The Calling of the Grave

by Simon Beckett

  'I thought you might have changed. I should have known better.'

  He walked out without a backward glance. I stayed at the table, the past so close I felt I could almost step into it. Can you pick Alice up later?

  The flat seemed subtly different somehow, less my own. But my hands were steady enough as I collected the mugs. I hadn't touched my coffee but I no longer wanted it. I poured it down the sink and watched the dregs swirl down the drain. I didn't know why Terry had really come to see me, but the years hadn't changed one thing.

  I still didn't trust him.

  * * *

  Chapter 9

  Monk's escape was the main story on the lunchtime news. An audacious prison escape by a notorious killer would have made headlines no matter who it was.

  When it was Jerome Monk it was guaranteed.

  The story was on the radio as I drove into the lab. I listened to the headlines, then switched it off. There'd be nothing I didn't already know, and despite Terry's warning Monk's escape didn't concern me. I was sorry he was free, and sorry he'd hurt more people in the process. But Jerome Monk wasn't my problem. Eight years was a long time, too long for him to care about me. Or me about him.

  Still, try as I might to pretend otherwise, I couldn't shrug off Terry's visit as easily as that. I was long past apportioning blame for what had happened, but seeing him again had dredged up painful memories, stirred up an emotional sediment that refused to settle. I'd been looking forward to a leisurely Sunday, and a rare day off. I was supposed to be meeting two colleagues and their wives for lunch in Henley-on-Thames, something I'd been promising to do for weeks. But Terry's reappearance had changed all that. Knowing I wouldn't be very good company I'd called and made my excuses. I needed time by myself to come to terms with what had happened, to pack my memories back in their box.

  I needed to work.

  The past blew around me like a cold wind as I pulled into the Forensic Sciences car park. When I'd returned to London from Norfolk I'd been uneasy about returning to my old department, wary of being swamped by past associations. But in the end there hadn't been enough reason not to. I'd been based here for the past three years, technically a part of the faculty but with freedom to concentrate on police consultancy work. The university had offered me tenure, but so far I'd been reluctant to take it. The present arrangement seemed to work, even if there was still a temporary feel to it. I could live with that, though. Experience had made me reluctant to put down roots.

  The building was closed on Sundays, but I often came in to work. I had my own keys, and I was used to being there alone. Still, I glanced around the empty car park as I made my way to the entrance. There's always something slightly unsettling about being alone in a normally busy public space. And while I might not be worried about Monk coming after me, there were others whose grudges were more tangible.

  I still bore a scar on my stomach to warn me against complacency

  The forensic anthropology department was in the basement of a former Victorian hospital. It was accessed either by a cranky old lift that always seemed to smell of disinfectant or by two flights of stairs. As usual I took the stairs. The building was listed, and the stairwell still had the original tiles and stone steps. My footsteps rang as I descended, their lonely echo emphasizing the weekend quiet.

  Once through the doors at the bottom, though, I was back in the twenty-first century. There were several labs, all of them modern and well equipped. My office was attached to one at the far end of the corridor. Not large, but big enough for my purposes. I unlocked it and flicked on the lights. There were no windows down here, and I paused in the doorway as the bright overhead fluorescents stuttered to life.

  It was cool inside, the heating system turned down over the weekend. But I was used to that. My office was utilitarian, most of the space taken up by the old steel filing cabinets and desk. Switching on the computer, I left it to start up and pulled on my white lab coat which hung behind the door. Then I went out into the lab.

  The grislier aspects of my work - carefully cutting away the decaying soft tissue from a cadaver, or degreasing human bones in detergent - were normally done at a mortuary. Most of the remains that came here had already been through that process, or were so long dead that time and decomposition had reduced them to dry bones anyway.

  The case I was currently working on was one of the former. Stripped of its flesh and neatly set out on the aluminium examination table was the partial skeleton of a man in his thirties. At least, that was my best guess. His gender had been relatively easy to determine because of the shape of the pelvis and large size of the bones. I'd estimated his age from the condition of his vertebrae and the amount of wear evident on the pubic symphysis - the part of the pelvic girdle where the two pubic bones meet.

  But while the skeleton normally provides other indicators to help confirm age and sex, as well as identification, that didn't apply in this instance. The advanced state of decomposition had suggested that, whoever this was, he'd died at least two years ago, but I'd been unable to be more precise than that. And I couldn't even begin to offer a probable cause of death. In fact the only thing I could state with any real confidence was that he'd been murdered.

  I'd yet to come across a suicide or accidental death where the arms, legs and head had been severed.

  The man's torso had been found by a builder, dumped inside the well of a derelict farmhouse in Surrey. Neither the well nor the rest of the property had yielded the missing body parts, and without any teeth to compare against dental records, or any notable characteristics on the remaining bones, identifying the victim would be a difficult task.

