The Dead Place

Cooper laid his photographs alongside the forensic anthropologist’s report. There were also a series of scene photos from Ravensdale. They showed the remains half-concealed by vegetation that had grown up around them, the long bones turning green with moss, like the roots of some exotic tree. When the tangles of bramble and goose grass were cut away, they revealed the skeletal hands folded carefully together, the legs straight, the feet almost touching at the heel, but turned outwards at the toes.

Dr Jamieson had an opinion on the feet. He felt it was only the tugging of scavengers at decomposing flesh that had moved them from their original position. They had been neatly closed together at the moment of death, or some time after.

It was the ‘some time after’ that worried Cooper. The location and position of the body were so carefully chosen that they gave the appearance of ritual. In fact, the foliage winding its way through the bones might even suggest an offering to nature, a human sacrifice that was slowly being claimed by Mother Earth. But that was pure fancy, surely.

He looked up the number and called the anthropologist again. Sometimes, you just had to hope for a bit of luck.

‘Any chance of a cause of death?’ he said.

‘You’re joking.’

‘Nothing at all?’

Dr Jamieson sighed. ‘I’ve looked for signs of any skeletal trauma that might suggest the manner of death, or indeed tell us something about what happened to the body after death.’

‘And?’

‘Nothing. No cut marks, no visible trauma, other than a certain amount of postmortem damage. Some gnawing of the bones at the extremities.’

‘Scavengers,’ Cooper said. ‘Foxes, rats.’

‘Or some kind of bird. We’re missing two of the carpals – the hamate and capitate. If you happen to come across them, one is a cuboid bone with a hooklike process, and one is a bit like a miniature half-carved bust. They’re small, but quite distinctive. We’ve also lost some of the tarsal bones from the left foot, but otherwise the extremities are mostly intact. And of course the hyoid bone is gone.’

‘Why “of course”?’

‘The hyoid is located just above the larynx, where it anchors the muscles of the tongue. It’s the only bone in the body that doesn’t touch any other bone. So when the tissue around it disappears, the hyoid drops away and can be lost completely. You’re lucky to have the incisors, since they have only one root. When the soft tissue decomposes, there’s nothing to hold them in the jaw.’

‘Doctor, isn’t the hyoid bone the one that sometimes gets broken when a victim is strangled?’

‘Yes, that’s correct.’

‘And with skeletonized remains, damage to the hyoid bone might be the only indication we have that the victim died of strangulation?’

‘I shouldn’t really comment on that. But it’s true that, without any soft tissues present, we can only look for trauma. Unless there are signs of fractures or nicks to the bone from knife wounds, the condition of the hyoid might well be crucial to an assessment of the cause of death. But only if the cause was manual strangulation.’

Cooper recognized the hopelessness of the thought that came into his mind then. But he said it anyway.

‘We’d have to organize another search of the scene, if we’re going to find that bone.’

‘It is a very small bone,’ the anthropologist said. ‘Given the nature of the location, you’ll be looking for a needle in a haystack. And, don’t forget, the hyoid could have disappeared from the scene completely.’

‘That doesn’t sound very hopeful.’

‘Well, I can give you an estimate of the time of death, based on plant growth. We got a botanist to have a look, and his report has just landed on my desk.’

‘And?’

‘Well, she probably died during the spring. Her body was already partially skeletonized by this summer, when vegetation began to push its way through the remaining tissue and between the ribs.’

‘February or March?’

‘Yes. But the botanist also found some dead vegetation – the previous season’s growth.’

‘You mean she died in the spring of last year?’

‘I’m just summarizing the report. I’ll send a copy through later today so you can see the details.’

‘Does that fit with the skeletonization?’

‘Oh, yes. You might want to get someone to check the weather during the relevant period. If it was cold, it would have delayed decomposition.’

‘Last summer was warm and wet,’ said Cooper. ‘It was like that for months.’

‘Hence the degree of skeletonization, then. An exposed body in warm, humid conditions. Decomposition must have advanced pretty fast. There’s a rough-and-ready formula, based on the average temperature of the surrounding area. In a reasonably warm summer, you’d get a temperature of around fifteen degrees Celsius perhaps?’

‘Yes.’

Cooper could almost hear him doing the mental calculation. ‘So during the summer, an exposed corpse could be skeletonized within around eighty-five days.’

‘Just eighty-five days? And this one could have been out in the open for eighteen months?’

‘Yes. If the body was left a few weeks earlier, skeletonization would take a little longer. But given the exposed position, you’re looking at a matter of months, not years. The botanist’s report will suggest an upper end of the time scale.’

‘What about a toxicological analysis?’ said Cooper.

‘Well, we could do that,’ said the anthropologist, ‘if you want us to.’

Cooper knew that ‘if you want us to’ translated as ‘if you’re prepared to pay us’.

‘I’ll check,’ he said, because budget decisions weren’t his to make.

Diane Fry sat for a while in her car outside the courthouse in Wharf Road. People were streaming down the steps and heading for their own vehicles – lawyers and court officials in one direction, members of the public in another. She was aware of the security cameras on the building watching her. Cameras were everywhere in the new riverside development – it was amazing how much crime took place in the precincts of the court.

Fry lifted the package from the passenger seat beside her. She ought to have taken it into court with her, but security would have asked awkward questions. When she’d seen the tape on her desk that morning, she’d known that the first time she listened to it couldn’t be in the office, surrounded by a bunch of cynical DCs. Nor in the DI’s office, with Hitchens watching her for a reaction. She needed to hear it alone.

She wasn’t sure what she would have done if her car hadn’t been old enough to have a cassette player. But now she slid the tape in and pressed the ‘play’ button. She rested her head on the back of the seat and waited until the hiss faded away.

Soon there will be a killing. It might happen in thenext few hours. We could synchronize our watches andcount down the minutes …

As she expected, the voice was distorted. The caller had done something to disguise it – not just the old handkerchief over the mouth, but some kind of electronic distortion that gave the voice a metallic sound, vibrating and echoey. The accent was local, as far as she could tell. But she hadn’t yet worked out the subtle differences between Derbyshire people and their neighbours in Yorkshire, let alone between North and South Derbyshire. There were some who claimed they could pin down an accent to within a few miles, but that was a job for an expert.

One of the most worrying things about the tape was that the caller seemed completely calm and under control. His delivery was very deliberate, with no signs of agitation that she could detect. As Hitchens suggested, he sounded convincing. In fact, he would come over well in the witness box.

…What a chance to record the ticking away of alife, to follow it through to that last, perfect moment, when existence becomes nothing, when the spirit partswith the physical …

Fry glanced at the courthouse again. Her appearance seemed to have gone well, and the CPS were happy. Barring any major disasters during the rest of the hearing, Micky Ellis would be going down for a few years. It wouldn’t do much good for Denise Clay, who had lain dead in her nightdress with her personal stereo on the bedside table and cigarette burns on the duvet. For her, justice would come too late. Denise was long since buried by now.

But it didn’t do to personalize things too much. Sometimes, the processes of the law needed victims to take a back seat.