Authors: Clare Donoghue
‘Of course,’ she said with a shrug. ‘We were lucky to keep it quiet this long. I’ll no doubt be wanting their help anyway – depending on what we find down there.’
Dave ran his hand over his chin. ‘Yeah, but I didn’t even have time to shave this morning.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about it. They’re not looking at you,’ she said, gesturing towards the tent. ‘They’re only interested in what that tent’s going to be hiding. Besides, I think the stubble suits you. You look George Clooney-esque.’
He turned his back and coughed out a laugh. ‘You’re a terrible liar.’
Jane smiled and nudged his arm. He was right. Dave was the senior pathologist for Southwark. His district included the boroughs of Greenwich, Lambeth and Lewisham. His work was his life, and it was etched on his face. He was also one of Lockyer’s closest friends. She wondered if it was worth speaking to Dave, to see if he could offer any insight into her boss’s erratic behaviour. She opened her mouth, but then changed her mind. Now wasn’t the time. She had enough to deal with, without bringing him into the mix. She looked at her watch.
The body looked small, from the GPR readings, possibly female. Jane couldn’t help feeling relieved. Mark was five foot eleven, and built like a rugby player, so unless he had shrunk and lost four stone, there was no way the body beneath Elmstead Woods was his. She looked around her, at the plethora of police officers and equipment cluttering the scene. Mark’s trainer had been found fifty yards from the burial site. Could that be a coincidence? She took a deep breath and blew it out again. Whoever was in that tomb required her attention now. Mark’s disappearance would have to wait.
‘What state do you think the body will be in, Dave?’ she asked, trying to pull her shirt collar away from the back of her neck. It had to be over twenty degrees today, she thought, as a bead of sweat rolled down her spine.
‘Hard to say for sure,’ Dave said. ‘It appears to be three or four yards down. That will limit the insect life. The temperature, and the lack of moisture, will mean the body won’t have decomposed, according to Casper’s.’ He scratched his head, the sound of his nails against his skin making Jane wince. She hated that sound.
‘Right, access to air in relation to decomposition. It’s when . . . ’ She faltered to a stop. The page of a textbook appeared in her mind, but she couldn’t recall much past the first sentence.
Dave cleared his throat. ‘That’s right,’ he said, ‘when there is free access to air, a body decomposes twice as fast than if immersed in water, and eight times faster than if buried in earth. So in this case, beneath several yards of dryish earth, we might not find much evidence of decomposition at all. I don’t think we’re much past the fresh stage,’ he said. Terms like ‘putrefaction’, ‘microbial proliferation’ and ‘anaerobic organisms’ sprang into Jane’s mind. ‘The body looks intact – very little blurring on the GPR monitor. If we were past the fresh stage and into bloating, the gases released, putrefaction of the organs et cetera would mean enough liquid to sustain a tranche of organic life. Once they’re present, things move much more quickly and the images we’re seeing would look very different.’
Jane nodded. Forensics and pathology were both fields she had considered when she first joined the force. In fact, listening to Dave, she couldn’t quite recall what had led her to the murder squad. Dave’s job was far more technical and analytical. Far more in tune with her personality.
‘Okay, boss,’ Chris said, waving them over. ‘We’re in, just collecting and dispersing any gases.’
Jane walked forward, stepped over some equipment and stared down into the entrance hole. She couldn’t see anything. It was too dark. ‘Any sign of the original entrance?’ she asked.
‘Yes. It’s at the north end of the structure,’ Chris said. ‘It hasn’t been disturbed by the excavation. Once you’re done, the team will continue on and uncover it. You be able to see it when you’re down there. There’s a hatch, two feet square. SOCO have marked it out for you. There’s no handle or hinges on the inside. The entranceway itself was filled in with earth.’ Chris scratched his head, and even on a younger scalp the sound still made Jane’s shoulders tense. ‘None of us even noticed it on the fingertip searches,’ he said.
‘Right. Thanks, Chris,’ she said. ‘We’re ready when you are.’ She turned back and looked at Dave. ‘I’m not really looking forward to going down there,’ she whispered, a small shiver running down her spine, cooling her skin.
‘Ah, here she is,’ Dave said, pointing to a petite woman walking towards them. Jane thought her own five-foot five-inch frame was small, but this woman was tiny. She didn’t look much over five feet. She could see the woman’s scalp. She needed to get her roots done.
‘Good afternoon, David. How are you keeping?’ the woman asked, not so much shaking Dave’s hand as holding it, before turning her attention to Jane. She had a soft Irish accent.
