Skeleton Hill (5 page)

‘Do you think it’s hereabouts?’ Diamond asked.

‘Don’t ask me. Try a sniffer dog. They’re more likely to know than I am.’

‘It was a dog that found the femur in the first place.’

‘I know that. Its teeth marks were all over the surface. The chances are that she was killed elsewhere and the head removed to hinder identification and if they go to that trouble they’re not going to drop the head into the same grave as the body. But you have to search the area.’ He asked for his cardboard box and started the task of collecting the bones, lowering them onto layers of tissue paper. ‘It goes without saying that the forensic team will collect the soil samples,’ he said as he worked. ‘We might learn something.’

‘Fibres?’ Diamond said.

‘Hopefully. Clothing deteriorates pretty rapidly in damp, acid soil like this. Cotton won’t last longer than a year and a half. Silk and wool are gone in three years. Synthetic fibres such as acrylic may last longer. Leather is fairly durable. The micro-organisms win in the end.’

‘If you can estimate how long she’s been here, we’ll run a check of missing persons for the years in question.’

‘In the fullness of time, superintendent. A lot of factors come into it.’ He prepared to raise one of the large pelvic bones. ‘Do you see how we know she’s female? This area below the pubis has to be wider in females to accommodate the birth canal. The baby’s head must pass between these two bones.’

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ Diamond said.

‘It’s very obvious.’ Lofty transferred the bones to his box and then turned back to the soil and lifted something that had dropped with a chunk of earth as he raised the pelvis. ‘Hey-ho.’ He held the thing up. Not bone, for sure, it was about six inches long. He gave it a shake to show how flexible it was.

About the length of an earth worm.

‘Proof positive that she isn’t ancient,’ Lofty said.

‘What is it?’

‘It could do with cleaning up and then you’ll know for sure. I think it’s a zip fastener.’

5

T
he two-year-olds cantered down to the start for the main race of the evening and Paloma was looking at the filly she’d backed at 17 to 2, called My Stylist. ‘Mine’s moving well,’ she said, holding the binoculars to her eyes.

‘You’ve done this before,’ Diamond said.

‘Mm?’

‘I said you’ve done this before. Are you sure these badges belong to your rich client?’

‘I don’t know about yours. It’s looking nervous.’

‘You’re not listening, are you?’

‘Not now, Peter. This is the exciting part.’

He’d been under pressure from Paloma to put his ten pounds on a runner called Lady Policeman at 25 to 1. Instead he’d preferred Best Brew, the 11 to 8 favourite. As a rare visitor to racecourses, he knew enough about gambling not to fritter away his money on a name with a chance connection to his life. Sentimental betting wasn’t clever. Best Brew had the form, a top jockey and was tipped in the papers. It wasn’t a bad name either, but that was not a factor, he’d made very clear to Paloma.

The course looked velvet in the evening sun. On a clear, windless day, Lansdown is unequalled. All three enclosures were well filled and there was a buzz of expectation about the main race of the meeting.

Down at the start the handlers were having difficulty persuading some of the young fillies into the stalls. Bucking and whinnying, one pulled back for the second time.

‘I think it’s yours,’ Paloma said.

‘I’m not worried,’ he said, determined to stay calm. ‘The frisky ones start the best.’

‘If they start at all,’ she said. ‘It
is
yours, I’m certain.’

‘It’s the favourite. It’s got to start.’

‘It’s the favourite. It’s got ‘Tell that to the horse.’

His calm was beginning to evaporate. ‘May I borrow the glasses?’

Now he had the magnified view of another attempt to steer Best Brew forward. All the others were in position and the starter was gesturing to the handlers to hurry. They tried covering the filly’s eyes and it reared up, almost unseating the jockey.

‘For God’s sake!’ he said.

One of the lads slipped and fell.

Under pressure himself, the starter spread his hand and gestured at the reluctant horse and appeared to say something. His hand went to the lever.

‘I think he’s ruled her out,’ Diamond said in disbelief. ‘That’s my money gone before they start.’

The gates crashed open and the field – apart from Best Brew – hurtled from the stalls for the five-furlong dash.

