S. J. Bolton

by Blood Harvest

  ‘As crimes scenes go, this is as bad as it gets,’ said Rushton as they walked back towards the house. ‘We’re working in the dark, in shocking weather, the mud’s close to a foot deep in places and it looks like there was quite a lot of contamination of the site before we got here.’

  One of the white-clad figures was moving slowly round the outside of the inner cordon, taking photographs. Another figure, which Harry thought might be a woman, was using a measuring tape. She stretched it from the wall to the smallest of the three bodies, then began scribbling, or maybe drawing, on a clipboard hanging around her neck.

  ‘The forensics people you see have just arrived from Manchester,’ explained Rushton. ‘We don’t have that sort of specialism locally. Luckily, the first officer on site was a bright lad. He sealed off the area until the team could get here. Did the same up in the churchyard.’

  Harry looked up. More white figures could be seen on the other side of the stone wall. Up there, too, efforts were being made to control the weather. An awning had been stretched across metal poles. One of the officers was struggling to fasten plastic sheeting around the edges. In this wind it was close to hopeless.

  ‘What are all these people doing?’ Harry asked.

  ‘The photographer is recording the scene before the trace-evidence people can get to work,’ said Rushton. ‘He’ll take pictures from every angle, then he’ll climb up into the graveyard and do the same. That girl over there, she’s sketching. She’ll measure how everything is situated in relation to everything else and then it’ll all be fed into a computer. We’ll get a very accurate model that we can use if we ever need to go to court. The main task tonight will be removing the bodies, intact if possible, and getting them to the pathology unit. Along with everything else that might be relevant. The coffin will go, of course, any bits of clothing, hair and so on. We’ll take casts of any footprints. Looks like they’ve started already.’

  Rushton was pointing to a spot not far from the house. A man was kneeling on a mat of chequer-plated aluminum, pouring liquid on to the ground in front of him.

  ‘The other two bodies could have come from graves on either side of Lucy’s,’ suggested Harry. ‘I can’t tell you whose they were, but there’ll be a plan somewhere.’

  ‘We have it already,’ said Rushton. ‘Family graves on both sides, three people recorded as being in the one, four in the other. All adults. And from what we can see so far, those graves are still intact.’

  ‘Is it possible they’ve been in the ground a long time?’ asked Harry, knowing it wasn’t. None of the corpses he’d just seen was properly skeletonized. ‘In a much earlier grave that no one knew about? This churchyard is hundreds of years old. There must be ancient graves all over this hill. Headstones got removed, people forgot who was in the ground.’ He stopped. He was gabbling. And clutching at straws.

  ‘Well, we can’t rule it out for now,’ said Rushton. ‘But frankly, the team think it unlikely. And you have to see their point. Did they look like ancient corpses to you?’

  Harry looked back over his shoulder. ‘Do the Fletchers know what’s going on?’ he asked. ‘They’ve been under a lot of pressure lately, it won’t be the best—’

  ‘Oh aye, they know,’ said Rushton. ‘It was the kids that brought the wall down.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I haven’t had chance to speak to the parents yet, so I’ve only had half a tale,’ said the detective, ‘but it seems the two boys were out in this weather, climbing the wall. They had their younger sister in a hold-all, apparently. Looks like some sort of attempt at running away from home. Job for Social Services, if you ask me. Where are you going?’

  Harry was heading back along the path to the house. A hand fell on to his shoulder. ‘Hold your horses, lad. You can’t go in yet. The family GP is in there and the two youngsters are talking to one of my DCs. Let’s just leave everyone to do their jobs for a minute, shall we?’

  Harry knew he wasn’t being given a choice.

  ‘You’re familiar with the layout of this part of the churchyard, Reverend?’ said Rushton, as they started walking again. ‘Both churches, old and new, were built at the top of a steep hill, so a lot of terracing had to be done to create the graveyard. The wall we’re looking at was built several hundred years ago, from what I’m told, but it was a lot higher on this side than on the church side. Are you with me?’

