A Place To Bury Strangers (Atticus Priest Book 2)

by Mark Dawson

  “About what?”

  “Imber. I could do with your help. How long will it take you to get to the hospital?”

  Atticus looked around. Five miles to get back to the car… He guessed that if he walked at a steady pace, he could be back where he’d started in ninety minutes. It would take another twenty minutes to drive from Great Wishford to the hospital.

  He looked at his watch. “I could be there at five.”

  “I’ll see you in the mortuary.”

  He asked why she wanted to see him, but there was no answer. She had ended the call.

  Bandit trotted back to him and nuzzled his hand.

  “What do you think she wants, boy?”

  The dog looked up at him.

  “Well, whatever it is, we need to get a move on.”

  39

  Atticus dropped Bandit back at the office and continued on to the hospital. He parked his car and made his way to the mortuary. He pressed the button for the intercom and looked up into the camera overhead. The lock buzzed; he pushed the door back and went inside.

  Mack came out from the door that led to the mortuary. Her face was grim.

  “It was on the radio,” he said. “You found another body.”

  She gave a bitter chuckle. “I wish it were as simple as that. We found that one and another three after that.”

  “Shit.”

  Mack looked tired. “Five bodies that shouldn’t be there. That’s one way of describing it.”

  “How can I help?”

  “There’s one set of remains I want you to look at.”

  “Why that one?”

  “Just come and look.”

  Fyfe was waiting for them in the same forensic post-mortem suite as before. The air extraction system had been turned on this time, the fans trying—and failing—to scrub the smell from the room. The professor was bent over one of the examination tables.

  “Good evening,” Atticus said.

  Fyfe shared a look with Mack that told Atticus that the two of them had discussed whatever it was that he had been brought here to see.

  “Over here,” Fyfe said.

  The pathologist stepped aside to reveal the remains of a body on the table. It was very badly decomposed. Atticus recognised the havoc wrought by the microbes that escaped the gut in the days after death. They moved from the intestines into the tissue, veins and arteries, and then the liver and gallbladder, where they caused bile to escape and flood the body. Yellow-green remains would have indicated staining by the bile; time of death in that case might have been between three or four months. But this body was brownish-black; the blood vessels had deteriorated enough for the iron inside them to disperse.

  “Two months?”

  “Give or take,” Fyfe said. “We’ll get a better idea when we get the lab results back.”

  “Male?”

  “Yes. Early sixties.”

  Atticus stepped closer and saw that the left trouser leg flattened out to nothing just below the knee. The denim had been neatly cut along the hem and, with the aid of a metal rod, Fyfe reached in and flipped the fabric back to reveal a silicone liner with a metal pin at the end.

  “A prosthetic?”

  “That’s right,” Fyfe said. “That pin slots into the pole component of a false leg.”

  “Where’s the prosthesis?”

  “It doesn’t look as if it was buried with the body,” Mack said. “We haven’t been able to find it, anyway.”

  Atticus felt the first stirrings of disquiet.

  “Do you have an identification yet?”

  “Look,” Fyfe said, pointing with the metal rod.

  Atticus ignored the stench and bent over the body. The clothes had started to disintegrate as the release of acidic fluids and toxins broke the fabric down. The nylon waistband of the underpants and the reinforced seams of the jeans were still intact; the rest of the denim was still recognisable but starting to rot. There were wisps of cotton around the upper torso, but the acid from the body and the moisture in the ground had almost completely disintegrated the fabric. The flesh looked soft and pulpy, a watery mush that was well on the way to becoming grave wax, the soaplike substance that was formed by the decomposition of the fattier parts of the body. Clumps of liquefying flesh still stuck to the silicone sleeve where the prosthesis would fit; Atticus looked down to where Fyfe was pointing. He saw a series of letters and numbers that had been etched into the metal pin.

  LOT 5 6635.6625

  “Orthopaedic prostheses have serial numbers linked to barcoded labels,” Fyfe said.

  “Which are recorded in medical files,” Atticus said. “I know. It makes it easy to match the prosthesis with the patient.” Atticus realised now why he had been brought here. “You think this is Alfred Burns, don’t you?”

  Mack watched him carefully as she nodded. “It is Alfred Burns. The serial number matches.”

  Atticus cursed under his breath.

  “I know you wanted to catch him,” she said.

  “I did catch him.”

  “You did,” she said. “You’re right. And you wanted him to face justice for what he did. Maybe this is what justice looks like.”

  Atticus shook his head. “Unacceptable.”

  He turned away from the table and stalked out of the room.

  40

  Atticus went outside and started walking back to his car.

  “Wait!”

  He stopped to allow Mack to catch up.

  “Burns needed to be tried and convicted for what he did to those kids. That”—Atticus gestured back to the mortuary—“that is not justice.”

  Mack put her hand on his arm. “So help me find out what happened to him. He ended up in a graveyard where he should not have been. I’ve got another four bodies buried there when they shouldn’t be. Four teenage girls. Burns was a paedophile. You proved that.”

