Bones In the River

by Zoe Sharp

  He was not an emotional man at the best of times, was never reduced to tears either of joy or sorrow. When the people he worked alongside experienced some significant event—the death of a loved one, the birth of a new baby—he found that to a certain extent he had to take his cue from others on the appropriate behaviour. Apart from the obvious, like birthdays and Christmas, it never occurred to him to send a card bearing Get Well Soon wishes or a message of Sympathy. The only reason he had the date of his and Susanne’s wedding anniversary marked firmly in his diary was because he’d made the mistake of forgetting it just that one time…

  It was why, on the whole, Blenkinship preferred to stick to the nitty-gritty of the physical evidence. Then, his ability to remain clinical and detached, no matter what the circumstances he was asked to deal with, was an asset. Once, when he was trying to piece together severed limbs at a particularly gruesome pile-up on the M6 motorway, he overheard a traffic copper describe him as a cold-blooded bastard. He’d taken that as a compliment.

  So, why were his hands trembling now?

  He clenched his fists, took in a long breath and shut his eyes for a moment.

  You’ve been careful. You’ve been clever. Keep your head and you’ll be fine. Even when the body is found—if it’s ever found—there’s nothing to link it to you.

  “Is everything all right, Christopher?”

  He opened his eyes and found Dr Onatade regarding him with an anxious gaze.

  “Yes, yes of course, doctor. I’m fine,” he said. “Shall we get on?”

  But her eyes slid past him, to the opposite bank, to where Weston was crouched close to the woman, holding her hands in his, pouring his attention into her. It really was quite sickening.

  Blenkinship opened his mouth but Dr Onatade put her gloved hand on his arm. “It’s all right. I understand,” she said quietly. “I cannot imagine what that poor woman is going through right now.”

  “No,” he said and found his voice was strangely gruff. He cleared his throat, said with more conviction, “No, neither can I…”

  27

  Grace had always found that the closer she wanted to get to someone for a candid photo—the deeper inside their head—the further away she needed to stand. So, she had positioned herself well back from the rows of stalls selling the most lurid array of merchandise, and had attached a zoom lens to her Canon digital camera.

  Purely from a photographic perspective, she found the Horse Fair fascinating. The character displayed in the faces both of the Gypsies and their animals made her want to capture everything she possibly could. She took snaps of the jewellery on display, a mix of artisan work, hand-made by traditional craftspeople within the community, and cheap imported tat of the type you found anywhere. By making best use of her telephoto lens, Grace was able to take her pictures of it without getting close enough to be given the hard sell.

  Professionally, she was there to wander the camping and parking areas, looking for any vehicles showing damage that might have occurred during a collision with Jordan Elliot’s bicycle. In the hour or more she’d been there so far, she’d found plenty to keep her busy. Sadly, quite a lot of the vans and cars had minor scuffs and dents, any one of which could have had such a cause.

  The hostile reception Nick received the day before had been mentioned in DI Pollock’s briefing that morning—to the amusement of his colleagues, she was sure. Word had been sent down that anyone intelligence-gathering at the Fair should take pains not to arouse the suspicions, or the wrath, of the Travelling community.

  Grace was therefore being very circumspect, hence the long lens. The nice thing about the 55-250mm she was using was that its compact size meant few realised the range it had.

  Take the gaggle of Gypsy girls walking toward her, for instance. They had no idea they were centred in the split-prism of her shot as they sauntered past a group of boys.

  Grace pressed the shutter and kept it pressed. In the digital equivalent of motor-wind, the camera committed a continuous stream of images to its memory card. Of the girls swinging their hips and tossing their long hair back like the manes of horses. They pranced on impossibly high heels, tanned legs showcased by mini-skirts or tiny shorts, with painted faces, painted nails, and draped in gold jewellery.

  The girls were half-a-dozen strides past the boys. Any moment now, Grace thought. Her forefinger hovered.

  Then one of the girls looked back, caught the boys craning after them. All of them burst into giggles, nudging each other in their excitement and pleasure at being the centre of attention. Two of the boys were grinning, pink in the cheek. One punched another’s arm in celebration.

  Grace captured a final burst and knew without needing to check the view-screen on the back of the camera body that she’d got the shot she was after.

  Not quite the intended purpose of today’s outing but one for her portfolio, all the same. Besides, if anyone—and for anyone, make that Blenkinship—complained about the excessive number of images she’d taken, she could write them off as no more than a sensible precaution. Camouflage.

  Most of the horses and ponies brought to the Fair were there to be sold. They were taken down to The Sands, the stretch of road running parallel to the River Eden. There they were left, tied to the temporary barriers, for interested buyers to wander past and inspect. Periodically, they’d be ridden or driven up the steep hill at Battlebarrow to Long Marton Road, known as the flashing lane. There, they’d be shown off at the fastest trot Grace had ever seen a horse perform without getting its legs in a tangle.

  The Gypsy boys who rode them—and it seemed mainly to be the boys—did so with only a bridle. They rarely used a saddle but rode bareback instead, adopting a leaning-back seat with legs well forward. Grace suspected this was as much to prevent any vital bits of their anatomy bouncing around on the horses’ narrow withers as it was for style.

