Two Evils: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel (27 page)

‘Providing it’s a negative.’

‘That goes without saying.’

‘So the other bones, they’re from the cellar, right?’

‘Would make sense if they were.’ Layton stood, his head pressed up against the roof of the laurel chamber. ‘Somebody dug them up a month or so ago and brought them here, probably because the house was put up for sale.’

‘Only I come along and disturb the dump site and mystery man attacks me.’ Savage pointed to where the CSI was using what looked like a giant paintbrush to sweep soil from around a thighbone. ‘We fight and while I’m unconscious he starts to retrieve the bones, only he hears DC Calter coming and has to leave in a hurry.’

‘He’s certainly audacious. We’re only half a mile from the home.’

‘Well, you said yourself we couldn’t go digging up the surrounding countryside. He probably felt quite safe here. And perhaps that’s part of the rationale behind this particular site. It could mean something.’ Savage glanced around at the tangled undergrowth. Adults would struggle in this terrain, bashing their heads on low branches, having to crouch and crawl, getting their hands dirty and their clothes snagged. ‘I could imagine boys from the home coming here and building dens and playing games.’

Layton nodded and then turned at the sound of somebody coughing. ‘Nesbit.’

Savage shifted her position. Andrew Nesbit was trying to fold his beanpole-like figure so as to pass beneath several low branches.

‘I knew I should have trained as a GP,’ Nesbit said, his head and neck contorted to one side. ‘A warm and dry consulting room, nice old ladies with heart flutters, little Jimmy with a nasty rash on his twinkle which no amount of nappy cream can shift.’ Nesbit came into the clearing, took one look around and then lowered himself to sit on a stack of stepping plates. He stared across at the skull and bones. ‘Not this. Christ not this.’

‘It’s grim, Andrew,’ Savage said. ‘Very grim.’

‘Well, let’s try and make it a little less grim. I’ve got the boy’s dental record.’ Nesbit opened his bag and pulled out a piece of paper. Stared down. ‘Three, seven. The left mandibular second molar.’

‘Thank goodness,’ Layton said, gesturing at the skull. ‘It doesn’t match. That’s not Jason Hobb.’

Savage felt a moment’s relief. ‘But the skull didn’t come from the cellar, did it? This could be a third person.’

‘No. The bone’s been polished, true, but once the surface had been stained like the rest there’s no way it could be brought back to that white state. However, is there any reason why the skull couldn’t belong to these bones? Perhaps the head was removed from the body. Since it didn’t remain underground for all those years, it wasn’t stained.’

‘Bloody hell, John,’ Savage said. ‘I thought we were going down the “less grim” route. Are you saying the victim was decapitated?’

‘Happens doesn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ Savage glanced across at the skull where the right eye sparkled. The glint, she now knew, came from a marble which had been wedged in the socket. The skull, she suspected, had taken on a life of its own, perhaps been part of some kind of ritual. Such abominations weren’t uncommon, particularly amongst serial murderers. ‘But if he did that to this victim, then what about Jason Hobb?’

Nobody said anything and the only sound was the scrape, scrape, scrape of the CSI brushing the dirt away.

‘People.’ Nesbit extracted his kneeling cushion from his bag and now he moved forward and joined the CSI. ‘Hypothesis, yes. Speculation, no. OK?’

Savage nodded and then extracted herself from the laurel clump, leaving Nesbit and Layton to complete the forensic examination. She walked to the edge of the wood. At one side of the copse a line of officers were fingertipping the ground while a search dog and its owner worked a patch of brambles. So far nothing had been found other than a set of bootprints.

An hour later Layton came to find her. Nesbit had finished.

Back in the laurel chamber the bones lay spread out on a sheet of plastic. The skull had been placed at one end with the rest of the bones arranged in their correct positions. A CSI knelt to one side firing off a series of photographs.

‘Remarkable,’ Nesbit said as Savage ducked in. ‘Nearly every bone is present. If this is the body from the cellar, then whoever dug it up took a lot of care in making sure they got everything.’

‘But they didn’t,’ Savage said. ‘They missed the metatarsal.’

‘Quite correct. On the right foot, part of the fifth metatarsal is missing. And one of the fingers.’

‘So if this is the body from the cellar then it’s almost certainly Liam Hayskith or Jason Caldwell.’

