As she reached the village, she spotted the upper reaches of the ruins in the distance, poking up above the trees on the hill.
Why there? Why did you leave her there?
Driving along the main street, she wondered where the killer’s other victims were. It was doubtful that Daisy had been the only one. Were the others still buried in a secret place, as Sheridan had called it, or were their bodies going to turn up as well?
How many more families would have that final shred of hope torn mercilessly away?
Chapter 8
As he drove into Castleton, Battle felt a pang of guilt and regret. The emotion made him feel as if his insides had been scooped out with a sharp knife, leaving only a hollow shell. Fifteen years ago, he’d made a promise to a family here that their daughter would be found safe and well.
Now, he had to tell them that had been a lie.
He still wasn’t sure why he’d told Jeff and Pam Riddle that he’d find their daughter and bring her back to them alive. At the time, a couple of youngsters had gone missing for a day or two, only to return home bleary-eyed and tired after discovering that running away wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Battle had assumed that Daisy had done the same, and that she’d be found within twenty-four hours at most. He’d asked his superintendent, Jack Powers, for the resources to get CCTV footage from the train station at Hope, the nearest station to Castleton. Powers, also assuming that Daisy would simply return in a couple of days, had refused the request, thinking it a waste of manpower.
Battle had gone to the station, armed with a photograph of Daisy, and questioned the staff and passengers there, to see if anyone had seen the young girl getting on a train. No one had.
Forced by a lack of resources to keep his search limited in scope, he’d questioned the family who had last seen Daisy before her disappearance; the Marston family, whose daughter Sylvia had been a friend of Daisy’s for years.
Because of the runaway angle, he’d spent most of his time questioning Sylvia, asking her if she knew her friend was intending to leave Castleton. Sylvia had vehemently denied that Daisy had planned any such thing, and Battle had believed her, but had still not considered the possibility that Daisy had been abducted somewhere along the short route from the Marston house to her own.
The Marstons and the Riddles lived two streets away from each other, no more than a two-minute walk. The chance of Daisy being abducted during those two minutes had seemed infinitesimally small.
Yet it was obvious, now, that Daisy had encountered someone during that tiny window of time and had been taken off the street.
Only to turn up fifteen years later, wrapped in a bedsheet, on an altar in a ruined chapel forty miles south of here.
It didn’t make any sense to Battle, but it wasn’t his job to understand the dark workings of the human psyche; that was Tony Sheridan’s job. All Battle had to do was catch the bastard who’d done it.
He pulled up outside the Riddle house and a flood of memories washed over him. The last time he’d stepped out of that house, he’d told Pam and Jeff that Daisy would be home soon.
Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, he got out of the Range Rover and pushed through the small wrought iron gate that opened onto the Riddle’s front lawn. A gravel path led to the front door.
Before he’d even stepped onto the path, the door opened. Jeff Riddle stood in the doorway, looking as if he’d aged a lot more than fifteen years since Battle had last seen him. In fact, the man—who was younger than Battle—looked as if life had chewed him up and spat him out.
That was totally understandable, Battle thought. The man’s daughter had vanished off the face of the earth, and he’d probably spent every minute of every day, for the past fifteen years, wondering what had happened to her.
He must have heard the news about the discovery at the chapel. He must have thought the girl could be Daisy. And now, seeing a detective walking up his front path, his worst fears were realised.
Jeff leaned heavily against the doorframe and his eyes, which peered through the lenses of his glasses, were red-rimmed and cloudy. He shook his head weakly. “No. You shouldn’t be here. Why are you here? It can’t be her. It can’t be.”
“Can I come inside, Jeff?” Battle asked gently. “We can talk better in there.”
“We don’t have anything to talk about. You still haven’t found her. You still haven’t found her.” He repeated the words like a mantra, as if to convince himself of their meaning. “You still haven’t found her,” he whispered again, but this time, he retreated into the hallway, which Battle took as an invitation to come in.
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “Come into the living room, Jeff, and have a sit down. Is Pam here?”
Jeff looked up at him and shook his head. “Pam died six years ago. Cancer.”
Taking the other man by the arm, Battle led him into the living room and to the sofa. Jeff sat down heavily. “It’s Daisy, isn’t it? The girl on the news. The one they found.”
Perching on the edge of an armchair, Battle nodded slowly, and then said, “Yes, it is. I’m sorry.”
Jeff let out a breath he’d been holding in for fifteen years. “My girl is dead. She’s never coming home.”
Battle said nothing, letting Jeff take his time.
“I don’t know if I’m glad Pam isn’t here, or if I wish she was. She died not knowing what had happened to our daughter. But at least she didn’t have to face the fact that Daisy won’t be coming home ever again; she may have suspected, but she couldn’t be sure. Now, I’m sure. And it hurts so much.” He began to sob.
“Dad?” A young boy’s voice floated down the stairs.
Battle was surprised. At the time of Daisy’s disappearance, she’d been an only child, so the Riddles must have had another child in the intervening years.
