Dead And Buried

Eighty-three

It was late in the afternoon, but the scene-of-crime team had set up floodlights. Proud, McIlhenney and DI Arthur Dorward stood in the back door of Gary Starr’s villa, watching the technician as he swept the garden with a ground-penetrating radar sensor. Twice, they had produced readings that led officers to dig; the first excavation had unearthed a paint can, the second a two-pound coin. ‘Our difficulty,’ said Dorward, ‘is that there is no sensor that’ll detect bones. We have to look for metal, jewellery, belt buckles and such, or for disturbed earth, which is probably a non-runner after forty years.’

As he spoke the technician stopped and turned towards him. ‘That’s it, sir,’ he called out. ‘That’s as much as I can do; I’ve been over the lot and there’s nothing detectable here.’

Proud stepped out into the garden, with McIlhenney following, and strode across to a greenhouse that stood in the corner of the garden that was most exposed to the sun. ‘You haven’t covered this,’ he said.

‘The sensor can’t penetrate concrete, sir,’ the man replied.

‘And this is a modern structure, Chief,’ McIlhenney added. ‘From the looks of it, it’s only been here for a few years.’

‘Perhaps, Neil, but was that concrete base used for something else before it?’ He looked over his shoulder at Dorward. ‘Arthur, I want this dismantled and the base broken up.’

The three senior officers retreated inside the house, watching through the kitchen window as the greenhouse was emptied of the chilli plants, which had been, apparently, its late owner’s hobby, and as its sections were unbolted and laid flat on the grass. Then, just as their Strathclyde counterparts had done, the team set to work breaking up its solid floor, attacking it methodically until it was in pieces small enough for them to pick it apart with their gloved hands.

Almost all of the broken lumps had been removed, when the workers stepped back, as if at a command; one of them turned towards the house and beckoned. Again, the chief constable led the way outside. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘Take a look, sir,’ said the officer who had waved them over, as his colleagues backed off, clearing the area of their shadows.

Proud crouched beside the fresh earth, and saw. . the edge of a rolled carpet protruding through it. He knelt and began to scoop out the soil until enough of the fabric had been freed for him to grab a corner and yank it away, revealing, unmistakably, the skeleton of a human foot.