Diamond handed back the binoculars. ‘So much for my ten pounds. See if yours comes in.’

Eleven runners thundered away to the loop at the far side of the course, their spindly forelegs thrusting them forward, urged on by their jockeys and the crowd’s roar. Over the public address came the measured commentary of the track announcer. ‘The early leader is Bluestocking, followed by Lady Be Good and My Stylist.’

‘Go, baby!’ Paloma said.

‘Bluestocking still leads. My Stylist is moving up. Lady Be Good now third. Extra Portion and Reefer showing . . . Coming to the two furlong marker, nothing to choose between Bluestocking and My Stylist. Going well in third is Extra Portion . . . One furlong out, it’s still My Stylist and Bluestocking . . .’

‘Go, go, go!’ Paloma shouted, and Diamond joined in.

‘In the last hundred yards, My Stylist leads. Bluestocking fading. Lady Policeman is finishing fast on the outside . . . My Stylist and Lady Policeman. Photograph.’

Paloma was making little jumps. ‘I think she got it. What was the other horse?’

‘Lady Policeman – the one you told me to back.’

‘We could have had a winner for sure.’

‘And I didn’t listen.’

‘But it could have started an argument. Let’s see them being led in. I feel sure mine stayed in front.’

‘Have you still got your betting slip?’

‘In my bag.’

They threaded their way through to the winner’s enclosure. Everyone seemed to have an opinion which horse had won until the announcement settled the matter.

‘The result of the Tipping Group Fillies race . . .’

The talking everywhere stopped.

‘. . . first, My Stylist.’

Shouts of joy.

Paloma grabbed Diamond and embraced him. ‘She won! She did it!’

They both did some jumping. ‘Nice one.’

Feeling a big debt of gratitude to the horse, they watched her led in by her lady owner in a peacock blue hat and pink suit.

‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’ Paloma said in a carrying voice.

The owner took it as a personal compliment and beamed at them, unaware that the hat had been decorated with a ball of foam from My Stylist’s mouth.

Over the public address it was announced that the presen -tation of the Tipping Group Trophy would be made by Sir Colin Tipping.

‘Local sponsor,’ Paloma told Diamond. ‘Heads a firm of chartered surveyors. Once owned a horse called Hang-glider that won one of the classics.’

Well informed, as well as a winner, he thought, wondering where she’d learned so much racing lore.

‘And by a happy coincidence,’ the announcement continued, ‘the winning owner is Sir Colin’s daughter, Mrs Davina Temple-Smith.’

‘Talk about keeping it in the family,’ Paloma said.

The grey-haired and grey-suited Sir Colin duly handed over a sterling silver model of a galloping horse on a black marble plinth. There were coos of delight from some of the women in the crowd as the winning owner also got a kiss that gave a tilt to the peacock hat.

‘Let’s collect your winnings,’ Diamond said in Paloma’s ear.

‘You think I’m heading straight for the champagne bar after that,’ she said. ‘Well, you’re a smart detective. I am.’

Two long rows of bookies were standing in the betting ring among discarded betting slips paying out to the successful punters. Paloma found the right man and collected. Before they moved off, someone shouted, ‘Watch out.’

The shout had come from beside the course.

The bookie turned to look and said, ‘Flaming hell, what a twat!’

A scruffy-looking man in jeans and a hooded jacket had climbed the rail and was ambling across the racecourse from the centre to the Paddock Enclosure oblivious of the horses being cantered past for the start of the next race. A jockey yelled at him. People in the crowd were getting angry, too.

‘A few beers too many,’ Diamond said.

‘Or he’s found a way to get in free,’ Paloma said.

If that was the object, it worked – up to a point. The man was grabbed by one of the police and dragged over the rail and into the exclusive section, so close to Diamond and Paloma that they heard him say in quite a refined drawl, ‘Thank you, officer, I’ll be on my way then.’

‘What the hell were you up to?’ the constable asked.

‘Crossing over for a bite to eat. All the food seems to be this side.’

‘You must be nuts. What’s your name?’

