‘—Chorleigh House, Fairfield Road. She was buried in a shallow excavation of dark-coloured loam and established turf, then covered with leaves.’
When Sage opened her mouth to speak, Megan held her hand up and carried on.
‘When I initially saw the body in situ it was loosely covered with rotted leaves and part of the face and right hand had been partially exposed by the actions of a dog and its owner. It wasn’t obvious where the top covering was from. Dr Westfield?’
‘I – I mean, my colleague Dr Trent Reynolds and I looked at aerial photographs of the grounds and noticed footprints going to the back of the property. There’s some sort of structure there covered with evergreens. We will be examining the area for holly trees and other leaves.’
‘Did you recover all the covering materials?’ Megan asked.
Warren took more photographs as Megan pointed to a scrape on the skin.
‘We did retrieve all the leaves,’ Sage said. ‘They were laid in layers, not thrown onto the body. Most of them were from the top of a pile, taken in handfuls.’
The pathologist leaned towards the girl’s face to get a closer look, and Sage took in how young River looked. ‘These areas of bruising on the right side of the face, they look regular, like a pattern, as Dr Westfield pointed out in the field. Possibly a shoe print from a kick, but it looks curved. They are diffused, they happened some hours before death. We’ll keep an eye on them, bruising can develop over time. The staining on the left side is post-mortem. Photograph here, please.’
Sage recognised the patchy red staining, the pooling of blood across her torso, except for a vivid white patch across her ribs and on one shoulder.
‘She was laid on her side.’
‘As Dr Westfield suggests, livor mortis appears to indicate that she was initially left on her side after death, her body laid over her left arm.’
Sage watched as Warren snapped a dozen more shots of the body.
The pathologist picked up forceps and probed the girl’s nose. Sage looked away and Megan continued to dictate. ‘This would suggest that she had been laid on a hard surface. There is evidence of fly eggs in her nostrils and the external corner of her right eye, indicating there were insects in the vicinity. Shall we have a look at the back?’ She gestured to her colleague.
As Warren and Megan rolled the body onto its side, it made a soft squelching noise and Sage’s nausea was back. The faint smell in the room increased considerably, even driving Felix back a step. Warren picked up the camera and took more pictures.
‘She was likely naked or partially undressed when she was left after death,’ Megan continued. ‘Flies can detect the beginnings of decomposition within hours. There are fly eggs back here, too.’
Sage stared at the girl’s thin back. ‘Are they – bruises too?’ ‘As Dr Westfield observes, there are bruises on the skin of the torso that suggest repeated impacts. The patterns may relate to the soles of boots or shoes; the bruises are diffused but there is a pattern of ridges with high points.’ She turned to Warren. ‘Different light sources might reveal more details of the footwear. I’d like the skin swabbed as well, it might tell us where they have been.’ She turned back to the recorder. ‘This suggests the deceased survived the fatal injury for some time, evidenced by the developed bruising and swelling. This, with rigor mortis and temperature evidence, suggests time of death between eight p.m. Saturday evening and two a.m. Sunday morning. The time of injury could be any time from when she was last seen at home.’ Megan helped Warren lay the girl down gently onto her back. ‘Thank you.’ Megan nodded to Warren who turned the recording machine off.
Sage leaned forward to look at the pattern on River’s cheekbone. ‘Can you estimate the size of shoe, if it’s a shoe print?’
‘The texture only shows up where there’s an underlying bone, but I’d guess small. But I can’t be sure, the bruises are diffused because she lived for some time after injury. We haven’t ruled out more than one attacker at this point. She was found buried in a shallow depression. How deep?’
Sage consulted her notes. ‘The grave was between twenty-eight and thirty-seven centimetres deep. The leaves were mounded over the top, up to thirty centimetres deep in places. It’s in our report.’
‘What can you tell me about the shape of the excavation?’
Sage swallowed back down the coffee she’d had outside Chorleigh House; she hadn’t wanted lunch and now she felt sick. ‘It had been carefully cut out in the shape of the body using some sort of sharp, curved edge to slice through the turf, which was then laid around the shape of the body forming a ridge. The loose soil was also piled around her.’ She paused, took a breath. ‘River. The body.’