  Although she was interested to see them, Grace stayed away from the more crowded areas. Where the crowds gathered were the most heavily policed and she had no wish to have her cover blown, as it were, by a friendly wave from officers she’d encountered previously at crime scenes.

  She paused to take a couple of shots of a pretty vardo van—either an old one or perhaps just a traditional design, although in such good condition it was hard to tell. Next to it, on a staked tether, was a heavy-set piebald mare of the type known as a Gypsy vanner. And beside her, free to roam but sticking close, was a foal that looked impossibly young to have made the journey to the Fair.

  “Now, you are gorgeous, aren’t you?” Grace murmured. The foal turned on dainty feet and butted against its dam, leaning to suckle. As it fed, the foal’s fuzzy mop of a tail wriggled with pleasure, like a puppy.

  The little horse was very interestingly marked, Grace saw. Its body was mostly black but it had a large white patch covering its neck and shoulder on one side that looked almost exactly like the outline of another horse’s head. Captivated, she raised the camera to her eye.

  “It’s a fiver a picture,” said a voice behind her.

  Grace turned. A little girl of maybe six stood on the front steps of the vardo, hands on hips, watching her with wary eyes. She had curly dark hair in high pigtails, tied with green ribbon that matched her dress. Only the grubby knees of her bare legs spoiled the picture of a young lady in-the-making.

  “You must be making some money today, then,” Grace said cheerfully. “He’s magnificent.”

  “He is and he’s for sale,” the child said, adding hopefully. “You don’t want to buy him, do you? I’m sure we could do you a good price.”

  Grace suppressed a smile at the serious tone and shook her head. “He’s too good for me,” she said. “I can’t afford quality like that.”

  A young woman—not much more than a girl, although it was hard to judge—appeared in the open doorway of the vardo, drawn by the child’s conversation. She had long dark hair pulled back from her face, dark eyes and tanned skin. By the standards of the Fair, she was dres
sed down, in a floral skirt that came almost halfway down her thighs and a strappy top under a denim jacket.

  By comparison, in her usual cargo trousers and a shirt, Grace felt as concealed as a nun.

  “The young lady was just inviting me to make an offer for the horse,” Grace said, nodding to the foal. “I told her he’s out of my league, I’m afraid. He’s magnificent.”

  Her face softened a little. She came down the steps and moved to stand beside Grace, her eyes on the foal. “Oh, he is that,” she agreed.

  “You have come to sell him, I assume?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Grace regarded her. All the Gypsies she’d ever met would not need a better invitation to start their spiel. It was interesting that this girl did not immediately launch into a sales patter, even though the little girl was almost hopping up and down for the chance to try.

  “Have you travelled far to the Fair?”

  “Over from the north-east,” the young woman said. “Took us a while to get here—had to stay off the main roads, what with the colt.”

  The north-east, Grace thought. Even avoiding the A66, that still did not put Mallerstang on the logical route…

  “You’re local, are you?”

  Surprised by the question, Grace glanced at her. “Yes. I live about ten miles south of here. Why do you ask?”

  The young woman bit her lip, as if trying to make a decision, and glanced at the child, who’d gone to stroke the mare’s ears as she grazed. Then said suddenly, “Only… I heard some kid’s gone missing—local, like. Awful shame, it is. We were shocked to hear it, all those of us who have kids of our own.”

  “It is.” Grace listened to the threads in the woman’s voice, all being pulled in different directions. Anxiety and defiance and a measure of justification.

  She reached out a hand and stroked the mare’s velvet nose, careful not to get between her and the foal. The mare, her eyes hidden behind a mass of forelock, snuffled at the proffered fingers with a remarkably strong and agile upper lip, but lost interest quickly when no titbits were forthcoming.

  “Only…” the young woman said again. “I heard… I heard something had been found—this morning. A body. Do you know…?”

  “Well, I haven’t heard much,” Grace said with care. “But from what I can gather, it isn’t the missing boy. They’re saying it’s a much older set of bones. They could have been there ten years or more.”

  The young woman paled at the news, took a step back.

  “He’s owing!” she muttered.

  “Owing? What’s owing?” Grace took a step after her but the young woman began to hurry then, scuttling away from her, almost running back to the vardo. “Wait, please! What do you mean? Is it like a debt, or an argument?”

  But the young woman had scrambled up the steps into the van and disappeared. All Grace heard was the slam of the wooden doors and the sound of a bolt being firmly drawn across.

  28

  Nick sat back in his swivel chair and hunched his shoulders, trying to ease the ache in his neck. It was not altogether successful. Still, it could have been worse.

  Nick had learned to touch-type when he was still a teenager—taken evening classes at the local technical college, mainly as an excuse to meet girls. He’d mastered their old electric and electronic machines, and managed to improve his manual dexterity in other ways, too, although strictly speaking that was not part of the syllabus. At the end of it, he came away with a fancy diploma and keyboarding skills that had stood him in good stead ever since.

