Meanwhile, down in the vault ...

The interior of an underground vault in St Colm's kirkyard at Belhelvie, 8 miles north of Aberdeen.

The vault was built in the early 1800s and acted as a mort-thouse. This was the era of bodysnatching to supply subjects for the anatomy schools. Mort-houses were impregnable buildings where bodies were stored, under lock and key, until they were so rotten as to be of no interest to the anatomists. Then they were removed and buried in the normal way.