Death on Dartmoor

by Bernie Steadman

  Bill Larcombe and Ben Bennett entered and piled their equipment up in the corner. Ben sighed, eyeing the felt-tipped pens and the whiteboard. ‘Another “mind-map” I’ll bet. Why can’t we have a list? Like a normal team?’

  ‘That,’ said Sally, ‘is because we are not a normal team. We are a super team, catchers of evil baddies, and we’ll need all DI Hellier’s superpowers to work out who did these particular murders, I can tell you.’ She took a pen and wrote ‘P-M 10.00am’ in the top left-hand corner of the board.

  Dan entered the room at a pace, closely followed by DCS Oliver. ‘Sit down, please,’ he said, and took up his usual position on the edge of the large table. ‘We have two bodies, possible male and female, no heads, no hands. I don’t think I need to say that these are suspicious deaths. The post-mortem,’ he glanced at the board and nodded thanks to Sally, ‘will be at ten am. DS Ellis and I will attend. Sergeant Bennett, will you attend and collect evidence, please?’

  He paused and looked at Sam Knowles and Lizzie Singh. ‘You two, start the process. Get on to misper straightaway. Who has been reported missing? They could be a couple, they could just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. We think they are adults, although the possible female is pretty short, could be a child.’

  ‘There’s no arm in ’em, though,’ Bennett sniggered.

  ‘Sir,’ Sam Knowles put a hand up, anxious to deflect his sergeant from dangerous bad joke territory. ‘When shall we start our investigation from? We have no idea how old these bodies are.’

  Dan sighed. ‘I know that, Sam. Initial examination shows that they may have been in the peat for up to ten years, and I think we can safely say they weren’t put there this year. Start last year and work backwards. Just gather the stats. Shouldn’t take you too long.’ He nodded to the chief superintendent.

  She cleared her throat. ‘This will be a high-profile case, ladies and gentlemen. I really do not want stories, however weird and wonderful they may turn out to be, leaking to the press. Everything goes through me. Understood? Until we have a new DCI in place, at least.’ She rose and straightened her jacket. ‘I’ll be in my office. Press briefing at four. Please make sure I have something to tell them.’ She pushed her protesting chair under the table, setting off a gritting of teeth from Team Two, and sailed out of the room.

  Dan raised an eyebrow at Sally. Bit sharp this morning, our lovely boss. ‘Right, where were we? Oh, yes, Sam, ferreting about in the records is your area of expertise – go to it, and teach Lizzie your voodoo.’

  He looked at the older members of the team. ‘I don’t know about you, but I haven’t dealt with anything like this before. It’s interesting. I think the bio-archaeologist, Doctor Neil Pargeter, will work out fine, and we’ll be working closely with his team. They were great on excavation yesterday.’

  ‘At least we don’t have to deal with grumpy guts at the crime lab on this case,’ said Bill Larcombe. ‘It was breath of fresh air, in more ways than one, up on Dartmoor.’

  ‘Yes, it was fascinating watching them get the bodies out, and finding the other one at the very last minute… it was quite a day.’

  Around him the team shuffled back to their desks. ‘I’ll be in my office until nine-thirty-ish. Anyone needs anything; you know where to find me.’

  He turned to go, then looked across at the sad corner with stained sink, old kettle and a chipped mug on the draining board. ‘But first things first. I can’t function without decent coffee. Sally, we’ll transfer the coffee machine that is currently hiding in my filing cabinet, and rescue the coffee currently hiding in my drawer. Let’s get civilised in here.’

  8

  Waiting just inside the operating theatre door, Neil Pargeter looked faintly menacing gowned in dull green, with his straggly hair tucked away and his long figure gaunt under the scrubs. He grinned as Dan and Sally made their way across the room to stand next to him. There was already a crowd in the room awaiting the arrival of Doctor Fox, and with two tables, police and archaeologists and technicians all jostling for space, it was going to be warm in there.

  ‘Alright this morning?’ Neil murmured to Dan as they shuffled into position along the side of the room.

  ‘Never better. I see you got them here more or less intact,’ Dan said, indicating the bodies.

  ‘Yeah, there are a couple of small bones missing. Laura will get back up onto Dartmoor later with her team and widen the search a foot or so, just to catch anything we’ve missed.’ He paused. ‘Any ideas where to look for the heads and hands?’

