Simon Beckett - The Restless Dead

Yet now Lundy had planted the doubt, I saw what he meant. Earlier, I’d been angry at whoever had casually dumped barbed wire in the creek.

Perhaps there hadn’t been anything casual about it at all.

Moving the body from the creek proved even harder than anyone had expected. It was too badly decomposed for the barbs to be removed while it was still in the water, so a decision was made to leave them embedded while the wire was snipped with cutters.

Lundy had told me of the plan rather than ask my advice, but I’d agreed that sounded the best approach. Only then did he turn to the CSIs and give them the go ahead to start.

Each time a wire parted, the body would sag and cause the whole mass of coils to flex, vibrating like a strummed guitar. It took more than half an hour, but eventually the last strand parted with a twang. Still sprouting stubs of clipped wire like coarse hairs, the remains were eased on to a stretcher and brought to the side. I moved aside as the body was set down on the bank. Up close there was the familiar reek of putrefaction. A few flies darted around, but this was too far gone even for their rarefied tastes.

This was the first chance I’d had to take a good look at it, and nothing I saw contradicted the instinctive reassurance I’d given Trask that it was male. This had been a big individual, not a giant but well over six feet tall. The jacket was biker-style, made from thick dark leather, with a rusted metal zip. A black shirt, now filthy and torn, hung loosely over black jeans. The right leg was at a strange angle, with something protruding under the denim below the knee, making me think the tibia and fibula of the shin were probably broken as well as the left elbow. I’d expected the feet to have fallen away like the hands, and it had crossed my mind that the right foot I’d found inside the training shoe before might be from these remains rather than Leo Villiers’. Lundy hadn’t said anything else about that, and the idea of the cheap trainers belonging to the wealthy failed politician still bothered me.

When the body emerged from the water, though, I saw it still wore a pair of calf-high leather boots. They would have protected the vulnerable ankle joint, preventing the feet from detaching as they otherwise would. I looked at them and then back to the jacket, on the verge of grasping a half-formed thought.

But whatever it was slipped away. There was more than enough here to consider anyway. The eyes had been picked away by scavengers, and most of the hair had sloughed off the scalp, leaving only a few lank strands of indeterminate colour. A dirty-white coating of adipocere had formed over the whole head and neck, giving it a waxy, mannequin-like appearance. Not even that could disguise the damage that had been inflicted on the face. From the forehead down, it was striped with raw, parallel slashes that had gone through both flesh and bone. The nasal area was all but obliterated, and a series of cuts had taken away most of the teeth and shattered those that were left. They extended across the throat and on to the chest, slicing through the thick leather to expose the underlying ribs before petering out.

I looked at Lundy, to see if he was thinking the same thing as me. This was the second body we’d found in the waters around the estuary that had its identifying facial features destroyed. Not by a shotgun this time, but the damage was every bit as bad.

‘I know,’ Lundy said, answering my unspoken query. ‘Doesn’t necessarily mean anything.’

‘Boat propeller,’ one of the CSIs asserted, a big man red-faced from exertion. ‘I’ve seen that sort of thing before. Body’s floating along just below the surface, boat comes along and bam!’

He slapped his fist into his palm. Lundy gave him a reproving look before turning to me.

‘What do you think, Dr Hunter?’

‘It’s possible,’ I admitted. The wounds could have been caused post-mortem, and at first glance they seemed consistent with the parallel slashes caused by a small boat propeller. Or, at least, what I could see of them under the adipocere. But there was a flaw in that theory.

‘I’m not sure how a propeller could have struck the face,’ I said. ‘Not to that extent. The body would have been floating face down, not on its back.’

‘I know how bodies float,’ the big CSI snapped. ‘The boat could have rolled it over first. It’s got a busted arm and leg, so that’d explain them as well.’

I still didn’t like it, but there was no point in arguing. Until the body could be examined at the mortuary it was all speculation anyway. And it would be someone else doing that, I reminded myself. Lundy had done me a favour by letting me stay for the recovery, but I was under no illusions that Clarke would suddenly change her mind and allow me back on the investigation. She’d been annoyed enough with me even before this.

The DCI still hadn’t appeared, but Lundy got a call from her as the remains were being carefully lowered into a body bag. He moved off down the bank to take it, looking at the body as he spoke. He listened, nodding, then ended the call and headed back.

‘That was the chief. She’s been held up in court so she’s going straight to the mortuary.’

It was a convenient opening for what had been on my mind. ‘You’re going to need a forensic anthropologist for this.’

I’d been thinking it through while he’d been on his phone, realizing this could be the last chance I’d have to press my case. Lundy just nodded.

‘You’re probably right. How are the hands?’

I’d forgotten about the cuts from the barbed wire. I flexed my plaster-covered fingers, only becoming aware of the soreness now he’d mentioned it.

‘They’re OK,’ I said, not really caring just then. ‘Look, since I’m here don’t you think it’s stupid for me not to take a look?’

‘That’s up to the chief.’ He seemed amused. ‘If I were you I wouldn’t call her stupid, though.’

I was letting my frustration get the better of me. ‘I’d still like to talk to her.’

‘Fair enough. You can ask her about it at the mortuary.’

‘At the mortuary...?’ His easy agreement took me by surprise. ‘So Clarke wants me to examine the body?’

‘I don’t know, she’s not said anything about that.’ Lundy grew serious. ‘There’s something else we’d like your opinion on.’

The mortuary was an unobtrusive building situated not far from the hospital. I signed in and was told which examination room to go to before being pointed to the changing room. Putting my own clothes into a locker, I pulled on a set of clean scrubs, replacing the old wellingtons of Trask’s that Rachel had lent me with a new pair of white surgical ones.

I still didn’t know what I was doing there. Lundy hadn’t told me very much at all, only that Clarke would meet me here. ‘She’ll explain then,’ he’d said. ‘Best you go in with an open mind.’

I always tried to anyway, but I could see I wasn’t going to get anything more from him. The DI hadn’t come with me to the mortuary, saying he wanted to stay while the rest of the barbed wire was recovered from the creek. He arranged for me to be given a lift by a talkative young PC, since my car was still waiting to have its spark plugs fitted at Trask’s house. I didn’t know now when that would happen.

Clarke was waiting for me in the examination room. With her pale colouring, the DCI’s thin face looked bleached out under the harsh lights. Frears was with her and already scrubbed up, although the policewoman had made do with a lab coat. They broke off talking when I went in. The chilled air conditioning wrapped around me like a cold blanket as the door eased shut.

‘Ah, Hunter. Glad you could make it,’ Frears greeted me cheerfully. The cherubic face looked incongruous under the surgical cap. ‘Safely negotiated the water hazards this time?’