send someone to his house,’ I said a little doubtfully. ‘And you’d better try to get as many PCs as they can spare. We’re going to need them. You can do that for me, can’t you, Graves?’ I said hesitantly. ‘Set all that up?’
    Graves smiled. ‘Oh, I’m sure I’ll manage.’
    I nodded. ‘All right, then.’
    I moved up the hill. Frank Hurst. I turned around suddenly. Graves was already nearing the gate.
    â€˜Graves!’ I yelled.
    He turned around and trotted back up the hill.
    â€˜He has a daughter,’ I said. ‘She may still live there – in the house – and there’s a housekeeper or at least there used to be. She might be there too. If she isn’t, you should try to find her – be worth talking to her, I think. Lives locally, if I remember rightly. But find his daughter first – be good if we can let her know before the papers get wind of it and she learns the hard way.’
    Graves nodded and immediately started down the steep incline. I watched critically for a few moments, until he disappeared beyond the hedgerow. Graves looked more than a little rattled. I turned around and started to walk, feeling oddly out of place all of a sudden. Sometimes the strangeness of the countryside hits me. And it struck me right then like a cold wet slap as I trudged alone under the moving shadows of the clouds and up the hill. To me, for a moment, the hill seemed completely unreal, as if the earth before me had split into a thousand cracks and one more step would see me flung straight into the abyss. Maybe it