Deep Cover (3 page)

‘Well, we'll see what we see.' Ainsclough replaced the phone gently and reached for a new blank manila file, in which he entered the information he had just received. He closed the file and placed it in his ‘out' tray, pending filing. Michael Dalkeith, unemployed, one of a half a dozen bodies found across London, revealed by the thaw. He got up and walked down the CID corridor to the office which Frankie Brunnie shared with Penny Yewdall. He stood in the doorway, and when Brunnie looked up at him, Ainsclough smiled and said, ‘Fancy a trip to Palmers Green?'

Brunnie glanced out of the window at the overcast sky and replied, ‘Not really.'

‘Poor you.'

Brunnie dropped his pen on to the statistic forms he was completing. ‘Poor, poor me but anything is better than monthly stats.'

‘I'm impressed; I haven't looked at my December stats yet.'

‘These are October's.' Brunnie stood and reached for his coat. ‘Nothing to be impressed about, I assure you.'

‘Oh, in that case . . .'

‘“Oh” is right. Vicary is not best pleased, nor is he overly impressed with little me, but he's busy with a skeleton right now, or so I hear. So yes, Palmers Green it is.'

‘Yes, he won't be back today. I need to ID a stiff, nothing suspicious, just an ID to make, then we can pass the parcel to the family, or the coroner.'

Clive Sherwin looked around him. Never really happy in the country, he felt even less comfortable than usual. The winter-tilled fields beyond the meadow seemed unwelcoming, the leafless trees in the nearby wood at that moment were home to cawing rooks, as the first sliver of dawn cracked the night sky. The three young women had hoods over their heads and each was trembling violently. Sherwin could not tell whether they were shivering with fear, or shivering because of the cold, all three being ill-clad for the weather. But, probably, he thought, it was because of both. They stood at the bottom of a meadow and to their right was a line of cherry trees. The furthest of the trees were tall and established, the nearest of the trees were little more than saplings. There were ten in all. In spring they would develop a blossom of brilliant pink, thus heralding the approach of summer.

‘Alright, girls,' the hard-faced woman said quietly, ‘take off the hoods.'

The three young women slowly and reluctantly tugged the hoods from their heads. One of the women screamed, all stepped backwards and turned their heads away.

‘Scream all you like,' the woman said, ‘there's no one to hear you. But look in the hole. Look!'

Clive Sherwin stood a short distance away holding the spade and with a sapling of flowering cherry at his feet. He knew what was in the hole, and he knew what was going to be planted over it, once he had filled it in.

‘She was lucky.' The hard-faced woman pointed to the hole. ‘She was banged on the head. She was dead when she was put in, on account of her being only fifteen or sixteen, but most times we truss 'em up and bury them alive. Isn't that right, Clive?'

Sherwin nodded but remained silent.

‘Most of the time they're alive and know what's happening to them. But we was merciful with her, so we was. Trouble with her, she was skimming. That is naughty. That is well out of order. We picked her up where we found you, on the Embankment . . . a runaway . . . like you, from up North she was; gave her a roof, gave her food, sent her out to King's Cross to earn her keep. She earned alright, but she didn't hand it all in, kept some dosh for herself. Heard we found out and tried to scarper . . . but you can't . . . you can't run for ever, not from the firm. We got eyes on every street corner in the smoke, like twenty-four seven. This is what happens if you skim and run. So learn. See all those trees? There's a body under every one of them. And this is the new orchard. The old orchard got full up. So don't be naughty. Don't get too left field. Don't get out of order. Right, Clive, fill it in.'

Sherwin spaded the soil back into the hole and then planted the cherry tree shrub on top.

‘On with your hoods.' The woman barked the order. ‘We'll get you back to your drum, you'll be working tonight. You'll need rest and a little food.'

John Shaftoe pulled the anglepoise arm that was bolted into the ceiling above the dissecting table downwards, until the microphone at the end of the arm was level with his mouth. He glanced at Vicary who stood, as protocol dictated, at the edge of the post-mortem laboratory, observing for the police, and was to approach the dissecting table only when invited. He was silent and quite still, and dressed, as required, in green disposable coveralls, with a matching hat and slippers.

