Whispers of the Dead (20 page)

'Are the remains recent?' I asked.
'We don't think so. But Dan would rather you see for yourself.'
That had shocked me even more than York's disappearance. It
seemed that Paul had been unavailable. Sam was having a bad night.
They'd thought she was going into labour, and while that had proved
to be a false alarm he wasn't prepared to leave her on her own.
So he'd told Gardner to ask me instead.
Paul had sounded tired and frazzled when I'd called him. Not that
I doubted Jacobsen, but I wasn't about to go without speaking to
him first.
'I've told Gardner I'll take a look first thing tomorrow, but if he
wants an opinion tonight then he should ask you. Hope you don't
mind,' he'd said. I told him I didn't, only that I was surprised Gardner
had agreed. He gave a sour laugh. 'He didn't have much choice.'
He obviously hadn't forgiven Gardner for siding with Hicks
against Tom. While Paul was too professional to let his personal feelings
get in the way of an investigation, that didn't mean he couldn't
turn the screw a little.
I wondered how Gardner felt about it.
Jacobsen hadn't stayed at Steeple Hill. After dropping me off she'd
gone to check on the forensic team's progress with the payphone. I'd
been directed to a van where I could change, and then made my way
to the house.
Gardner was outside the front door, talking to a grey-haired
woman in white overalls. He was wearing overshoes and gloves, and
though he gave me a glance as I approached he didn't break off his
conversation.
I stood at the bottom of the path and waited.

With a last terse instruction to the white-clad agent, Gardner
finally turned to me. Neither of us spoke. His displeasure was almost
palpable, but whatever he was thinking he kept to himself. He gave
me a curt nod.
'It's upstairs.'
The house had the typical upside-down design of its style and era,
so that the bedrooms were downstairs and the living quarters on the
first floor. The once white walls and ceilings had been stained a dirty
yellow by decades of cigarette smoke, and the same ochre patina
clung to the doors and furniture like grease. Underlying the
pervasive stink of stale tobacco was a musty smell of old carpets and
unwashed sheets.
The sense of neglect and dilapidation was made worse by the
turmoil of the search that was under way. Forensic agents were
poring through drawers and cupboards, pulling out the detritus of
York's life for examination. I felt their eyes on me as we went
upstairs.There was an air of anticipation that I recognized from other
crime scenes when a significant find had been made, but there was
also open curiosity.
Word of my reinstatement had obviously got around.
Gardner led me up a staircase whose corners were felted with dust.
The whole upper floor was open-plan, with kitchen, dining and
living areas all combined. Most of the fittings looked original:
partition shelf units and frosted glass cupboards straight from a 1950s
advert for the domestic American dream.
But the furniture was a mishmash from the intervening decades. A
rusted fridge hummed loudly in the kitchen, while an imitation
chandelier with candle-shaped light bulbs hung over a scuffed dining
table and chairs in the dinette. An overstuffed leather armchair sat in
the centre of the living area, its split cushions patched with peeling
electrical tape. Positioned in front of it was a huge flat screen TV, the
only recent piece of furniture I'd seen.
There were more forensic agents busy up here. The house was in
chaos, though it was hard to say how much was due to the search and
what was the result of York's personal habits. Clothes were strewn
about, and boxes of junk and old magazines had been pulled out of
cupboards. But the sink and breakfast bar were invisible beneath dirty
dishes, and crusted cartons of takeaway food lay where York must
have dropped them.
Several of the search team broke off what they were doing to
watch as Gardner led me across the room. I recognized the bulky
form of Jerry on his hands and knees on the floor, poring through
the drawers of a battered sideboard. He raised a gloved hand in
greeting.
'Hi, doc' The jowls of his face wobbled round his mask as he
energetically chewed gum. 'Nice place, huh? And you should see his
film collection. Porn paradise, all alphabetically listed. Guy really
needs to get out more.'
Gardner had gone over to an alcove near the sink. 'So long as it's
all still there when you're done.' There were chuckles, but I wasn't
sure if he was joking.'Through here.'
A walk-in cupboard was set in the alcove, its door wedged open.
Its contents had been pulled out and lay spread around: boxes of
chipped crockery, a plastic bucket with a split in its side, a broken
vacuum cleaner. An agent knelt by a cardboard box of old photographic
equipment: a worn SLR camera that had obviously seen
better days, an old-fashioned flash unit and light meter, old photographic
magazines, their pages faded and curling.
A yard or two away, isolated from the rest of the junk in a cleared
space on the dusty linoleum, was a battered suitcase.
The lid was down but gaping, as though whatever was inside was
too big for it to lie flat. Gardner looked down at it, making no
attempt to approach too closely.