  Still, I hoped to at least establish how he'd been dismembered. There was none of the trauma that would indicate an axe or cleaver had been used, which pointed to it being a knife or saw. Any blade would leave distinctive marks on the bone, and from the cleanness of the ones I'd seen so far this was likely to be some sort of power tool. My money was on a circular saw, but I'd need to examine each surface under a microscope to be sure. It was dull, methodical work, but identifying what cutting tool had been used might be the first step on the long road to catching the killer.

  Stranger things had happened.

  I set up the first slide and tried to concentrate on what I was supposed to be doing. But I stared at the magnified section of bone in the viewfinder without really seeing it. Clean cut, no sign of splintering . . . Something scratched away at my subconscious, an irritating connection I couldn't quite unearth. I straightened, feeling it on the verge of surfacing, but then a final chime from my office as the computer started up distracted me.

  Whatever I'd been trying to remember vanished. I sighed and gave in to the inevitable. OK, just get it out of the way. Then you can forget about it and do some work. Going into my office I went online to a news website. I'd expected Monk's escape to be the lead story. It was. I just hadn't realized what a shock it would be seeing that face again.

  Jerome Monk's photograph stared from the screen like a still from a horror film. The sickening indentation in his forehead still made you queasy just to look at it, and the eyes . . .

  His eyes were still dead.

  I scrolled down the screen to the photographs of his four victims. The images looked dated, their subjects frozen in time. The Bennett sisters would be . . . what? Twenty-six or twenty-seven now, and Tina Williams twenty-eight or nine. Angela Carson, the oldest, would be about thirty-five. Old enough to be married, to have children of their own. Instead, their lives had been cut brutally short.

  And now their killer was free.

  I rubbed my eyes, the taste of failure as bitter now as it had been all that time ago. Again, I had the feeling that there was something I needed to remember. It wasn't so strong as before, just a niggling presence at the back of my mind. I started to scroll back to re-read the story and jumped as the phone on my desk rang.

  The picture on the screen doubled in size as I accidentally clicked on the zoom. Swearing
under my breath, I grabbed for the phone. 'Hello?'

  There was a slight pause on the other end. 'Is that David? David Hunter?'

  It was a woman's voice, strong and slightly husky, though now with an edge of uncertainty. There was something familiar about it.

  'Yes. Who's this?'

  'Sophie Keller?' she said, and another part of the past clicked into place. 'We worked together a few years ago. On the Jerome Monk case?'

  She phrased it as a question, as though unsure I'd know who she was. She needn't have worried: it was only a few hours since Terry Connors had asked if I'd heard from her.

  'Sure, of course.' I made an effort to gather myself. 'Sorry, it's just weird timing. I was just reading about Monk.'

  'You've heard that he's escaped?'

  'Yes, I have.'

  I wasn't sure whether to mention Terry, so I didn't. The two of them had never got on. There was an embarrassed pause. 'I got your office number from the university website, but I only called to leave a message. I didn't think you'd be there on a Sunday. I hope you don't mind.'

  'No, I'm just a little surprised, that's all.'

  'I know, I'm sorry, this is really out of the blue, but. . .' I heard her take a breath. 'Well, could we meet some time?'

  The surprises were coming thick and fast today. 'Is this because of Monk?'

  'I'd rather tell you when I see you. I promise not to take up much of your time.'

  She tried to disguise it, but I could hear the tension in her voice. 'That's OK. Are you still in London?'

  There was another pause. 'No. I'm living in Dartmoor now. A little village called Padbury.'

  That surprised me. Sophie had never seemed the rural type, although I remembered she'd said how much she liked the moor. 'You made it out there, then.'

  'What? Oh . . . yes, I suppose so.' She sounded distracted. 'Look, I know it's asking a lot, but if you could spare me a couple of hours I'd really appreciate it. Please?'

  There was no mistaking the need in her voice, or the anxiety underlying it. This sounded a far cry from the confident young woman I remembered.

  'Are you in some kind of trouble?'

  'No, it's just . . . Look, I'll tell you everything when I see you.'

  I told myself not to get involved in a cold case, that digging up the past would be painful and pointless. But then the case wasn't really cold any more. Now that Monk had escaped it was very much alive again.

  And there was that subconscious itch at the back of my mind. Until today everything about this investigation had lain dormant for the best part of a decade. So why should it all of a sudden feel like unfinished business?

  'How about tomorrow?' I heard myself say. It was too late today: I wouldn't arrive there till evening.

  Her relief was evident even down the line. 'That'd be great! If you're sure . . .'

  'I'll be glad of an excuse to get out of London.' Are you certain that's the only reason? I ignored the sardonic voice.

  'Do you remember the Trencherman's Arms in Oldwich?'

  The name brought back another blast of memory, not all of it good. 'I remember. Is the food any better than it was?'

  She laughed. I'd forgotten what a good laugh she had, unselfconscious and full-throated. It didn't last long. 'A little. But it's easier than directing you to where I live. Can you make it in time for lunch?'

