by Chris Simms
‘Three bodies?’ Doctor Ford sounded lost.
‘William Hall: his body’s down a ventilation shaft across the fields.’
The doctor stared at the policeman. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Nor do we, Doctor, nor do we. Let’s start here, then we’ll take you to where the other two are.’
‘Who is upstairs?’ Doctor Ford quietly asked.
‘I’ve no idea, but the corpse has been there for quite some time.’
‘Minging, it is,’ Steve said, fiddling with the hurricane lamp.
Doctor Ford looked from one man to the other. ‘Where?’
The police officer sighed. ‘It’s been concealed in the wall cavity. Someone hid it in there.’
The doctor looked dumbfounded. ‘Is...is it male or female?’
‘Female,’ the officer replied. ‘Doctor, it’s just a formality. She was bricked up in there decades ago.’
Chapter 42
‘Cor, your toes are like ice! Trevor, you should feel these.’
‘Chilly, are they?’ The ambulance driver’s cheerful response carried back into the rear of the vehicle. ‘Are they blue? If they’re blue, I’ll turn the heating back there to full. Can’t have blue toes in my ambulance.’
They had secured Laura to a gurney. The straps were, they’d cheerfully said, only to ensure she didn’t fall off during the journey. Maybe, she thought, that’s what they told me the other time I was in an ambulance. But her mind had shut those memories out.
‘Not blue. Well maybe a pale...I don’t know what the word is for pale blue.’ He grinned at her from his perch at the foot of the gurney.
Cyan, possibly, she thought. Or maybe a washed-out aquamarine, like the shade you see on the undersides of icebergs. I like icebergs. So slow and placid. Dangerous, though. The Titanic was proof of that. ‘How long before a human succumbs to the cold?’ she asked, thinking about Owen.
He continued to rub at her feet, increasing the circular motions to encompass her ankles. ‘Don’t you worry about that. There you go, this’ll get the blood flowing back round.’
She thought about how long she’d spent lying in the coal pit beneath the brittle layer of leaves. The memory of her descent started to reassemble itself in her mind. The stiff way the thing’s feet had connected with the stone steps. A juddering great sigh set her teeth against each other.
‘Hey, now,’ the paramedic said more softly, the forced jolliness now gone from his voice. ‘We’ve got you, OK? Everything will be fine.’ He reached up and tucked in the folds of the red blanket more tightly. The gurney’s grey nylon straps cut across the blanket at regular intervals. She wasn’t sure if everything would be fine. She was clear of the cellar, that was true. But she was trapped all the same. Trapped in the medical system, now.
‘Lights in the valley look like jewels,’ commented the ambulance driver. ‘Sprinkled there in the dark.’
His colleague was back working Laura’s feet. It felt so nice, so soothing. She wondered if it would be acceptable to perhaps have a nap. But as soon as she let her eyes close, she saw William’s upturned feet, the thin layer of snow across the soles...
Her eyes snapped opened and she caught the paramedic staring at her with a look of concern. He attempted an unconvincing smile. ‘Would you like some more of that drink, Laura?’
She considered the bottle of lemon-flavoured liquid on the shelf. It had left a powdery residue on her tongue. Glucose, paracetamol, electrolytes and a little salt; that’s all it was, he’d assured her. She’d watched him mix it with water, making sure he hadn’t slipped anything else in. She shook her head.
‘OK. Not long now. Trevor, how long until the A6?’
‘Five minutes.’
‘There you go, Laura. Not long.’
Five minutes, she thought. Five minutes until we arrive at A&E, where I’ll be wheeled past a crowded waiting area straight into a side room. And while you occupy me with light-hearted banter, your colleague will be at the front desk asking for the psychiatric nurse.
Doctor Ford climbed the stairs with the police officer two steps behind. ‘Is it left?’
‘Yup. Left and along to the end. She’s wrecked the room, Doctor. Broke a massive mirror, sliced open her foot. That blood on the carpet? It’s all hers. And the palm-prints on the walls. She was very agitated. Pretty much hysterical, I’d say.’
