Simon Beckett - Written in Bone

‘There was a pile of those left over from when they built the school,’ Brody explained. ‘Should do the trick.’

Fraser let the rods fall on to the grass, his eyes red-rimmed. ‘This still doesn’t sit right with me. Just leaving him out here…’

‘If you can think of any alternative, then tell us,’ Brody said, but not unkindly.

The sergeant nodded, miserably. He went back to the Range Rover and came back with a heavy lump hammer and a roll of tape. He strode ahead of us to the remains of the camper van, his posture rigid and determined. But at the sight of Duncan’s body, lying exposed to the elements like a sacrifice, he faltered.

‘Oh, Jesus…’

‘If it’s any consolation, he wouldn’t have felt any of this,’ I told him.

He glared at me. ‘Aye? And how would you know?’

I took a deep breath. ‘Because he was already dead when the fire started.’

The angry light died from the sergeant’s eyes. Brody had come to stand with us.

‘You sure?’ he asked.

I glanced at Fraser. This wasn’t easy for any of us, but it would be hardest for him to hear.

‘Go on,’ he said, roughly.

I led them through the wet grass until we had a better view of the skull. Scraps of black flesh still clung to the bone, varnished by the rain. The cheeks and lips had burned away, exposing the teeth in a mockery of the policeman’s engaging grin.

I felt myself falter. The puzzle, not the person. I pointed to the gaping hole in Duncan’s skull.

‘See there, on the left-hand side?’

Fraser glanced, then looked away. The head was turned slightly, so it was lying partly on one cheek. Its position made it difficult to see the full extent of the damage, but it was unmissable, all the same. The jagged hole overlapped both the parietal and temporal bones on the left side of the skull like the entrance to a dark cave.

Brody cleared his throat before he spoke. ‘Couldn’t that have happened in the fire, like you thought Janice Donaldson’s had?’

‘There’s no way an injury like that was caused by the heat. Duncan was hit a hell of a lot harder than Janice Donaldson. You can see even from here that pieces of bone have been pushed into the skull cavity. That means the wound was made by an external impact, not cranial pressure. And from the position of the arms, it looks like he just went straight down, without making any attempt to stop himself. He literally didn’t know what hit him.’

There was a silence. ‘And what did hit him? A hammer or something?’ Brody asked.

‘No, not a hammer. That would have punched a round hole through the bone, and this is more irregular. From what I can see so far it looks like some sort of club.’

Like a Maglite, I thought. The steel case of Duncan’s torch was poking through the ashes near his body. It was the right size and shape, and was heavy enough to have caused the damage. But there was no point speculating until SOC arrived.

Fraser had his fists balled, his eyes drawn to the body despite himself. ‘He was a fit lad. He wouldn’t have given in without a fight.’

I spoke carefully. ‘Perhaps not, but…well, from how it looks he had his back turned when he was struck. The body’s lying face down, feet towards the door. So he was facing away from it, and pitched forward when he was hit from behind.’

‘Couldn’t he have been killed outside, and then brought into the van?’ Brody asked.

‘I don’t think so. For one thing, the table’s underneath him, which suggests he fell on to it. I can’t see anyone lifting his body on to it. And Duncan was hit here, on the side of his head,’ I said, tapping my own just above my ear. ‘For it to connect there the killer must have swung sideways rather than overhead like you’d normally expect.’

Fraser still didn’t get it. ‘Why does being hit on the side of his head mean he was killed inside the van?’

‘Because the ceiling wasn’t high enough for an overhead swing,’ Brody answered for me.

‘It’s only guesswork at this stage, but it fits,’ I said. ‘The killer was standing behind Duncan, between him and the door. That points to him being left-handed, because the impact wound is to the left-hand side of the skull.’

The rain squalled around us as they stared down at Duncan’s body, playing it out for themselves. I waited, wondering which one of them would say it first. Surprisingly, it was Fraser.

‘So he let them in? And then turned his back?’

‘That’s how it looks.’

‘What the hell was he thinking? Christ, I told him to be careful!’

I somehow doubted that. But if the police sergeant needed to revise his memory to ease any guilt he might be feeling, I wasn’t going to stop him. There was a more important point here, one I could see from Brody’s expression that he hadn’t missed, even if Fraser had.

Duncan hadn’t thought he was in any danger when he let his killer in.

Brody reached out and took the tape from Fraser.

‘Let’s get this over with.’

THE POLICE TAPE snapped and twisted, strung out between the steel rods that Fraser had hammered into the ground. With only one hand, there was little I could do to help. Brody had held the rods in place while Fraser knocked them in with the lump hammer, positioning them every few yards to form a square perimeter round the van.

‘You want to take a turn?’ the sergeant panted, halfway through.

‘Sorry, you’ll have to do it. Arthritis,’ Brody told him, rubbing his back.

‘Aye, right,’ Fraser muttered, pounding the steel rod into the turf as though venting his anger and grief.

Which was perhaps what Brody had intended, I thought.

I stood nearby, hunched against the cold and damp as they ran the tape between the rods. It was only a symbolic barrier, but I still wished there was more I could do as they fought against the wind to secure the whipping ends of the tape.

Finally, it was done. The three of us stood, taking one last look at the camper van behind its flimsy barricade. Then, without a word, we headed back for the Range Rover.

Our priority now was to let the mainland know what had happened. While Wallace still wouldn’t be able to send any support until the storm eased, the murder of a police officer would escalate this to a whole new level. And until help arrived, it was more important than ever for us to maintain contact with the outside world. Particularly for Fraser, I thought, watching him trudge ahead of us on the track, his broad shoulders slumped. He looked the picture of abject defeat.

Beside me, Brody suddenly stopped walking. ‘Have you got any bags left?’

He was looking down at a tuft of wiry grass, rippling and bent in the wind. Something dark was snagged against it. I reached in my pocket for one of the freezer bags I’d brought from the hotel and passed it to him as Fraser came back.

‘What is it?’ he wanted to know.

Brody didn’t answer. Putting his hand into the bag as though it were a glove, he bent down and picked up the object that had been snared by the grass. Then, reversing the bag so it was inside, he held it up to show us.

It was a large, black plastic screw cap. A thin strap that would once have fastened it to a container stuck out from it, snapped clean after an inch or so.

Brody put his nose to the open top of the bag. ‘Petrol.’

He handed it to Fraser, who took a sniff himself. ‘You think the bastard dropped this last night?’

‘I’d say it’s a fair bet. Wasn’t here yesterday, or we’d have seen it.’

Fraser’s expression was furious as he tucked it into his coat pocket. ‘So somewhere on this godforsaken island there’s a petrol container with a broken strap but no lid.’