'We found it in the cupboard. Once we saw what was inside we
left it alone until someone could take a look at it.'
The suitcase seemed too small to contain a human being. At least
not an adult, but I knew that didn't mean anything. Years before I'd
been called out to examine a grown man's body that had been
crammed into a holdall even smaller than this. The limbs had
been folded back on themselves, the bones broken and compacted into a shape no living contortionist could hope to achieve.
I squatted down beside it. The brown leather was scuffed and
worn, but without the mould or staining I'd have expected if the remains had decomposed inside. That fitted with what Jacobsen had
said about them not being recent.
'Can I take a look?' I asked Gardner.
'That's why you're here.'
Ignoring the acid in his voice I reached for the lid, conscious of
everyone watching as I lifted it open.
The suitcase was full of bones. One glance was enough to confirm
that they were human. There was what looked like an entire ribcage,
against which a skull had been wedged, the mandible still connected
so that it bore the hallmark grin. Looking at it, I wondered if
Jacobsen's words in the restaurant had been intentional: No skeletons in his closet that we could find.
They'd found one now.
The bones were the same tobacco colour as the walls, although I
didn't think cigarette smoke was responsible this time. They were
clean, without any trace of soft tissue. I leaned closer and sniffed, but
there was no real odour beyond the musty leather of the suitcase.
I picked up a rib that lay on the top. It was curved like a miniature
bow. In one or two places I could see translucent flakes peeling away
from the surface, like tiny fish scales.
'Any word yet on York?' I asked, as I examined it.
'We're still looking.'
'You think he left of his own accord?'
'If you mean was he abducted like Irving the answer's no. Irving
didn't take his car or pack a suitcase before he disappeared,' Gardner
said tersely. 'Now what can you tell me about these?'
I put the rib back down and took out the skull. The bones chimed
together with almost musical notes as they shifted.
'They're female,' I told him, turning the skull in my hand. 'The
bone structure's too delicate for a man. And she didn't die recently.'

'Tell me something I don't know.'
'OK,' I agreed.'For a start she wasn't murdered.'
It was as though I'd suggested the earth was flat. 'What?'
'This isn't a murder victim,' I repeated. 'Look at how yellowed the
bones are. This is old. Four or five decades at least. Perhaps more.You
can see where it's been coated with some kind of stabilizer that's
starting to flake off. I'm pretty certain it's shellac, which hasn't been
used for years. And look at this . . .'
I showed him a small, neat hole drilled in the crown of the skull.
'That's where some sort of fixing used to be, so it could be hung
up. Chances are this came from some lab or belonged to a medical
student. Nowadays plastic models are used rather than actual skeletons, but you still come across real ones occasionally'
'It's a medical skeleton?' Gardner glared down at it. 'What the hell
is it doing here?'
I set the skull back in the suitcase. 'York said his father founded
Steeple Hill back in the fifties. Perhaps it belonged to him. It's
certainly old enough.'
'Goddammit.' He blew out his cheeks. 'I'd still like Paul Avery to
take a look.'
'Whatever you like.'
I don't think Gardner even realized the implied slight. With a last
disgusted look at the suitcase, he headed for the stairs. Closing the
suitcase lid, I followed him.
'Bye, doc,'Jerry said, jaw still working. 'Another wasted trip, huh?'
As I passed the sideboard, I paused to look at the clutter of framed
family photographs, a visual history of York's life. They were a mix of
posed portraits and holiday snaps, the once bright summer colours
washed out and faded. York was the subject of most: a grinning boy in
shorts on a boat, an uncomfortable-looking teenager. An older, amiable
looking woman who looked like his mother was with him in most of
them. Sometimes they were joined by a tall, tanned man with a
businessman's smile who I took to be York's father. He wasn't in many,
so I guessed he'd taken most of the photographs himself.
But the later shots were exclusively of York's mother, a progressively
stooped and shrunken copy of her younger self. The most
recent one showed her posing by a lake with a younger version of
her son, frail and grey but still smiling.
There were no more after that.
I caught up with Gardner at the bottom of the stairs. So far he'd
made no mention of the phone call Tom had received the night
before. I wasn't sure if that was because he didn't think it was relevant,
or if he just didn't want to acknowledge that I might have done something
useful. But I wasn't going to leave without raising it.
'Did Jacobsen tell you about the phone booth?' I asked as we went
along the hallway.
'She told me. We're looking into it.'
'What about Tom? If the call was meant to lure him outside he
might still be in danger.'
'I appreciate you pointing that out,' he said, coldly sarcastic. 'I'll
bear it in mind.'