‘Noddy.’

‘Definitely drunk,’ Diamond said to Paloma. ‘And a stupid drunk. He could have been killed.’

‘Serve him bloody right if he had been,’ the bookie said. ‘More serious, he could have damaged a horse. He’s trouble, that one. He’s been here and acting daft since I set up two hours ago. I don’t think he paid to get in.’

‘Neither did we,’ Paloma murmured to Diamond as they moved off.

‘But we’re not misbehaving.’

‘Yet,’ she said. ‘What will happen to him?’

‘He’ll be shown the gate. It’s too much hassle to charge him with anything unless he turns violent. He’s at the silly stage now.’

They found the champagne lawn where the winning owner was treating her friends, and she seemed to have a lot of them. They heard someone say, ‘I’m so delighted for Davina. She looks every bit the socialite, doesn’t she, and she was probably in surgery as usual this morning. She deserves this.’

‘Dr Davina, then?’ Diamond said to Paloma.

A woman near them shook her head. ‘She’s a local vet.’

‘Lucky animals. My cat goes to a bearded Australian with red socks and sandals.’

A waitress was moving among them with a tray loaded with filled glasses.

‘Shall we join them?’ Diamond said.

‘It’s a private party.’

‘Anyone with a horse like that is a friend of ours.’

‘I couldn’t,’ Paloma said. ‘Let’s buy our own.’

When they’d got their glasses, he raised his and said, ‘To My Stylist.’

She seemed to enjoy some joke at his expense as they clinked glasses. Whatever it was, he didn’t mind. Her eyes were still shining.

He remarked that she’d clearly been racing before.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘For a start, you picked the winner.’

‘Luck,’ she said.

‘And some judgement, I suspect. When we saw them parading you seemed to know what to look for.’

‘There are too many variables for anyone to get it wholly right,’ she said in a more serious tone, confirming his impression that she knew more than she’d said up to now. She was such a different personality from Steph, who’d never concealed anything. In his mind he immediately rejected the notion of concealment. Paloma wasn’t sneaky. Rather, she chose not to air her knowledge unless and until it was useful. Hidden depths was a better way of putting it.

‘You mean the weights they carry?’

‘The going, the form they’ve shown in previous outings, the jockey and whether they’re blinkered or tongue-strapped for the first time.’

‘Sounds like a medieval torture.’

‘Funnily enough, it can give them confidence. Then there’s another factor: the stable. On a course like this one, which isn’t as highly rated as some, you get expensive and blue-blooded young horses from top stables at places like Lambourn being sent here to win. They start at odds-on and tend to win by small margins to nurse their handicaps.’

‘Was mine trained at Lambourn?’

She smiled. ‘Doesn’t matter, does it? If they won’t start, they can’t win.’

‘Did you know it was highly strung?’

And now she laughed. ‘Of course not. I’d have told you to save your money.’

‘You advised me to bet on Lady Policeman.’

‘For fun.’

‘I’m not sure what to believe now. You know your horses.’

She glanced down and thoughtfully traced her finger around the rim of the glass. ‘There’s a reason I haven’t told you about. Gordon, my ex, was a compulsive gambler. He knew practically nothing about racing except that you sometimes get lucky.’

‘Sometimes, but not enough times.’

‘Exactly. I soon found out he wasn’t going to come to his senses, so I thought if I took the trouble to learn the basics the bets might be better informed.’

‘And were they?’

‘Immeasurably.’ Another laugh. ‘And it didn’t make a blind bit of difference. My system was no better than Gordon’s. But that’s how I can bluff with the best.’

‘You’re telling me this win was down to luck?’

‘Nothing else.’

Later in the evening, back at Paloma’s house on Lyncombe Hill, Diamond got lucky, too.

6

‘Deal with it, will you?’ the sergeant on duty radioed to a patrol car in the city.

‘You want us to bring him in?’

‘You heard what I said.’ The modern police are knee deep in paper. Bringing in a suspect would indicate an intention of charging him and about two hours of filling in forms. ‘What we have is a call from a Major Swithin who noticed what was going on and reported it.’