‘Yes. Familial DNA will prove it one way or another.’

‘Any notion as to cause of death?’

‘With the body in this form it would usually be difficult, if not impossible, but in this case I’m pretty sure I have the answer.’

‘And?’

‘The boy was stabbed.’ Nesbit pointed at the skeleton. He picked up three pieces of backbone. ‘Here, you can see striations on the surface of the lumber vertebrae. L2, L3 and L4. Multiple knife wounds penetrating deep into the abdomen, likely hitting the aorta. From the number of marks on the bones, I’d say he was attacked in a frenzy.’

‘Jesus.’

‘There’s worse. You see, I made a detailed examination of the skull. While doing so I noticed something loose inside.’ Nesbit put the vertebrae down and moved his hand to a series of plastic petri dishes which held various small bones. ‘You know I said a finger bone was missing?’ Nesbit picked up one of the dishes.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, the thing is, Charlotte, I’ve found this.’

Savage moved closer as Nesbit held the dish out for her to see. Sandwiched between the two circles of plastic lay something like a thin, pink sausage, red sauce at one end, a semicircle of white at the other. For a moment she was confused. Was Nesbit playing some sort of trick on her, an optical illusion? He’d said a finger bone was missing but he was showing her … a finger?

‘Oh my God!’

‘I think we can probably say this might well have belonged to Jason Hobb, yes?’

Chapter Twenty-Four

Crownhill Police Station, Plymouth. Tuesday 27th October. 6.10 p.m.

Back at Crownhill by six o’clock, Savage attended a hastily convened meeting with Hardin. The CC, he told her, was on her way over. And she wasn’t coming to hand out medals.

‘But does she have anything for us?’ Savage said. ‘I mean relating to the photograph of the minister?’

‘Heldon tells me it’s in hand.’ Hardin turned from the coffee machine. ‘A team in London have apparently been investigating the man for some time. We’re not to release anything though, not yet. It could jeopardise a number of live cases.’

‘You don’t think she’s fobbing you off?’

‘No, Charlotte, I don’t.’ Hardin plonked his cup of coffee down on his desk. ‘Talking of fobbing off, she’s due here within the hour. Be nice if I could have something for her, hey?’

Hardin raised a hand to his mouth and bit a nail. A sign of tension, Savage thought. She knew this was tough for Hardin. Even if he hadn’t been personally involved, this case was every senior officer’s worst nightmare. A kid dead, another one missing, and now a heap of bones. Maria Heldon would want answers from Hardin or else she’d want scapegoats.

‘This finger you found.’ Hardin took his hand away from his mouth, peered at a hanging nail for a few seconds, then made the connection and snapped his arm down. ‘If it does belong to Jason Hobb then he must be still alive. There wouldn’t be much point to this charade otherwise.’

‘Perhaps, but I’m not sure you can tell that to the Chief Constable.’

‘Nonsense. All she wants is something to feed to the press, something to make her look better. Listen, Charlotte, Operation
Lacuna
is becoming a plaything for this nutter. We can’t let it continue, so we need to take the initiative.’ Hardin paused. He stared down at a piece of paper on the desk. ‘So far we’ve, what? One suspect?’

‘Ned Stone, yes. At least for the present-day case. But Stone had left the children’s home when the boys went missing in 1988 and at the time he was twelve years old.’

‘Wherever he was and whatever age, work up a scenario which could link him to
Curlew
. And I want some action points for Heldon when she arrives, right?’

Savage was about to protest. Nesbit had suggested she take herself off to A&E to have the bruises on her neck checked out. At the very least she needed to go home and rest.

‘Well?’ Hardin waved at the door. ‘Get bloody moving!’

Savage nodded, stood and left Hardin biting his nails.

Down in the crime suite, Collier was keen to show her that he, at least, was up for brownie points from the CC.

‘Operation
Lacuna
and Operation
Curlew
,’ he said. ‘Not parallel investigations any longer, more like sequential. The finger from Jason Hobb buried in the copse along with the bones of Jason Caldwell. No longer any question about it.’

‘It’s him?’

‘I’ve just had the lab on the phone. The blood type of the finger is the same as the Hobb boy and we’ve got a DNA result on the metatarsal from the cellar. There’s a familial match to one of Caldwell’s uncles. We’ll still need to wait for a DNA test on the rest of the bones, but I don’t think there’s much doubt now.’

