Burying the Past (5 page)

‘I thought you'd like to know, ma'am, that the archaeologists are about to excavate the bean patch. Just that, for now.'

‘I'll be over as soon as I can.'

‘Don't worry – if their progress so far is anything to go by, they'll still be here at midnight.'

Perhaps she might just warm to Kim after all.

With Jill Tanner now officially in charge of the girl, who still hadn't given her name, Fran could indulge herself again before an urgent meeting about metal theft. Indeed, every visit to the rectory, scaffolders and now archaeologists notwithstanding, was an indulgence, come to think of it. Perhaps retirement wouldn't be so bad, not with that house to care for, that garden to tend – not to mention that view to feast her eyes on when she and Mark, with their end of the day glass of wine, sat on the terrace she planned to revive. Just the two of them. Man and wife. Bliss.

Except she really did not want to be married in poor St Jude's. The whole fabric had become permeated with the despair of its parishioners – and even more by the smell of their sad, unwashed clothes and bodies. All the perfumes of Arabia, as represented by nuptial roses, carnations and lilies, would be unable to disguise that. But how could she confess that to the living saint that was Janie? Or to Mark, whose idea it had been? The poor dear man didn't really want to marry at all, so surely she should allow him the choice of venue. She was pretty sure the chief wouldn't get his, of course – she'd bet her pension that the weddings in the Cathedral were the option of only the most select few. An acquaintance had managed to arrange hers in the crypt, but celebrating so life-enhancing an event in a place more properly the domain of the dead didn't appeal either.

Which thought brought her, physically as well as mentally, to the garden, which was probably the province of the dead too. The policewoman in her didn't like one scrap the thought that someone had not only buried someone in her vegetable patch – probably killed whoever it might be there too – but had also systematically denuded the house to prevent any sort of detection. It was the work of someone who believed in forward planning – or retrospective planning, if there was such a thing. What vibes could such a person have left? Common sense told her none – not after Paula and her colleagues had done their work. It was her dream – a brand-new old house. All the pleasures of new equipment set in the most beautifully proportioned kitchen, for instance, like the rooms elegantly decorated in what Caffy would ensure were authentic styles and colours.

But Kim had noticed her arrival, so she waved, got out and walked over, looking officially purposeful.

Where once there had been a straggle of canes – she could see they'd been removed and bagged as possible evidence – was the standard large tent. Within was something that looked like a newly-dug grave. Newly undug it might have been, but its occupant had been there some time. She looked down at the skeleton of what even she could tell was a strapping man. A strapping man with a deep concave dip in his skull.

T
hough the top brass were dashing round like toddlers on a sugar rush, at the level CID worked it was business as usual, as Fran found out when she sought refuge from all the politicking in the safety of the familiar briefing room where the meeting with a team sorting out the major metal thefts was just about to kick off. The latest news was that some enterprising bastard had stolen the earth cable from a substation. The resulting power surge had ruined the computers and TVs of most of Folkestone and wreaked havoc on Eurostar's timetable. The Serious Organised Crime Agency were supposed to be sharing information with her and her equivalent in the transport police. But there was no sign of Alan Burbridge. He'd taken the train from Ashford, had upbraided a man for putting his booted feet on a seat and been stabbed for his pains. It was touch and go whether he'd survive. And him with his first child due in a week.

But the show had to go on. Quickly taking the chair, although the SOCA superintendent clearly had his eye on the position, she announced a time limit on each agenda item, before texting a brief message to her secretary. By the time they'd dealt with matters arising, there was a knock on the door, and trays of sandwiches and coffee appeared. But she wasn't a total softie – while her colleagues were eating, she was volunteering them into all sorts of tasks they'd never have put themselves forward for.

‘Well done, Fran,' said one of the SOCA team as the meeting ended. ‘We'll miss you when you go. What are you and Mark planning? A round the world cruise?'