I'd had enough. It was late and I was tired. I stopped in the hallway.
'Look, I don't know what your problem is, but you asked me to
come out here. Would it kill you to at least be civil?'
Gardner turned and faced me, his face darkening. 'I asked you out
here because I didn't have a hell of a lot of choice. Tom brought you
into this investigation, not me. And excuse me if my manners aren't
to your liking, but in case you haven't noticed I'm trying to catch a
serial killer!'
'Well, it isn't me!' I flared back.
We glared at each other. We were by the front door, and through
it I could see that the agents outside had stopped to stare. After a
moment Gardner drew in a deep breath and looked down at the
floor. He seemed to unclench himself with a visible effort.
'For your information, I arranged extra security for Tom straight
away,' he said, in a tightly controlled voice. 'Purely as a precaution.
Even if you're right about the phone call, I doubt that whoever made
it is going to try anything while Tom's in a hospital bed. But I'm not
about to take the chance.'
It wasn't exactly an apology, but I could live with that. The main
thing was that Tom was safe.
'Thank you,' I said.
'You're welcome.' I couldn't decide if he was being facetious or
not. 'Now, if that's all, Dr Hunter, I'll see you're taken back to your
hotel.'
I started to go out, but I'd not even reached the front steps when
someone called Gardner from inside the house.
'Sir? You should take a look at this.'
A forensic agent, overalls grubby with oil and dirt, had emerged
from a door further down the hallway. Gardner glanced at me, and I
knew what was going through his mind.
'Don't go just yet.'
He set off down the hallway and through the door. I hesitated,
then went after him. I wasn't going to stand there like a schoolboy
outside the headmaster's office until Gardner decided if he needed
me or not.. "
The door was an internal entrance to the garage. The air smelled
of oil and damp. A bare light bulb burned overhead, its weak glow
supplemented by the harsher glare of floodlights. It was as cluttered
in here as in the rest of the house, sagging cardboard boxes, mildewed
camping gear and rusting garden equipment crowding round the
bare area of concrete where York's car had stood.
Gardner and the crime scene agent were by an old steel filing
cabinet. One of the drawers was pulled out.
'. . . at the bottom under old magazines,' the agent was saying. 'I
thought at first they were just photographs, until I took a better
look.'
Gardner was staring down at them. 'Jesus Christ.'
He sounded shocked. The other agent said something else, but I
didn't pay attention. By then I could see what they'd found for
myself.
It was a slim foolscap-sized box, the sort used for photographic paper. It was open, and the agent had fanned out the half-dozen or
so photographs from inside. They were all black and white portraits,
each a close-up of a man or woman's face from chin to forehead.
They had been enlarged to almost full size, and the perfect focus had
caught every feature, every pore and blemish, in sharp-edged detail; a
split second preserved with unblurred clarity. Each face was contorted
and dark, and at first glance their expressions were almost comical, as
though each of the subjects had been caught on the point of a
sneeze. But only until you saw their eyes.
Then you knew that there was nothing remotely comical about
this at all.
We'd always suspected that there were more victims than the ones
we knew about. This confirmed it. It hadn't been enough for York to
torture them to death.
He'd photographed them dying as well.
Gardner seemed to notice I was there for the first time. He gave
me a sharp look, but the rebuke I was half expecting never came. I
think he was still too stunned himself.
'You can go now, Dr Hunter.'
A taciturn TBI agent drove me back to my hotel after I'd changed,
but those contorted faces continued to haunt me as we drove
through the dark streets. They were disturbing on a level that was
hard to explain. Not just because of what they showed. I'd seen
enough death in my time. I'd worked on cases before where
murderers had taken trophies of their victims: a lock of hair or some
scrap of clothing, twisted memento mori of the lives they'd claimed.
But this was different. York was no crazed killer, losing himself in
the heat of some warped passion. He'd played us for fools all along,
manipulating the investigation from the start. Even his exit had been
timed perfectly. And the photographs weren't the usual trophies.
They'd been taken with a degree of care and skill that spoke of a
deliberate, clinical coldness. Of control.
That made them all the more frightening.
I didn't really need another shower when I got back to my room,
but I had one anyway. The trip to York's house left me feeling
unclean in a way that was more than skin deep. Symbolic or not, the
hot water helped. So much so that I fell asleep almost the instant I
turned out the light.
I was woken just before six by an insistent trilling. Still half asleep,
I pawed for the alarm clock before I realized the noise was from my
phone.
'Hello?' I mumbled, not properly awake.
The last vestiges of sleep fell away when I heard Paul's voice.
'It's bad news, David,' he said. 'Tom died last night.'