‘It's always damn same.' Shaftoe adjusted the microphone. Shaftoe spoke with a distinct Yorkshire accent and Vicary noticed, once again, how he omitted the definite article in keeping with the speech pattern of his roots. He would never invite any observing police officer to the dissecting table to view something of forensic significance by saying, ‘Come to the table and look at this', it would rather be: ‘Come to table'. ‘It's Dykk,' Shaftoe continued, ‘and cursed am I to work under him and he took dislike to me from day one. Have you ever met him?'

‘Yes,' Vicary replied softly, though his voice carried easily through the hard-surfaced pathology laboratory, ‘once or twice. Civilized, I have found, though a little aloof at times.'

‘Aloof!' Shaftoe snorted. ‘Aloof, that's the understatement of year, Home Counties toff who thinks that folk what live north of Watford are all Neanderthals. Well, he lives up to his name. A complete dick and one of his little games is to push the microphone up out of my reach, well, as near as he can when he's finished his body butchering, but he's a professor and I am not. He's a southerner and I am not.' He paused and glared at Button, his mortuary assistant, who just then allowed instruments to clatter needlessly, noisily on to the trolley, and he held the pause as if to say, ‘And I've got Button for my assistant and he has not.'

‘Sorry, Mr Shaftoe, sir.' Billy Button turned to Shaftoe and offered his apology in a weak and whiny voice, and then turned away again and began to place the instruments neatly on the surface of the trolley.

Shaftoe looked at Vicary and raised his eyebrows. Vicary shrugged his shoulders and smiled in mute response.

‘Can you give this a reference number please, Cynthia,' Shaftoe spoke into the microphone, clearly for the hearing of an audio typist who would shortly be typing up the notes on the post-mortem, ‘and also today's date? The body is fully skeletonized and is of the female sex, and Northern European or possibly Asian in terms of racial extraction.' He turned to Vicary. ‘Have to be careful, those two races have similar skeletons. In general, Asians are more finely boned, but nonetheless, each can be mistaken for the other.' He returned to the corpse. ‘The rich soils of Hampstead saw to that. The damp soil, full of micro-organisms, all feasting on the flesh, you see, and complete skeletonization in those conditions could be achieved within ten years, but strangely not disturbed by the foxes and badgers which live on the Heath. Mind you, the burial site was near a footpath, which, in turn, was quite near Spaniards Road; probably too much street lighting and traffic noise to make them feel safe, they'd be happier deeper in the Heath.'

Vicary nodded. ‘Yes, that would probably explain it. I confess, it's not at all my area of expertise but I did wonder why the grave hadn't been disturbed by scavengers, especially when I saw how shallow it was.'

‘Indeed . . . well . . . skeletons do not tell us as many tales as a fresh corpse would, but they tell us sufficient . . . and this lady died of a fractured skull.' Shaftoe ran his latex encased fingertips over the surface of the deceased's skull. ‘Of note is a single massive blow to the top of the head which is linear in form. Care to take a look?'

Vicary stepped forward and approached the dissecting table. He examined the top of the skull and noted the linear depression with minor fractures leading from it.

‘That,' Shaftoe said with a restrained, matter-of-fact tone, ‘is what's called making sure. The felon was making sure alright, God in heaven was he making sure. Or she. You don't survive a blow like that, not on this planet anyway.'

‘Murder?'

‘Oh yes, it's the linear pattern which suggests a blow to the skull with a linear weapon . . . a golf club would do nicely. If she had fallen head first on to a hard surface you'd see a more radial pattern of fractures.'

‘I see.'

‘The blow seems to have landed right on top of her head, which suggests that she was in a sitting position when she was attacked . . . possibly from behind, but that's supposition. I just say what caused her to stop breathing, if I can . . . and don't ever ask me the time of death . . . not ever. That's the stuff of television shows. I'll determine her approximate height in a moment, but she is not going to be a tall woman – about five foot or one hundred and fifty centimetres.' He paused. ‘Ah . . . the wrists have been fractured, and, yes, so have the ankles, as if she was disabled before being killed. The ankle and wrist fractures are peri-mortem . . . and two of her ribs have been fractured on her right side.'

‘Battered to death.'

‘Well, yes, but the fractured ribs, ankles and wrists would not be an attempt to kill her; it's more in the manner of being tortured before being murdered.'