‘Hi, Jeanie, I’m not too bad at all. It’s been a while since I’ve had the pleasure of your company,’ Dave said, a huge smile on his face. ‘Dr Jeanie Crown, this is Detective Sergeant Jane Bennett. She’s running the scene.’ Jane took the proffered hand, not surprised when her own engulfed the woman’s tiny fingers. Jeanie reminded her of a young Jodie Foster, before
Silence of the Lambs
, but after
Bugsy Malone.
‘It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Detective,’ Jeanie said, shaking her hand with a firm grip. ‘Dave’s told me so much about you. He’s quite the fan, it seems.’
‘Of course, and why not. Jane here is one of the murder squad’s biggest and brightest,’ Dave said, giving Jane a playful punch. She felt touched by his unabashed praise. If it wasn’t so hot, she might have blushed. ‘I called Jeanie in when I got the call,’ Dave continued. ‘As I was telling you just now, the decomposition of the body is going to be our best bet to ascertain the time of death. I don’t think my talents will stretch that far. Jeanie here is our resident taphonomist. She specializes in decomposition. If anyone can tell us when the victim expired, it’s Jeanie.’ Dave put a big hand on Jeanie’s shoulder.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jeanie. Dave has always spoken very highly of you too,’ Jane said, the three of them moving off to the side to allow the SOCO and excavation teams room to work. She took the white suit being held out to her by one of the SOCO officers and began climbing into it. ‘Taphonomy. An interesting field, I would imagine?’
‘It is fascinating, absolutely fascinating – always changing. I’m always learning,’ Jeanie said, gesticulating, her face open and excited as she too climbed into a papery white suit. ‘And, of course, it’s well suited to your case, as it happens. “Taphonomy” comes from the Greek word
taphos
, meaning “tomb”. Appropriate, don’t you think?’ she said, giving Dave a wink.
Jane was surprised to see the obvious chemistry between the two colleagues. From what Lockyer had told her, Dave had been married, but it hadn’t lasted long. His job had taken precedence, and the end of the marriage had not been pretty. Since then he had prided himself on his single, trouble-free status. Jane found herself looking from one to the other, intrigued by this new side to Dave. It was nice. He looked happy, and the lines around his eyes seemed to have softened since Jeanie’s arrival.
‘Okay, boss, you lot ready?’ Chris asked, holding an air indicator in his hand. The gases produced from a corpse could be deadly. No one was going down that hole before the needle read zero.
Jane turned and looked again down the dark hole. ‘Yes, we’re ready,’ she said. ‘Dave, do you want to run things from here on in?’
‘No problem.’ Dave’s face had changed. His eyes were serious now. When it came to dealing with bodies, he showed the utmost respect, whether they were an accident or a murder victim or a gang member caught up in a shooting. ‘I’ll go down first,’ he said, ‘see what we’re dealing with, and call you when I’m ready. Jeanie,’ he said, touching her arm, ‘you first and then, Jane, you follow. Okay?’ Both women nodded.
‘Great,’ Jane said, feeling anything but, as Dave began to climb down the ladder that had been put in place by the SOCO team. She felt as if a small hole had opened up in her stomach, and the closer she got to the entrance, the bigger it was getting. It wasn’t claustrophobia, but it wasn’t far off it, either. A cold sweat was forming on the back of her neck. She could feel Jeanie standing next to her. She forced herself to step forward and look down as Dave’s head disappeared into the gloom. ‘Won’t be long, ladies,’ he said, his voice muffled.
‘He’s wonderful, isn’t he?’ Jeanie said from behind her.
‘Yes, he is,’ Jane replied.
24th April
–
Thursday
Jane waited at the entrance to the tomb. If she could get over the confined-space issue, she should be fine. She wasn’t worried about viewing the body. It was the next part of her job that she dreaded. Once the body was brought out and identified, it would be her job to inform the next of kin. Next of kin – it sounded so mundane, so detached. No amount of training or experience could lessen the impact when she told a mother that she had lost a child, or a husband that he had lost his wife. She would have no choice but to watch, helpless, as they were rocked by grief, shock, disbelief, anger, fear, hysteria. Every emotion was catered for. It was her job to be there and listen, take abuse or whatever needed to be exorcized from those who were bereaved. Her discomfort would lessen and disperse the second she left them. Theirs would last long after her departure.
‘Okay, Jeanie,’ Dave called from the bottom of the ladder. His face looked pale, upturned to the daylight. ‘The entrance is a tight squeeze, so take your time, but there’s a little more space once you’re inside.’
