The Scent of Death

Chapter 6

In the end, the recovery of the woman’s remains went without a hitch. The dust had settled, literally, when I climbed through the ceiling hatch and crossed the stepping plates to where the desiccated body waited. Everything in the loft was as we’d left it, except now the hole that Conrad had fallen through had been covered over with plastic sheeting and cordoned off with blue-and-white police tape.

I’d been told the forensic pathologist was out of danger, although a bad concussion, broken hip, ribs and shoulder meant he wouldn’t be carrying out post-mortems any time soon. There had been talk about waiting for a replacement before resuming the recovery, but Ward hadn’t wanted to wait any longer. Even though the structural engineers had decided there was no imminent risk of any more of the loft collapsing, no one wanted to put it to the test. The priority now was to get the body out of the loft as quickly as possible. Anything else could wait until it was in the mortuary.

Ordinarily, recovering the woman’s body would have been relatively simple. Even fragile mummified remains wouldn’t cause too many problems, though care would have to be taken when it came to lowering them through the narrow hatch. The complication here was that the victim wasn’t only mummified, she’d been pregnant. And without the womb’s cushioning fluid to protect it, any attempt to move her body with the foetus still inside would cause the tiny bones to shift around, like seeds in a dry gourd. We couldn’t afford to damage them more than they had been already, which left me with no option.

Before we recovered the mother’s remains from the loft, I’d first have to remove her baby.

It wasn’t something I’d been looking forward to. There seemed something deeply wrong — sacrilegious, almost — in separating the two of them in that way. I waited while a SOCO carefully fastened plastic bags around the woman’s claw-like hands with their shredded finger ends and broken nails. Then, as another SOCO videoed the operation, I closed my mind to the macabre nature of what I was about to do and set to work.

I hadn’t done anything quite like this before. In effect, I was looking at two individual sets of remains, because the conditions for them both would have been markedly different. Whereas the mother’s body had been exposed to air, flies and scavengers virtually straight away, inside her uterus the foetus would have been more protected. That also applied to the process of mummification. The mother’s body would have desiccated from the outside, with internal organs gradually shrinking as they dried out at a slower rate. Ordinarily, the child she carried would have been similarly protected. Cocooned in the womb’s amniotic fluid, the foetal remains might not have mummified at all.

There was nothing ordinary about this, though. The entire abdominopelvic cavity was open and hollowed out, exposing the tiny bones nestled inside. Had that been caused by a wound, there would have been extensive bloodstains on her denim skirt and T-shirt. Since there weren’t any, it meant this was down to something else. Rats were one possibility. They were known to inhabit lofts, and the woman’s body would undoubtedly have been visited by them before it mummified.

But, contrary to popular belief, rodents aren’t major scavengers of human remains. Foxes, dogs and even domestic cats are all more voracious, although nothing of that size was to blame for this. Even if one had managed to gain access to the loft, larger scavengers generally devour a body in a recognizable sequence, starting with the soft tissues of the head and neck and ending by the disarticulation of the cranium and long bones. Sometimes that can allow a rough time-since-death to be estimated, based on how long each of these various stages are known to take.

Nothing I saw suggested that had happened here. The gnawing and teeth marks were mainly limited to the more vulnerable extremities. As well as damage from the woman’s futile attempt to escape from the loft, the finger ends had been badly chewed, which would rule out any hope of making an identification from fingerprints. The ears, nose and eyes had been similarly targeted, resulting in a grisly death’s mask of a face. That suggested nothing larger than a rat had been at work. Although the edges of the open cavity had been gnawed — and the much, much smaller foetal bones had received even more attention — that was more likely to have come later. The remains of empty pupae casings inside the cavity told me that Calliphoridae larvae had been busy, and I was inclined to think they were the main culprits rather than rats.

Yet flies would have laid eggs on the abdomen only if there was some kind of open wound. It didn’t have to be big: even a minor cut or graze would have provided all the invitation the questing insects required. But there was no sign of anything to indicate a pre-existing injury, such as a dressing or plaster either on the body or in the folds of the tarpaulin enclosing it. And nothing had been found at the other site where the body had been originally.

That was a mystery that could wait till the mortuary, though. Angling one of the floodlights closer, I turned my attention to the cluster of pathetically small bones.