  His head was swimming. He threw up his hands. “But why would he have been buried with them? That makes no sense at all.”

  “I know. It doesn’t. That’s what I need to know. Who killed him? Why?” She reached out and squeezed his elbow. “You know him better than anyone.”

  “I’m not a policeman anymore. What are you going to do—deputise me?”

  “No. I’ll bring you in as a consultant.”

  Atticus chuckled. “Come on. Beckton will never go for that.”

  “He’s already approved it. I called him an hour ago.”

  “No,” he said. “I was caught doing drugs. I was fired. Apart from anything else, I’ll never pass vetting.” He reached his car and pulled out the fob.

  “We might have had a lucky break there. It appears that no one thought to tell the Vetting Unit what happened.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “You know what it’s like—the admin’s slipshod at the best of times. It was never reported. You’ve still got your old clearance.”

  “Okay—wait until you try to pay me and see how quickly someone in accounts shops me.”

  “Yes, well, there’s a way around that, too. Set up a company and invoice us through that. Wiltshire Police pays the company; the company pays you. You know as well as I do that they won’t check.”

  Atticus couldn’t help but chuckle again. “You must be desperate.”

  “And I don’t mind admitting it. We’ve someone out there who’s responsible for five murders. Maybe more. We’re already being battered by the press because of… what happened at the Mallender inquiry. Beckton doesn’t like you, but he hates bad PR even more. I think his view is that anything we can do to get to the bottom of this case is worth it.”

  Atticus chewed on his lip and leaned his back against the car. “Are you still digging?”

  “We are. We’ll dig it all up now. The whole graveyard. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there were more.”

  It was cold, and there was more moisture in the air. It looked as if the respite from the rain might only be temporary.

  Mack turned to look at h
im. “Burns was your inquiry. I want you to be involved.”

  He looked out across the car park.

  “Come on, Atticus. Don’t make me say it.”

  He grinned. “I’m going to need to hear the words.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I don’t just want you. I need you. There—happy?”

  “You just want me to make you look good when you close the case.”

  “What kind of monster do you take me for?” she protested.

  “The ambitious kind,” he said.

  “Hurtful.”

  “Yet you’re not denying it. What’s in it for me?”

  “Isn’t taking Beckton’s shilling again enough?”

  “I’m doing all right for business now.”

  “Fine. You don’t want to know what happened to Burns?”

  “I do.”

  “And you’d be able to ignore the opportunity of finding out yourself?”

  “I think we both know the answer to that.”

  “We do. So?”

  He pushed himself away from the car and walked a few paces away from it. “I’ll need access to everything. The forensics, witness statements—”

  “We don’t have any witnesses,” she reminded him.

  He stopped and turned back to face her. “I’ll find witnesses.”

  “I can get you the files from the last inquiry.”

  “No need.”

  “You copied them?”

  Atticus said that he had. It was a very well-established rule that you were not to remove sensitive documents from the office, but Mack responded with the briefest roll of her eyes; she had known him for long enough to know that was a tiny transgression when held against some of the other things that he had done.

  She looked up into his face. “Are you in or not?”

  “I’m in.”

  “Come to the station tomorrow. Bright and early. We’ll need to introduce you to the team.”

  “Not all of them are my biggest fans.”

  “Leave that to me,” she said.

  Part VI

  Saturday

  41

  Mack sent Atticus a text and told him that she would be waiting for him in reception at eight o’clock. There was an outside broadcast van parked next to the Greencroft, and a clutch of reporters, wrapped up warm yet stamping their feet against the cold, were standing within sight of the entrance. Atticus wondered how much they knew. The city had been the centre of the media’s attention for the Mallender inquiry, and now it looked likely that the caravan would return. At least, he thought, the bodies hadn’t actually been discovered in the city itself. Imber was a good way off, and that distance would provide insulation. But the investigation would be led from here, and that would bring the fourth estate back in their droves.

  None of them recognised Atticus, thankfully, and he was able to pass inside the building without issue. Mack was waiting for him. She signed him in and indicated that he should go to the lift. She held her badge on the reader and waited for the doors to slice open.

  “I’ll get you a temporary pass,” she said.

  “Beckton’s still okay with this?”

  “His actual words when I suggested this were ‘over my dead body.’”

  “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “Because I worked on him. It turns out—and please don’t let this get to your head—that he has a high regard for your work.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “He was especially impressed with Mallender.”

  “Even though I ruined it for you.”

  “Better than if Ralph had gone to prison for ten years and then the evidence came out. The damages are going to be bad enough, but they could have been astronomical.”

  “Speaking of money…”

  “You get paid on a day rate. Get your company to invoice me once a month, and I’ll make sure it’s sorted. This is all conditional on two things.”

  “Go on.”

  “You charge a reasonable day rate.”

  “Six hundred.”

  “Three.”

  “Plus expenses.”

  “Reasonable, unavoidable expenses.”

  “The second thing?”

  “Don’t be an arse. Please don’t be an arse. I’m vouching for you. It’ll reflect badly on me if you start upsetting people again.”

