Left You Dead

71

Few police officers would disagree over what was the most shit job in the entire force. A minority might suggest it was being on public order duty during a riot, but at least that could be mitigated by the potential for getting into a fight — a good old roll-up, which most young, eager officers enjoyed. One of the money-can’t-buy perks of the job.

But to be delegated the duty of a crime scene guard was universally agreed to be the most numbingly boring. In the city, in daytime, the task tended to be given to PCSOs — the lower cost Police Community Support Officers. But PCSOs weren’t considered as robust as fully trained coppers, and they didn’t do night duty.

Togged up in their white protective oversuits, shoes, gloves, headgear and masks, Grace and Branson approached the poor sap of a PC who was the current scene guard. The officer watched them with interest, probably the only excitement and break in the monotony he’d had in the past hour or more.

Aware of the man’s vigil, as Grace showed him his warrant card he asked sympathetically, ‘How long do you have to go?’

Presenting the two detectives with the log to sign, the hapless young PC said, ‘Midnight, sir.’

Grace smiled at him. ‘Done it myself. It’s not much fun, is it?’

‘Not really, sir, no. But,’ he added hastily, ‘I don’t mind. I’m hoping to be a detective one day, so it’s interesting to see a crime scene like this.’

‘What’s your name?’ Grace asked him. ‘I’ll remember it.’

‘Conall Bartlett,’ he said. ‘Thank you, sir.’

‘You’re Graham Bartlett’s son, right?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Your dad was my boss once, some years back. A great copper.’

The PC smiled. ‘Thank you — it was seeing how he loved the job that inspired me.’

Grace smiled. ‘You’re a pretty useful football ref, too, I recall?’

‘Well, I don’t know about useful, sir, but I try.’

‘Good lad!’ Grace signed the log and handed the clipboard to Branson, saying glibly to the PC, ‘Excuse his scrawl, he’s barely literate!’

‘Yeah, yeah!’ Branson retorted. He picked up the pen and deliberately and painfully slowly wrote his name immaculately neatly. Handing the clipboard back, he said cheekily, ‘In case you can’t read my colleague’s, he’s Detective Superintendent Smudge.’

Conall Bartlett took it, uncertain whether to smile.

The two detectives ducked under the tape, strode the short distance to the inner cordon tape, ducked under that, too, then walked along the metal track that had been laid by the police Forensics Team. Its purpose was to cause minimum disturbance to the route the killer had likely taken to the deposition site.

It led a couple of hundred yards into the woods where there were two open-sided tents, one small and square, inside which was a generator running noisily and two tables. On one table stood a kettle, mugs, a jar of coffee, a box of tea and two open packets of biscuits. On the other were laid out several sealed and tagged evidence bags, each containing an item.

The larger tent was rectangular, brightly lit by jury-rigged overhead lights, over a shallow grave. Dotted around on the ground outside the tents were numbered yellow triangles, indicating where possible evidence had been found.

James Gartrell, the highly competent CSI photographer whom Grace knew well, busy recording the area on video, paused to nod a greeting. ‘Afternoon, boss.’ He was also in full protective clothing.

‘How are you doing, James?’

‘Fine, boss, thank you. Lorna and Simon are inside the tent.’ Then, obviously knowing Grace’s news, asked sympathetically, ‘And you, boss — I’m so sorry about—’

Grace silenced him with a grim smile and a raised hand, then approached and opened the larger tent. Inside, he saw the white-suited backs of two people examining the shallow grave. The POLSA, Sergeant Lorna Dennison-Wilkins, and the assistant forensic archaeologist, Simon Davy, stood at the edge, Lorna sipping from a steaming mug, Simon standing over the two search officers, watching them. Both turned immediately as they heard the footsteps.

‘Sir,’ the Sergeant said, addressing Grace. ‘I heard you were coming.’ Then she gave him a forlorn look. ‘I’m sorry about your news.’ She shot a smile at Branson by way of acknowledgement.