  He rubbed absently at the knuckles of his right hand where they’d begun to stiffen. One of the many reminders of his undercover role with the Met. Or, more to the point, why he’d given up all that and moved north in search of a police career that might prove less injurious to his health.

  Yeah, and some mixed blessing that turned out to be…

  Behind him, the CID office was perhaps a third occupied. He tuned out the murmur of voices, the occasional phone ringing or the ping of an incoming message.

  Nick had been combing through the Missing Persons database, starting with records logged eight years ago and gradually working back from there. Dr Onatade had given that timescale as being the minimum amount of time the body had been in the ground, although she’d stressed it was only a preliminary estimate, with a whole heap of provisos attached. Still, it gave him somewhere to start and he’d every confidence in the FME’s opinion. So far, in Nick’s experience of the cases where her services were required, she’d been just about spot on every time.

  Unless, of course, once they worked the crime scene more thoroughly, they came to the conclusion that the body had been buried elsewhere—or perhaps not buried at all, until after the bones had been picked clean.

  And from what he’d seen of the location where the body was found, it looked like his clothes and effects were with him at the scene, in close proximity to the bones. Everything that hadn’t rotted away or been eaten, anyway. Surely, those would have been lost, had he been moved long after he was dead?

  Nick wasn’t keen to think about that. It was one thing to die—suddenly, violently. But somehow, having your corpse shifted from pillar to post afterwards, like an inconvenient package, well, that was another thing.

  He’d allowed a few years’ leeway on the age range of the body, too. Better to be able to further narrow it down later, rather than have to run the searches again.

  Dr Onatade had been able to tell him that the bones showed a few signs of old injuries, so that was another filter he could apply. He’d have more details when the full PM report came through but, at this stage, all he knew was that they’d required no surgical pins or plates, which was unfortunate for identification purposes. He had good teeth with little dentistry and no implants or complicated bridgework. Apart from the fact he was dead, the unknown victim seemed to have been in remarkably good health at the point of his demise.

  Chris Blenkinship was currently working on the items found surrounding the body, including, so Nick had heard, an old mobile phone. The battery was as dead as its owner, of course, but Ty Frost had been delegated to find out if it could be resurrected or if any data could be gleaned, even so. The phone had once been an expensive model. That didn’t mean the dead man—Nick dubbed him Eden Man, like some anthropological missing link—had owned it from new, of course. Technology moved on so fast, became outdated and was sold on or given away. Nothing to say it wasn’t a later hand-me-down, donated to someone who was grateful for anything he could get.

  If it had been Grace assigned to this one, Nick admitted privately that he would have been down in the workshop right now, leaning over her shoulder and absorbing each new detail as it was uncovered. With Blenkinship in charge of the evidence, he preferred to keep his distance and wait for the official report. Not that he would have been welcome as an observer, in any case.

  Nick blinked his eyes back into focus and returned to the database. Fortunately, the instances of missing persons in Cumbria were indeed considerably lower than most of the neighbouring areas. The vast majority of people who went missing were found within the first day. Almost three-quarters of those who were found, turned up within five miles of home.

  Didn’t go far. Didn’t go for long.

  Only a small percentage remained missing after a week. And, of those cases, a tiny fraction—usually less than half of one percent—resulted in a fatal outcome. Including, of course, those who fell off mountains, drowned in lakes, died of exposure on some Lakeland fell when the weather turned unexpectedly. Or those who committed suicide.

  Or were murdered.

  Eden Man must have disappeared from somewhere, so why hadn’t more of a hue and cry been raised for him? Instead, he’d apparently been lying in his makeshift grave for ten years or more. His death could have been accidental or self-inflicted, Nick reasoned, but then someone had deliberately hidden his body rather than call it in. Had gone to great pains to bury him deep enough not to be found
, in the normal run of things.

  Until the river had other ideas.

  He made a note to find out how much the Eden had changed its course over the last ten years or so. Had anyone done that kind of research? Some local university, perhaps?

  He sighed and went to the gents just for the chance to stretch his legs, rotate his back until his spine popped. When he returned to his desk, he found DC Yardley had brewed up. A gently steaming mug of tea was perched on a pile of paperwork next to Nick’s computer monitor.

  He took a sip—just a small one to begin with. It wasn’t so long ago he was the butt of every practical joker in the station. The tea was thick and strong and—as far as he could tell—unadulterated. He took a longer swig, hoping that the caffeine hit might sharpen his brain.

  “Thanks,” he said, raising the mug in salute to Yardley.

  “No problem,” Yardley said and for once there was no sneer or snub in his voice.

  “How’s your Other Half doing?”

  “Ach, being driven crazy by back ache and kept awake half the night by the little ’un playing football with her bladder, so she reckons,” Yardley said but Nick caught the wonder in his face, the slightly dazed air of someone who has no idea of just how much his life is about to change. “Apart from that, she’s…blooming.”

  “My girlfriend, Lisa, was the same when she was carrying our little girl,” Nick said, reaching for common ground. “It sounds corny to say it, what with the swollen ankles, and itchy patches all over her body, and the fact she could belch for Britain, but to me she never looked more beautiful than in her last six weeks.”