  ‘Yes, I know that,’ said Harry, as they reached the edge of the Fletchers’ property and turned to leave the garden. ‘Gareth Fletcher has mentioned it to me a couple of times. He wanted to get a surveyor in, he was concerned about the stability of the wall.’

  ‘He was right to be.’ The two men were at the side of the house. Another massive awning had been stretched across from the house to the church wall, creating a dry space for the forensic team to store equipment. Unable to reach them, the weather seemed determined not to be ignored. Raindrops thundered down on the plastic roof while the wind kept it in constant, noisy motion.

  ‘I’m told there’s an underground stream that runs beneath the church,’ Rushton continued, removing his overalls and indicating that Harry should do the same. ‘Ordinarily that’s not a problem, but when there’s been heavy rainfall, like over the past few days, the church cellar gets flooded. The land around here gets boggy. Did you know?’

  ‘Yes.’ Harry was balanced on one foot, struggling to take off a boot that was too tight and looking round for his own shoes. ‘Gareth and I had a walk around the boundary a couple of weeks ago. I agreed it didn’t look too stable, but there’s a process I have to go through when any work needs to be done on church property. I’d already set the wheels in motion but these things typically take weeks, sometimes months.’

  ‘Well, Brian, is it my granddaughter’s grave?’

  Harry and Rushton both turned to see that Sinclair Renshaw had entered the tent from the Fletchers’ driveway. The fingers of his right hand clutched a cigarette. Harry had never seen him smoke before.

  ‘It looks that way,’ said Rushton. ‘I’m very sorry.’ Sinclair nodded his head, just once.

  ‘Do Jenny and Mike know?’ asked Harry. ‘Do you want me to—’

  ‘I’ve asked they not be told until the morning,’ Sinclair interrupted him. ‘Christiana has made coffee in the vestry. You should come up. It’s warmer in there.’

  Harry pulled his own jacket back on. ‘What happens now?’ he asked Rushton.

  ‘Well, strangely enough, there is a protocol in cases like these,’ replied the detective, indicating that they should leave the tent. ‘When remains are uncovered on church property, they have to be removed from site and examined by a police-approved pathologist. If he determines the remains are ancient bones, a lot of them apply the hundred-year rule: they’re simply returned to the minister in charge – in this case, you – and it becomes your responsibility to re-inter them.’

  ‘Yes, I think I knew that,’ agreed Harry, ‘although it’s not a situation I’ve ever come across before.’

  ‘It’s certainly never happened here,’ said Sinclair.

  ‘On the other hand, if the remains are, shall we say, fresher, we have to confirm their identity,’ added Rushton. ‘Make sure the body really is the person whose name is on the headstone. Do you follow me, Reverend?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Harry.

  ‘Once identity is confirmed, we hand the remains back jointly to you and the family and let you arrange for re-interment.’

  ‘Another funeral,’ said Sinclair, running his hand over his face. ‘It will be too much for Jenny. How can any mother be expected to bury her child twice?’

  51

  ‘WE SHOULDN’T RULE OUT A BREAK-IN,’ SAID HARRY. ‘Tom could be telling the truth.’

  Gareth was holding a coffee mug between his palms. Both hands looked unnaturally white, the fingers blue-tinged. Harry felt himself shivering in sympathy. He could hear the creak of the central-heating system, but the events of the night seemed to ha
ve brought a chill indoors.

  ‘No sign of one,’ Gareth answered him, shaking his head. ‘Front door was locked, no windows open or broken. The back door was open, but we keep the key in it and the bolt’s at the bottom. Tom could have opened it by himself.’

  ‘Where did he get the bag from?’

  ‘By the front door. I had it ready to take with me in the morning.’

  Harry thought for a moment and then turned to walk back along the corridor to the door. Under the window he could see trainers, shorts, socks – Gareth’s gym kit had been emptied out and left behind. Footsteps behind told him Gareth had followed. Through the coloured glass of the front door Harry could see two white figures, ghostly in the orange streetlight. They walked across the road carrying what looked like a stretcher between them. As Harry turned back to Gareth he caught sight of grey dust around the front door handle.

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘The police have already dusted for fingerprints,’ replied Gareth. ‘They’ve done all the ground floor and Millie’s room. I think they were just covering themselves. They didn’t find anything.’