Jeff looked towards the stairs. “Go back to your room, Toby. We’ll talk later, all right?”
“Are you okay?” Now the boy was coming downstairs. As he came into view, Battle saw a fair-haired young man who looked eleven or twelve years old. He was holding some sort of game console controller in his hand. He ignored Battle and went straight over to his father. Jeff put his arm around the boy and pulled him close, still crying but trying to put a brave face on for his son.
“I’m all right,” he said, wiping his eyes. “I’ve just had some bad news about your sister. You go back to your games, okay?”
Toby nodded and looked at Battle. “Are you a policeman?”
“I am,” Battle said.
“Was that my sister they found in that old church?”
Battle looked over at the boy’s father. Jeff nodded, giving his assent for the detective to answer the question.
“It was,” Battle said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“That’s okay,” Toby said, shrugging. He turned to his father. “Can I go and play my game now?”
“Yes, go to your room. I’ll be up in a bit.”
The boy went back upstairs.
“He never knew his sister,” Jeff said to Battle. “And now, he never will. How did my girl end up in Temple Well after all this time? Where has she been for fifteen years?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
Jeff’s face hardened slightly. “They said she’s been buried somewhere and dug up again. So, while you were thinking that Daisy was a runaway, that she’d hopped on a train to God knows where, she was already dead and buried.”
Battle sighed. “It looks that way, yes.”
“You failed my daughter. You said you’d find her, that she’d be with us again. But she was already dead in the ground.”
“I’m sorry, Jeff. I—“
“Just go,” the grieving father said. “There’s nothing you can do to make it better. My daughter is gone. You can’t change that.”
“I can catch the person who did it,” Battle offered. “It won’t bring Daisy back, but—“
> “Can you?” Jeff said, squinting at Battle through a veil of tears. “You made me a promise fifteen years ago, and you never kept it. Can you keep this one?”
Battle hesitated.
“That’s what I thought,” Jeff said. “Just go.”
Battle walked towards the front door. He hadn’t made a verbal promise to Jeff, but he made a mental one to himself; he was going to find the bastard who’d brought such misery to the Riddle family. Find him and…
“If you do find him,” Jeff said from the sofa, as if he’d read Battle’s mind, “I want you to kill him.”
Battle stopped with his hand on the door. “That isn’t my job, Jeff.”
“I know what the justice system is like. People can get away with murder on a technicality. I can’t risk that happening to the man who killed my daughter. Not after everything he’s done. I just can’t.”
“I’ll find him,” Battle said, realising he’d made another promise he hadn’t intended to. He opened the door and stepped out into the cool air. As he walked to the car and looked back at the Riddle house, saw Jeff still sitting on the sofa with his head in his hands.
Climbing wearily into the car, Battle let out a breath that held a mixture of regret and disappointment.
Before he started the engine, he rang Gallow. The superintendent had asked to be notified as soon as Battle had told the Riddle family the news. Probably so he could announce to the press that the girl in the chapel was Daisy. The media would have a lot of questions after Daisy’s identity was released, not least of which being the questions surrounding where the girl had been buried for the past fifteen years. That was a question he needed to know the answer to himself.
“Battle,” Gallow said, as he answered the phone. “Have you notified the next of kin?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve done it.”
“Good. How did it go? As well as one can expect in the circumstances, I suppose.”
“Yes, as well as can be expected,” Battle repeated, offering nothing further.
“All right. I’ll announce her identity at the press conference. I suppose questions are going to be asked regarding the original investigation, so you need to be ready for that.”
“I’ll be ready.”
“Excellent. Now, I have to go and face the vultures. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck, sir,” Battle said, but the line was already dead.
He was about to place the phone on the passenger seat when it began ringing, DS Morgan’s name appearing on the screen.
“Lorna,” he said as he answered it. “Any news from the postmortem?” The DS had gone to the mortuary at Chesterfield Hospital to attend the procedure.
“Yeah, there’s something interesting here, guv. When the pathologist and the forensic anthropologist were examining the bones in the sheet, they found an extra…hang on, I’ve written this down….talus bone.”
“You’re going to have to enlighten me,” Battle said.
“It’s a bone from a foot,” she said. “An ankle bone.”
“What do you mean they found an extra one?”
“As well as Daisy’s bones, the sheet contained an ankle bone that belongs to someone else.”
He frowned. “So, you’re telling me there were more remains than just Daisy’s wrapped in that sheet.”
“That’s right, guv. We’ve got more than one victim.”
Chapter 9
When Battle arrived at Chesterfield Hospital, a quick flash of his warrant card to one of the receptionists earned him an escort—in the form of an elderly male hospital volunteer—to the basement. He’d been here plenty of times before, but he didn’t want to disappoint the volunteer, who seemed pleased to have something to do.
When the volunteer left him at a door marked Mortuary, and disappeared back upstairs, Battle took a moment to compose himself before entering the place where the dead were stored and examined.