‘I'll send you a postcard,' she said with a grin. Inside, however, she was stone cold. Thinking about retirement was one thing – having others think it for you was absolutely another. Meanwhile, however enticing the prospect of checking up on the progress of Jill and Kim's cases, she must resist temptation. There was a whole tray of paperwork awaiting her. On the other hand, however, she needed to find when Kim's team would be ready to report, so she called a briefing for five thirty, just after the update on the Chinese murder – which was fortunately now in the hands of her most experienced DCI. He would be liaising with the Met, who had a series of such killings on the go. All she'd have to do was balance budgets and leave him to run the show. Balance budgets, and wonder if the PM on the skeleton would throw up anything more useful than the injury that had clearly killed him.

At the late-afternoon briefing, she found that Kim had augmented her team by a rather beaky young man with a charming smile and eyes that radiated a fearsome intelligence. Did they also presage a huge bill for professional fees? But Fran wouldn't raise that very salient issue just yet, and certainly not publicly. Let her have a bit of glory: it would do her ego good.

‘This is Dr Valentine,' Kim told her team, stepping back with the air of one producing a highly attractive rabbit from a hat.

‘It's a bit late for a doctor,' someone at the back quipped, rather too audibly for Kim, who blushed to the ears. Valentine merely offered a sardonic grin – he'd no doubt heard all the available jokes before.

‘Dr Valentine's a forensic anthropologist,' Kim said quickly. ‘He'll be working alongside us for a while to discover what the skeleton can tell us.'

‘I'd have thought we'd need a psychic for that,' the same wag observed.

‘And it doesn't take a medic to tell us he's dead,' said a mate, encouraged by the general laughter.

‘I'm not that sort of doctor,' Valentine said tolerantly. ‘I'm an academic. But before you ask, I don't spend all my life in an ivory tower. I get as muddy as you do, but not quite as muddy as an archaeologist – who, as you know, isn't a medic either.'

He embarked on what Fran feared would be a lengthy PowerPoint presentation, but the computer went into tantrum mode, refusing to give more than half his first screen. He shrugged the problem off with a cheerful sangfroid that made her warm to him. ‘No matter. All I wanted to say is that people like me regard a body as an archive. It records all its activities, whether it wants to or not. Once, remember, it was the core of a living body. The bones can reveal what this body ate, if it suffered diseases and where it lived. When it lived, of course. With luck you won't see much of me – I hope this one will yield up its secrets quickly so I can get back to Libya, where I've got some more work to do on yet another mass grave.'

There was a rumble of approval; clearly, if a man could deal with decomposing bodies, there was something to him.

‘Meanwhile,' he said, ‘I ask you to remember one thing: knowing what happened to the dead affects others' futures.'

As an exit line, it went down very well. Fran's exit, not his. Her phone was summoning her to yet another meeting. But she had a nasty feeling that if anyone's future was going to be affected it was Mark's and hers, so she called Alice, her new secretary – who was as yet unused to her ways and needed instructions where her predecessor had anticipated her every whim – to send her apologies and stayed put. After all, she had useful information to share.

She shook hands with Dr Valentine as he went off to listen to the bones, and then took centre stage herself.

‘Mark and I bought the house from a charity calling itself Don't Badger Badgers. Sorry – you can choose the house but not the vendor,' she said as the team collapsed into predictable laughter. ‘At least they can't badger them on the patch of land down in Devon the charity spent all its money on before it packed up.'

‘So the charity's defunct?' Kim asked. ‘Shit! Why didn't it exercise a bit of forethought and save some cash to fight the proposed culling?' she wailed.

Fran shrugged. ‘At least we've got the trustees' names on all our legal papers. I'll pass them on the moment I can contact our solicitors. Then can someone follow them up and get all the paperwork dealing with the bequest? Good,' she said, acknowledging the hand that had shot up.

Kim said, ‘With luck they won't all be dead. Someone check with the Land Registry? Thanks. But with our luck it'll be some dear old lady who couldn't lift her fork to her lips, let alone wallop someone over the head with something hard enough to shatter his skull. Not to mention heaving the corpse into a grave.'

‘An unusual dear old lady, I grant you,' Fran said, aware that some of the kids present, all with their degrees and postgraduate qualifications, probably saw a dinosaur on a Zimmer when they looked at her. ‘But sometimes even someone who's frail will find strength from somewhere. A name. That's all we want. And we start from there.'