‘Strewth!'

‘Strewth is right. The work of a very bad boy or girl . . . this is a right bad 'un.'

‘All about the same time? I mean, occurred at the same time?'

‘All peri-mortem, yes.' Shaftoe rested his stubby fingers on the edge of the stainless steel table. ‘But the fractures to the wrists and ankles seem to be deliberate, precise. The blow to the head has the sense of being a single strike at a can't-miss target. So, the overall impression is that she was disabled prior to being murdered.'

Vicary groaned, then inhaled through his nose and received the strong smell of formaldehyde. ‘So this is not just a murder victim? It . . . she is also a torture victim?'

‘Seems so, there is a story here, a right old yarn.'

‘Can you tell how old she was at her time of death?'

‘Yes, I'll extract a tooth; that will give us her age at death to within twenty-four months, that is to say an age, plus or minus twelve months . . . but she was an adult and she had given birth. You note the pelvic scarring? That is caused by breech delivery . . . two or more children. I can say that she was over the age of twenty-five when she died. The skull plates have knitted together. There is no indication of rheumatics or arthritis. I accept that children can succumb to infantile arthritis and that is not a funny number, but, by and large, rheumatics and arthritis are indications of middle to old age and are not present.' Shaftoe pointed into the skeleton's mouth. ‘British dental work, you'll be able to confirm her identity from her dentures if she was murdered less than eleven years ago. Dentists are obliged by law to keep all records for eleven years after the patient last attended their surgery. Some keep them for longer. I'll detach the skull and send it to the forensic science people, they can use computer generated imagery to produce a likeness . . . used to take a week to do that using plasticine . . . now it takes seconds.'

‘Appreciated.'

‘Once that has been done, I'll extract an upper molar and cut it into cross-section; from that I can determine her age within twenty-four months, as I said. Then I'll detach the lower jaw and our forensic odontologist will be able to make a positive or a negative match to any dental records you can send us.'

‘Thank you.'

‘For your attention at the Yard, Mr Vicary?'

‘Yes, please. Seems I am the senior interest officer, for my sins.'

Shaftoe grinned, ‘For your sins. So that's it: tortured, murdered, adult female who had given birth. Oh . . . and probably Western European . . . and too damn young to be in here – mind you, they always are.'

Vicary made his thanks and exited the pathology laboratory.

Moments later, when Shaftoe and Button were alone in the laboratory, save for the skeleton of the unidentified victim, Shaftoe said, ‘Billy . . .'

‘Yes, sir . . . I'm sorry, sir,' the slightly built man whimpered.

‘Billy, nobody is ever going to call me a pull-yourself-together merchant but you really do need to start mustering some self-control. You can be seen trembling . . . it doesn't look good. When we have observing police officers we need to present as calm, competent, professional men, good at our jobs . . . and don't dismiss your job lightly, Billy. I could not do mine if you couldn't do thine.'

‘Yes, sir . . . thank you, sir . . . but you see, sir, my sister's cousin died last week and that sort of thing always brings it home, that one day I'll be on that table, being cut open with this scalpel, sir . . . by you, sir, or by one of the other gentlemen, sir . . . or one of the ladies.' Button looked pleadingly at Shaftoe.

‘I've told thee before, Billy,' Shaftoe mustered patience, ‘it's highly
un
likely that you'll need to be given a post-mortem examination; you are unlikely to be caring for the instruments that will be used to cut you open. Only suspicious or unknown causes need apply for a place on that table, which is the minority of deaths in the UK.'

‘Yes, sir . . .' Button stammered. ‘Can I go now, sir?'

‘Yes . . . yes . . .' Shaftoe peeled off the latex gloves and dropped them into the yellow bin in the corner of the laboratory, and once again he reflected that the wretched Button should have taken a job mowing the lawns in the parks in whichever London borough he lived. He then pondered, also as before, that he was better served by the Billy Buttons of this world than by the sort of man who is fascinated by morbidity and is seen to gleam at corpses, or by the necrophiliacs who are not unknown to smooth their way through the vetting process. Nonetheless, Shaftoe accepted that one very square peg in one very round hole did not begin to describe the extent of the mismatch between Billy Button and his job in the pathology laboratory of the London Hospital, EC1.