Peter Robinson - In A Dry Season

“Good. Good. Actually, the discoloration is an indication that they have taken on some of the color of the surrounding earth. Then there’s this. Have you noticed?” He pointed to several places on the bone surfaces where the exterior seemed to be flaking off like old paint.

“I thought that was just the crusting,” Banks said.

“No. Actually, the bone surface is crumbling, or flaking. Now if you take all this into account, along with the complete absence of any soft or ligamentous tissue, then I’d estimate it’s been down there for a few decades. Certainly more than ten years, and as we already know, it’s unlikely she was buried after 1953. I’d go back about ten years from there.”

“1943?”

“Hold on. This is a very rough guess. The rate of skeletal decay is wildly unpredictable. Obviously, your odontologist will be able to tell you a bit more, narrow things down, perhaps.”

“Is there anything else you can do to get a little closer to the year of death?”

“I’ll do my best, of course, but it could take some time. There are a number of tests I can carry out on the bones, tests we use in cases of relatively recent remains as opposed to archaeological finds. There’s carbonate testing, I can do an ultraviolet fluorescence test, histologic determination and Uhlenhut reaction. But even they’re not totally accurate. Not within the kind of time frame you’re asking for. They might tell you, at a pinch, that the bones are either under or over fifty years old, but you seem to want year, month, date and time. The best you can realistically hope for is between thirty and fifty or fifty and a hundred. I don’t want to appear to be telling you your job, but probably your best chance of finding out who she was and when she was killed is by checking old missing-persons files.”

“I appreciate that,” said Banks.

“Anyway, I’ll need more information about soil, mineral content, bacterial content, temperature fluctuations and various other factors. Buried under an outbuilding floor, then flooded under a reservoir, you say?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll visit the site first thing in the morning and take some samples, then I’ll get working on the tests.” He looked at Annie. “Perhaps DS Cabbot here would be willing to escort me there?”

“Sorry,” said Annie. “Far too busy.”

His eyes lingered on her. “Pity.”

“Visiting the site’s no problem,” Banks said. “I’ll arrange for a car and make sure the SOCOs are expecting you. Look, we’re already a bit suspicious from the way and the place the body was buried. I know you don’t have a lot to go on, but can you tell us anything at all about cause of death?”

“I think I can help you a little with that, though it’s not really my area of expertise, and you should definitely get your Home Office pathologist to confirm this.”

“Of course. We’ll ask Dr. Glendenning to have a look as soon as he can. I doubt that it’ll be top of his list, though. What have you found to be going on with?”

“See those markings on the bones there?” Dr. Williams pointed to several of the ribs and the pelvic area. As Banks looked more closely, he noticed a number of triangular notches. They weren’t easy to spot because of the flaking and crusting, but once he saw them he knew he’d seen them before on bones.

“Stab wounds,” he muttered.

“Exactly.”

“Cause of death?” Banks leaned over and peered.

“I’d say so. See those little curls of bone there, like wood shavings?”

“Yes.”

“They’re still attached to the bone, and that only happens with living bone. Also, there’s no sign of healing, is there? If she’d remained alive after these injuries, the bones would have healed to some extent, starting about ten days after the injury. So, technically, she could have been stabbed anywhere from one to ten days before she died of something else. But, as I said, it’s unlikely. Especially since the position of some of these wounds indicates the blade would most certainly have pierced vital organs. In fact, I’d conclude that she was stabbed quite viciously, more than once, almost certainly causing death. But please don’t quote me on that.”

Banks looked at Annie Cabbot. “Murder, then,” she said.

“Well, I’d hardly imagine the poor woman did it herself,” Williams agreed. “Yes, unless I’m very much mistaken, it looks like you’ve definitely got yourselves a murder victim here.”

Annie drove up Long Hill the following morning to interview Mrs. Ruby Kettering. It was another scorcher, she noted, rolling her window down. Devil-may-care this morning, she had decided not to bother wearing tights. They were damned uncomfortable in the heat. You’d certainly never catch men wearing anything quite so ridiculous.

Long Hill began at the village green and linked Harkside to the edge of Harksmere Reservoir. Close to the center of the village, it was the busiest shopping street, with a jumbled mix of shops and pubs and most of the public buildings, including the borough council offices, the library, the Women’s Institute and the Mechanics Institute. It was early for tourists, but the shops were open and the locals were doing the rounds, shopping bags hooked over their arms, standing gossiping in little knots along the pavement. The road was narrow and double yellow lines ran along each side. Toward the end, the buildings dwindled and finally gave way to half a mile of open countryside before the T-junction with The Edge.

Annie parked on the grass verge opposite the junction. From there, she could see the ruins of Hobb’s End in the distance. Several tiny figures stood clustered around the outbuilding where the skeleton had been discovered, and Annie realized it must be the SOCO team still searching the area. She wondered if Dr. Williams the skeleton-groper was there, too.

Annie crossed the road and opened the gate. Mrs. Kettering was squatting in the garden spraying her dahlias. She looked up. Annie introduced herself.

“I know who you are,” the old lady said, placing her hands on her thighs and pushing herself to her feet. “I remember you. You’re that nice policewoman who found my Joey.”

Annie accepted the compliment with a brief nod. She hadn’t actually found Joey herself. The budgie had been innocently standing on the village green, accepting the crumbs an old man was scattering, blissfully unaware that it was being watched by a gang of sparrows up in one of the trees and by a ginger tom lurking behind a bush not more than ten yards away. One of the local kids had noticed, though, and remembering the poster offering a five-pound reward for a missing budgie, he had carefully scooped up Joey and carried him to the police station. Annie had simply delivered Joey back safely into Mrs. Kettering’s hands. One of the many exciting jobs she had done since arriving in Harkside. It was, however, through this incident that Annie had received her first on-the-job injury. Joey pecked the base of her thumb and drew blood, but Inspector Harmond wouldn’t accept her injury compensation claim.

Mrs. Kettering was wearing a red baseball cap, a loose yellow smock and baggy white shorts down to her knees. Below them, her legs were pale as lard, mottled red and marbled with varicose veins. On her feet she wore a pair of black plimsolls without laces. Though a little stooped, she looked sturdy enough for her age.

“Oh dear,” she said, wiping the streaks of sweat and soil from her brow with her forearm. “I hope you haven’t come to arrest me. Has someone reported me?”

“Reported you? What for?” Annie asked.

Mrs. Kettering glanced guiltily at the hose coiled near the front door. “I know there’s supposed to be a water shortage, but I can’t just let my garden die. A garden needs a lot of watering when the weather’s like this. I don’t own a car, so I don’t waste any on washing one, and I thought, well, if I used just a little…?”