‘Oh.’ Doctor Ford peered into the end room.
‘She’d convinced herself the woman – the one in the wall – had climbed out and lured William to the ventilation shaft.’
Doctor Ford stepped down onto the floorboards. ‘The body’s in there, is it?’
‘Correct. To the left. Here, you can use my torch.’ As he handed it over, his radio came to life. Tango Three, this is Alpha One. Receiving?
Unhooking it from his tunic, he stepped back out into the corridor. ‘Go ahead Alpha one, this is Tango Three.’
After making sure there were no fragments of glass on the floor before him, Doctor Ford knelt at the gaping hole in the wall. He opened his medical case then turned the torch on. The inner surface of the cavity had been coated in a thin, hard, greyish substance. He tapped a fingernail against it. Limestone, he was fairly certain. When turned to powder, mixed with water and left in the open air, a chemical reaction transformed it into a rudimentary form of cement. Someone had carefully prepared the space before placing the body inside. Although a musty aroma permeated the space, no foul-smelling fluids would have seeped into the floorboards.
Looking further in, he saw the officer was correct. The body had been placed against a column of bricks that rose up to the roof: the chimney shaft. He lowered the beam of light back down. The corpse was that of a bulky-looking adult female. The head lay at an unnatural angle on the right shoulder, a dirty veil of hair concealing the face. Wanting to see how dried-out the body had become, the doctor reached out to push the hair aside. But the thought of looking into her face made him shudder. Instead, he decided to examine her hands, which lay in her lap, concealed by bunched folds of dress. As he smoothed the material down, his eyes widened.
The woman was clutching a small cage. He held the torch closer. Something was inside the cage. Pale, creamy feathers stood out in the bright beam. A dead bird. A canary.
Thoughts rose up in Doctor Ford’s head, each one jostling for attention. William had talked for years about Tweetie-Pie. Laura had insisted she’d heard a canary, too. Why could William and Laura hear a canary when they were in the cottage? Owen had never heard it...but the reason for that was obvious. He’d lost the upper-range of his hearing. Don’t be ridiculous, the doctor chided himself, William and Laura hadn’t heard an actual sound. That was impossible. Utterly impossible. Yet they’d both somehow – independently –claimed they could hear a canary singing.
He eased the cage from the female’s stiff fingers. It was definitely a canary in there. Long dead and dried out, just like the woman. A canary. It...it...defied all explanation. No, he corrected himself. It defied all obvious explanation. That was all. But there would be an explanation, he insisted to himself. He just couldn’t see it yet.
Leaning back, he checked the police officer was still in the corridor. Then he placed the cage in his medical case, closed it and relocked the clasps. ‘The person is deceased,’ he called out, regaining his feet and moving to the door.
The policeman was looking into the bathroom further down the corridor. ‘Thanks, Doctor. I’ll get on to base and let them know.’
Chapter 43
Twelve days later
All birdsong made Laura cower now. As soon as she heard it, she started looking around. She had to locate the actual bird. Had to. Once she’d done that – once she’d seen it – her shoulders sank back. Her pulse slowed.
It had given her a strained, edgy appearance. She didn’t move easily any more. Sometimes she caught sight of herself – in a mirror or a shop window. Usually a mirror as she didn’t really go out so much. She looked like she w
as in constant fear of someone suddenly screaming at her: shoulders permanently on the verge of hunching, head ready to duck.
It was a terrible posture, but she couldn’t help it. Her periods still hadn’t come back.
She had yet to decide if moving back to Richmond was a good idea. It was only a small flat and she’d only signed a six-month lease. She chose it because it overlooked the park. Just like the house where Owen and she used to live.
Poor Owen. She often thought of him. When his car couldn’t get up the snow-covered lane, he’d abandoned it. Her guess why he went into the field was because his shoes were no good in snow. A trudge up a grassy slope would have been easier than slippery asphalt.
