Dead Simple

He shook it gently, peering at it all the time. ‘Quite sandy,’ he said.
    ‘What does that tell you?’
    ‘You mentioned Ashdown Forest on the phone?’
    ‘Uh huh.’
    ‘This might be the kind of soil you’d find there.’
    ‘ Might? ’
    ‘The UK is knee-deep in sandy soil, Roy. There’s sandy soil in Ashdown Forest – but there’s sandy soil in a million other places, too.’
    ‘I need an area that’s about seven foot long and three foot wide.’
    ‘Sounds like a grave.’
    ‘It is a grave.’
    Joe Tindall nodded, peering closely at the earth again. ‘You want me to locate a grave in the middle of Ashdown Forest from this little bag of earth?’
    ‘You’re catching on.’
    The SOCO officer removed his glasses for some moments, as if that would give him clarity of vision, then put them on again. ‘Here’s the deal, Roy. You locate the grave and I’ll get you an analysis on whether this soil matches or doesn’t.’
    ‘Actually, I need it to be the other way around.’
    Tindall held up the plastic bag. ‘I see. Who do you think I am? David Blaine? Derren Brown? I swing this in the air and somehow magic up a grave in the middle of a ten-thousand-hectare forest?’
    ‘You have a problem with that?’
    ‘Actually, yes, I do have a problem with that.’

45
    A few hours later, Grace cruised slowly up a steep hill past All Saints’ church in Patcham Village, where a certain wedding had been scheduled to happen at two o’clock this afternoon – in exactly three-quarters of an hour.
    This was his own personal favourite church in the area. A classic Early English parish church, intimate, simple, with unadorned grey stonework, a small tower, a fine stained-glass window behind the altar and tombstones going back centuries in the overgrown graveyard out the front and along the sides.
    The heavy rain had eased to a light drizzle as he sat in his Alfa, parked close to the entrance, on a grass bank opposite the church, giving him a commanding view of all the arrivals. No sign of anyone yet. Just a few pieces of sodden confetti on the wet tarmac, from an earlier wedding, probably this morning.
    He watched an elderly woman in a hooded PVC raincoat wheel a shopping basket down the pavement and pause to exchange a few words with a huge man in an anorak with a tiny dog on a leash, who was walking up in the opposite direction. The dog cocked its leg on a lamppost.
    A blue Ford Focus pulled up and a man with a couple of cameras slung around his neck climbed out. Grace observed him, wondering whether he was the official wedding photographer, or press. Moments later a small brown Vauxhall pulled up behind it, and a young man in an anorak emerged, carrying a distinctive reporter’s notebook. The two men greeted each other and began chatting, both looking around, waiting.
    After ten minutes he saw a silver BMW off-roader pull up. Because of its tinted glass windows and the rain, he could not make out who was inside, but he recognized immediately Mark Warren’s number plate. Moments later, Warren, in a dark raincoat, jumped down and hurried up the path to the main entrance of the church. He disappeared inside, then came out almost immediately and hurried back to his car.
    A taxi pulled up, and a tall, distinguished-looking man with silver hair, dressed in a morning suit with a red carnation in the buttonhole, and holding a grey top hat, closed the rear door and walked towards the church. The taxi had evidently been paid to wait. Then a silver Audi TT sports car pulled up. Grace remembered seeing one like it parked in front of Ashley Harper’s house.
    The driver’s door opened, and Ashley, holding a small umbrella, emerged, in a smart white, wedding dress, her hair up. An older woman appeared from the passenger door, in a white-trimmed blue dress and neatly coiffed silver-grey hair. Ashley waved acknowledgement to the BMW, then huddled under the umbrella. The pair hurried up the path and disappeared into the church. Mark Warren followed.
    Then, at five to two, Grace saw the vicar cut across the graveyard and enter, and decided it was time to make his move. He left his car, tugging on his Tommy Hilfiger blue and yellow anorak. As he crossed the road the young man with the notebook approached him. He was in his mid-twenties, sharp-faced, wearing a cheap grey suit with his tie knotted massively but slackly, so the top button of his white shirt showed above it, and chewing gum.
    ‘Detective Superintendent Grace,