The Backs (2013) (17 page)

How do you cope with dead bodies?
That was the usual question.

A shrug and a non-committal answer was the usual response.

But Beales wasn’t asking out of mawkish curiosity.

Goodhew smiled sadly. ‘I don’t. And I don’t believe others who say they just switch off from it. Why would becoming desensitized be such a good thing, anyway? I’m sure it gets to us all eventually.’ He shook his head, ‘Sorry, I don’t suppose that’s what you wanted to hear. I genuinely don’t know the answer.’

Beales shrugged. ‘Kind of a relief to hear it put like that. It makes sense.’

Goodhew drove back towards Cambridge with Beales’ final words lodged in his head.
It makes sense.
It was another thirty miles before Marks’s words displaced them.
Get back to Cambridge as soon as you can.
He remembered the exact tone of his boss’s voice. Without a doubt something back there had changed.

Goodhew checked the time: 12.30 a.m. He sent the text in any case. ‘Are you awake?’

The reply arrived in less than thirty seconds. ‘Of course.’

‘Can I come round?’

‘I’ll be home in about twenty minutes. Put the kettle on if you arrive before me.’

His grandmother’s flat came into view just as he saw a taxi stop outside it. She stepped out but stood chatting to the driver until Goodhew had reached them. They then waved goodbye to one another and the driver gave Goodhew a thumbs-up as he pulled away.

‘That’s John Warrell,’ she explained.

‘Who?’

‘He went to school with your dad. John always drives me whenever I pop up to the city.’

‘You’ve been to London tonight?’

‘Gary . . .’ She shook her head and led him inside. He couldn’t see her face but guessed she was smiling.

‘What?’

‘Ever heard the expression “You need to get out more”? London’s only sixty miles away and I don’t just sit indoors in the evening.’

‘I never thought you did.’

‘Well, then.’ She opened the door into the kitchen. ‘Tea?’

‘Coffee, thanks.’

‘Backgammon?’

‘I’d better not. Apparently Marks expects me to be “fresh and well-slept” in the morning.’

‘He said that?’

‘Left me a note. I’ve been in Essex for most of the day and when I arrived back at Parkside there was a Post-it on my monitor. I thought he wanted me back because something had kicked off.’

‘But nothing has?’

‘I don’t know the very latest on the Marshall case, but the boat I located in Point Clear needs full forensic investigation.’ He screwed up his face.

‘Unpleasant?’

‘It smelt bad. I feel as though that got inside me somehow.’

‘You mean there were fumes?’

He shook his head. ‘Not fumes, but damp mixed with human smells.’ He lifted his coffee from her hands. ‘Thanks.’ Tiny milky bubbles pirouetted on the surface. ‘Primarily sweat, I think.’ He stopped short of sipping the drink and held it down near his right knee so that its aroma couldn’t reach him. ‘Do you know that feeling when you can’t see or hear – or in this case smell – something well enough to identify it, but at the same time you feel that all you want to do is back away?’

‘Surely you just mean instinct?’

‘No.’ His tone sounded sharper than he expected, so he repeated the word more softly. ‘No, not instinct. Some kind of association.’

‘So a memory?’

‘I suppose.’ He looked down at the coffee. The liquid was almost still now and an innocuous wisp of steam drifted from it. ‘It smelt sour in there. I can’t pin it down, but the smell is still inside my head.’ He gave up then. ‘Who knows.’

His grandmother shrugged and changed the subject. ‘I ran into Bryn yesterday. Actually, I had a feeling he was looking for me, because he knows I love the coffee in Savino’s, and I was barely through the door when he appeared. We chatted for nearly an hour.’

‘Not girlfriend advice?’

‘Yes,
he’s
actually worried that
she’s
blowing hot and cold.’

Goodhew waved the idea away. ‘He’ll change his mind by next week.’ He couldn’t get himself excited about Bryn’s love life, even if only to indulge his grandmother.

‘Maybe, but I think it would do him good to get dumped for a change. And what’s this tattoo he’s having done?’

‘I don’t know. Didn’t he tell you?’

‘He said he didn’t want to say until it was actually done. But he also said you gave him the picture . . . and I’m just nosy.’

‘Oh, yes, I forgot about that. From last year’s Hawaiian calendar, I think. He was after a picture of a hula girl.’

‘Cool. Have you ever thought about a tattoo?’

