Page 6

There had been a church on the site St Michael’s now occupied since 750 AD, predating the nearby, and more famous, Shap Abbey by almost five hundred years. It was in the centre of Shap village and was a cold and stoic Grade II listed building, all ancient stone and stained glass. It had an imposing tower with an embattled parapet. Poe thought it looked more like a fortified house than a church. Maybe a medieval borstal for unruly vicars.

The war memorial at the churchyard entrance, a tall wheel-head cross with a tapering shaft on a four-sided plinth, Poe knew well. He visited it every Remembrance Sunday, although he waited until the crowds had thinned before paying his respects. The memorial was made from Shap granite, the same stone used to build Herdwick Croft, the isolated two-hundred-year-old shepherd’s cottage he called home.

‘This way, Sergeant Poe,’ Anthony said, leading him off the street and into the churchyard. A hushed crowd had gathered at the entrance but, although the wrought-iron gates were open, the grounds remained empty.

The graves at St Michael’s were arranged in an ad hoc, scattergun manner, as if no one could agree on the best strategy for planting the dead. The biggest plot pushed up against a clump of gnarled trees, stripped of their greenery, but Poe knew there were graves all over the church grounds.

He cast his eyes around, looking for evidence of badgers: heaps of earth, collapsed headstones, anything that hinted at nocturnal digging. But all he saw was a winter graveyard. It looked like a scene from a Goth Christmas card. Some of the headstones were cracked and crumbling with faded etchings; others hadn’t been exposed to the harsh Shap weather long enough. Trinkets and flowers had been left at some graves but, like most old graveyards, the majority were bare and unattended, the deceaseds’ relatives long dead too.

‘Where is it?’ Poe asked Anthony.

‘Round the back.’

Anthony stepped off the path and on to the grass. Poe followed suit; the brown frosted leaves crunched under the thick soles of his boots as if he were walking on Pringles. As they neared the north-facing side of the church, the side that got no afternoon sun, the ground changed from mainly grass to mainly moss and creeping ivy. Tree roots crossed each other like pallet straps.

The light was thin and grey. Branches creaked in the breeze. Poe stopped walking. Something felt wrong. He took in a deep breath but all he got in return was damp earth and pine needles. Maybe the suggestion of grave flowers, perhaps some early snowdrops. Nothing funky. He took in another deep breath. Shut his eyes and let his memory do the heavy lifting. There was a hint of something else there, he thought. An unwanted seasoning, a smell he knew well. It was sweet and rancid.

Decay.

Poe opened his eyes. In the time it had taken him to stop and smell the flowers, Anthony had disappeared around the back of the tower. Poe followed the footprints he’d left in the frost.

And saw a murder.