The Calling of the Grave (3 page)

    With
the killer behind bars, the story faded from the public eye, the missing girls
just more victims whose fates were unknown.

    That
might be about to change.

    Standing
out like a beacon on the drab moorland was a bright blue forensic tent. It was
roughly halfway between the road and the rock formation, a short distance off
to one side of the rugged dirt track that linked the two. I stood for a moment
in the fine drizzle, breathing in the fecund scent of wet peat as I wondered
what I'd find inside.

    Then
I set off along the track towards it.

    A
corridor of police tape had been strung from the midway point of the track out
to the forensic tent. The moor had been churned into black mud by the constant
tramp of feet, and my boots squelched as I walked between the parallel lines of
flapping tape. The area around the tent had been cordoned off, and a uniformed
dog- handler stood guard at the opening. He shifted from foot to foot to keep
warm as he and the dog, a German Shepherd, watched me approach.

    'I'm
here to see DCS Simms,' I said, a little out of breath.

    Before
he could say anything the tent flap was thrown back and a man appeared in the
gap. He was in his forties but seemed to aspire to be older. His face was
remarkably unlined, and as if to offset the blandness of his features he'd
cultivated a moustache that gave him a military bearing. The white overalls he
wore somehow didn't look right on him. He'd pushed back the protective hood,
and the black hair beneath it had managed to stay so neatly combed it looked
moulded.

    'Dr
Hunter? I'm Simms.'

    I'd
have guessed as much even if I hadn't recognized his voice. It was peremptory
and officious, confident in its authority. His pale eyes flicked over me and in
that moment I felt that, for better or worse, I'd been swiftly assessed.

    'We
were expecting you half an hour ago,' he said, before disappearing back inside.

    
Nice
to meet you, too.
The dog-handler moved aside to let me through, tightening
his grip on the dog's harness. But I was uncomfortably aware of the German
shepherd's unblinking stare as I went past them and into the tent.

    After
the open space of the moor it seemed cramped and crowded inside, a confusion of
overalled figures. The diffused light from the blue walls had an ethereal
quality. The atmosphere was moist and clammy, with a mustiness disconcertingly
evocative of camping. Beneath it was another odour, of freshly turned soil and
something far less benign.

    The
grave was in the centre.

    Portable
floodlights had been set up around it, steaming slightly in the damp air. Metal
stepping plates had been put down around a rectangle of dark peat, framed by a
grid of string. Someone I took to be a SOCO knelt over it, a big man who held
his gloved hands poised in the air like a surgeon interrupted in theatre. In
front of him, a muddy object was poking through the peaty soil. At first glance
it could have been anything - a stone, a knotted root - until you looked more
closely.

    Thrusting
out of the wet earth, its bones visible through rags of flesh, was a
decomposing hand.

    'I'm
afraid you've missed the pathologist, but he'll be coming back when the body's
ready to be removed,' Simms said, pulling my attention from the grave. 'Dr
Hunter, this is Professor Wainwright, the forensic archaeologist who's going to
be supervising the excavation. You may have heard of him.'

    For
the first time I took stock of the figure kneeling by the graveside.
Wainwright?
I felt my stomach sink.

    I'd heard
of him, all right. A Cambridge don turned police consultant, Leonard Wainwright
was one of the highest-profile forensic experts in the country, a
larger-than-life figure whose name lent instant credibility to an
investigation. But behind the donnish public image Wainwright had a reputation
for being ruthless with anyone he considered a rival. He was an outspoken
critic of what he dubbed 'fashionable forensics', which amounted to pretty much
any discipline that wasn't his own. Much of his ire had been focused on
forensic anthropology, an upstart field that in some respects overlapped with
his own. Only the previous year he'd published a paper in a scientific journal
ridiculing the idea that decomposition could be a reliable indicator of time
since death. 'Total Rot?' the title had crowed. I'd read it with amusement
rather than annoyance.

    But I
hadn't known then that I'd have to work with him.

    Wainwright
heaved himself to his feet, knees cracking arthritically. He was around sixty,
a giant of a man with mud-stained overalls stretched taut over his big frame.
In the white latex gloves his meaty fingers resembled overstuffed sausages as
he pushed off his mask, revealing craggy features that might charitably have
been called patrician.

    He
gave me a neutral smile. 'Dr Hunter. I'm sure it'll be a pleasure working with
you.'

    He
spoke with the rumbling baritone of a natural orator. I managed a smile of my
own. 'Same here.'

    'A
group of walkers found the grave late yesterday afternoon,' Simms said, looking
down at the object emerging from the soil. 'Shallow, as you can see. We've
probed and there appears to be a layer of granite no more than two feet below
the surface. Not a good place to bury a body, but fortunately the killer didn't
know that.'

    I
knelt down to examine the gelid dark soil from which the hand protruded. 'The
peat's going to make things interesting.'

    Wainwright
gave a cautious nod, but said nothing. As an archaeologist he'd be even more
familiar than me with the problems presented by peat graves.

    'It
looks as if rain washed off the top layer of soil from the hand, then animals
finished unearthing it,' Simms continued. 'The walkers found the hand sticking
out of the ground. Unfortunately, they weren't certain what it was at first, so
they dug away some of the soil to make sure.'

    'Lord
protect us from amateurs,' Wainwright intoned. It might have been coincidence
that he was looking at me.

