She nodded and raised herself from the ground to her five feet nine height and picked a twig from her spiky black hair. She turned her attention back to the man on the ground. ‘You’ve always been a dick, Paul, but now you’re a dick with a knife and that’s gonna put you away for a long, long time,’ she hissed, handing him over. ‘The knife will be on this estate somewhere, guys,’ she said to the constables.
‘That ay gonna solve all yer problems, pig,’ Chater smirked. ‘There’s plenty more like me out there and they’m coming…’
‘Oh, I know that, but as one supermarket likes to say, Paul: “every little helps”.’
She walked over to her waiting colleague, who was quietly shaking his head. She rubbed the dirt from her hands and smiled. One less scumbag on the streets.
‘Okay, Bryant. Now you can go home to your dinner.’
TWO
Doctor A surveyed the row of faces before her and tried not to sigh out loud. Her colleague from Aston University was on his way to Dubai to advise a group of newly appointed police officers on the first stages of excavation.
And she was in the middle of a field in the Black Country with a group of apathetic students wearing the Monday morning expression that she was too professional to show. Oh, where were the eager young minds with spongy brains desperate to soak up new information? That would have made the job allocation easier, she thought. The next request for archaeological consultancy in a warm, sunny climate had better have her name on it.
‘Okay, gathering round,’ she said, waving her hands forward.
‘She means gather,’ offered Timothy, her assistant.
She pursed her lips at him. Yes, she sometimes mangled certain words in the English language but if they hadn’t understood that simple instruction, there was going to be trouble ahead.
While she had been busy spraying the outline, two metres by one metre, the fourteen students had broken away, forming small groups and huddling together, hands deep in pockets, shoulders hunched against the early November seven degree temperature. Although the wind was chilly, it was not biting. She would like to take these youngsters to her home in Macedonia on the Balkan Peninsula where cold air masses travelled from Russia and hung in the valleys, plunging the temperature to minus twenty.
‘Who can name me tools in the forensic archaeologist’s toolbox?’ she asked, opening the bag beside the shovels.
‘Camera,’ said one, yawning.
‘Sketchpad and pencils,’ offered another.
‘Tweezers and swabs,’ said yawner.
‘Torch.’
She nodded as the most obvious responses were called out to her. The enthusiasm was short-lived as their brains needed to change gear to search for more answers.
‘Don’t forgetting we are crime scene,’ she prompted.
‘Tape.’
‘Disposable clothing.’
Doctor A nodded again, and looked down at the rectangle of grass.
‘So, are we ready to begin?’ she asked, reaching for the shovel.
They looked from one to the other as they stepped forward.
‘Da mu se nevidi,’ she whispered under her breath.
Doctor A stole a glance at Timothy, who made a cross-eyed expression at her. He had learned enough Macedonian to know it was her cry of frustration.
‘Is there anything we should be doing first?’ she repeated.
‘Clean your tools,’ called out one student.
‘One would hoping they are clean,’ she said, shortly.
She was beginning to hope that none of these students took the forensic route.
It was time to spell it out a bit, she thought as she began to dig.
‘Normally you would examine the topsoil area. There is no crime here so I shall dig as I explain.’
Timothy stepped forward and began to dig alongside her.
A few people stepped forward at the promise of activity.
‘At ancient sites, relevant layers are generally completely buried. At forensic scenes the existing surface is a relevant layer too.
‘The burial feature opens directly onto the present ground. This meaning that the ground you walking on simply to get to the scene is part of the site and your presence may alter or destroying evidence.’
She paused for any questions. When none came she continued with the lesson plan. ‘Forensic evidence is more subtle. A forensic archaeologist must be sensitive to the presence of such evidence as cut roots, dry leaves, dead vegetation, tool marks, shoe prints, even fingerprints.’
The pile of turf began to grow just outside the white paint border.
‘Artefacts at forensic sites are often perishable and rarely encountered at normal archaeological sites: paper, cloth, tobacco, insect evidence, hair, fingernails, other soft tissues.’
Doctor A looked around at the bored faces as the hole gaped at a foot deep.
She passed the shovel to a brunette to her right and indicated to the man beside her to take the second shovel from Timothy.
‘Dig, please,’ she instructed, and waited until they were throwing down the shovels to dig before speaking again.
‘There is also the possibility of encountering biohazardous or dangerous materials…’ She hesitated. ‘Like a loaded gun.’
The woman student hesitated. Suddenly that word had attracted everyone’s attention.
She nodded towards her audience. ‘Yes, it has happened.’
She walked behind the diggers and motioned for them to pass the shovels along. It was time to warm these kids up.
She laced her fingers behind her back as she continued to walk and talk.
‘Any evidence found must be entered into the proper legal chain of custody. Pass the shovels, please. And all must be accounted for and protected until officially…’
Her words trailed away as she glanced down into the pit.
‘Stop,’ she cried at the top of her voice.
Every single person jumped back, startled.
‘Step away,’ she said, not taking her eyes from the hole.
She moved around to the long edge of the feature and knelt down.
