Peter Lovesey - Skeleton Hill

‘The crime scene people found some ringpulls.’

‘Adults?’

‘You might have a picnic there on a warm day.’

‘But you wouldn’t go digging for bones.’

His thoughts went back to something John Wigfull had told him. ‘A few weeks ago they re-enacted a Civil War battle up there. Grown-ups playing soldiers. If you were defending a stretch of ground and needed to dig in you’d be glad of a position like that.’

‘It wasn’t the Western Front,’ Ingeborg said. ‘The Civil War was all about man to man fighting, not trenches.’

‘You’d need to store your supplies somewhere. You’d look for an obvious place like that, partly sheltered. I reckon they’re the people who disturbed the grave. If they unearthed a femur in the heat of battle they’re not going to give it much attention. That could be how it came to the surface.’

‘Does it matter?’

He didn’t answer that. He was on a roll. Thanks to John Wigfull, he could air his second-hand knowledge with impunity. ‘Most weekends in the summer there’s a muster somewhere. That’s what they call it, a muster. The Sealed Knot came to Lansdown this year and they’ve been before, but not every year. Obviously they had a major muster in 1993, the anniversary.’

‘Of the Battle of Lansdown?’

‘Three hundred and fifty years on.’ He paused, as if to weigh the evidence. ‘We’re looking for a killer who buried his victim in the hole left by the tree. Depth, soft earth to cover her with. She’s been buried at least ten years. I’m thinking about 1993, right in the middle of our time frame.’

Unfortunately there was no better way of progressing the case of the headless skeleton than to employ the services of the new media relations manager. John Wigfull was still positioned behind his computer when Diamond came in.

‘How’s business?’ Diamond asked.

Wigfull didn’t look up from the keyboard. ‘Early days.’

‘Any results?’

‘I don’t know about that.’

Diamond picked up a paper from the desk. The Bath Chronicle. He’d noticed a Post-it note marking an inside page. ‘Oh, yes. A definite result.’

The page he’d opened had the headline CLOCK THE CAVALIER, over some photos. The picture editor had superimposed Rupert Hope’s face on several well known images. In one he was the Laughing Cavalier of Franz Hals and in another a Van Dyck portrait of Charles I. In a third he was given the resplendent hair of Brian May, of Queen.

‘It’s not the press release I gave them,’ Wigfull said with bitterness.

‘They’ve been creative.’

‘I called the editor to complain. He said the story will get more attention this way.’

‘Probably true. The phone will start ringing soon.’

‘It already has.’

‘Well then.’

‘A number of people claim to have seen him locally. They seem to expect a reward. It’s not a game.’

‘But it’s not too serious. I expect your Rupert Hope will turn up wondering what all the fuss is about.’

‘Are you saying I shouldn’t have released the story?’

‘No, it makes good copy. That’s what your job is about, isn’t it – feeding juicy stories to the media?’

Wigfull twitched in disapproval. ‘It’s a whole lot more than that. I’m not just here to get publicity. I’m after results.’

‘Which is why I’m here,’ Diamond said as if he were Wigfull’s guardian angel. ‘I told you about my headless skeleton. I know some more now and I’m ready to go public.’

‘You want me to inform the press?’

‘Don’t sound so gloomy about it. This is the big one, John, your chance to make the nationals.’ He pulled up a chair and sat beside Wigfull. ‘A young girl, under twenty-one, buried on Lansdown minus her head. We need to know who she was. An appeal for information. Who remembers a girl going missing in the nineties?’

Together, they drafted the press release. When it was done, Diamond returned to the CID office and spoke to Ingeborg. ‘Something you mentioned the other day has been on my mind. The Lansdown Society. You said you’d been in touch with them about the fallen tree.’

She blinked twice and gave a nervous cough. ‘That wasn’t strictly true, guv. A friend of mine did some work for them. That’s how I heard of them.’

‘Not a problem. I was thinking they could be useful to us. I tried looking them up. They don’t seem to have a phone number or a website.’

‘I don’t think they’re a public organisation.’

‘How did your friend get to hear of them?’

‘Perry’s a cartographer. They commission him to make maps of the land use up there. He told me he did one showing features of botanical interest. I thought of him when we went to look at the site.’

‘He’s your inside man?’

‘He doesn’t go to the meetings. It’s all rather secretive as far as I can make out. But he knew about the tree and it definitely came down in 1987. It would have been sawn up and removed, only it has some rare lichens on the trunk.’

‘Come again.’

‘Lichen. That bright green stuff, isn’t it, like a fungus?’

‘Nature study passed me by at school. Getting back to the Lansdown Society, what’s it about?’

‘According to Perry, they want to keep the down unspoilt. Like I said, they monitor everything that goes on.’

‘Does much go on?’

‘More than you’d think, particularly at weekends. Football, golf, hang-gliding, kites.’

‘It all sounds harmless enough. What are they afraid of – the ground getting scuffed up?’

She smiled. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘One thing is certain. They must know all about the Civil War events. I bet that tests their tolerance, muskets and cannon going off and cavalry charging across the sacred turf. I’d like to know their take on it. How do I get to meet them?’

‘I could ask Perry.’

‘Do that. Is he, er…?’

‘Just a friend.’

Lansdown is, indeed, a place where much goes on. Sundays and Bank Holiday Mondays through the summer see a large car boot sale in the racecourse car park. The traders set up from 7.30 a.m. and the buyers are supposed to arrive from 9 a.m. onwards, although dealers have their ways of getting an early look. There’s always the hope that a Hepplewhite chair or the first Harry Potter will be put up for sale by some innocent. After the dealers have swept through, that hope has gone. There isn’t much chance of one of the public finding a real bargain. But the sale is still somewhere to go on a Sunday, a free show and a social occasion. The setting, with those views into Somerset and Wiltshire, is unequalled. But the downside is that it’s exposed to the elements.

On this breezy Sunday anything that wasn’t weighted down was taking to the air. The various wood and fabric structures used as rain covers or sunshades or just extra shelving were under threat from gusts. More than one table collapsed. Some traders spent most of the morning rearranging their displays. It wasn’t surprising that a visitor in a hooded jacket was able to move through the sale helping himself to food items. He’d got some way before one of the traders asked him for payment for a meat pie he’d picked up from a stall that sold hot food.

He replaced it at once.

‘You can’t do that,’ she told him. ‘It’s got a bite out of it. That’ll be one pound fifty.’

The man shrugged and moved on.

‘Hey!’ the woman said. ‘That’s no good to me. I can’t sell it. That’s theft.’

He was already some way off.

She asked the trader nearest to her to take over. ‘He’s not getting away with it. I’m going after him.’

‘Leave it, dear,’ the neighbour said. She was a peace-loving woman with a long chiffon scarf. She sold copper bracelets and good luck charms. ‘He won’t have any money on him. I’ve seen him nick stuff before. He’s simple.’