As I worked, loud hammering from the floor below announced that the false wall was being dismantled. I didn’t let it distract me. Handling the delicate foetal skeleton was fine work. Not all of it was present, since some of it had been carried off by whatever scavengers had discovered it in the loft. The remaining bones had become disconnected from each other and lay in an untidy scatter, probably disturbed when the mother’s mummified body had been moved, as well as by the attentions of scavengers. One by one, I began to carefully lift them out and place them into small storage bags, wherever possible separating the left and right bones. The minuscule size meant it was an agonizingly slow business, baking hot under the glare of the floodlights.

Intent on extracting a miniature vertebra with a pair of tweezers, I didn’t look up as the tramp of feet approached on the stepping boards.

‘How much longer do you think you’ll be?’ Whelan asked after a moment.

‘As long as it takes.’

It came out more sharply than I’d intended. I’d tried to detach myself from what I was doing: evidently, I hadn’t succeeded. I waited until I’d slipped the tiny vertebra into a bag and then straightened.

‘I’m about halfway there,’ I told him. ‘I can’t go any faster without damaging the bones. And I don’t want to miss any.’

‘Fair enough. Just checking.’

I tilted my head towards the hammering coming from below. ‘How’s that coming along?’

‘Getting there. We decided against power tools, so we’re using old-fashioned hammers and chisels. Not as fast but they don’t kick up as much dust. We should be through by this afternoon, then once the ceiling’s shored up we can get the SOCOs in there.’

‘Where’s Ward?’ I asked. I hadn’t seen her since she’d disappeared after the briefing that morning.

‘Tied up in a meeting, but she’ll be along later. She’d like a word with you when she gets here.’

I nodded, but I wasn’t really listening. As Whelan left, I was already leaning over the remains again, intent on teasing out a rib the size of a fish bone.

It never occurred to me to wonder what Ward might want.

The rooks perched on top of the ruins like monks on the skyline. They might have been carved from stone themselves. Every now and then one or other of them would cock its head or ruffle its feathers, then it would subside and the birds would go back to their silent waiting.

Choked with ivy, the roofless church stood in a clearing surrounded by autumnal trees. Only one gable wall remained standing, an arched window in its centre framing blue sky. The rest had tumbled to crenellated mounds of stone centuries ago, their edges softened by moss and bracken. Lying in its centre was a lightning-struck oak. Although not as ancient as the church itself, it was still old, its gnarled trunk blackened and split a few feet above the ground where the lightning had hit. The mortally wounded tree had thrown up a thicket of new growth around its charred bole, and a few sparse leaves still clung to its branches as though in denial of its own death.

It was hard to believe I was only a stone’s throw from the hospital, still part of London’s urban sprawl. A squirrel paused to scold me as it skittered up a tree trunk, then shot up into the rustling branches. From where I was sitting I watched it go, then closed my eyes and turned my face up to the sun again.

I’d needed to clear my head after I’d finished in the loft. Once the foetal bones had been removed and taken away, recovering the woman’s remains had been straightforward. Even so, I was glad when it was over. The floodlit loft was close and airless, and I was running with sweat inside the coveralls long before I’d finished. It wasn’t just the physical discomfort: I’d grown accustomed enough to that by now. Nor was it purely the sad nature of what I was doing. It was the old hospital itself. St Jude’s seemed to exert a malign pressure, one that grew the longer you were inside. I thought it might lift once I’d climbed down from the stifling loft. But the long, echoing corridors were just as bad. Stinking of mould and urine, they seemed to go on for ever, lit by receding lines of floodlights that served to darken the blackness around them. Open doors offered glimpses into shadowed rooms, empty except for an upended chair or broken trolley. If ever this had been a place of healing, the peeling walls held no memory of it. Only desperation would bring anyone here now.

It was a relief to step outside into daylight. Even the diesel-tainted air tasted sweet in comparison. The respite was only temporary, though. The post-mortem on the woman and her unborn child wasn’t scheduled until next morning, and in the interim there were still the other victims in the sealed room. As soon as the wall was down I’d be going back inside St Jude’s.

Taking off my coveralls, I’d collected a sandwich and a bottle of water and gone around to the back of the hospital to see what was there. Behind St Jude’s was a scene of ordered devastation. The cracked tarmac was marked with the faded white lines of car-parking spaces, and head-high mounds of rubble showed where the outbuildings had once been. Protruding from one of these, a weed-covered hummock of broken bricks and concrete, was a battered sign that read Morgue deliveries around rear.

Fifty yards beyond it was a dark green line of trees. Remembering what Ward had said about the woods behind St Jude’s, I’d set off towards them. I’d almost been turned back by a police dog handler patrolling the outer cordon that had been set up, but after a brief explanation he’d let me pass.

