Helen Fields - Perfect Remains

He flicked a switch on the sound system and a voice began speaking words that Elaine had no inclination to listen to, or repeat. With a baby-soft kiss on her forehead, King placed a protein drink at her side and left.

The autopsy table looked more comfortable than the bed he’d slept in. That was before it was occupied by the remnants of what was presumed to be Elaine Buxton’s skeleton. It had been a bad night. Callanach would have self-medicated with a decent bottle of red, but the only wine on offer had a label with all the appeal of a bargain-bucket binge drinker’s delight. Braemar was a slightly touristy but pleasant village lacking much choice in accommodation and the better options had been fully booked. In the absence of good wine, he’d settled for a dilapidated TV with crackling reception, soup he’d admired only because he’d previously thought it impossible to cook it so badly, and half decent coffee.

Jonty Spurr, the pathologist, was quiet as he worked. Callanach appreciated that. He’d witnessed too many autopsies to be disturbed by the body. What he found more disquieting was the forced cheer some pathologists had about them. Too talkative, too determined to lift the atmosphere. Spurr was slow, not annoyingly so, but unhurried and probably unflappable under even the worst pressure.

‘The victim was an adult female, aged between thirty and forty, I’d say, approximately five foot six.’

Callanach glanced at DC Salter. She was young but not new to the job and showed no sign of being troubled by what she saw.

‘Has the accelerant been identified yet?’ she asked.

‘We’ll need to do more tests on the bones for that. The fire department might have picked something up at the scene.’ Spurr chose a bone fragment and held it up for Callanach to inspect more closely. ‘The heat and length of time the fire was burning destroyed any chance of getting DNA from the bone marrow. The skull, jaw and upper chest sustained damage not caused by the fire. You can see a pattern of fractures indicating repeated use of a heavy, blunt weapon. Must have taken quite some force.’

‘Was that the cause of death?’ Callanach asked.

‘I’d put my money on those injuries occurring before death. The resulting trauma to the brain may well have been what killed her. With no soft tissue left, I’m not going to do much better than that. Given the planning put into disposing of the body, there’d have been no other practical reason to disfigure the face after death.’

‘Bastard,’ Salter said.

‘Indeed,’ Spurr replied. ‘We’re cross-checking the teeth against Elaine Buxton’s dental records. Some have fillings or caps, so it should be easy enough.’

‘How soon will we have that?’ Callanach was keen to leave. Morgues made him claustrophobic in spite of the bright light and fierce air conditioning. It felt like a prison cell and he’d had enough of those.

‘Maybe as early as tomorrow. Will you still be here?’

Callanach wasn’t even going to consider another night in the same accommodation.

‘No, in Edinburgh. We’re going back to the crime scene to get a daylight view then we’ll set off. You’ll call when you have more information?’

Spurr nodded, stripped off a glove and offered Callanach a hand. He disliked the dry, powdery feel of it against his own, as if death was contagious.

‘Is there any news from the crime scene this morning?’ he asked Salter once they were on the road.

‘No. I tried to speak to DC Tripp but mobile reception was poor. He and DS Lively were off to speak with the hikers first thing, but they should be back at the crime scene by the time we get there.’

‘She wasn’t murdered there,’ Callanach said.

‘Surely it’s hard to tell at this stage,’ the young constable commented quietly.

‘Why bother taking her so far to kill her? It makes no sense. It may be the perfect site to dispose of a body, but it’s not a comfortable or convenient place for playing out his fantasy about her death. A great deal of time passed between her disappearance and the corpse turning up, time the murderer spent elsewhere with the victim. Whoever abducted her had this place in mind for weeks, if not months.’

An hour later the bothy was back in sight. Forensic investigators were shouting to one another, the excitement plain on their faces. Callanach was out of the car before Salter could put on the hand brake.

‘What’s happening?’ he asked a passing officer.

‘The dogs tracked a weapon some distance away, buried under a pile of stones.’ Callanach watched the back slapping among the handlers.

There would be no fingerprints, he thought. A man who found such a perfect place to destroy a body didn’t leave prints.

‘Good news, right, sir?’ came Tripp’s voice from behind him.

‘Tell me what you’ve got,’ Callanach replied. Tripp wiped the smile off his face and looked down at his notebook.

‘The hikers repeated what they’d said in their statements. Oliver Deacon and Tom Shelley, both in their early twenties, had been hiking for about three hours, reached the midway point in their route and saw the blaze from’ – he looked around, identified a peak and pointed into the distance – ‘over there. They had binoculars and took photos with their phones, not that they show anything except a distant orange dot. I’ve drawn a map of their route.’

Callanach nodded. ‘We’ll head back to Edinburgh tonight,’ he said. ‘If I authorise any more overtime, I’ll have no job to get back to.’

Two hours later, they were fighting the city traffic.

‘Something wrong, sir?’ Tripp ventured after dropping Salter home.

‘I think so,’ Callanach replied. ‘I just don’t know what yet.’

‘We’ll be taking over the case, will we, if it proves to be Elaine Buxton’s body?’

‘As soon as I’ve cleared it with the Detective Chief Inspector. Take me straight to the station.’

The Major Investigations Team offices were all but deserted. Callanach liked being alone. He could concentrate, undisturbed by slamming doors, the hiss and gurgle of drinks machines and the constant undertone of voices. Quiet was uncomplicated. And it delayed returning to his flat. Somehow the act of unlocking that door would make his transition to working and living in Scotland real. He longed for France, for the culture that ran in his blood. Having one Scottish parent and being fluent in the language was no substitute for the country that had been his home for all but the first four years of his life. Even the cloud under which he’d left hadn’t tainted his memories of Lyon.

He opened a box and began dumping the contents into drawers.

‘So was your trip to the Cairngorms worth the bollocking it’s going to get you?’ came a voice from the doorway. Startled, he dropped a file, getting a laugh from his fellow detective inspector. ‘Sorry, I hadn’t meant to scare you. Apparently Interpol agents are easily caught unawares.’