  ‘What about Joe?’ asked Harry. ‘What does he say happened?’

  ‘Joe heard Tom yelling and got up,’ said Gareth. ‘He heard banging around downstairs, put his waterproofs on – showing great presence of mind for a six-year-old – and went out. He saw Tom lying in the mud and helped him carry the bag, with Millie in it, back to the house. I’d got up for a pee, realized the back door was open and come down. Got the fright of my life. All three of them, soaked to the skin and covered in mud. Tom started yelling about this little girl of his, Alice was all for rushing them to A&E, I took a look outside and realized I’d better get the police on the blower. Just what have they found out there?’

  ‘Not clear yet,’ lied Harry. He’d been asked not to mention the full extent of what had been discovered in the garden. ‘I’m sorry about the wall. If I’d had any idea …’

  Gareth was staring at the row of three hooks that hung by the front door. ‘That’s funny,’ he said.

  ‘What is?’ asked Alice, who was halfway down the stairs. Harry turned to smile at her and couldn’t bring himself to do it. That wasn’t a face someone could smile at.

  ‘My keys. They were missing earlier, remember?’ said Gareth. ‘Did you find them?’

  Alice shook her head. ‘They were probably there all along,’ she replied.

  ‘They weren’t. I checked after the kids had gone to bed. I had to dig out my spare set to use in the morning. How could they have got back here?’

  Alice looked from Harry to her husband. ‘Tom could have …’ she began.

  ‘Why would Tom hide his dad’s keys?’ asked Harry, trying to curb his impatience – they didn’t know everything he did. ‘If he’d wanted to open the front door in the night there were other sets he could have used, weren’t there?’

  Alice nodded. ‘Mine were there,’ she said, glancing up at the hooks. ‘They still are. And he didn’t open the front door. It was locked when we came down.’

  ‘He thought someone had come into the house earlier this evening,’ said Harry. ‘He was upstairs with Evi and came rushing down in a panic. Remember? He made us check the ground floor.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Gareth. ‘We checked. No one was in the house.’

  ‘No, they weren’t,’ said Harry. ‘Question is, were the keys?’

  52

  ‘THREE HUMAN SKELETONS,’ THE PATHOLOGIST SAID, ‘almost certainly the remains of very young children, but I’ll get to that presently.’

  Harry was hot. The room was smaller than he’d expected. Having been invited by Rushton to be present at the pathologist’s examination – the remains were all still technically his responsibility – he’d hoped to be able to position himself in the furthest corner. It wasn’t going to be. No one was getting too far away from the action today – there just wasn’t the space. A stainless-steel counter, almost a metre wide, ran around the perimeter of the room. The floor was tiled and appeared to slope downwards, allowing for easier sluicing towards the central drain. Above the counters, glass-fronted cupboards lined the walls. Three gurneys were positioned in the centre of the room. They left little room for the pathologist, his two technicians, the team of three police officers and himself. Twice already, Harry had had to side-step, finding himself in the way. He looked at his watch. They’d been in the lab less than five minutes.

  ‘The one we have here,’ continued the pathologist, stepping up to the first gurney – Harry had been introduced to him fifteen minutes ago but couldn’t recall his name – ‘St Barnabas number one, we’ll call it for the time being, has been in the ground the longest. We can see almost complete skeletonization, with just the remains of muscle and ligament holding together the bones of the thorax and the abdomen.’ He began walking round the gurney, heading for the skull. ‘The right arm appears to have broken away at the shoulder when the grave was disturbed,’ he said, ‘and part of the ulna from the left arm hasn’t been recovered yet. A couple of the metacarpals from the left hand are also missing. The brain and the internal organs will be long since gone, of course. We found some traces of fabric around the upper body and two tiny white buttons that had fallen into the ribcage.’

  ‘Lucy Pickup was buried ten years ago,’ said Rushton. ‘Is that consistent with …?’

