S Bolton - Sacrifice

Helen didn't take offence. She almost laughed. 'OK, let me tell you what they did, as far as I understand it. First of all, they flew over in the chopper this morning and took a whole load of aerial photographs. Apparently – and I admit I didn't know this – when soil has been disturbed at any depth, it shows up on the surface: either as marks on the soil or as crop marks. Also, you might get an increase in vegetation – a rush of spring flowers, for example. Aerial photographs can pick that up.'

'Did they see anything?'

'Nothing. But apparently they didn't really expect to. The method works best for larger sites, such as prehistoric burial grounds. Individual graves rarely show up; but it has been known, so they were being thorough to check.'

'So what then?'

'The next step was to use ground-penetrating radar. They have instruments that send electromagnetic pulses into the ground. When the pulses hit a soil surface that differs in water content from that around it, the signals bounce back. The team plot all these signals on a graph and, if anything has been buried, the pattern of reflections will show it up on the graph. It's even possible to estimate how deep a burial might be, based on the time delay for the reflections to come back. We've done that across the length and breadth of the field.'

'Clever stuff.'

'Oh it's amazing. Course, it's not foolproof. It works best, apparently, on sandy, high-resistivity soil, of which there's very little in your field. So they did one further sweep. This time using soil analysis. Want me to go on?'

'Please.'

'Soil analysis depends upon measuring the amount of phosphate in the soil. Phosphate is present in all soils, but where a body – human or large animal – is buried, the phosphate levels increase quite considerably.'

That certainly made sense to me. Bodies are particularly rich in phosphorus which, along with calcium, gives bone its strength and hardness. It's also found in other tissues of the body.

'Decomposition of human bodies after burial enriches the phosphorus content of the surrounding soil,' continued Helen. 'The team took hundreds of soil samples from your field. If any strong pockets of phosphorus are found, that could indicate more burials.'

'How long will it take to test them all?'

'A few more days. But they're already well under way and nothing has been found so far. I really don't think there's anything down there, Tora.'

I said nothing for a moment.

'So, no more worries about little grey men with a silver fixation?' said Helen.

I had the grace to look bashful. 'Guess the stress was getting to me the other night.'

She smiled back. I looked at her carefully. The slightly wary, nervous look was still there.

'There's something else, isn't there? Something not so good?'

'I'm afraid so. It looks like Stephen Gair isn't going to be facing justice after all. Not in this life anyway.'

Helen broke eye contact first. She stood up and walked to the window.

'What happened?' I managed, wondering why I was feeling so cold. It wasn't as if he'd got away or anything.

'He hanged himself,' she replied, still enjoying my view of the staff car park. 'He was found shortly after five this morning.'

She gave me time to think about it. I thought about it. I would never have the chance to face him in court, to say I know what you did and have people believe me. I would never be able to look him in the eyes and say Got you, you bastard; I bloody well got you! How did I feel about that? Pretty damned pissed off, to be frank. I stood up.

'How could that have happened? What did you do, give him some rope to practise tying knots with?'

At last she turned round. She held up her hand. 'Take it easy. It will be fully investigated. I can't give you details, I'm afraid. These things happen. I know they shouldn't, but they do. He just wasn't considered a suicide risk.'

'Unlike Dana, of course, who you dismissed as a suicide without a shred of evidence.'

As soon as I said it, I knew I'd gone too far. Helen's face had hardened. She started to move. I stepped in front of her.

'I'm sorry, that was totally uncalled for.'

She relaxed a little.

'I guess it's really over then?' I said.

'You're kidding, aren't you? This Tronal business will keep us going for years.'

I found myself wanting to sit down again. 'What do you mean?'

'That place is an unholy hotchpotch of medical work, social services, legitimate business and the illegal trading of infants. A few dozen people are connected with it; they all need to be checked out. And, of course, we obviously have to trace all the babies that have been adopted from Tronal.'

'All that could take a while.'

'Quite. Trouble is, we can see the money coming in but they're all cash transfers that will be hellishly hard to trace to source. We may suspect which adoption agencies were involved, but without proof they're hardly going to admit it.'

'What about at this end? There would be birth records, adoption papers, passports prepared.'

'Maybe, but we can't find them yet. Well, apart from the half- dozen or so a year that get adopted locally, but they seem to be completely in order. Everyone we've spoken to so far, including George Reynolds at social services and his team, are denying any knowledge of overseas adoptions – whether for money or not.'

'Well, they would, wouldn't they?'

'Yes, but the fact is, there's no evidence of any significant number of babies being born there – less than a dozen a year by all accounts. On the surface, it seems a pretty low-key operation; which, when you come to think of it, you'd expect. How many babies are put up for adoption these days?'

She had a point. 'But he admitted it. He said he was selling babies over the Internet.'

'True, but apart from the money and the word of a now-dead man, we really have no evidence.'

She walked over to the coffee table, put her mug down. 'I'm on my way up there now.'

'Long trip,' said a voice from the doorway. We both turned. Kenn Gifford stood there. Neither of us had heard him approach. 'No helicopter pad on Tronal,' he explained. 'You need to go by road and boat.'

'I'll call you later, Tora,' said Helen. She nodded at Gifford and left the room.

'DCI Rowley?' he asked me. I nodded.

'Every bit as gorgeous as they say'

I felt the need for something to do. I picked up Helen's mug and my own and took them over to the sink. 'Take it from me, you're wasting your time.'

He laughed. 'I'd heard. How you doing?' He came closer, looked carefully at me. It's so bloody unfair, this ability big men have to intimidate others; they don't have to be smart, they don't have to threaten, they just have to be there. I side-stepped round him and walked over to the window.

'Fine,' I answered for what felt like the tenth time that morning.

'Good to have you back.' He glanced at the coffee pot, noticed it was empty and helped himself to a digestive biscuit.

'Says the man who suspended me in the first place.'

'Says the woman who's never going to let me forget it.' He moved towards me again and I retreated behind the desk.

He made an exasperated face. 'Will you keep still? I'm not about to hypnotize you. I never really managed it anyway; you're a particularly tricky subject.'

And yes, as I was meant to, I felt a surge of pride at that. I also felt a bit daft. I decided to risk looking him in the eyes – green, they were, a deep, mossy green this morning – but if he put his hands on my shoulders I was yelling.

'I didn't get a chance to congratulate you last night,' he said.

I searched his face for sarcasm, but didn't see any.

'I'd be tempted to say you picked the wrong profession but I really don't want to lose you from this one.'