PC Andy Sullivan, the driver, was thankful for the job. He’d been stuck all week with a new ‘oppo’ who thought silence was the eighth deadly sin. He already knew more than he needed about Denise Beal’s admiration for David Beckham. Even when he had the two-tone siren going she didn’t stop. She simply raised her voice.

The sight of Major Swithin did the trick. When they drove up the approach to the racecourse, Denise went silent in mid-sentence. The major was in the middle of the road waving a shotgun.

‘Doesn’t it fill you with confidence?’ Andy Sullivan said. He lowered the window and said, ‘I hope you have a certificate for that, sir.’

‘What? This? Of course.’ The major was probably closer to eighty than seventy, a short, stout, silver-haired man in a Barbour and flat cap. ‘Good thing I had it in the car. If you need some support arresting this scum, you can count on me.’

‘Right now, I’m counting on you to step off the road and put the gun on the path. Is it loaded?’

‘You can bet your life it is. I was a regular officer for thirty years. Served in six different war zones. I know about firearms.’

‘Then you know it’s illegal to have a loaded shotgun in a public place. Do as I say. Now!’

‘For the love of Mike!’ The major obeyed the instruction. ‘Anyone would think I was the criminal.’

‘Thank you, sir. Stand back, please.’ Sullivan stepped out of the car, retrieved the gun, opened the breech and removed two cartridges. ‘You are Major Swithin, I take it?’

‘Who else would I be, looking out for you? I wasn’t proposing to shoot you – or the car thief, come to that.’

‘What’s the gun for, then?’

‘In case I spot a fox. The Socialists stopped the hunt from destroying them, so it’s down to public-spirited people like me.’

Sullivan returned the gun and cartridges. ‘Keep the breech open and unloaded. This man you saw. Is he still in the car park?’ ‘I expect so.’

‘What exactly was he doing?’

‘Trying to steal a car.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘It was blatantly obvious. He was going from vehicle to vehicle trying the doors. A rough-looking herbert, unshaven, shabbily dressed.’

‘How long ago was this?’

‘Ten or fifteen minutes maximum. He won’t get far. My wife has him in her sights.’

‘Your
wife
? Is she armed as well?’

‘With the field-glasses. I left her observing him. She may have more to report by now. Shall I meet you in the car park?’

‘You’d better get in the car. How old is your wife?’

‘Does that have any bearing? She’s a senior citizen, and well capable of looking after herself.’

With the major in the back seat they drove off at speed while he continued to justify his actions. ‘These days John Citizen has to pitch in and help with law and order.’

‘Up to a point,’ Andy Sullivan said as they approached the lineup of cars in front of the turnstiles.

‘That’s Agnes looking out of the sun roof of my Land Rover.’

Agnes must have been standing on the seat, for she was very obvious, an elderly woman in a deerstalker peering through binoculars.

The police car drew up beside the ancient Land Rover. Major Swithin was the first out. ‘Any sign of the blighter, Agnes?’

The old lady lowered the glasses. ‘He’s gone in. I spotted him heading for the grandstand end. I think he knows we’re onto him.’

‘That
is
a possibility,’ Sullivan said, exchanging a look with his Beckham-obsessed colleague. She was still tongue-tied. ‘We’ll take over, then.’

‘You’re not proposing to go it alone?’ the major said in a shocked tone. ‘We’ll come with you.’

‘No, you won’t. You’ll stop here, the pair of you. I’ll need a witness statement from you.’

‘You’re mad.’

‘Not to say ungrateful,’ Agnes added.

Regardless, Sullivan walked away, heading for the open gates to the left of the turnstiles. ‘Wouldn’t you rather be in a job where the clients give no trouble, like grave-digging?’ he said to Denise Beal.

He should have known better than to ask Denise a rhetorical question.

‘Personally,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t enjoy digging graves, but I once had a part-time job doing a survey in Milsom Street, asking people questions about their favourite footballers, and, do you know, four out of every five – girls mostly, I must admit – nomin ated David Beckham, which gave me my opportunity because really I was only there to suggest they tried his new perfume. Isn’t it amazing how easily you can get people to talk? Have you noticed it yourself ?’