  ‘That’s my next job. I may need to call on your team again.’

  ‘Sure, whatever you need.’ They watched Fox barrel into the operating theatre and snap on gloves. ‘My first P-M,’ Neil said.

  ‘As post-mortems go, this one will be painless, so I wouldn’t worry,’ Dan replied. ‘They’re hardly even people, lying there like bony mannequins.’ He remembered the beautiful face of Carly Braithwaite lying on the same table, and how he had made her the promise that he would find her killer. Looking at the two on the table, they had all the markings of a gangland hit, which meant that more than likely, they were bent, too. Not going to be easy to identify them.

  Fox stuffed a fresh tape into the recorder and checked the sound levels. His technicians, quiet and efficient, prepared the bodies, sluicing debris and patches of skin into a filter as it ran off the table. Dr Laura Denning moved forward, collected the filter, and took it across to the bench where she would analyse the residue. One technician used a scalpel to take larger samples of remaining dermis and yellowed tissue and passed them along. Denning bagged them at the bench, Ben Bennett writing the details on each bag.

  Fox took a moment to study both skeletons. ‘Do we have a man and a woman, I wonder?’ He examined the shorter skeleton and asked Neil to compare the relative weights of both pelvises.

  ‘Larger one is heavier,’ said Neil.

  ‘Hmm. That’s what I think. A woman’s pelvis tilts forward to enable childbirth. As you can see, the larger skeleton’s pelvis lies flat, whereas the smaller one does show a tilt.’ He compared them again. ‘And the smaller pelvis is wider than the larger, consistent with a small woman of approximately five feet tall.’ Fox spoke into the microphone. ‘I believe that the larger skeleton is male and the smaller is female, thus far.’

  Dan glanced at Sally and raised his eyebrows; this was going to be a long morning if Fox was that hesitant about every comment.

  Fox looked at the truncated arms on the large skeleton. ‘He has broken this left arm in the past. A nasty break of the ulna that didn’t heal properly.’ He indicated that his photographer should take a close-up.

  He examined the female, noting bunions on both feet. ‘She has more dermis still attached to her legs, because of the way she was lying. I’d hazard a guess that she is at least in her fifties, judging by the deformity of the big toe joint on both feet.’ The pathologist rubbed his beard through the mask. ‘There’s little more I can tell you at first glance. These two will need a thorough going over from Doctors Pargeter and Denning.’

  ‘Any idea of when they died, doctor?’ Sally asked.

  Fox looked at Neil Pargeter, ‘What d’ye think, doc? Ten years or so ago?’

  Neil studied the bodies lying shoulder-to-shoulder on the table and cleared his throat. ‘There is decomposition of bones consistent with a body being buried for at least five years. Not much dermis or soft tissue has been spared, but we have enough for analysis. I can only give a guess at this point, so don’t quote me on it, but I think they have been in the ground for at least five years, and less than fifteen years. Give me two weeks and I can make that much more accurate for you.’

  ‘Thanks Doctor Pargeter,’ Sally said. ‘At least we have a window to start our search.’

  ‘Doctor Fox?’ The technician who had taken the skin samples beckoned Fox over. ‘You need to see this.’ He placed the sample onto a dish and under a microscope.

  ‘What have you seen?
’ Fox asked, adjusting the microscope.

  ‘Not sure, but it could be ink?’

  Dan wanted to cheer. ‘A tattoo?’

  Fox nodded slowly. ‘Could well be. I can see black and pinkish ink, maybe a little red, and a definite design of sorts. Well done,’ he said to the technician. Fox knelt on the floor to get a better view of the female corpse’s legs. ‘Possibly from her ankle.’ He turned to Dan. ‘We’ll process samples as quickly as we can to give you a clearer picture, but I think she had a tattoo. We’ll know more, soon.’

  Fox then asked a technician to take bone samples from each skeleton and supervised as the man used a small handsaw to cut into the pelvis on both bodies. ‘There is much that the bones can tell us, wouldn’t you say, Doctor Pargeter?’

