Simon Beckett - The Chemistry of Death

'Sorry you had to come out. I didn't know what else to do,' she said in a low voice. 'He got completely hysterical earlier. Not like him at all.'

I thought again about the photographs. 'I suppose you've heard about what happened yesterday?'

She grimaced. 'Everybody's heard. That's the trouble. All the other kids wanted to hear about it. It just got too much for him.'

'Have you sent for his parents?'

'Tried to. Can't get hold of them at any of the contact numbers we have.' She shrugged, apologetically. 'That's why I thought we'd better send for you. I was really worried about him.'

I could see she meant it. I'd have put her in her late twenties or early thirties. Her short-cropped blond hair looked natural, but it was several shades lighter than the dark eyebrows that, at the moment, held an anxious crease. Her face was lightly dusted with freckles, brought out by a faint tan.

'He's had a bad shock. It might take him a while to get over it,' I said.

'Poor Sam. Just when he's got the school holidays coming up as well.' She glanced towards the open door. 'Do you think he's going to need counselling?'

I'd been wondering that myself. If he was no better in a day or two then I'd have to refer him. But I'd been down that route myself, and knew that sometimes picking at a wound only made it bleed all the more. Not a fashionable view, perhaps, but I'd rather give Sam a chance to recover by himself.

'Let's see how he goes. By the end of the week he might be up and running again.'

'I hope so.'

'I think the best thing for now is to get him home,' I told her. 'Have you tried his brother's school? They might know how to get in touch with their parents.'

'No. No-one thought of that.' She looked annoyed with herself.

'Can someone stay with him till they get here?'

'I will. I'll get someone to cover my class.' Her eyes widened. 'Oh, sorry, I should have said! I'm his teacher!'

I smiled. 'I sort of guessed that.'

'God, I've not introduced myself at all, have I?' A blush made her freckles more prominent. 'Jenny. Jenny Hammond.'

She held out her hand, self-consciously. It was warm and dry. I remembered hearing that a new teacher had started earlier that year, but this was the first I'd seen of her. Or so I thought.

'I've seen you in the Lamb once or twice, I think,' she said.

'That's more than possible. The night-life's a bit limited around here.'

She grinned. 'I noticed. Still, that's why you come somewhere like this, isn't it? Get away from it all.' My face must have registered something. 'Sorry, you don't sound local, so I thought…'

'It's all right, I'm not.'

She looked only slightly relieved. 'I'd better get back to Sam, anyway.'

I went back in with her to say goodbye to him and make sure he didn't need a sedative. I would check on him that evening, tell his mother to keep him off school for a few more days, until the raw memory of what he'd seen had sufficiently scabbed over to resist the pokings of his schoolmates.

I was back at the Land Rover when my phone rang. This time it was Mackenzie.

'You left a message,' he said, bluntly.

I spoke in a rush, in a hurry to get rid of the words. 'I'll help you identify the body. But that's all. I'm not going to get involved beyond that, OK?'

'Whatever you like.' He didn't sound exactly gracious, but then neither was my offer. 'So how do you want to play it?'

'I need to see where they found the body.'

'It's already been taken to the mortuary, but I can meet you there in an hour-'

'No, I don't want to see the body itself. Just where it was found.'

I could feel his exasperation down the line. 'Why? What good's that going to do?'

My mouth was dry. 'I'm going to look for leaves.'

The heron drifted lazily above the marsh, sliding across the gelid air. It looked too big to be able to stay aloft, a giant compared to the smaller waterfowl its shadow passed over. Angling its wings, it banked down towards the lake, giving two breaking flaps as it landed. With an arrogant shake of its head it picked its way deliberately across the shallows before standing immobile, a fossilized statue on its reed-thin legs.

I turned reluctantly away from it as I heard Mackenzie approach. 'Here,' he said, holding out a sealed plastic bag. 'Put these on.'

I took the white paper overalls from the bag and stepped into them, careful not to rip the flimsy fabric as I tugged them over shoes and trousers. As soon as I zipped them up I could feel myself beginning to sweat. The humid discomfort was disturbingly familiar.

It was like stepping back in time.

I'd been unable to shake a sense of deja vu ever since I'd met Mackenzie at the same stretch of road where I'd brought the two policemen the day before. Now it was lined with police cars and the big trailers that functioned as mobile incident rooms. After I'd put on the overalls and paper shoes, we walked in silence on the track across the marsh, our route marked by parallel ribbons of police tape. I knew he wanted to ask what I was planning to do, knew also that he thought it was a sign of weakness to let me see his curiosity. But I wasn't holding back out of any misplaced desire to play power games. I was just putting off the moment when I'd have to face up to why I was here.

The area where the body had been found was cordoned off with more tape. Inside it crime scene investigators swarmed over the grass, anonymous and identical in their white overalls. The sight brought another unwelcome jolt of memory.

'Where's the bloody Vicks?' Mackenzie asked no-one in particular.

A woman held out a jar of vapour rub. He put a smear under his nose and offered it to me.

'It's still a bit ripe in there even though the body's gone.'

There had been a time when I was so used to the smells inherent in my work I no longer worried about them. But that was then. I daubed the menthol-smelling Vicks on my top lip and wriggled my hands into a pair of surgical rubber gloves.

'There's a mask if you want it,' Mackenzie said. I shook my head automatically. I'd never liked wearing masks unless I had to. 'Come on then.'

He ducked under the tape. I followed him. The officers on the crime scene team were combing the ground inside. A few small markers stuck into the earth indicated where potential trace evidence had been found. I knew most would turn out to be irrelevant – sweet wrappers, cigarette ends and fragments of animal bone that would have nothing to do with what they were looking for. But at this stage they had no idea what was important and what wasn't. Everything would be bagged and taken away for examination.

We received one or two curious glances, but my attention was on the patch of ground in the centre. The grass here was blackened and dead, almost as if there had been a fire. But it wasn't heat that had killed it. And now something else was noticeable: an unmistakable smell that cut through even the concealing smear of menthol.

Mackenzie flipped a mint into his mouth, put the packet away without offering it. 'This is Dr Hunter,' he told the other officers, teeth cracking the sweet. 'He's a forensic anthropologist. He's going to help us try to identify the body.'

'Well, he's going to have to try harder than this,' one of them said. 'It isn't here.'

There was laughter. This was their job, and they resented anyone else encroaching on it. Especially a civilian. It was an attitude I'd encountered before.

'Dr Hunter's here at the request of Detective Superintendent Ryan. You'll obviously give him any assistance he needs.' There was an edge to Mackenzie's voice. I could see from the suddenly closed faces that it hadn't been well received. It didn't bother me. I was already crouching down by the patch of dead grass.