‘So the killer is one and the same. I was thinking the killer of the boy in the tunnel wanted us to investigate what went on at the children’s home because he was angry the murders hadn’t been solved. The finger of Jason Hobb at the dump site suggests to me there’s only one killer, two or three victims, murders nearly thirty years apart. I’ve never come across anything like this before.’

‘We’re jumping to conclusions,’ Collier said. ‘Dangerous. We stick to procedure and follow this through.’

Sticking to procedure meant the continuing rounds of interviews. Detectives had been dispatched to speak to the boys – now men – from the home who lived in the UK. Telephone interviews were being arranged with those abroad.

Then there were the other staff members. One of the teachers had committed suicide and the other had died of a heart attack. Miss Edith Bickell, the housekeeper, had vanished without trace, which left Elijah Samuel and the Parkers and their son.

‘You’ll do him?’ Collier said, his ubiquitous marker pen held at the ready. ‘He teaches DT over at Ivybridge Community College. If what you tell me about the Parkers is true, then he might have some interesting stories about his parents.’

‘And by implication, the home, is that what you are suggesting?’

‘Vested interests, Charlotte. The boys, the staff members, the Parkers. It’s just possible this guy could give you an impartial viewpoint.’

Savage nodded. Frank Parker was tied up in all this certainly, but would his son be willing to spill the beans?

‘Shit,’ Collier said, eyes wide as he stared over Savage’s shoulder. He held his marker pen up as if in self-defence. ‘It’s the bloody Hatchet, thirty minutes early.’

Savage swung round. DSupt Hardin was holding the door for Maria Heldon and it appeared as if he was having trouble breathing. Heldon swept into the room and made a beeline for the whiteboard. Collier tried to slink away but Savage reached out and grasped him by the arm.

‘DI Savage,’ Heldon said. ‘I might have known you were involved in this farce somewhere along the way.’

‘Ma’am?’ Hardin had caught up with Heldon. He tried to mediate. ‘DI Savage found the body and the finger. The finger suggests Jason Hobb is still alive.’

‘Suggests?’ Heldon half turned to Hardin. ‘And that will be some comfort to the mother, will it? Her son’s finger on ice while we wait for the rest of him to turn up, possibly piece by piece? I’m surprised, Conrad, you of all people should see how this one is going to play out. A head, a heap of bones and the poor lad’s finger. The press will have an absolute field day. We’ve got at least two children dead, four if we’re unlucky. Plus the vicar.’

‘The
Caldera
case is completely separate. It’s an unfortunate coincidence. Bad luck.’

‘Bad luck? I’ll tell you what’s bad luck.’ Heldon jabbed a bony hand towards Hardin and then swept her arm around. ‘This is bad luck. An unfortunate coincidence that so many poor-calibre detectives have gathered in one place. How else to explain the complete lack of progress? You know, Conrad, rotten apples are slippery underfoot. Best kick them out of the way before you stumble on them, yes?’

‘We’re closing in on the killer, ma’am. An arrest is imminent.’

‘Really?’ Heldon brightened. Something for the nine o’clock news was always going to be welcomed. ‘And when can I expect this?’

‘DI Savage?’ Hardin half turned, as if he was back in his rugby days and about to make a dodgy offload. ‘Could you brief the Chief Constable on those action points you prepared earlier?’

Hours passed. Days perhaps. Jason had lost all track of time. Despite the ministrations of the man, his right hand had swollen badly. In the dim light from the torch he could see blotches of dark red on the white bandage where the blood had seeped through. On one side something yellow had stained the material. Pus, Jason thought.

At first the pain had been excruciating. Now, though, the sensation was more of an itch. Even though he knew his finger had been amputated, there was a feeling of pins and needles which seemed to come from the very tip of his pinkie. He desperately wanted to scratch the itch, but that would mean taking the bandage off and he didn’t want to do that. And anyway, there was nothing to scratch.

He dozed and ate and drank. At some point he entered a dream-like state where his mother was there in the box with him reading him bedtime stories as if he was still a little kid. After that he slept for what seemed like a long time.

When he woke, he felt better physically, but the thought of his mother brought tears to his eyes. Was he ever going to see her again? What would she be doing now? She’d be worried to death, no doubt.

Jason pushed himself up from his lying position with his left hand.

His left hand …