  Neil waited to collect the sample bags of bone. ‘Radiocarbon dating will give us a closer age profile, certainly.’ He smiled over at Laura Denning. ‘Give us a few days here in the lab, though, and Laura will be able to date the bodies and the burial even more closely by examining the insect remains. Nature works to a rhythm that we can follow, if we get the right samples.’ He sucked his front teeth. ‘However, in the absence of teeth and hair, I’ll arrange for a stable isotope analysis.’ His eyes twinkled behind their mask. ‘We can’t do it here or at the university, so it will take a couple of weeks, but from it we’ll be able to tell you where the person grew up, what kinds of food they ate, what the soil was like where they lived.’

  ‘Is that method reliable?’ asked Dan.

  ‘It has its limitations, true. But we’ll be able to tell you what region of the world he came from, and the relative humidity of that region.’ He grinned. ‘Of course there may be three or four areas in the world that have the same levels of oxygen in the water, but we’ll have narrowed it down, at least.’ He sealed the sample bags and passed them to Laura. ‘It would be so much better if we could find the heads. Teeth, now, they have some stories to tell.’ He placed the bone samples onto the bench and leant against it.

  ‘Well, if there’s nothing more to show us today, we’ll crack on,’ Dan said. ‘Thanks very much, Doctors.’ He nodded to Sally and Bennett and took them outside.

  ‘Ben, stay with them until this afternoon. You never know what they may find in the samples they took, but give me a quick report before half-three. Okay?’

  Bennett nodded and slipped back inside the room.

  Dan gave Sally a sideways look. ‘Bit different from the last time we were in here.’

  ‘Too right, I remember I was the same colour as these horrible scrubs. Awful. Bleurrgh,’ she said with a shiver, and stripped them off.

  9

  DC Lizzie Singh leapt to her feet as the incident room door opened. ‘I’ve sorted out coffee corner, sir. Can I get you a cup?’

  Dan took off his jacket and hung it over a chair. ‘Going for promotion, Lizzie?’ He watched her turn pink and relented. ‘Just kidding, that will be great. And ask Sergeant Ellis if she’s got any cakes in her desk.’ He could see Sam Knowles engrossed in the computer screen and figured Lizzie was bored. She had no geeky tendencies whatsoever. ‘Right, quick meeting. Get over here, bring mugs.’

  His team felt reduced with young Adam Foster seconded to Tiverton, but he had Lizzie, Sam, Sally and the flowerpot men. He could get more if the case demanded it. Probably. Bill Larcombe wandered in from the main office carrying a folder and took his place at the table.

  ‘Sam,’ yelled Dan. ‘Get over here, now.’

  ‘Coming, sir,’ Sam Knowles mumbled, pressing ‘print’ on the computer.

  Armed with coffee and a chocolate brownie, Dan waved at Larcombe to start.

  Larcombe opened the file. ‘I’ve rooted about and found the main gang-related activities in the south-west of England over the last ten years.’ He peered up over his glasses. ‘You will not be surprised that there have been very few. One, a murder in a millionaire’s house in Cornwall. Victim was a lawyer for a well-known criminal family in London. Two, a drugs courier with a bullet in his head, presumed gang killing at Newquay. Three, the disappearance of a police informer, under witness protection, missing presumed dead.’ He looked up and removed his glasses. ‘That’s it, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Nothing that helps us, so far as I can see,’ said Dan, wiping his mouth. ‘Keep looking. Look further afield. Do any of the well-known gangs have a connection to the West Country? You know what to look for.’

  Larcombe nodded.

  ‘Sam?’

  Sam pursed his lips. ‘We’ve only just got started, and frankly, having to train up a junior in even basic computer searches is slowing me down, somewhat–’

  ‘Junior? Thanks,’ replied Lizzie. ‘Thanks very much, Sam. I’m sorry I’m holding up your brilliant career.’ She added air quotes.

  ‘Now, now, children,’ interrupted Sally. ‘Can you just tell us what’s on your sheets of paper, please, DC Knowles, and remind me to book you in for a team-building course?’

  Sam blushed. Even his prominent ears turned crimson. ‘Sorry. I just get a bit, you know…’ He shrugged and passed the sheets over to Dan. ‘It’s all the missing persons in the south-west of England over the past five years. I’d just started to edit out the under sixteens–’

  Dan halted him. ‘We now think that the victims are in their fifties or sixties. And we are looking between five and fifteen years ago. Which narrows the search in terms of ages, but broadens it in terms of years we need to search through.’