‘Take your time.’ Megan smiled at her, a wry half-smile.
‘Underneath the grass roots we found a compacted layer of subsoil; it must have been much harder to dig. I also found some small pottery fragments that look prehistoric. The grave was cut into an area that was once a tennis court – the police showed me photographs from the house. What I mean is,’ Sage went on, ‘there must have been many better places to bury her than right by the house. Deep in the woods where no one would have found her, or maybe on the common land somewhere.’
‘I hear you. But we can’t predict what people will do under the stress of dealing with a body.’ Megan scribbled something on her notes. ‘Right to roam in the forest means dogs have access to most of the land around, I think she would have been more easily found than on a private estate. But I agree, why in the open, right by the house? I don’t think we can rule out that this was an attempt to incriminate the homeowner.’
‘Do you know how she died?’
‘We can’t confirm cause of death until the post-mortem is complete. But the swelling on her face and the back of her head suggests head injury, and X-rays revealed a depressed skull fracture. A severe beating, perhaps, and the bruises do look like boot marks on her face. I may take a section for microscopal examination to distinguish between lividity and injury. It also appears that she might have lived some hours on a very cold night, so we have to rule out death from hypothermia. We’ll check for sexual trauma and activity, too, although there’s nothing obvious yet. You don’t want to be here for that.’
‘No. No, I don’t.’ Sage took a deeper breath.
‘The toilets are on the other side of the corridor,’ Megan said, in a matter-of-fact way. Sage only just made it.
8
‘If we take the Fairfield–Lyndhurst road to Blazeden Farm we find a lightly wooded site with two small earthworks visible from the meadow. The stream beyond is clearly marked and follows the line of the ancient ditch.’
Field Archaeology of Wessex, J. L. Foreman (1908) Copied into excavation notes, Edwin Masters, 25th June 1913
We marked out the trench we intended to excavate, hoping to find remains above the forest floor level that may have preserved them from being saturated by acidic groundwater.
Taking the turf off was an arduous task. The head gardener, after much fussing, helped us to lay the turf upside down and water it well, leaving it in the shade of the trees. We were to replace it as soon as possible. With the gardener and his men’s help we got it all done by midday. Almost immediately, Peter found a flint arrowhead.
‘Look, Ed!’ he shouted, running and sliding down the hard-packed soil, with the little gem in his hand. It was so sharp it slightly cut him when he landed, as we all (Molly was helping too) bent over it.
Molly took it from him with exaggerated care. ‘Does that mean the mounds are even older than we thought?’ she asked.
‘Not necessarily,’ I assured her. ‘Stone was probably in use for many generations after metalwork was introduced. And perhaps this area had been settled for hundreds of years before the barrows were built. It might just have been in the soil when they built the barrow.’
‘There’s a huge prehistoric hand axe in the museum in Christchurch,’ Peter said, pushing his hair out of his eyes. ‘I remember seei
ng it when I was a boy. There were definitely ancient settlements here.’
‘Can I try with a trowel?’ Molly asked me, smiling from under a rather fetching hat. I went to my kit for a smaller trowel.
‘This is for fine work,’ I said, showing her. ‘You can scrape away harder than you think, just stop if there’s any kind of change in colour or texture. You sort of feel your way layer by layer. And don’t be surprised if you find quite modern things. People often lose even valuable things out of their pockets, or drop the odd item and it gets pressed into wet soil. Some gardens have whole rubbish dumps in them, hundreds of years old.’
She started scraping, and I went back to the area I was working. Peter began digging, carrying away more of the spoil to put through a garden sieve. After a few minutes he brought something over. ‘Is this Bronze Age? It looks jolly early…’
It was a piece of pottery, a little smoothed by the passage of time, or ploughing. It had a curve on it, and just the suggestion of the rim of a pot.
‘Let me see,’ Molly interrupted, and I dropped it into her fingers.