Jeanie squeezed Jane’s arm and said, ‘See you down there.’ Her smile said that Jane’s fears had not been as well hidden as she thought.
‘Thanks,’ she said, aware now that her palms were sweating. It was hot and the morning’s noise seemed to have distilled to a hushed whisper. She looked at her watch. It was ten-thirty. Lockyer should be here soon. She had dropped into the office on her way over this morning, with the intention of picking him up, but he had other ideas. He seemed to have his list of excuses ready the moment she stepped into his office. He had two case files to ‘put to bed’ and a meeting with Roger. After he was done, he would drive himself down or grab a lift with one of the team. ‘Nothing will happen quickly today, I’m sure,’ he said as she was leaving.
Jane wanted him here. More than that, she needed him here. She had dealt with clandestine graves before, but nothing like this one. Shallow graves, a poorly chosen site in a field, skeletal remains – all that she was used to. But this was different. This wasn’t some crime of passion that had ended with a hurried burial. Someone had excavated and created a tomb. Someone had put a body down there. As the thought moved through Jane’s mind, it occurred to her that maybe it hadn’t been a body. Maybe whoever was down there had been alive. As the idea took hold, a large cloud covered the sun. She looked up. The sky to the east of her looked dark. She was not going down into that hole if it rained. The earth might move, crumble, collapse. Her heart began to thud harder in her chest.
‘Jane,’ Dave said, ‘we’re ready for you now.’
She put her foot out and stepped down onto the first rung of the ladder. ‘You can do this,’ she whispered to herself. Only five rungs to go. Without allowing herself time to think, she began climbing down. Once she was at the bottom she bent to a crouch, pulled back a piece of heavy-duty plastic covering the entrance and looked through. She could see Dave and Jeanie beyond, their faces illuminated by the lamps the SOCO team had set up. Now that she had negotiated the ladder she felt calm, her anxiety all but gone. She slid down onto all fours and crawled through the entrance, the sheet falling back into place behind her. Her eyes were taking in everything: the look of the floor, the walls, the ceiling. The earth had been sculpted, its edges smooth. It looked like marble, polished to a high shine. The light from the lamps bounced off the shiny surfaces. The next thing she noticed was the smell, or rather the lack of it. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath: earth, moisture and a slightly sweet odour. It was hard to believe there was a body down here. ‘It’s bigger than I thought,’ she said. There was very little space above her head, but it looked to be about four yards long and three yards wide.
‘It’s been well crafted,’ Dave said. ‘Someone spent a lot of time and effort creating this. Look at the edges there,’ he said, pointing to the far corner.
‘I know,’ Jane said, ‘they’re perfect.’ She was surprised to hear the wonder in her voice. Of all the emotions she had expected to feel, amazement wasn’t on the list. ‘I can’t believe this is man-made.’
‘But it is’ was all Jeanie said, her voice low.
‘The original entrance?’ Jane asked, wanting to move away from the ominous tone in Jeanie’s voice.
‘There,’ Dave said, pointing to his right.
Jane crawled forward, her head bent at an odd angle. SOCO had used a luminous pink spray to outline the hatch. It didn’t look like much at all, but then from her position it was hard to see. She turned, banging her head on the ceiling, before settling on her back, her elbow bent to keep her shoulders off the cold floor. She reached up her free arm and ran her hand over the door, the joins and the compacted mud around it. She closed her eyes and repeated the action. In the light it was hard to feel the difference in texture, but in the dark it was almost impossible. She had expected the wooden hatch to feel rough, warmer somehow, but it didn’t. Uniform walls, floor and ceiling. A tomb in every sense of the word. With that, she remembered the body. She still hadn’t seen it. Dave and Jeanie were blocking her view. She shuffled on all fours until she was crouched next to Dave, with Jeanie on his other side. They were wedged together like sardines.
It didn’t look like a body at all. It was a woman, a girl really. She didn’t look much older than twenty, twenty-one maybe. She was curled up in a foetal position facing them, her legs pulled up to her chest. Her eyes were closed, her hair falling slightly over her left eye. Her hands were clasped together beneath her chin. She was wearing what appeared to be blue cotton pyjamas with a daisy pattern on them. Her feet were bare and pale in the lamplight. Her face looked wholly unremarkable. She didn’t look dead. She looked as if she was sleeping. One gentle nudge and she would open her eyes, apologize for the confusion and then the four of them would climb out of the tomb together.