‘Thanks, I appreciate it, Lorna,’ Grace said. ‘So, what do we have?’ He walked over to the freshly excavated area. The two specialists — impossible to tell who without seeing their faces — were scraping the soil at the bottom with trowels, with the painstaking and back-breaking diligence of archaeologists on a dig, checking the freed, loose soil with their gloved fingers before discarding it over the top, onto a growing pile.

‘Well, sir, Simon has some early thoughts which might be helpful.’

The assistant forensic archaeologist, in his early thirties, only a small part of his face visible, said, ‘The soil in the grave is quite loose and there appears to be recent disturbance, which indicates to me that it was probably dug earlier and then back-filled not that long ago.’

‘Planned and made ready?’ Grace asked. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Yes, sir — that’s how it looks to me.’

‘What have you found?’

‘Well, sir, apart from the items of clothing we’ve retrieved so far, some of which have been sent by Sergeant Dennison-Wilkins to the lab for analysis, the grave contained traces of blood and lots of evidence of animal disturbance. And as I believe you’ve been told, we discovered a bone nearby just over an hour ago, it may have been dragged away by animals.’

‘Human?’

‘Possibly — we can’t be sure at this stage. Would you like to see it, sir?’

‘I’m no anatomy expert, but yes.’

Grace and Branson walked behind Lorna and Simon along more track to the smaller tent. The forensic archaeologist picked an evidence bag from the table, which contained a clean bone with a gnarled double lump at one end and a skewed knot at the other. Both ends appeared to have been chewed.

The detectives studied it carefully. ‘Humans have two lowerarm bones, if I’m right?’ Grace said.

Simon nodded. ‘The radius is one of two forearm bones — it’s the shorter of the two but thicker than the other, the ulna. It runs from the lateral side of the elbow to the thumb side of the wrist, and parallel to the ulna.’

Grace looked at it again for some moments. ‘You’ve sent a photo of it to Dundee for verification, I understand?’

‘Yes, they’re pretty good about coming back quickly.’

‘What’s your own assessment of the bone, Simon?’ he asked.

‘Well, Lucy’s the expert. In my view this could be human, but it might well be a roe deer tibia — this forest is home to a large number of deer.’

Grace continued studying the bone, none the wiser. ‘The fact that there are no body parts present in the grave could be put down to predation.’ He looked at Lorna and Simon for confirmation. Both nodded.

‘A dismembered body, especially in woodlands like this, can be carried off by animals within days — even more so if the grave is on a fox or badger run. But bones picked as clean as this, in less than a week? It’s possible, I guess — do you agree?’

‘It is, I... we... have seen it happen, sir,’ Lorna said. ‘Especially underwater. And, of course, acid is always a possibility.’

Grace had worked with Lorna in the past when she had been in charge of the now disbanded Sussex Police Specialist Search Unit. He’d seen instances of human bodies on the seabed being picked clean by fish and crustaceans in a very short time. And he’d seen his share of skeletal remains in acid baths.

‘But,’ she continued, ‘it can happen in woodland situations like this, where there’s a lot of wildlife.’

‘Fair point,’ he said, swallowing back those memories of past bodies he’d seen, picked clean. He didn’t want these memories right now. He looked down at the row of evidence bags. In one was a popsock; another contained a headband; another, a substantial kitchen knife.

He picked up the bag with the knife in his gloved hand and held it out in the daylight. There was dried blood on the blade and handle. ‘This is the knife that was found in a bush nearby, Lorna?’

‘Yes, it is. I’ve sent a picture of it back to the incident room to see if they can get a match with the set of knives in the kitchen of the house.’

‘Can I see the bush?’

She led Grace and Branson a short distance from the metal track and stopped at a yellow triangle on the ground. It was marked ‘7’ and was right in front of a tangle of brambles, with ripe blackberries on the branches.

‘It was in there.’

Grace studied the bush and then looked around. There were several more similar bushes nearby, but each of these much bigger and far denser. He frowned, looked at Branson for a moment, then back at the surrounding bushes.

‘Seeing something I’m not, boss?’ the DI asked.

‘Something that’s not making total sense,’ Grace said. ‘Why this bush?’