She peered closer and held out her right hand. Like every good assistant, Timothy knew exactly what to do.
A soft brush was placed into her palm.
‘Getting out of my light, people,’ she shouted, without removing her gaze from the object that had caught her attention.
She brushed gently, her heart beating loudly in her chest.
Gasps sounded around her as the smooth, round shape began to emerge. It appeared these students knew something after all.
Doctor A paused to turn and speak to her colleague.
‘Timothy, get everyone away from this area. And then get me the coroner and Detective Inspector Stone.’
THREE
Stacey Wood struggled hard to process the scene around her. There was something obscene about the volume of blood that appeared to have reached every hard surface of the tiny box room at the back of the small house. But that wasn’t the only problem. She’d seen blood before. The real issue was the memory that had been pushed to the back of her mind.
Her gaze met Dawson’s over the space that was littered with trainers, football boots, car magazines and tee shirts.
A normal boy’s bedroom ‒ except for the body of the teenage boy that was slumped against the wall, and the bloodstain on the carpet. The metallic smell of blood fought against the aroma of sweaty clothes.
His head had dropped backwards, his open eyes appearing to stare at the blood spatter on the ceiling as though either stargazing or looking in awe at what he’d done. A white scar that ran beneath his left eye was the only interruption to the smooth, youthful skin. One sleeve of his hoody was rolled up to his elbow, displaying the fatal wound. His grey skinny jeans were covered with drying bloodstains.
The kitchen knife had fallen just inches from his right hand.
Stacey tried to keep her breathing even and unaffected as her gaze rested on t
he knife. She didn’t want Dawson thinking she couldn’t hack being out in the field. And he could smell her weakness a mile off. But that knife was tugging her mind towards somewhere she did not want to go. Not here and not now.
She mentally shook herself and concentrated her thoughts. The mother had found her son and hysterically called for paramedics. A call had been funnelled through to the station, and subsequently a call for the pathologist to attend at the same time. Stacey guessed the boy had been dead for a couple of hours.
The key reason for their attendance was to establish that it was not a murder staged to look like a suicide. A swift agreement between the detective and the pathologist would aid a speedy process in allowing the family to make funeral arrangements.
‘He meant it,’ Keats, the resident pathologist offered. ‘Eventually.’
Stacey knew that. Despite the false attempt scratches running across the wrist, the tear in the skin ran down the arm. The vein had been sliced.
Stacey couldn’t stop her mind wandering beyond the sight before her to the knowledge that the moments prior to death had been painful, emotional, laboured. Bad enough that this youth had felt there was no other alternative than to end his own life, but the hesitation cuts echoed his suffering.
Stacey had no clue what had been torturing this young man but she did know that many teenage problems were not as insurmountable as the person thought they were. Perhaps if he’d been able to share his problems, he would not have felt this was his only course of action. She shuddered and swallowed the rising sickness away.
Keats would continue to process the scene but from her view there was nothing to indicate anyone had been involved in the death of Justin Reynolds. The small room would have shown some signs of a struggle if that had been the case, but the only conflict had been in the young man’s head.
‘You happy to call it, Sergeant?’ Keats asked quietly, glancing at Dawson.
He nodded. ‘I’m satisfied this young—’
Stacey didn’t hear the rest of his words as she stepped out of a room that she could not leave quickly enough.
FOUR
Kim took a sharp left off the A456, a dual carriageway that separated the West Midlands force with that of West Mercia.
She followed the satnav’s instructions when it told her to turn left onto a dirt track behind a garden centre.
‘Is this thing on drugs?’ she asked, when the electronic voice announced they had reached their destination. Kim had thought the contraption was taking her on a shortcut and that they would eventually rejoin civilisation or at the very least a tarmac road.
Bryant shrugged as the right tyre hit a pothole that bounced them both like a trampoline.
‘Oops,’ she said, as she spotted three police vehicles next to two minibuses on a gravel parking spot by a field gate. Luckily for her, electronic gadgets did not require apologies.
She parked ten feet back, blocking the single-track road.
As they headed towards the gate, a few fragmented groups of students reached the minibuses, talking animatedly.
Thank goodness someone had had the sense to start clearing the scene. She was sure this was a training session these kids would not forget in a hurry.
Both of them flashed their identification at the police officers guarding the entrance gate, even though both constables were known to them.
A part-worn path continued into the field, gouged by farm vehicles entering the space. It continued for approximately fifty metres before disappearing.
The wooded area to their right thinned to expose a flat, grassy field that stretched a quarter of a mile in each direction, bordered by dense green hedges separating it from the crop fields beyond.
Kim spotted the activity at the tip of the trees.
‘Aw, shit, guv. You could have told me it was her.’
Kim smiled. ‘Thought you liked surprises.’
‘You call that a surprise?’ he said, sourly.
Kim shook her head. She knew the scientist was an acquired taste. Her directness did not sit well on everyone’s palate but to Kim the woman was a breath of fresh air. She said what she meant and meant what she said. Not always correctly, but close enough.
