Simon Beckett - Written in Bone

After a couple of hours poring over the images, I felt as though I’d had sand rubbed into my eyes. I poured myself another coffee, rubbing the kinks from my neck. I felt tired and dispirited. Even though I’d known it was a long shot, I’d hoped to find something.

Wearily, I went back to the original images of the three young women. One in particular drew me, though I couldn’t have said why. It had been taken on a street, with the young woman standing in front of a shop window. Her face was attractive but hard, with a wariness around the eyes and mouth even though she was smiling. If she was a victim, she wouldn’t have been a passive one, I thought.

I studied her photograph more closely. Only the incisors and the upper canines were revealed by her smile. They were every bit as crooked as those I’d replaced in the skull, but none of their characteristics matched. The dead woman’s upper left incisor had a distinctive V-shaped chip in it, yet the one on my screen was unmarked. Give it up. You’re wasting your time.

But there was still something about the picture I couldn’t put my finger on. And then I saw it.

‘Oh, you’ve got to be joking,’ I said out loud.

I clicked on a simple command. The young woman on my screen vanished and then reappeared, subtly altered. Behind her, the incomplete shop sign could now be made out: Stornoway Store amp; Newsag. But it wasn’t what it said that was important, so much as the fact that it was no longer back to front.

The photograph had been the wrong way round.

It was the sort of simple slip-up that usually didn’t matter. But at some point, either when it had been scanned from a negative or transferred to the missing persons database, the picture had been inverted. Right for left, left for right.

I’d been looking at a mirror image.

With growing excitement, I magnified the teeth of the young woman in the photograph again. Now her upper left incisor had a V-shaped notch that exactly matched the chip in the skull’s. And both lower right canines were crooked, overlapping the tooth next to them to an identical degree.

I’d found a match.

For the first time, I allowed myself to read the description that accompanied the photograph. The young woman’s name was Janice Donaldson. She was twenty-six years old, a prostitute, alcoholic and drug addict who had gone missing from Stornoway five weeks ago. There had been no widespread search, no news bulletins. Just one more open file, another soul who had dropped through the cracks.

I looked at her picture again, the electronically frozen smile. She was full-faced, with round cheeks and the beginnings of a double chin. Even given her drug addiction, she was a young woman who was always going to be plump. Lots of body fat to burn. It would still have to be confirmed by dental records and fingerprints, but I didn’t have any doubt that I’d found the murdered woman.

‘Hello, Janice,’ I said.

As I was staring at my laptop screen, Duncan was huddled in the camper van trying to concentrate on his criminology textbook. It wasn’t easy. The wind was worse than ever. Even though the van was parked in the lee of the cottage, which took the brunt of the gale’s force, it was still being battered mercilessly.

The constant buffeting was unsettling as well as uncomfortable. Duncan had thought about turning off the paraffin heater in case the camper blew over, but he’d decided against it. He’d take his chances on catching fire rather than freeze to death.

So he’d tried to close his mind to the way it was rocking, and done his best to focus on his book as the rain drilled against the metal roof. But when he’d found himself rereading the same paragraph for the third time, he finally accepted it wasn’t going to happen.

He closed the book with a sigh. The fact was it wasn’t only the gale that was bothering him. He was still fretting over the idea that had occurred to him earlier. He knew he was being stupid, that the notion was completely ridiculous. But now he’d started to wonder about it, he couldn’t put it from his mind. That overactive imagination of his again.

The question was, what did he do about it? Tell someone? In which case, who? He’d come close to mentioning it to Dr Hunter earlier, but thought better of it. There was always Brody, of course. Or Fraser. Aye, right. Duncan was well aware of the detective sergeant’s failings as a police officer. The whisky smell on his breath in a morning was an embarrassment. Disgusting. It was as though he thought people wouldn’t notice, or no longer cared. Duncan’s father had told him about some officers who’d burned out, their ambition reduced to keeping their nose clean until they could retire with a full pension. He could have been describing Fraser.

Duncan wondered if he’d always been like that, or if he’d gradually sunk into his current state of disillusionment. He’d heard the stories about him, of course; some he’d believed, others he was more sceptical about. But he’d always liked to think there was still a halfway decent police officer buried beneath the alcohol cheeks.

Now, though, he wasn’t so sure. Here they were, landed at the sharp end of a murder investigation-right at the sharp end-and Fraser still acted as though it were an inconvenience. Duncan didn’t see it like that at all. Duncan thought it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him.

The recognition made him feel a little guilty. A woman had died, after all. Was it right to feel so keyed up about it?

But this was his job, he rationalised. This was what he’d joined the police for, not filling in parking forms, or sorting out drunken neighbour squabbles. He knew there was evil out there-not in the biblical sense, perhaps, but that was what it amounted to all the same. He wanted to be able to look it in the eye, and make it flinch. Make a difference. Aye, and I can imagine what Fraser would say about that.

The smile slowly faded from his face. So what was he going to do?

A flash from outside caught his peripheral vision. He looked out of the window, waiting for it to come again. It didn’t. Lightning? But there was no accompanying roll of thunder. He turned off the light so that the camper van was in darkness except for the low blue flame of the paraffin heater. He could make out the dark shape of the cottage, but nothing else.

He hesitated. It could have been sheet lightning, he thought. That didn’t make any noise, did it? Or perhaps his eyes were just playing tricks.

Then again, it could have been someone outside with a torch.

The reporter again? Maggie Cassidy? He hoped not. Although part of him felt quite keyed up at the prospect, he’d believed her when she’d said she wouldn’t try anything again. Naive or not, he’d feel let down if she’d broken her promise. But if it wasn’t her, then who? Duncan didn’t think there was enough left in the cottage for anyone to bother with, not unless they brought a JCB to dig out the rubble first.

But this was a murder inquiry now. He wasn’t going to take the chance. He considered radioing Fraser, but not for long. He could imagine the sergeant’s withering response, and he’d no wish to subject himself to it. Not without checking it out first. Pulling on his coat, he picked up the Maglite and went outside.

The force of the wind almost jerked him from his feet. Closing the door as quietly as he could, he paused for a moment, listening. The wind made it impossible to hear. And it was too dark now to see anything without a torch. He switched it on and quickly shone the beam around. It picked out only thrashing grass and the lonely shell of the cottage.

The wind quickly stripped the camper van’s heat from him. And he’d forgotten to put on his gloves. Shivering, he approached the cottage, playing the torch beam on its doorway. He’d resealed it earlier-something Fraser hadn’t bothered to do-and the tape showed no sign of being touched. He shone the torch inside, satisfying himself that no one was in there, and then began to circle round the ruined walls.