Peter Guttridge - City of Dreadful Night

‘How?’

‘It would be a pauper’s grave, right? Brighton would have buried her. They’ll have records.’

‘But even if we dig her up, how would that help us to identify her?’

‘DNA,’ Tingley said quietly. ‘You can extract it from bones.’

‘I thought you could only identify people from their DNA if you have their DNA on a database. And there wasn’t a database in her day.’

‘There are other ways.’

‘Actually, you’re right. I read this book saying that everybody is related to five women way back when. We can all be traced back. So we’d be able to figure out quite a lot about her.’

Tingley nodded.

‘Ancestral DNA. DNA breaks down into one hundred and seventy-seven different parts, some of which indicate ancestry. Let’s say we come up with Native American, European and sub-Saharan strands. We won’t, but just suppose. You only get that combination in the Caribbean. Then we get voluntary tests from a couple of hundred males and females from the same area. Then we compare their DNA and family history with our victim to identify which island, or even town, they come from.’

‘They can do that?’

‘Sure – remember that little boy they found chopped up in a sack in the Thames? They traced him right back to his village in Africa. There have been some really interesting studies of the ancestral DNA of phaseolus vulgaris.’

‘Phaseolus vulgaris?’

‘Yes – the common bean. It has two major geographic gene pools.’ Tingley caught the look on Kate’s face. ‘But maybe that can wait.’

‘I think so. How do we find out where she was buried?’

Tingley thought for a moment.

‘Well, the local council will have records of who is buried where. But hang on – didn’t Spilsbury take the body back up to London to examine it?’

Kate was silent for a moment.

‘No, no – he took internal organs but the body stayed in Brighton, I’m sure.’

‘Did they cremate in those days?’

Kate squeezed his arm.

‘God, I hope not.’

The fire brigade was already there. Two engines outside, two firemen on top of ladders hosing the flat through the blown-out front windows. There was a terrible smell that caught at the back of her throat.

‘We think we got it before the rest of the house took fire,’ the fire chief told Gilchrist. ‘But I’m afraid your flat is pretty much gutted.’

Gilchrist was both seething and frightened.

‘Can I go in?’

‘Tomorrow, sure.’

‘It was arson,’ she said.

‘You surprise me, officer. I think you’d be best getting away from here for now. Come back tomorrow.’

‘Is there anything left?’

‘We don’t know yet. I’m sorry.’

Williamson was looking awkward, standing on the pavement, trying to keep an eye on Gilchrist without making it obvious, trying to hide his concern.

Gilchrist went over to him.

‘Looks like I don’t have anything except what I’m wearing. Weird feeling.’

‘Is this to do with the Milldean thing?’ Williamson said.

‘Oh, I think so.’

‘You’re being warned off?’

‘I think that’s the gist of it.’

‘Is it working?’

Gilchrist looked up at the steam and black smoke billowing out of her window. She could feel the shakes starting but she knew that was adrenaline more than anything. At least, she hoped that was what it was.

‘I’ll get back to you on that.’

Tingley said he had to see a man about a son – whatever that meant – so Kate drove back into Brighton, parked in the Church Road car park and walked along to Brighton Museum. On the ground floor she passed Dali’s Mae West sofa – bright red lips on four legs – and the Rennie Mackintosh furniture that looked great but that she’d never want to sit in. She took the stairs to the local history unit.

Behind the counter a bald-headed man and a woman in linen were talking. They turned in unison.

‘I wondered if you kept records here of where people are buried,’ Kate said.

‘Good question,’ the man said. He looked at the woman. ‘Do we?’ She shrugged.

‘Not sure but they’ll certainly have records at Woodvale Crematorium.’

Kate took a phone number and on the way back to her car got through to a woman called Sally at Woodvale. She explained what she wanted.

‘She may have been cremated,’ Sally said. ‘They were doing cremations by then.’

Kate didn’t want to hear that.

‘The council would have buried her. They would have gone for the cheapest option, wouldn’t they? Which is cheaper – cremation or burial.’

‘Oh, a pauper’s grave, for sure.’

‘Can we try, then?’

‘When was she buried?’

‘I’m not entirely sure,’ Kate said. ‘She died in June 1934 and the police did an autopsy. I’m not sure how long they’d need to keep the body – well, her remains. Three months?’

‘Let’s try six,’ Sally said. ‘You have no name for this woman?’

‘That’s the problem.’

‘OK – I’ll see what I can do.’

I was feeling sorry for myself when Gilchrist phoned. I never thought I’d be the kind of person to pine but I was pining for my former life. The man who’d yomped 200 miles in six days during the first Gulf War, now acting like a wuss. I was really getting into the unfairness of it. Me, the poster boy for routinely arming the police. I took a lot of shit for that, then six months later every other chief constable in the country was clamouring for it. By then, for me, it was too late.

‘Someone has burnt my flat down.’ Gilchrist, breathing heavily.

‘Are you safe?’ I said, immediately on my feet.

‘I’m fine. I wasn’t intended to be in it – they got me out on a wild goose chase. They were warning me off, I think.’

‘Do you know who they are?’

‘Just a voice on a phone. Do you have any more ideas?’

‘I’m waiting on Tingley. You’ve lost everything – that must be dreadful.’

‘Actually, I haven’t. Most of my stuff is in store after my last move. I lost some nice CDs and, I assume, all my clothes. I think I can survive without the Mamma Mia DVD.’

‘Do you want to stay here?’

There was silence on the line.

‘Tempting but probably not a good idea.’

‘Do you want to come over at least?’

‘What I want is to go and find those Hayward Heath bastards and confront them.’

‘So much for being warned off. I’ll come with you.’

Death hadn’t touched Kate yet. Her grandparents on both sides had died when she was too young to remember them. At university she knew a couple of students well enough to say hello to who died from overdoses. But nobody close to her had ever died. She had never suffered that anguish. And never visited a crematorium before.

Woodvale was a big cemetery but it wasn’t exactly Arlington or those cemeteries for the war dead she’d seen in Normandy – line after line of white crosses. Normandy and Brittany had been regular holiday destinations when she was little, and her father had made them visit three or four of the World War Two battle sites and attached cemeteries for articles he had to write.

She went the wrong way at first. She drove up Bear Road, a steep, narrow road out of the clutter and noise of a bad road junction. It was a windy day, puffy white clouds scudding across the sky. She drove into the Woodvale cemetery. With its abundance of trees and colourful bedding, it might have been a country park.

She drove down a narrow, pockmarked road with gravestones among the trees – some ostentatious, others much less so. She followed the sign to the lodge, a Victorian flint and brick house on the right-hand side of the road. Below, she could see the road go down to connect with the hustle of the Lewes Road and the big shopping complex there.