  “I’ll do my best,” he said.

  “Atticus…”

  “I’ll be good.”

  They reached the door to major crimes. Atticus raised his hand to push it open and then hesitated. He hadn’t been in here for months, not since he had been fired. He had enjoyed his work as a detective constable, at least for the most part. His erstwhile colleagues had tended toward the pedestrian, and they had often frustrated him with their obtuseness, but the problems he had been asked to solve had occasionally been interesting. Some of them—the Burns investigation came to mind—had even been challenging.

  He looked through the pane of glass in the door. He could see the other detectives: Francine Patterson and Mike Lewis at the coffee machine, Nigel Archer at his desk, Robbie Best speaking to someone on his phone. Working here had been where he had met Mack. He had memories tied up in the room beyond the door.

  Mack was looking at him. “You okay?”

  “Feels strange to be back.”

  “It’s just temporary. Don’t get settled.”

  “Did you tell the others?”

  She paused.

  “Mack, you said you’d tell them.”

  “Didn’t really have a chance,” she said. “Look—relax. It’ll be fine. They don’t all hate you.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “And some of us are grateful for your help.” She smiled as she pushed the door open. “Come on. The sooner they know you’re on board, the sooner we can start to work out what happened to Burns.”

  42

  Atticus followed Mack into the CID room. He went by his old desk, now occupied by Mike Lewis, ignoring the looks from the other officers and resisting the urge to give them a cheery hello.

  “Everyone into the MIR,” Mack said, pointing to the conference room.

  Atticus went inside and took a seat at the far end of the table. He looked around. There were several maps tacked to the wall: an Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 scale Landranger map of Salisbury Plain; an OS Explorer map at 1:25,000 scale; a 1:5,000 scale Landplan map of Imber; and an MOD map of the Salisbury Plain Training Area. A digital projector shone a square of light at the wall, and a large whiteboard had been used to note the responsibilities that had been assigned to each member of the team. An inquiry like this had the potential to be demanding when it came to resources, and he knew that the detectives would be stretched since existing investigations would still be continuing.

  The others made their way inside and took their seats. Atticus surveyed them: Best, Archer, Lynas, Lewis and Patterson. A decent team—solid if uninspiring—but at least they would be well marshalled by Mack. He would need help in gathering the evidence to test his hypotheses, and that ought to be well within their capabilities.

  Professor Fyfe joined Mack at the front of the room.

  She rapped her knuckles against the table to bring the room to order. “First things first—you’ll all remember Atticus.”

  He looked around the room; the others regarded him with a mixture of surprise and curiosity. Atticus knew that some of his unpopularity was because of jealousy. He was a much more effective detective than all of the others, and many of them resented him for it. He knew, too, that he was difficult to work with, and that his impatience with mediocrity meant that the others had often complained to the brass when assigned to work inquiries with him. He knew he ought to have tried harder to fit in, to smooth down the more abrasive aspects of his personality, but he had persuaded himself that the game wasn’t worth the candle. He didn’t need to get on with anyone else in order to do his job, and, he had rationalised, concentrating on fitting in meant that he was less focused on get
ting things done. His dismissal had given him time to think about the wisdom of that attitude, but he hadn’t really changed his mind. And now, when he had been asked to come in and do this inquiry a favour? He didn’t intend to make an effort this time, either; they could adapt to him rather than the other way around.

  Archer frowned. “With respect, boss, what’s he doing here?”

  Mack steepled her fingers. “There have been developments overnight that mean that we’ll benefit from his experience. You’ll see what I mean by that once the professor has brought us all up to speed. But, for now, Atticus will be joining the team as a consultant, reporting directly to me. I’d appreciate it if you would cooperate with him and help him out with anything that he needs. Any questions?”

  Atticus looked around the room. None of the others held his eye, and he could sense the tension in the air. He could tell that Mack felt it too, but she ignored it with a bright smile and a gesture to Fyfe that he should begin.

  “Thank you, Detective Chief Inspector. As you all know, we’ve been digging at the Baptist church in Imber. We’ve been there since Tuesday, and I can’t see us leaving for the foreseeable future. I wanted to come and tell you what we’ve found so far, and what we’re concerned we might find as we continue to dig.”

  He took a laptop out of his case and connected it to the projector. He took a clicker from the desk and pressed it to wake the screen. The first photograph to be displayed was a shot of the disturbed ground that Bandit had found, looking down on the remains of Amy.

  “This is Victim A,” Fyfe said. “A young woman, likely fifteen or sixteen, medium height. We think she’s been in the ground for around twenty years.”

  He pressed the button, and the photograph of Amy was replaced by a new one. It, too, had been taken from the edge of a pit and looked down on a second skeleton.

  “This is Victim B. We found him on Thursday. He was buried more recently—two months ago or thereabouts. Whereas we haven’t yet been able to identify the first victim, we’ve been more fortunate with him. He had a prosthetic leg that we were able to trace by way of its serial number. It’s Alfred Burns.”