his fellow gravedigger, was off sick with the flu. Double Donald was afraid of the dark, but never afraid of ghosts; thereâs no such thing, he always said when asked about his job, but still he barely covered the coffin with earth.
He had pulled the tarpaulins over, weighting them with a shovelful of soil at each corner, vowing to get there earlier than usual the next morning, then took off before real dark set in.
Next morning, again the frost was thick, silvering everything in the cemetery, making it look as though ghosts had left their ectoplasm much as a snail leaves traces of its presence. He saw immediately that the grave had been disturbed, but as he was on his own, there was no need to tell anyone. He hurriedly filled it in, doing the job neatly and properly, and tried to think no more about it. Until his nephew reminded him.
âAn exhumation order?â McAllister said when Rob, via Sergeant Patience, told him the news.
They were all seated around the reportersâ table, except for Mal Forbes, who was seldom in the office.
âYou have to sell face-to-face,â Mal told Fiona. Often.
âAn exhumation? Can I take pictures?â Hector was almost out the door in excitement.
âOnly if no one sees you,â Don warned, speaking through a mouthful of cold plum duff. âJoanne, if McAllister keeps shilly-shallying around, Iâll marry youâthis is the best pudding . . .â
âWhoâs supposed to be in this grave?â Joanne wanted to change the subject. Although she hadnât lied, she had led McAllister to believe she had slaved over a hot stove to test the plum duff recipe. When he asked for a second pudding to share in the office, she had to beg Mrs. Ross Senior to steam another one.
âHe was a retired clerk in the county council,â Don replied, âmarried with a grown-up daughter, a man never known to play anything except lawn bowls, and curling when the lochs freeze over. He died of a heart attack and has no connection to any shinty team.â
âJoanne, you interview the widow,â McAllister decided. âHec, you go tooâand be tactfulâbetter still, say nothing. Rob, any further with finding out why the leg was in the laundry basket?â
âThere are more theories floating than on the true identity of the Stone of Destiny,â Rob replied.
âWell,â Don said, âkeep digging,â and was rewarded with groans all round.
â¢Â   â¢Â   â¢
Double Donald and his workmate, Brian, dug down to the coffin. It was not buried deep. The grave was a communal family plot, with the deceased laid on top of his grandfather; his long-dead sister, who had not survived her fifth birthday; his father; andhis mother, with little space left for his wife, who was fortunately extremely healthy for seventy-seven.
Reaching the coffin, the gravediggers stood back. They leaned on their shovels, watching a policeman and two men from the mortuary completing the final taskâopening the coffin lid. A representative from the procurator fiscalâs office was on one side, noting everything on a clipboard. All that was needed was to check if the deceased had two legs. What state the body would be in was on all their minds.
âEasy does it!â one of the men at the graveside called out to his partner. The earth was wet, and he had a horror of slipping into the hole of the dead, and of putting a foot through the coffin lid.
There was the sound of a crowbar, or a genteel version thereof, echoing through the still air. Hearing the coffin lid crack, the men instinctively stepped back; through the gap a ghost, a vestige of the manâs essence, could escape, seek a living, breathing home in one of them, or perhaps remain lingering with the other spirits that inhabited Tomnahurich Cemetery, this home of the dead, this hill of the faeries.
All Double Donald could think was , Thank goodness itâs