He’d tried to climb over a dry stone wall and the top had given way. The drop wasn’t big, but his head had connected with one of the rocks. Cause of death was given as exposure. At least, she’d concluded, he’d been unconscious when he died.
It seemed strange to her that she had to wait until his death before getting a true picture of his health. The print-outs she’d found in the study had been part of his dawning realisation that his hearing was no longer perfect.
Presbycusis; that’s the word Dr Ford had written in Owen’s notes. Hearing loss that comes with old age. The simple audiogram Dr Ford had performed on the day she’d seen her husband driving off from the practice had proved it. The cells of his cochlea – a part deep in the ear that looks like a snail shell – had degraded. He’d been unable to pick out high-frequency sounds. Ones between 4000 and 8000 hertz. Like sopranos singing. Especially if his ears were still ringing from the crescendo immediately prior to the chorus coming in. Other high-pitched sounds he wouldn’t have been able to make out included the ring of a mobile phone and the soft jangle of keys. Or the faint singing of a bird.
Though Doctor Ford was obliged to hand over her husband’s medical notes, the same didn’t apply to William’s. In their final meeting, she’d asked again if he knew about William’s preoccupation with the birdy. Tweetie Pie. Something that warbled away from its hiding place behind the bedroom wall.
The man had looked anywhere than at her as he declined to answer. ‘Tell me,’ she’d demanded. ‘Did you know that William heard a bird singing, too?’
‘You know I cannot discuss another patient with you.’
‘Even if he’s dead?’
He’d lifted a fist at that point – as if to smash it down on his desk. But a forefinger extended and he’d pointed at her instead. ‘I tried to get you out of that bloody house! But you wouldn’t go. I tried to make you stay here when you came charging in!’ His wrist drooped and his arm fell to his lap. ‘I tried.’
A parakeet cried out. Their squawks always made her flinch; but their bright green plumage was easy to spot. The bird arrowed past, aiming for a large oak tree where, she suspected, it had a home in the trunk. She tried not to think of holes, or hollow places. Cavities, shafts or chimneys. All of those things.
Mouse stirred in her lap. At least, Laura thought, she loves it here. How much had she grown since getting here? Lots. She looked at the letter from Martin Flowers again.
Dear Laura,
Thank you for your phone call last week. It was a pleasure, and I’d like to say, a comfort to hear you sounding so well. I feel I got to know you in the time you spent in Oldknow and you have constantly been in my thoughts since you left.
Obviously, the recent terrible events have given rise to many issues up here. Activity is very much ongoing. I had the dubious honour, a few days ago, of holding a burial service for poor William Hall. (The coroner agreed to release his body immediately the pathologist’s findings came in. Suicide, as we all expected.)
His grave is on the western edge of the cemetery where the views are across to Manchester and towards Wales. Owen’s grave is a mass of flowers, by the way. People continue to pay their respects on a daily basis.
This brings me to the questions you posed in your phone call. I will, if I may, address each one in turn (insofar as I have been able to obtain answers for you).
The female remains from Lantern Cottage were taken to a secure facility adjoining the mortuary at Cale Green hospital. I also enquired about the whereabouts of a cage containing a canary; the officer concerned assured me all items from within the wall cavity would have been taken to the same secure facility.
You were also concerned to know what will happen to those remains once all necessary procedures have been completed. The same officer informed me that, where no surviving relatives can be identified (which seems likely in this case), the remains are disposed of in the hospital incinerator.
When she’d read that part of the letter, she’d been consumed with such intense feelings, tears had started from her eyes. That thing she’d seen – and its grotesque accomplice in its cage – were to be reduced to particles of ash. Some would float from the incinerator’s chimney to be dispersed on the wind. What remained would be scraped from the furnace, bagged up and buried. She would never walk again.
Once more, she let her thoughts linger on that. It was over. She turned back to the last part of the letter.