  He turned to Lizzie. ‘I’m expecting you to grasp how to do a cross-referenced search by the end of the afternoon. I need both of you working flat-out to reduce all these possibilities to a manageable list. Do you think you can do that?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said, looking at the table. ‘Of course I can do it. I’m not an idiot. It’s just… it’s just that I like to know how things work, and why. I wasn’t deliberately holding him up.’

  ‘Okay, so ask fewer questions,’ Dan said with a faint smile. ‘I want a shortlist by three-thirty today.’

  Lizzie sat back on her chair, face hot. She sent a murderous glance across the table towards Sam.

  ‘So, we’ll meet again later. I’ll get the press report ready for the DCS after we’ve met.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll be in my office if you need me.’

  Sally’s brief knock on his door shook Dan from his paperwork. It couldn’t be half three already? He plonked duty rotas, holiday requests and departmental budgets into the out-tray. Sally tapped on the glass. He almost tugged his forelock. The fact that he’d only eaten a brownie and a chocolate bar since breakfast didn’t help his mood. He followed her round the corner and took up his usual position on the corner of the large table.

  Ben Bennett had returned from the hospital and was typing up his notes from the post-mortem; the two juniors were faffing about gathering notebooks and bits of paper. He could tell by their faces that there was not going to be good news. He helped himself to another coffee and took a seat. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘we’ve got half an hour before the press conference. What do we tell them?’

  DCS Oliver entered and slid into a chair, waving Dan on.

  Bennett started. ‘Preliminary results of the P-M are here. Male and female bodies, as expected.’ He paused while Larcombe picked up a marker and added the information to the board. ‘In their late middle-age. Obviously it’s hard to be more specific without teeth and hair. Or heads.’ He shrugged. ‘The team have started to unearth fragments and fibres from the earth surrounding the bodies. They’ll give us the data as soon as they have it themselves. Heads and hands were removed post-mortem, as far as the doctor was prepared to guess. The only distinguishing marks so far are a broken arm on the male, and a possible tattoo on the female.’

  Dan looked at Sam Knowles. ‘Shortlist?’

  ‘It’s such a long period of time, sir. So many people go missing. Thousands every year.’

  ‘But you were able to narrow down the criteria, weren’t you? Caucasian male and female, could be a co
uple, in their fifties or sixties?’

  Sam glanced across the table at Lizzie.

  ‘What he’s trying to say, sir,’ Lizzie said, ‘is that three times as many men as women go missing, and we have got over five hundred men on our list so far. Not so many women of that age go missing, but we still have a hundred or so at the right age to investigate.’

  Sam nodded miserably, ‘It’s not exactly a shortlist, is it, sir? Sorry.’

  ‘It’s just the first foray, Sam. Keep at it. We have to start somewhere. Keep narrowing it down as we find out more about them.’

  He caught the chief superintendent’s eye. ‘Ma’am, we could do with a couple of PCs to help us with the grunt work.’

  She nodded. ‘I know. Trouble is, those PCs are the ones we have on the streets. Every time we take them off the street to do something else, our popularity plummets.’ She blew air out through her teeth. ‘I’ll see what I can do for you, DI Hellier,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks, we’d appreciate it,’ he said. ‘Have you got enough for the press briefing?’

  Oliver checked her notes. ‘Yes, I think so. I’ll let you know how it goes.’ She nodded at Dan as she left the room.

  ‘Right. Well, we’ve a got a few leads, at least,’ he said, looking at the sparse notes on the board behind him.

  ‘We haven’t really, have we, sir?’ said Sally, sucking her pen. ‘This is going to be a pig of an investigation, because there’s so little to go on.’

  ‘Yes, and we’re working very broadly at the moment. It could take weeks to narrow that list down. So, I think you and I should split Sam and Lizzie’s workload between us and get on the phones.’

  She nodded. ‘Seems sensible. No other leads to follow yet.’

  Dan dismissed them. He chewed on the skin at the side of his thumbnail, caught himself doing it and stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets. Needles in haystacks didn’t come close. Unless the forensic team’s investigations turned up something useful, he couldn’t see how they could get anywhere.