‘I think Peter has found a proper piece of Bronze Age pottery,’ I said, prodding it to lie face upwards. ‘And it has decoration. Wait a minute.’ I ran over to the basket and pulled out half a bottle of warmish water. I poured a little into my cupped palm and rubbed the surface with my thumb. The dark grey gave way to a distinct blackish line, just across the corner, and the hint of a second line above it.
She looked up. ‘Look what Peter found!’ Her father was standing beyond our spoil heap.
‘Some very grubby youngsters,’ he said, but it seemed he was in better humour today. Molly took the potsherd over to show him.
‘This is very useful dating evidence,’ I explained. ‘This was possibly made in the Bronze Age, although it could be earlier. This area was probably also inhabited by Stone Age people, what we call Neolithic. Peter found an arrowhead.’
‘Have you found anything of worth?’ Mr Chorleigh bent to look at it. ‘You know they found a golden torc in the river not a mile from here.’
I nodded. ‘That was a Celtic artefact, sir. These remains are from an earlier age.’
He turned away, having already lost interest. I have noticed that rich people are the most interested in the monetary worth of things. We were uncovering the history of perhaps four or five thousand years ago. Peter and I knew the importance of the information we were gathering.
Molly turned around and lifted her sketchbook off the ground. ‘I drew this before you started digging again. Is this correct?’
Molly’s drawing was wonderful, showing the mound as it had been revealed by the removal of the turf, layers of different colour just suggested by shading in places. Somehow she had managed to draw the site as if Peter had not been there. On the facing page of her notebook I saw a quick sketch of her brother, laughing up at her, holding his trowel out as if to ward her off.
‘That is an excellent picture of the barrow,’ I told her, being rewarded by a wide smile, so like Peter’s. ‘I like this one, too.’ I pushed my knuckle towards the sketch so I wouldn’t smear it. ‘I should like to have that.’
‘Of course,’ she said, scrambling back up the bank.
Mr Chorleigh walked away, swishing his stick through the long grass. I felt lighter once he had gone; I found him oppressive.
‘Gosh, it’s thirsty work, isn’t it?’ Peter said, wiping his forehead on his arm.
My throat was dry; the sun had lit up the spot we were digging. I fumbled in my bag. ‘I have barley sugars if that will help.’
‘A drink would be better,’ Peter said, blowing the fringe out of his eyes. It was oppressively hot by now, the buzzing of flies and bees humming from the long pasture beyond. ‘I think Cook put a few bottles of her lemonade in the basket with the sandwiches.’
She had; they were lukewarm and starting to fizz but their corks were still in. I sat on the grassy edge of the dig, drinking deep from one of them. Peter put a hand out to help Molly sit beside us, and she accepted a fresh bottle. She stretched the umbrella over my head, too, and it was a relief for my eyes. She handed me a sandwich wrapped in paper.
‘Perhaps we should get out of the sun until later,’ she suggested. ‘I’m already a bit pink in places and Peter’s getting burned.’
‘Unlike Edwin, who just goes as dark as an Arab,’ Peter said, before downing his lemonade. The brew was sharp and refreshing. ‘We could put up the awning, like we do for swimming parties.’
Molly answered him. ‘I think people are using it this afternoon, by the river, at high tide. We could go for a swim, and come back when the sun goes down a little.’
That’s Molly, filled with common sense and four years our junior. I’m sure I would have stayed all day until struck down with heatstroke. So we finished our lunch, covered up the remains from the prying eyes of the staff and the Chorleighs’ young friends, and decamped to the river to join the swimming party. Trixie was already at the house, cool in some chiffony dress, putting her hand in Peter’s and allowing him to hand her up the steps of the shooting brake to drive to the river. She was like a gilded statue, her skin and hair pale gold, her attitude as if a breeze would have blown her away. She leaned on him and whispered in his ear. She made him place the awning, an old sail, between two trees then patted the deckchair beside her.
He grinned then at me, turning to her. ‘It’s scorching, Trixie, I’m as hot as a racehorse. I’m going for a swim. Come on, Ed, let’s cool down.’
I threw off my shirt to jump into the water with him and Molly. We gambolled in the shallows, then the Chorleighs set out for a serious swim, and I returned to the chairs and a towel.