‘Because it’s close to the grave,’ Branson suggested.

Grace fixed his gaze on him. ‘OK, think about it for a moment. I always try to put myself in the killer’s shoes. Let’s hypothesize that Niall Paternoster murdered Eden, dismembered her body, drove the remains out here to a grave, along with the clothes she had been wearing when he killed her, and interred her in this grave. Why didn’t he put the knife in with her?’

Glenn Branson frowned in thought. ‘Animals? Or maybe he was in a red mist. Like all crims in the aftermath? Right? So he brings her out here in the early hours of Friday, he’s all ramped up. Buries her and all the clothing, covers the grave over and then — shit! He realizes he’s forgotten to bury the knife. So he discards it in the first bush he sees?’

‘A simple, stupid error,’ Lorna Dennison-Wilkins said. ‘Seen it before many times. The killer in a panic.’

Grace shook his head. ‘This doesn’t fit. He wasn’t in a panic. So, let’s suppose he was planning to murder Eden. The trigger was the row they had last Thursday night. Maybe he deliberately created the row.’

‘But isn’t that a bit daft?’ Branson asked. ‘Wouldn’t he have known the neighbours would hear?’

‘Not necessarily. If he’s a narcissist, bigger on ego than he is on brains as you and I both thought after talking to him, perhaps he thought that the neighbours hearing a row would lend credence to the story he’s giving that she’s left him — done a runner on their marriage. But without thinking through how all his movements would be picked up on ANPR cameras and GPS tracking of his phone.’ Grace shrugged. ‘That wouldn’t be the first time a killer’s been trapped that way.’

‘Good point,’ Branson agreed.

‘So let’s go down this route for now. When he brought her body — or body parts — here, it was nearly 3 a.m. Pitch dark. No one around. He had all the time in the world. He had the choice of at least six far thicker bushes within flashlight range, as we can see. So why did he choose the one so near and so sparse? And I’m not buying red mist or panic. He was clear-headed enough after killing her to remove her wedding and engagement rings and conceal them, and to hide her passport. But two things here are really bothering me.’

‘Which are, boss?’ Branson asked.

‘We know there were a number of true crime DVDs in the house. Let’s hypothesize that he learned through those that one of the best ways to dispose of a body is to dismember it and bury it in a shallow — rather than deep — grave, in woodlands. Because that gives you the best chance of predation, which we believe has happened here. The body parts conveniently carried off. So why was he dumb enough to leave items of her clothing in the grave also? Do either of you think that’s consistent with his planning?’

Grace looked at them all in turn before continuing. ‘Then, after all his planning, Niall Paternoster clumsily chucks the knife into the nearest bush? When there are several so dense and prickly it’s much less likely a member of the public would find it. Why would he do that? I think it was more likely that the deposition site was his way to get rid of the clothing and I think animal disturbance has caused the knife to be moved, especially as it has soil on it. But I don’t completely reject the possibility it could have just been chucked away by him.’

‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying, boss? That he wanted to be caught?’ Branson asked.

Grace shook his head. ‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘I’m confused.’

Lorna Dennison-Wilkins looked equally bemused.

‘Join the club,’ Grace said. ‘None of this is making sense. Was it buried or was it thrown away?’

The DI looked at his watch. ‘Boss, I’ve got to get back to HQ to meet Mark Taylor for the surveillance briefing. If we leave now, I’ve just got time to drop you back home.’

‘I’ll come to the briefing with you. We can spend some more time here. I want to take a further look round.’

‘On your own?’

‘No, come with me.’

Grace, followed by Branson, walked further into the woods. They became increasingly dense, all paths a tangle of nettles and brambles, with dubious-looking mushrooms and toadstools free-standing or attached to tree trunks.

Finally, Branson, looking at his watch, said, ‘We really need to head back, boss, for Mark Taylor. It’s after 3 p.m.’

Grace nodded.

‘Any conclusions?’

‘No. You?’

Branson shook his head. ‘Right now I’m all out of conclusions.’

‘You and me both.’