By the way, the storage facility for the remains now also houses everything recovered from the archaeological dig by the church. In all, they found five skeletons – three children and two adults – and bones that belonged to a sheep (which certainly didn’t date back to the Iron Age, apparently). Speaking to Adrian the other day (he sends his regards, by the way) he told me they now believe the three children were peacetime burials whereas the two adults, unfortunately, met a more violent end. Exactly what happened, we’ll never know. But to use Adrian’s words, life, in those days, was nasty, brutal and short.
The reason why all the remains are at the same facility is because they are currently being examined by one of the country’s leading forensic archaeologists. She is just back from examining recently discovered bones on the coast of Japan. (Tsunami victims, the authorities over there suspect.)
This is all terribly macabre so I will dwell on it no further.
Some more positive news: Molly flew to America at the weekend! We are all so excited to know that she will finally receive the treatment she needs. I greatly look forward to giving you all the details when I see you on Monday. Of course, it would never have been possible without your generosity and I am proud to make the journey down to London bearing a token of gratitude created by Molly herself!
I look forward to seeing you then.
May God go with you, Laura,
My kindest regards,
Martin Flowers
She hadn’t been able to refuse his request to visit – especially since he was bringing her news of Molly. But, she knew, he didn’t need to travel all the way to south of London to tell her that. She couldn’t help wondering if there was some other purpose to his visit.
Paying for Molly’s treatment had been no problem. She didn’t need the money: Owen had left her more in his will than she’d ever spend. Better to give Molly a life that she could enjoy.
The doorbell rang and the sudden sound made her shoulders jerk. Mouse’s eyes opened and she stretches out her front paws. ‘That’ll be him.’ Laura scooped the kitten up and went to the door.
Chapter 44
Miriam Nash keyed in the combination that unlocked the outer door of Cale Green hospital’s mortuary. Before her, a short corridor led to a set of imposing double doors. Notices on them gave warning that, beyond, full hygiene procedures must be adhered to. A row of lockers for coats and bags were to the left of the doors. Dispensers for plastic overshoes and hairnets were mounted on the wall to the right. Below them was a bin with a one-way trapdoor for their disposal. From the ceiling above her, a CCTV camera silently watched.
But Miriam didn’t go into the main room where autopsies on recently deceased bodies were performed. Instead, she swiped her card on the reader of a door to her right. This gave access to another corridor that led to a small office. She could hear two voices inside; Malcolm
, the rather slow assistant she’d been assigned for the labelling and cataloguing of the remains from Oldknow. Probably wasting time chatting to a porter. It seemed his favourite part of the job.
‘No mate, Japan. She was in Japan. The tidal wave, remember it?’
‘Oh, from that earthquake out at sea?’
‘Give that man a biscuit! They keep finding bits and pieces on beaches, in coves, all over. So Miriam, she’s one of the best there is, the Japanese government paid for her to go out there– ’
She stepped into the doorway with a cheerful hello.
The porter hastily put the statue she’d purchased in Tokyo back on her desk.
‘Morning, chief,’ Malcolm quipped.
She wished he’d drop that way of greeting her. Not that she expected a madam or ma’am. Miriam would do just fine. As she took off her coat, she glanced through the large plate-glass window into the examination room beyond.
The five skeletons from the hill fort by Oldknow church were neatly laid out on trestle tables draped in white cotton sheeting. Every single bone had been meticulously labelled. The best three – two juveniles and an adult which bore striation marks across its collarbone and upper vertebrae – were being shipped to the Manchester Museum. The fate of the other two was still undecided.
Her eyes travelled to the room’s far corner. ‘Why are the sheep bones still here?’
The porter looked at Malcolm, who was now turning to the window. ‘The sheep? That went to the incinerator last night.’
Miriam stepped up to the glass. ‘Isn’t that it on the corner table with the yellow label on the bag? Yellow for incineration?’
‘Those are the female remains. The ones from inside the wall of that cottage.’
‘No, her remains should be on table six, which is now bare. I didn’t ask for her remains to be incinerated. I asked you to bag the clothing and shoes she was found in for incineration, but not her.’