Dead And Buried

Eighty-seven

He had thought that there would be elation, but as the weekend had played itself out, he had found that the opposite was true. As in many of life’s facets, the thrill was in the chase, not in its sad, squalid conclusion. For all his colleagues’ congratulations, ultimately, he asked himself, what had he done? He had discovered three unknown, decades-old crimes, and in the process he had disturbed two graves. But that was all: he was no closer to the perpetrator than he had been when he started on his silly, selfish quest.

‘Supercop my arse,’ he whispered, as he gazed out of his window on to the frost-covered sports field outside.

The ringing telephone broke into his thoughts with the insistent sharpness of a dentist’s drill. He picked it up. ‘ACC Allan, Strathclyde, sir,’ Crossley advised him. ‘And Detective Superintendent McIlhenney’s on his way up.’

‘Put Max through, then send Neil in when I’m finished.’ He waited for a few seconds.

‘Jimmy? How goes it? Anything new on your skeleton?’

‘I’m just waiting for word. I’ll let you know when I get it.’

‘Thanks, but in the meantime, I’ve got something to tell you. One of my very thorough detective officers may have found Ethel Ward, or Bothwell.’

‘Have you, indeed? Where?’

‘Bristol.’

‘Eh? How the hell did she get there?’

‘By train. Fifty years ago, about six weeks after the last sighting of Mrs Bothwell, the remains of a naked woman, cut into pieces and wrapped in sacking, were found in a pile of coal, which had just been unloaded at a depot down there. It was part of a consignment that started from Lanarkshire and picked up more trucks in South Yorkshire. They couldn’t be certain where the body originated; details were passed to the old county constabulary up here, and to Leeds. There were press appeals, but the head was too badly crushed for an artist’s impression, never mind photograph, so she was never identified. After a while, the police buried her in a local cemetery. She’s still there, waiting to be dug up. Your friend Bert Ward is going to give us a DNA sample for comparison. If it’s close, it’s her.’

‘Good for you, Max, and well done to your officer. Keep me informed.’

‘Will do. Cheers, Jimmy.’

He replaced the phone in its cradle, with the strange, flat feeling inside him intensified rather than dissipated. This has been pure self-indulgence for me, he thought, but for these poor women it was pure tragedy.

There was a quiet knock on his door. ‘Come,’ he called out, and McIlhenney stepped into the room. He was carrying a bound folder in his right hand.

‘Is that it, Neil?’ Proud asked urgently.

‘Yes, sir. The pathologist and his team finished an hour ago; the ink’s barely dry.’

‘What are the findings? Have they established a cause of death?’

‘They’re saying multiple stab wounds, Chief. They’re also saying that there is no doubt that the remains are around forty years old, and that the victim was aged over thirty.’

‘And Annabelle Gentle was only twenty-nine. So Bothwell killed Montserrat and ran off with her.’ Proud sighed. ‘Damn it, I was hoping that Trudi Friend would be spared that. I’d rather we’d dug up her mother’s body than find that she’s a murderer.’

A strange smile spread over McIlhenney’s face. ‘Well, sir, that’s the question. What the hell is she?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that the autopsy has established that the remains in the garden are those of a man. It looks as if we’ve found Claude Bothwell after all.’