‘I don’t have to try,’ he said.

And she proved it by going on some more about Beckham.

They faced the two grandstands along the finishing straight, the Premier – for the super-rich and sponsors – and the G & P – the Grandstand and Paddock – for those who prefer paying less. The whole complex had plenty of places where a fugitive from justice might hide. Sullivan’s gaze also took in some low buildings away to the right.

‘We’ll split up,’ he said. ‘You check the stands and I’ll do the stabling area over there.’ The stables were a good two hundred metres away.

‘What if I find him?’

‘Keep him talking till I arrive. That shouldn’t be any problem for you.’

‘Is he dangerous?’

‘Compared to that idiot with the shotgun, no.’

Few places are so bleak as a racecourse enclosure on a day of no racing. Denise Beal felt uneasy, for all Andy Sullivan’s confidence. Typical of him, the senior partner, to send her to the place where the suspect was last seen. She fingered the handle of her baton. This was only her second month in the police. Some of them at the station had said she was lucky getting picked for car patrol duty, hinting heavily that her good looks had worked the magic. Others had said Andy Sullivan was the lucky one. But he’d made very clear that he was indifferent to her. He seemed to resent being partnered by a woman. Up to now, though, he’d done everything by the book. The less experienced officer always gets the rough jobs.

She thought about her obligation to keep the suspect talking, and wondered if she could cope. What do you talk about when you have to do it? The weather? The cars he’s broken into?

A pigeon flew from a ledge so close to her face that she felt the rush of air. She gave a squeak of fright. Good thing macho PC Sullivan wasn’t there to hear it. Moving on, she came to an industrial-sized rubbish bin, easily large enough for a man to hide inside. She debated whether to lift the lid, and thought better of it and walked on. Andy Sullivan need never know. He’d sent her to the danger area so what did he expect? She took a wide berth rounding the corner of the Paddock Bar and was relieved to see no one crouching there.

From here she had a good view of the course.

Not a living soul.

Putting herself through an ordeal like this wasn’t why she’d joined. She’d pictured herself doing crowd control at a Spice Girls’ revival gig, escorting the stars and their spouses to the VIP seats.

All looked deserted in the stand area at the front, so she moved on and down some steps. To her left was a recessed area, probably one of the entrances to the Premier stand where the celebs went. She wondered if Becks had ever been here. Probably not. Bath wasn’t one of the fashionable racecourses.

Then she noticed a movement in the shadows.

A man was there.

Her heart thumped against her ribcage, but not because he looked like Becks.

He fitted the major’s description, rough-looking, unshaven, shabbily dressed. Probably in his mid-forties. Torn jacket with hood, mud-stained cord trousers and sandals. His feet hadn’t seen soap for a long time. He was leaning against the wall with arms folded, showing no reaction to her.

Denise knew where her duty lay. She looked ahead to see if by some miracle Andy was in sight, but he wasn’t. She could summon him by radio, but he’d have to run all the way back from the stables before he could come to her assistance.

She stepped up to the man and said, ‘Do you mind telling me what you’re doing here?’

He was silent for some time. Finally, without making eye contact, he said, ‘It’s a free country.’

She said, ‘You’re on private property here.’

‘If you say so.’ The voice was educated.

‘What’s your name?’

‘They call me Noddy.’

He’s sending me up, she thought. How do I handle this? ‘Noddy who?’

‘Just that. Noddy.’ His expression hadn’t altered. He seemed to be serious.

‘Are you local, Noddy?’

‘I must be, mustn’t I? I’ll be on my way, then.’

‘Hold on a second.’ She stared into the far distance. Still no Andy. ‘Were you in the car park just now?’

‘Which car park is that?’

‘Behind me. Not many cars there today, so it may not look like a car park, but someone like you was seen there.’

‘If you say so.’ That phrase again. It didn’t come across as defiance or evasion. This guy was passive to the point of resignation.

‘Have you been drinking, Noddy?’

He shook his head.