‘I suppose the budget won't run to fast-tracking the guy's DNA?' someone asked.

‘As I said to DI Thomas this morning, I simply can't justify the expenditure I'd willingly authorize for a contemporary crime.' Her pager vibrated. ‘Sorry – I'd better see what this means. Remember to pace yourselves – this is a pretty dead case, so going at it all guns blazing isn't a financial possibility.'

Kim held the door for her as she left the room and stepped outside with her. ‘It's a bit tricky, isn't it? Until we know when our victim died, we can't really check the missing persons records and dead cases records either.'

Fran shook her head. ‘Has that dishy doctor of yours given us any idea how long ago he was killed?'

‘Not yet. If we could get a glimmer of an idea who he might be, we could check dental records – apparently, he'd got what must have been quite painful impacted wisdom teeth.'

‘Not something you'd want to hear at the moment, Kim! How is your mouth, by the way? Has it thawed out now?'

Kim nodded. ‘It feels very strange – the crown must be a different size from the tooth he smashed.'

Fran pulled a face. ‘You did well there – I've seen the CCTV footage. He was a big bloke, wasn't he? But I dare say all he'll get is a bit of a telling off. Mind you, I can't see what a custodial sentence would do for him either. At least the budget cuts mean they're trying to keep folk out of prison who shouldn't be there in the first place.' Before she got into her verbal stride, she remembered why she'd left the room. ‘It's the chief's number,' she said. ‘But is it the old chief or the new one?'

It turned out to be neither, just Sally, the old chief's PA, throwing an ad hoc farewell party that evening and wondering what she should do about organizing a presentation. Fran could hardly say that she was really only interested in who was going to hold the fort in his absence, but came up with the neatest solution she could think of as she waved goodbye to Kim – who made a tiptoeing return to her team that reminded Fran startlingly of the cartoon version of Pink Panther – and headed for the secretariat.

‘Make sure everyone you invite knows this is only a preliminary party,' she told Sally, ‘and that there'll be a proper lunch or dinner to which the chief's wife and senior officers' spouses, etc, will be invited. That gives some poor sap time to organize a whip-round.'

‘I was rather hoping you'd offer, Ms Harman. You see,' she continued primly, ‘I'd normally ask an ACC or the deputy CC, but in the circumstances one won't be able to help and the other will only ask you, won't he? And since I was going to ask you to organize a collection in memory of Simon . . .'

‘I'm not sure it's a happy combination. I'd like to do something for Simon, since I knew him before . . . all this, but I'm not sure if protocol permits. Could you have a word with Cosmo Dix and get his opinion?' She prayed Cosmo would know she was beyond her ears in work and suggest someone else should do it. ‘If he gives the go-ahead, I will. It's a horrible business, isn't it?'

‘You're quite sure you can't do both?'

‘Absolutely. I wouldn't know whether to approach people with a smile or a sad frown.' Distantly, her memory clanged that there was an apposite quotation, probably from Shakespeare. Caffy would no doubt be able to come up with it immediately. ‘Tell me what's going on about a replacement for the chief.'

Sally looked furtively around the empty office. ‘Looks like it'll be an outside appointment, with a temporary replacement drafted in, since Mark wasn't keen. I'm dead peeved, Fran – he's a nice man to work for, your Mark. And now we're on to the subject of Mark, what's this about wedding bells? No, he's said nothing, but the chief's been touching the side of his nose and muttering, “Nudge, nudge; wink, wink,” and humming “Here Comes the Bride”.'

‘Bastard! Oh, Sally, he's making a takeover bid for the entire ceremony, I'll swear.'

‘Let him run it: he'll be bored to tears after three days of retirement. He'll need a project. Your wedding will do fine. The Cathedral, I gather.'

‘You gather wrong. Look, Sally, just organize someone to open tonight's booze and keep quiet about this, there's a dear. I've got two bodies on my hands. Possibly three. And I reckon a corpse in my own bean row is the outside of enough. Now, I've got to make a few calls—'