‘I’m glad to know one of Peter’s university friends,’ Trixie said. I was surprised because apart from a ‘how-de-do’ she had never spoken to me before. ‘His last summer as a boy, a dear boy, of course. But now he needs to think about his future. Did you know he’s been offered a position in my father’s firm?’
‘I – I didn’t. I thought he might do a master’s degree.’
She waved a fan in front of her face. ‘I think we have both waited long enough to be married. We’ve been engaged four years, you know.’
I did know Peter didn’t consider it a proper engagement at all. ‘I worshipped at her feet, we all did,’ he once told me. ‘She’s a goddess, too good for me. She’ll probably marry a viscount.’
I looked across the river, seeing the sleek heads of Peter and Molly, diving and breaching like seals. He waved at the shore and I waved back.
‘Molly is a dear girl, don’t you think?’ The goddess was talking at me with her eyes shut. ‘She’s a bit young, of course, but such a loyal, sweet thing. She’ll miss Peter once we’re in London. Unless she has her own friends, of course.’
‘I believe Molly means to study at university,’ I answered, a little more curtly than I had intended.
‘Indeed? I had thought her too pretty to go to university.’ The conversation appeared closed as she turned away and addressed a languid remark to one of the other fellows in the party, one of the Chorleighs’ neighbours.
I felt, as I always did, out of place without Peter there. Life in a country vicarage had not prepared me for the social life of the wealthy middle classes.
9
Wednesday 20th March, this year
Chorleigh House, Fairfield, New Forest
After a disturbed night Sage woke up gasping, then the image of the knife buried in Nick’s chest faded back into the nightmare. She shook the dream off, got ready for work and picked up the ground-penetrating radar equipment from Trent’s office. She headed back into the New Forest. Trent had left a message. ‘I have an odd case, what looks like a sleeping bag with human remains buried in a back garden. It’s probably just an illegal burial to save the funeral and keep claiming the pension; I had one of those when I was training. Ask DCI Lenham if you can do anything, but hold off with the ground-penetrating radar, I want to be in on
that. See you soon.’
But DCI Lenham didn’t have anything for her to do. ‘SOCOs are sweeping for trace evidence around the grave site and along the path to the shed, so we have to stay clear. I have several interviews today anyway.’
‘Should I start on the leaves?’ she asked.
‘Actually, forensics still need the lab so they will have to wait as well. Your friend is here, though,’ he said. ‘The professor. He asked if you could go with him. He’s going to interview those weirdos in Chilhaven, Lara Black’s friends.’
‘Oh?’ Sage looked over the overgrown grass to where Felix was examining the marker stone on the ground in front of the house. ‘Don’t the police want to talk to them?’ Though she knew full well from Felix that they didn’t.
Lenham shook his head. ‘Guichard was originally consulted in 1991 to investigate animal mutilations because they looked ritualistic. We had everyone on that – psychologists, police, the bloody RSPCA. He gave us some ideas but eventually it just stopped happening. The Wildwood people wouldn’t talk to us so we sent Guichard.’
‘You never solved the animal mutilations?’ said Sage.
‘No, but we spent a lot of money looking in some very odd places. Like the Wildwood Coven and a couple of random satanists who turned out to belong to a metal band. Guichard sent us on a wild goose chase – he was convinced the attacks would progress to humans one day.’
Sage turned back to Lenham. ‘Did they?’
‘No. Unless Lara Black’s disappearance was related, which is unlikely. We don’t even have evidence she’s dead.’ He was snappy. ‘And the press wrote about Hampshire Police calling in psychics and reading tarot cards. Which didn’t do my career any good at the time.’
Sage turned to leave but remembered something. ‘I promised Mr Chorleigh I would make sure his dog was OK.’
‘He’s fine. We took swabs from his claws but didn’t find anything obvious from the body, and we don’t think he scratched River. I passed on the message he was allergic to fish, before you ask. After the kennel removed about a pound of fleas.’ As Lenham looked away, Sage thought of something else.
A Shroud of Leaves Page 7