He was beginning to believe that the only reason Daisy Riddle was in this place was because of a bungled police investigation fifteen years ago; an investigation he’d been in charge of. True, he’d done his best, considering the limited resources he’d been afforded, and lack of interest from his superiors, but his best hadn’t been good enough, and that was probably going to haunt him for the rest of his life.
Reminding himself that he at least had a chance of bringing Daisy’s killer to justice, he pushed the door open and entered the morgue.
A bright white, clinically clean corridor led to a number of doors. DS Morgan was standing outside one of them, leaning against the wall, waiting for him. She gave him a brief wave as he walked over to her.
“What’s this about another bone?” he asked as he got within earshot.
“Like I said on the phone, guv, there’s an extra ankle bone.”
“So, there’s another body in whatever grave Daisy was dug out of.”
Morgan nodded and pointed a thumb at the door behind her. “The pathologist has gone up to her office, but the forensic anthropologist is still in there.”
“Right, I’d best have a word with her, then. Is it Alina?”
Morgan nodded.
Having worked in Derbyshire for most of his career, Battle knew Alina Dalca, the forensic anthropologist who worked on the post-mortems involving bones. A couple of years ago, he’d worked with her on a case that had involved a number of old graves dotted around the Derbyshire countryside, and he’d found her to be painstakingly meticulous in her examination of skeletons and bone fragments.
If he could choose an expert witness to give clear, concise testimony in court, then that expert would be Alina Dalca.
He went into the room and found her leaning over a desk, scribbling notes onto a notepad. The room itself was a small laboratory and was full of scientific equipment.
“Hello, Stewart,” Alina said, “I’ll be with you in a moment.” She had an Eastern European accent. Battle knew she’d come from Romania to England while in her teens. Now in her thirties, she still retained the accent, but it had become less thick over time.
She finished writing, stood up straight, and adjusted her glasses. “What can I do for you?” she asked.
“I understand we’ve got an extra bone.”
Alina nodded. “That’s right. Would you like to see it?”
Battle, who had seen enough bodies and bones to not be squeamish anymore, nodded.
“This way.” She led him into the room where the post-mortem had been carried out.
Daisy’s body must have already been put into one of the storage drawers that filled one wall, because the only thing on display in the room was a single bone—shaped like a wedge—sitting on one of the stainless-steel tables.
“This is it,” Alina said, pointing out the bone.
Battle bent over to get a better look at it. “What’s that scratch on it?”
“Probably a mark from the spade sliding along the bone,” the anthropologist said.
Aware that his back was liable to play up if he bent over for too long, Battle straightened. “So, our man was digging up Daisy, and he happened to dig this up as well. Was it on purpose, to tell us he has other bodies? Or was it accidental?”
He’d been asking those questions of himself, but Alina offered an answer. “It could certainly have been an accident. If a skeleton was lying in the dirt beneath Daisy’s body, and if it was aligned so that it was on its side, the talus would be sticking up, so it could that the spade hit it when its blade passed beneath Daisy’s body.”
“All right.” Battle made a mental note that the extra ankle bone could have been dug up by accident. It didn’t tell him anything useful at the moment, other than the fact that Daisy had not been alone in the grave.
“Does it tell us anything about who it belonged to?” He pointed at the talus on the table.
Alina nodded. “I can tell by its size that it belonged to someone a little older than Daisy. Perhaps someone in their late twenties.”
“And since it was probably
buried beneath Daisy, I assume it’s been in the ground for fifteen years, or thereabouts?”
“Perhaps longer,” she said. “I will carry out some further tests.”
“Thanks, Alina.” He paused, and then said, “Can I see her?”
The anthropologist frowned, confused. “Her?”
“Daisy Riddle,” he said. “I’d like to see her.”
“Of course.” She went to one of the storage drawers and pulled the handle. The drawer slid open smoothly.
Battle felt a blast of cold, refrigerated air as he got closer.
Alina reached into the drawer and pulled down the sheet that was covering Daisy’s face.
The DCI looked down at the remains of the girl he’d promised to find fifteen years ago and let out a long sigh that was full of regret. Was there something he could have done all that time ago that might have meant Daisy would still be alive? She’d be thirty now, perhaps with kids of her own. Had his own failings stolen that life from her?
He couldn’t allow himself to think like that. To do so would cloud his vision and affect his ability to solve the case. Daisy may have been let down by the police, but they hadn’t taken her from the streets of Castleton fifteen years ago and killed her. Someone else had done that.
“I’ll find him, Daisy,” Battle whispered, making the same promise to the dead girl that he’d made to her father earlier. He turned away from the half-open drawer, feeling a lump in his throat.
“Are you all right, Stewart?” Alina asked, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“Yes, I’m fine,” he said, regaining his composure. “Thank you.”
“I’ll look into the ankle bone and see if it can tell us anything,” she said, perhaps understanding that it might be best to change the subject.
“Great. Let me know if you find anything.” He left the room and went back out to the corridor, where DS Morgan was still waiting.
“Everything all right, guv?” she asked, pushing away from the wall.
Silence of the Bones: A Murder Force Crime Thriller Page 5