  The pathologist held up one hand. ‘The rate of skeletonization is highly variable,’ he said. ‘It depends on the soil, the success of the embalming process if any has taken place, depth of burial and so on. The soil in the area where the bodies were found is alkaline, which would normally slow the rate of decomposition; on the other hand, this is a very young child. Very little body mass. On balance, I’d say a burial timescale of between five and fifteen years.’

  ‘We’re going to need a bit more than that, Raymond,’ said Rushton, who’d positioned himself at the foot of the gurney, directly opposite the pathologist. Raymond, that was his name. Raymond Clarke, one of the approved pathologists on the police list.

  ‘How old would you say she is?’ continued Rushton.

  ‘I’m only just getting started,’ replied Clarke. ‘And we don’t know whether number one is a she yet. As to age, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Based on the skeleton we have an estimated height measurement of 87 cm, which would put our little friend here in the fifteen-to-thirty-six-month bracket. Then we look at the rate of ossification.’

  ‘Fusion of the bones?’ asked Rushton.

  Clarke gave a single nod of his head. ‘Ossification occurs in eight hundred points of the body and can offer some very useful clues as to age,’ he said. ‘An infant is born without carpal bones in the hand, for example. Then we have the cranium. There are five major bones in a newborn’s skull, which gradually fuse along specialized joints called sutures. The newborn also has a number of fontanelles or spots of soft membrane on the skull. On our friend here they’ve closed over, suggesting a child of at least twenty-four months.’

  ‘Between two and three, then?’ asked Rushton. ‘Could be Lucy.’

  ‘Very possibly,’ said Clarke. ‘So now we look at the injuries sustained to the corpse.’

  Harry wondered if anyone else was as hot as he. Why would a pathology room be warm? You’d expect the opposite, surely, to keep the bodies in good condition. The two detectives Rushton had introduced him to – he was blowed if he could remember names – were standing like a couple of statues a few inches to his left. One of them, tall and very thin, looked to be in his late thirties. His hair was as thin as the rest of him and he appeared to have no eyelashes. The other detective was a year or so younger and powerfully built. Neither looked as uncomfortable as Harry felt. Maybe they’d just had more practice hiding it.

  ‘I’ve received the coroner’s report into the death of Lucy Pickup,’ Raymond Clarke continued, turning away from the corpse to a laptop computer. He peeled the surgical glove off his right hand and hit a key to acti
vate the screen. ‘It’s all here if anyone wants to look. It refers to severe blunt-force trauma to the right posterior part of the skull, specifically the parietal and occipital bones, following a fall from around fifteen feet on to solid flint flagstones. Displaced fractures of the skull caused considerable internal bleeding and the force of the impact would have sent severe destructive shock waves through the brain. Death would have been almost instantaneous.’

  Rushton and the taller of the two detectives closed in around Clarke. All three men peered at the computer screen. Harry stayed where he was. He already knew how Lucy had died. She’d fallen, tumbled to her death in his church, and her little skull…

  He was looking at that skull now. The pathologist could take as much time as he liked, he knew it was Lucy. ‘In addition,’ Clarke was saying, ‘the spinal cord was broken in two places, between the third and fourth lumbar vertebrae and slightly higher, between the fifth and sixth thoracic vertebrae. There was also a femoral shaft fracture on the right leg.’ He turned away from the computer, caught Harry’s eye for a second and then stepped back to the gurney. ‘If we look at the head of little miss,’ he said, ‘and yes, gentlemen, I’m coming round to the idea that she was a little miss, we can see the extent of the trauma to the skull.’ Pulling his glove back on, Clarke slid his hand under the skull and turned it so his audience could see where the skull bones had collapsed. ‘These injuries are pretty much consistent with a fall from a considerable height,’ he said. ‘I haven’t had chance to properly examine the spine yet, but if we look at her right leg, the break across the femur is quite visible. Can you see?’

  ‘Could that have occurred last night?’ asked the stockier of the detectives. He was a sergeant, Harry thought. A sergeant called Russell. Luke Russell.

  ‘Not impossible,’ said Clarke. ‘But if you look at the X-rays taken for the coroner’s post-mortem, the lines of breakage are very similar. Later on today, we’ll take more X-rays. We can compare the two, just to be on the safe side.’