Chapter 43
The entrance to Nottingham General Cemetery is a handsome Victorian gatehouse, a two-story structure of creamy sandstone and black wrought iron. Walking through the cool shade by the gates gives a moment’s welcome relief from the sun before the path emerges into the cemetery itself.
It’s huge.
A wide expanse of green slopes gently away from the gatehouse behind me, with thousands—probably tens of thousands—of gravestones spread across every piece of ground. Stones of every shade, black, white, gray, some upright but others leaning drunkenly away from the vertical.
Of the living, however, there is no sign. No Maxine or Charlie. The whole place feels deserted. Even when I think I hear footsteps coming through the gatehouse behind me, when I turn there is no one there.
I head down the path and find an information board, scanning the layout plan for section twelve.
There is a brief historical panel too that describes the creation of the cemetery in the 1830s and the subsequent interment of more than 150,000 people in this fourteen-acre plot.
I go back, read the figure again, trying to take in the enormity of the number.
One hundred and fifty thousand bodies. All of them here, under my feet.
The place had become so full, in fact, that it had been closed to new burials for almost a century.
So why had Maxine asked to meet me here?
I check over my shoulder. Still no one else around. Not a mourner or a gardener in sight…
No, there is someone else here. Out of the corner of my eye I catch a flash of movement between the stand of trees, a tall, heavy man in a gray coat.
But when I stop and stare he doesn’t emerge on the other side.
Maybe a groundskeeper, or someone using it as a cut-through. It was open to the public, after all.
The path winds first to the right and then splits as it snakes down the hill.
I follow the left-hand fork into a more heavily wooded section, with ornate markers, statues of cherubs, and ivy-clad tombs standing above ground, flanked by pillars and dark with engraving.
This is section twelve of the cemetery—at least I think it is.
It’s overgrown, the grass thick and long around pitted gravestones, the trees above throwing much of it into cool shadow.
Some of the graves here are clustered together, enclosed within waist-high iron fences.
I stop to peer at one of the plots, which has four grave markers spanning almost a century, a husband and wife, children buried later alongside them.
A red admiral flutters to the headstone beside me, wings spreading in a shaft of sunlight.
A rustle of movement close behind me.
I freeze.
The soft sound of footsteps flattening grass and then I’m turning fast, heart jumping into my throat as a figure emerges from behind a statue of an eyeless angel…
Maxine emerges wearing a purple T-shirt and jeans, sunglasses perched on top of her head.
“Hey, Adam.”
“Hi.” I let go a heavy breath. “Sorry, this place is just a bit…”
“Deserted?” She holds a hand up in apology. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Sorry if I startled you.”
“Back up the hill, I thought there was someone following me.”
“I’ve not seen anyone else. Come on, it’s this way.”
She leads me further into this section of the cemetery, between rows of graves stained almost black with age and slanted back at crazy angles.
Over her shoulder, she asks me about the picture her son had extracted from the little Motorola flip phone, the enhanced image that had looked very much like the purple scarf wrapped around a pair of wrists.
Both of us agree it’s a disturbing image.
But what it proves is unclear.
Eventually, she stops, turns to me, and gestures toward a small collection of gravestones grouped together.
Like many of the others in this part of the cemetery, it’s discreetly separated from the next set of graves with a cast-iron three-sided fence that was once probably black but is now corroded and mottled with rust. Maxine points to a light gray stone engraved in dark, old-fashioned script.
In Loving Memory of
Elizabeth Irene Makepeace
Died 27 December 2001
In her 86th year
Beloved grandmother, mother, and daughter
Always in our thoughts
The air is utterly still around us, barely a breath of wind, only the faintest hum of traffic rising up from the city below. Somewhere in the trees above, a solitary thrush sings a high, inquisitive song.
“That’s her,” I say to Maxine. “That’s Elizabeth. How did you find her so quickly? You never told me you were some kind of expert hacker.”
“I’m not,” she says with a rueful smile. “I’m a social worker. It was Charlie who found her—he says you just have to know the right places to look.”
I remember what I’d read near the entrance, about how long it had been since the cemetery had accepted new burials.
“But I thought this place was full, though?” For the first time, I notice there are still open spaces here and there, in contrast to the rest of the cemetery. “The sign said it was closed to new burials?”
“It is.” She indicates the next stone along. “Except in existing family plots.”
I look again at the cluster of headstones enclosed within the rusted iron fence. To the left and behind Elizabeth Makepeace’s final resting place are two others, much older, much more weather-beaten and pitted with age.
William John Makepeace
Died 11th June 1964
Besides this one is another, presumably his wife.
Gladys Violet Makepeace
Died 9th February 1980
“There are a couple of others behind them too,” Maxine says.
“But the stones are so old you can’t read the names anymore.
Reckon they must have bought up this whole family plot back in the day and all those agreements were still honored by the council for decades.
At least they were up until twenty-odd years ago anyway.
Looks like no one’s been buried here in quite a while. ”
I go to stand next to her. On the right-hand side of the family plot are another pair of headstones, these two in dark marble with gold lettering.
Linda Jane Flack (née Makepeace)
13 March 1950–2 June 1986
Besides her is Peter William Flack, whose inscription tells us he was a “Beloved son and grandson” who had died at the age of twenty-seven. It’s clearly one of the newer grave markers here, the clean angular marble a contrast to the time-worn gray stone all around.
Maxine takes a step back, crosses her arms. “What do you notice?”
“Well… like you say, it’s a family plot. I guess there was space reserved here for Elizabeth’s daughter, Linda, and… her grandson?”
“Look again.” She gestures at the headstones. “What do you see?”
I study them all again, from left to right, reading each inscription slowly. Going down on my haunches to peer more closely at each one until I end up on the right-hand side again.
Peter William Flack
6 September 1974—27 December 2001
Aged 27 years
Beloved son and grandson
Presumably Peter was Linda’s son, which meant the boy had lost his mother at the tender age of eleven.
There doesn’t seem to be any stone here for a father.
Maybe the boy was raised by his grandma?
I’m thinking aloud, but when I look back at Maxine, she’s still shaking her head as if I haven’t grasped the most interesting fact about this little collection of family graves.
“What?” I say. “I don’t see what you—”
And then, all of a sudden, I do.
27 December 2001.
Elizabeth Makepeace and her grandson Peter had died on the same day.