Kim watched as Doctor A paced the length of the hole. Her one hand was thrust into her front jeans pocket while the other held the phone to her ear. The left leg of her light blue jeans had broken free from the confines of the Doc Marten boot.
What may once have been a tight ponytail holding up her long ombre hair had now loosened and dropped to the back of her neck.
‘Doctor A,’ Kim said, offering her hand as the woman ended the call.
The nickname had been fashioned by the scientist herself after witnessing too many annihilations of her Macedonian name. Kim wasn’t even sure what it was any more as she had used the shortened version for as long as she could remember.
A brief smile accompanied the handshake as she moved her gaze along.
‘Bryant,’ she said, thrusting her hand forward.
Her colleague had no choice but to take it.
‘She got my name right,’ Bryant mumbled, as the woman turned towards the hole.
‘Where is Keatings?’ she asked, suddenly.
‘Handing over a suicide scene,’ Kim explained. ‘He’ll be here shortly.’
‘Come, come,’ Doctor A said, beckoning them forward to the edge of the pit.
Kim saw immediately the chalky white bone protruding from the soil. Experience told her exactly what she was looking at.
‘A skull?’ she asked.
Doctor A nodded.
Kim stepped back and looked at the hole in the context of the flat land.
‘A foot and a half deep?’ she asked.
‘Approximately, yes. Very shallow.’
Kim stepped forward. ‘Can we?…’
‘No, no, no, no, no,’ Doctor A cried. ‘We cannot rush. We must have Keatings and my team firstly and foremost. We do not know condition or circumstance before you start tramping the scene.’
Kim understood. At this point there was no way of knowing how long the skull had been in there. Doctor A’s job was to preserve the evidence and remove the skull as carefully as possible.
Like most forensic archaeologists, Doctor A held a PhD in Anthropology and understood how to read any clues left in the bones.
She would need to ascertain firstly that the bones were human. Kim had seen enough skulls to hold no doubt about that.
She would then attempt to identify biological characteristics: i.e. age, sex and race. Kim already knew that establishing the time since death was beyond problematic when dealing with bones without tissue. The rate of decomposition of the flesh, factoring in both the biological and climate conditions, could have at least landed them in the correct ballpark. It was unlikely that entomology would assist either. Judging by the cleanliness of the bone, she could see the insects had long since left the party.
Most importantly for the investigation, Doctor A’s knowledge would hopefully assist them to identify a cause and manner of death.
Kim knew there were four manners of death: natural, accidental, suicidal, and homicidal.
As yet Kim had no clue what they were looking at, but she knew one thing: this poor soul had not buried themselves.
‘Aww… double shit,’ Bryant said, causing her to turn.
A horde was heading along the treeline towards them. Most of them she was expecting. One she was not. She groaned.
‘Thank you for keeping my crime scene warm but I’m here now,’ said Detective Inspector Travis, her arch nemesis from West Mercia Police.
Never, since she had made DI had he ever referred to her by rank.
She turned to face him, fully, and returned the favour.
‘Tom, by my count, this is the third time you’ve intruded on a crime scene of mine and walked away empty-handed.’
‘I make it one all,’ he said, referring to the body of a young manager of a Leisure Centre found in West Hagley
.
‘Fair enough, and so pleased you solved that case. Oh, hang on, you didn’t,’ she said, realising, as the smile spread across his face, that she’d given him exactly what he’d been seeking. A reaction.
Now she sounded just as childish as he did. If not more so.
He continued. ‘I think you’ll find that Hunnington is under West Mercia.’
‘And Hayley Green is West Mids, so just leave it, Tom. We’ll let the grown-ups sort it out.’
‘Stone, you know…’
‘Tom, over here,’ she said, taking a few steps away from the audience that was suddenly more focussed on them than the skull in the ground. ‘Are you ever gonna just grow the hell up?’ she stormed.
‘Stop trying to steal my crime scenes and we wouldn’t have a problem, Stone,’ he spat back.
‘Oh, I think we both know that statement is bollocks,’ she said. ‘While there is breath in both of our bodies there will be a problem ‒ but stop turning it into a sideshow for the masses. It’s childish, unprofessional and beneath even you.’
He glared back at her with a coldness she knew well as more people arrived at the scene behind him.
She turned away and headed back to the activity around the pit.
Doctor A’s team members were assembled and changing into white protective suits.
Kim ignored everyone around her and watched as more of the skull was exposed by the techies. It appeared to be lying on its side in the dirt.
One eye socket was exposed confirming, beyond doubt, that it was a human skull they were looking at.
The techs continued to move the soil painstakingly away from the bone. Soon a gaping hole appeared where the nose would have been.
More brushing and gentle trowelling revealed the socket of the other eye.
Kim frowned as the work slowed and then ceased.
A tech took photos of the skull.
‘What the hell?…’ Bryant asked, as his gaze rested in the same place as hers.
Something unnatural was protruding from the eye.
FIVE
‘It’s a bone,’ Doctor A said as she stepped down into the hole.
Kim was relieved that hers was not the only expression of confusion around the pit.
Dead Souls: A gripping serial killer thriller with a shocking twist Book 6 Page 2