  I said I could. We arranged to meet at one o'clock and exchanged mobile numbers. 'Thanks again, David. I really do appreciate this,' Sophie said before she rang off.

  She didn't sound grateful, though. She sounded desperate.

  I lowered the phone thoughtfully. It had been quite a day for reunions. First Terry Connors, now Sophie Keller. Whatever she wanted to see me about, I doubted it was an accident that it coincided with Jerome Monk's escape. And it had to be something serious for her to get in touch after all this time. The Sophie I'd known hadn't seemed prone to panicking.

  Still, eight years was a long time. People changed. I found myself wondering if she'd altered, if she still looked the same.

  If she was married.

  You can cut that out, I told myself, but I smiled all the same. Then without warning I shivered. I looked at the computer monitor, where the gargoyle face of Monk filled the screen. The black button eyes seemed to be watching as it smiled its mocking half-smile. I closed the connection and the photograph winked out.

  But even after it had gone I still seemed to feel his eyes on me.

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  A few wisps of purple still clung to the heather, but autumn had already leached the colour from the landscape, cloaking the moor in dead greens and browns. It stretched as far as the eye could see, bleak and windblasted. The thigh-deep lakes of bracken were starting to die off, leaving nothing to break the monotony but house-sized rocks and thickets of impenetrable gorse.

  A recent case had taken me to a remote Scottish island that if anything had been even more desolate, but there had still been an impressive sweep and grandeur to it. To my mind, this part of Dartmoor seemed brooding and oppressive, although I had to admit I wasn't exactly impartial.

  I didn't have good memories of this place.

  The sky had promised rain, but so far none had materialized. Despite the low clouds the sun kept breaking through, picking out the heather in startling clarity before being shut off once more. I'd made good time from London, except for a traffic jam on the M5. It was the first time in years I'd been this far west, but I found myself recalling parts of the route, recognizing villages I'd forgotten till then. Then I reached the moor itself, and it was like driving back in time.

  I passed signposts for half-remembered places, landmarks that nudged rusty chords of memory. I drove by the grassed-over ruins of the old tin mine's waterwheel, where Monk's decoy had lured the press away. It was even more overgrown and looked smaller than I remembered. I felt the past thicken around me, then the road curved away and in the far distance I could make out the rocky jumble of Black Tor.

  I slowed for a better look. Even though I'd been expecting it, the sight still brought back the chill mists and snap of police tape vibrating in the wind. Then I'd passed the turn-off. Shaking off the memories, I drove on to meet Sophie.

  Oldwich was on the edge of the MOD training area, a sizeable chunk of the national park that the military had annexed for its firing and combat exercises. Most of it still granted public access, except on days when training was taking place.

  Today wasn't one of them. I passed a warning post, but there was no red flag to indicate the area was off-limits. Oldwich itself was an odd place, apparently undecided as to whether it was a town or a village. It didn't seem to have changed much; there were newer houses on its fringes, but its centre was still as drab and unprepossessing as I recalled. The pebble-dashed cottages had always put me in mind of a coastal town, facing out to the empty moor as though to a static green sea.

  A two-carriage train was unhurriedly pulling away as I drove by, slowly dragging itself across the moor as if exhausted. The Trencherman's Arms wasn't far from the tiny train station. The last time I'd been here the pub had looked dilapidated and depressing; now the roof had been rethatched and the walls were freshly whitewashed. At least some things had changed for the better.

  The small car park was round the back. I felt oddly nervous as I pulled in and turned off the engine. I told myself there was no need, and made my way to the entrance. The doorway leading into the pub was low, and I had to stoop to avoid banging my head. Inside was dark, but as my eyes adjusted I saw it wasn't just the thatched roof that was new. The exposed stone flags were a big improvement on the sticky carpet I remembered, and the flock wallpaper had been replaced with cleanly painted plaster.

  A few tables were taken, mainly by walkers and tourists finishing lunch, but most were empty. It took only a moment to see that Sophie wasn't there, but then I was early. Relax, she's probably on her way.

  A cheerful, plump woman was behind the bar. I gues
sed the sullen landlord had gone the same way as the flock wallpaper and beer- stained carpets. I ordered a coffee and went to one of the stripped-pine tables by the fireplace. It wasn't lit, but it was stacked with fresh-cut logs, and the ash in the grate suggested they weren't only there for decoration.

  I took a drink of coffee and wondered yet again what Sophie might want. It had to be connected to Jerome Monk's escape somehow, but for the life of me I couldn't see how. Or why she'd contacted me. We'd enjoyed each other's company but I wouldn't have called us friends, and neither of us had made any attempt to keep in touch.

  So why would she want to see me again after all this time?

  My coffee had gone cold. Looking at my watch I saw it was nearly half past one. I frowned: after the way she'd sounded the day before I wouldn't have expected her to be late. But I wasn't sure how far she had to travel, so she could easily have been held up. I picked up the menu and restlessly flicked through it, glancing at the entrance every few minutes.