The wood wasn’t very big: in this part of the city it couldn’t be. A line of rusted railings, pointed like spears and canted at odd angles, formed a boundary between its trees and the hospital grounds. They were half hidden behind undergrowth, and I wasn’t sure at first if I’d be able to find a way through. But a section of the spear-like railings had collapsed, leaving a yard-wide gap. A thin ribbon of worn path showed I wasn’t the first person to discover it so, pushing through the scratching branches, I stepped into the wood.

It was a different world. This wasn’t some recent planting, the fast growth of inner-city landscaping. The trees here were ancient: broad, twisted oaks and beech. They closed around me as I walked in, and after a few paces St Jude’s and the rest of London might not have existed.

I didn’t plan to go very far, but when I saw a brighter dapple of sunlight through the branches up ahead I headed towards it. Ward had mentioned there were the ruins of a Norman church in the woods, but I’d forgotten until I entered the clearing and saw the crumbling stone walls. The church must have been quite a landmark when the land surrounding it had been fields or forest. Now only a solitary gable remained standing, overgrown with ivy that clambered over its stones as though slowly drawing it into the ground.

Stepping over a worn stone block draped with moss, I picked my way into what would have been the church nave. Open to the sky, it was almost filled by the lightning-struck oak. Skirting round the massive trunk, I sat down on a grass-covered mound of fallen masonry and ate the tasteless sandwich. If I strained I could just make out the distant sound of traffic, a muted rushing that could almost be the sea. Then a breeze stirred the branches and even that was lost. With my eyes closed and the sun on my face, I felt St Jude’s finally begin to loosen its hold.

I must have drifted off. Suddenly, I came awake, with a prickling awareness that I was no longer alone.

A woman was standing on the edge of the clearing.

I hadn’t heard her approach. Stoutly built, she looked in her seventies, though it was hard to tell. Her brown coat looked too heavy for the weather, and the scuffed training shoes were an ill match for the thick tights she wore with them. An empty bin bag hung from one hand, rustling slightly in the breeze. Her grey hair had a russet tinge that gave it the look of a rusty wire pan scrub, while the face below it was jowly and had an unhealthy pallor. She was breathing hard, with an asthmatic wheeze I could hear even from where I was.

If she was surprised to find me there she didn’t show it. ‘Who are you?’

I climbed to my feet. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.’

‘I didn’t say you had.’ The eyes that regarded me from above the doughy cheeks were small and suspicious. She jerked her chin at the trees behind me. ‘One of that lot, are you?’

‘What lot?’

‘Police. Here for them murders that’s been on the news.’ She looked me up and down. ‘You don’t look like police.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Then what’re you doing here?’

‘Just leaving,’ I said, resigned.

It was time I went back anyway. I picked up the water bottle and the remains of the sandwich, but she hadn’t finished.

‘If you’re not police, what are you? You don’t look like a druggie, neither. And you’re wasting your time if you are. Nobody’s selling.’

‘That’s OK, I’m not buying.’ But she’d snared my interest. ‘How do you know nobody’s selling?’

Ward had told me drugs were dealt from the abandoned hospital, and there was a good chance at least one of the victims could be either a user or a dealer. If this woman had seen anything she might make a potential witness.

She gave a scornful huff. ‘What, with police crawling all over the place? It’s like an ants’ nest.’

‘But before they came. Was there a lot of dealing round here?’

‘Open your eyes. Streets aren’t fit for decent people no more.’ A look of indignation came over her face. ‘Why’re you asking?’

‘I was just—’

‘You think I’m one of them scum?’

‘No, I—’

‘Filthy bastards! They deserve stringing up, the lot of ’em! Ruining decent lives, but nobody cares about that, do they?’

I tried a change of tack. ‘I’d no idea this place existed. Do you live nearby?’

‘Near enough.’ She looked around her, tutting when she saw a couple of empty drinks bottles in the grass. Opening the bin liner, she bent and picked them up, flinging them into it in disgust. ‘Look at this. Dirty sods, leaving all their rubbish.’

‘Is that why you come here?’ I asked, realizing now why she’d brought the empty bag.

‘No law against it, is there? Someone has to get rid of it.’ Her jaw worked ruminatively as she considered me, the eyes unmistakably hostile now. ‘To say you’re not police you ask enough bleeding questions.’

I held up my hands in surrender. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’

She glared, shifting her grip on the empty bin bag as she weighed me up.

‘Piss off.’

With that, she turned around and walked off through the woods. Well, that’s told me, I thought, watching the dumpy figure trudge through the trees. Then, making sure I’d not left any litter behind, I went back to St Jude’s.