Page 94 of The Mercy Chair

‘According to the cemetery map CL stands for “Circle Lawn”. It’s the name of that part of the graveyard. I assume it’s circular and grassy.’

‘But how do you know you have the right church?’

‘Apart from the fact there is only one Christ and Saint Mary with a Circle Lawn in the north of England, the dates line up.’

‘What dates?’

‘The grave belongs to a woman called Hazel Rampling. She was sixty-three years old when she died.’

‘She was murdered?’

‘No, Poe. She died in a car crash in 2004.’

Poe made the link. ‘Nathan Rose attended his course at the Children of Job in 2004. How close do the dates match?’

‘Hazel Rampling was buried on the fourth of June, Poe. Nathan attended his course on the second of June.’

‘I’m not following this at all,’ Linus said. ‘Nathan Rose attends a course at the start of June and two days later Hazel Rampling is buried in a Cumbrian graveyard at the other end of the county. For some reason both Cornelius Green and Nathan Rose feel the need to tattoo themselves with the location of Hazel’s grave. Is that about it?’

‘It is, Linus.’

‘What links a car-crash victim to a man who attended a conversion therapy course? A man who later kills himself when he’s asked about it?’

‘I have no idea,’ Bradshaw admitted.

‘There was definitely nothing suspicious about Hazel Rampling’s death?’ Poe asked.

‘Nothing I could find, Poe. But you’re missing the wider point, I think.’

‘Which is?’

‘Hazel Rampling wasn’t an isolated incident.’

‘She wasn’t?’

‘No, Poe.’

‘I think you’d better talk me through the others, Tilly,’ Poe said. ‘There has to be an explanation for this. Let’s see if we can figure it out.’

Bradshaw began talking them through the remaining five tattoos.

‘CC.58.R4.HI is Christ Church in Barrow. Grave fifty-eight, row four in the Holy Innocent plot, belongs to Alex Stanton. He was twelve years old when he died of leukaemia. He was buried in 2001, a week after one of Cornelius Green’s undisclosed courses.’

Bradshaw raced through the rest. SJE.77.PC was Saint John the Evangelist in Maryport. The church graveyard didn’t have rows, simply numbers, and a thirty-six-year-old called Aleksy Nowak was buried in PC, the Polish community plot.

SB.47.R9.SG was grave forty-seven, row nine in Saint Bega in Appleby. SG was the Saint George plot.

‘AS.104X.GO was the tricky one, Poe,’ Bradshaw explained. ‘There are four All Saints churches in the north of England and the south of Scotland, but only one with a grave that matched Cornelius Green’s AS.104X.GO tattoo.’

‘The church we’ve just been to?’

‘Yes, Poe.’

‘Why did we need to go to that one and not any of the others?’

Bradshaw pointed at AS.104X.GO and said, ‘As you’ve no doubt worked out, AS stands for the All Saints. One hundred and four is the grave number and X means there is an extra grave there, almost certainly to do with lack of space. Instead of renumbering all the graves, they simply add an X to denote the extra one. The grave belongs to a man called Erich Brandt.’

‘Fewer and fewer people can get buried these days,’ Poe said. ‘The graveyards are all full. What does the GO stand for, Tilly?’

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