    I
knelt down on one of the metal stepping plates to examine the hand. It was exposed
from the carpal bones of the wrist. Most of the soft tissue had been gnawed
away, and the first two fingers, which would have been uppermost, were
completely missing. That much was only to be expected - larger scavengers like
foxes, and even bigger birds like crows or gulls, would have been more than
capable of detaching them.

    But
what interested me was that, beneath the teeth marks left in the bone, the
broken surfaces of the phalanges looked smooth.

    'Did
any of the walkers tread on the hand, or damage it while they were digging?' I
asked.

    'They
claim not.' Simms' face was expressionless as he looked at me. 'Why?'

    'Probably
nothing. Just that the fingers are broken. Snapped cleanly by the look of
things, so it wasn't done by an animal.'

    'Yes,
I had noticed,' Wainwright drawled.

    'You
think that's significant?' Simms asked.

    Wainwright
didn't give me a chance to answer. 'Too soon to say. Unless Dr Hunter has any
theories. . . ?'

    I
wasn't about to be drawn. 'Not yet. Have you found anything else?' The area
inside the tent would have already been picked clean for evidence by SOCOs.

    'Only
two small bones on the surface that we think are a rabbit's. Certainly not human,
but you're welcome to take a look.' Simms was looking at his watch. 'Now, if
there's nothing else, I have a press conference. Professor Wainwright will
brief you on anything you need to know. You'll be working under his direct
supervision.'

    Wainwright
was watching me with an expression of mild interest. While the pathologist
would have final say over the remains, as a forensic archaeologist
responsibility for the excavation would naturally fall to him. I didn't have a
problem with that, at least in theory. But I knew of cases where interred
bodies had been damaged by inept or over-enthusiastic excavations, and my job
wasn't made any easier when a skull had been shattered by a pickaxe or a spade.

    And
I'd no intention of being treated like Wainwright's assistant.

    'That's
fine, as far as the excavation goes,' I said. 'Obviously, I'd expect to be
consulted on anything that might affect the remains themselves.'

    There
was a silence inside the tent. Simms studied me coldly. 'Leonard and I have
known each other for a long time, Dr Hunter. We've worked on numerous inquiries
together in the past. Very successfully, I might add.'

    I
wasn’t—

    'You
came highly recommended, but I want team players. I have a very personal stake
in this investigation, and I won't tolerate any disruptions. From anyone. Do I
make myself clear?'

    I was
aware of Wainwright watching, and felt sure that Simms had been primed by the
archaeologist. I felt myself bristle at his attitude, hut I'd worked with
enough difficult SIOs to know better than to argue. I kept my own face as
studiedly neutral as his.

    'Of
course.'

    'Good.
Because I'm sure I needn't tell you how important this is. Jerome Monk may be
behind bars, but as far as I'm concerned my job isn't finished until his
victims have been found and returned to their families. If —
if—
this is
one of them, then I need to know it.' Simms stared at me for a moment longer
until he was satisfied he'd made his point. 'Now, if we're done I'll leave you
gentlemen to your work.', He brushed out through the tent flaps. Neither
Wainwright nor I spoke for a moment. The archaeologist cleared his throat
theatrically.

    'Well,
Dr Hunter, shall we make a start?'

    Time
seemed suspended under the glare of the floodlights. The dark peat was
reluctant to relinquish its hold on the body, clinging wetly to the flesh that
gradually emerged from below the surface. Progress was slow. With graves dug in
most types of soil, the grave shape or 'cut' is usually easily defined. The
infill soil that's been removed and then replaced is looser and less compact
than the undisturbed earth around it, making it relatively easy to identify the
edges of the hole. With peat the demarcation is less obvious. It soaks up water
like a sponge, so it tends not to break up like other soils. The grave cut can
still be found, but it requires more care and skill.

    Wainwright
had both.

    His
sheer physical presence dominated the enclosed space within the gently
billowing blue walls. I'd half expected to be delegated to the sidelines, but
he'd been unexpectedly happy for me to help with the excavation. Once my pride
had stopped stinging, I was forced to appreciate just how good the forensic
archaeologist was. The big hands were surprisingly deft as they carefully
scraped away the moist peat to expose the buried remains, the thick fingers as
precise as any surgeon's. We worked side by side, kneeling on the metal
stepping plates laid out beside the grave, and as the body gradually emerged
from the dark earth I found myself revising my earlier impressions of the man.

    We'd
been working in silence for a while when he used his trowel to scoop up two
halves of an earthworm severed by a spade. 'Remarkable things, aren't they?
Lumbricus terrestris.
Simple organism, no brain and barely any nervous
system to speak of, and they'll still grow back when you chop 'em in half.
There's a lesson for you: overcomplicate at your peril.'

    He
tossed the worm into the heather and set down the trowel, wincing as his knees
cracked loudly. 'This doesn't get any easier with age. But then what does?
Still, you're too young to know about that. London man, aren't you?'

    'Based
there, yes. You?'

    'Oh,
I'm a local. Torbay. Driving distance, thank God, so I don't have to be put up
in whatever fleapit the police have found. Don't envy you that.' He rubbed his
lower back. 'So how're you finding Dartmoor so far?'

    'Bleak,
from what I've seen of it.'

    'Ah,
but you aren't seeing it at its best. God's own country, especially for an
archaeologist. Largest concentration of Bronze Age remains in Britain, and the
whole moor's like an industrial museum. You can still find the old lead and tin
mine workings dotted about like flies in amber. Wonderful! Well, to old
dinosaurs like me, anyway. You married?'