She said, ‘I’m trying to work out what you’re doing here.’

He spread his dirty hands. He didn’t appear to have an answer. Denise wondered if he was just some simple-minded guy unable to cope with modern life. And now she was stumped for another question.

She had a strong sense that no one would rush to congratulate her if she handcuffed Noddy and pulled him in. Even if he
had
been trying car doors it was probably because he was looking for food or drink. So she did what they’d advised at training school: used her initiative. ‘On your way, then. Sharpish. And stay away from cars.’

He nodded three times. Was that how he’d got his name? Then he shuffled off – towards the end Andy Sullivan would come from.

‘Not there,’ Denise said and pointed her thumb behind her, towards the golf course. ‘That’s your best your way out.’ Remembering the major and his wife, she added, ‘Don’t go through the car park.’

She moved on herself and eventually linked up with Andy Sullivan in the Grandstand and Paddock enclosure. He asked if she’d seen anyone and she shook her head. For all her compulsion to make conversation, she respected the old adage that all truths are not to be told.

‘No bad thing,’ Andy said. ‘Saves us some paperwork.’

‘The major won’t like it,’ Denise said.

‘I’m backing you to silence the major. Tell him about Posh and Becks.’

Lofty Peake phoned Diamond later in the week with his findings. ‘Your victim was about five six in height and probably under twenty, but not much under. Leaving some margin for error, I’d say she was seventeen to twenty-one. The epiphyses – those are the bony caps on the ends of the long bones – were not fully united, and that’s a pretty reliable test of age. Pity we don’t have the skull because you can tell a lot more from that.’

‘I doubt if we’ll find it now.’

‘Incidentally, the head was hacked off with some force, going by the state of the vertebrae.’

Diamond had a brief, vivid image. It wasn’t long since he’d eaten breakfast. ‘After death?’

‘Let’s hope so. I’ve no way of telling. She appears to have been a healthy individual. The skeleton was normal in development, with no evidence of earlier fractures.’

‘What about her build? Was she sturdy?’

‘No more than average.’

‘Now the critical question,’ Diamond said. ‘How long is it since she died? When we last spoke, you said up to twenty-five years.’

‘You know the answer, then.’

‘But you had only one bone to work from.’

‘Correct. Good, wasn’t I?’

‘You’re standing by the estimate?’

‘When it comes to telling the age, more bones don’t necessarily yield more information. As you know, I carried out extensive tests on the femur.’

‘Twenty-five years is a lot to work with.’

‘Now you’re asking another question.’

‘Am I?’

‘You want a time frame. The answer is – and this can only be an estimate based on observation – that the bones have been in the ground for more than ten years. No soft tissue remains and there’s some coarsening and discoloration that I would expect from the temperature changes of a series of summers and winters. Yet there are still traces of the candle-wax odour given out by the fat in the bone marrow, so these remains are not all that old.’

‘Between ten and twenty-five?’

‘Best I can do for you.’

‘You found the zip under the pelvis. Presumably it was a zip-fly from a pair of jeans. I’d expect someone of her age to be wearing jeans. All of the fabric had rotted away, I suppose?’

‘Completely. Nothing remained in the soil samples.’

‘The zip survived because it was metal. Wouldn’t she also have been wearing a belt?’

‘We didn’t find one. Not everyone wears one. They wear their jeans so tight that there’s really no need for a belt.’

‘If she’d had coins in her pockets, they could help.’

‘How? What could they tell you about her?’

It was Diamond’s turn to air some knowledge. ‘They show the year they were minted, don’t they? We could narrow that time frame.’

‘I’m with you now,’ Lofty said. ‘But no joy there. I checked with the crime scene people who were at the site and they found nothing else of interest. No coins, jewellery, belt buckle, shoes. Not even the hooks and eyes of a bra.’

Diamond could picture the look on Duckett’s charmless face as he announced he’d found nothing more. He thanked Lofty, put down the phone and went to look for Ingeborg. She was at her computer. He told her about the fifteen-year time frame. ‘We’re looking for a young woman aged seventeen to twenty-one who went missing between 1984 and 1999.’