‘No, never.’ He felt tempted to ask his grandmother the same question but then a lyric from a 45 on his jukebox popped into his head.
She had a picture of a cowboy tattooed on her spine, said Phoenix, Arizona 1949.

So he decided to keep quiet, just in case.

And, in the silence that followed, his thoughts drifted across town. ‘I haven’t heard yet if they decided to excavate the Osbornes’ cellar.’

She straightened. ‘I heard it on the radio in John’s taxi. I assumed you already knew because you always seem to . . .’

‘All I’ve done is think about that boat. Marks told me nothing.’

‘The road’s cordoned off. There’s no announcement expected before morning, but the reporter referred to an increased police presence.’

‘So there’s something,’ Goodhew concluded quietly. And, despite Marks’s instructions and Goodhew’s best intentions, the idea of being
well-slept
tomorrow vanished in the blink of an eye.

He guessed it was about a mile from his grandmother’s to the Osborne house. The main road was the most direct route, even on foot. It was out of sight of the river but followed the same arc as the Cam as it curved north towards the site of the original Cambridge Castle, and passing the Punter pub at the bottom of Pound Hill.

After five minutes’ walking he approached the junction with Silver Street. A police car crossed at the lights and headed in the opposite direction. The driver didn’t notice him and Goodhew realized he had no desire to speak to anyone either. Street lamps lit all the roads, but even without them the night was clear and bright. It was easy enough to pick out the creamy surface of the footpath that ran parallel to Queens Road and the Backs.

He crossed the road and stepped over the single, low-level railing, striding most of the final half mile without seeing anyone at all. One hundred yards from Jane’s house and all that changed. Three orange and white road-closed barriers blocked the street from halfway up the hill onwards, and the sign hanging over the middle one read ‘Access Only’. The section of road on his side of the blockade was filled with residents’ cars, while the other side was cluttered with official vehicles.

Two were ambulances, which seemed optimistic for an excavation.

Marks had recently changed cars again and his latest, a two-year-old black Honda, was parked near the top of the slope. Goodhew showed his badge to the nearest PC. ‘I’m looking for DI Marks.’

‘You can’t see it from here, but there’s a mobile unit parked just round the corner, across from the house. Last time I saw him, he was there.’

The unit was a mobile site office that Cambridgeshire Constabulary had kitted out as a mobile information centre and often trailered to school events and fetes. Marks had pulled down the blinds on all but the window facing the Osborne house. He was standing inside, his head turned away from the door as he concentrated on his radio. He caught sight of Goodhew and waved him inside.

‘There’s a bunch of you expected on duty first thing, so if you’re staying now, don’t expect to slack off when the others turn up. OK?’

Goodhew nodded. ‘Nice office, by the way.’

Marks picked up a pamphlet that had fallen to the floor. ‘Fancy a career in policing?’

‘I think that’s the leaflet my careers teacher handed out.’

Marks shoved it back in the rack. ‘You make me feel old sometimes, Gary.’

The furniture consisted of a standard-height table and three low and totally incompatible chairs. Marks perched on the edge of the table. ‘First regarding the cabin cruiser: forensics are working on it but they’ve warned it’ll be a slow one. The senior SOCO asked me to pass on his thanks for, quote,
not fucking it up
, unquote.’

‘Carmel Marshall must know more about it than she lets on.’

‘Undoubtedly, but she’ll keep for a little longer.’ Marks tipped his head in the direction of the window. ‘This business is more pressing. By the time the radar survey results came back, we had enough data to conclude that there’s something buried down there. Then we lost most of the afternoon while structural engineers worked out whether it would be safe to dig.’

‘But then it went ahead?’

‘Yes.’ Marks glanced at his watch. ‘OK, if you’re staying I’ll explain. There’s a team of four down there but, because of the confined space, they’re working only two at a time. The ground-penetration data gave some tricky results because the hole was refilled with the original soil mixed with several buckets of hardcore, probably carried in from the garden. This messes with the readings, but they now know the deepest point of the trench and they’re getting close.’

‘And there’s still the possibility of a body?’

‘Before the dig, I sent down the cadaver dog, and she came up with nothing. But she’s just gone in again and this time she’s detected some human remains. Space is getting tight for a complete body, but there’s
something
there. And that’s why I’m pleased you’re here.’ Marks spoke the last sentence with a hint of satisfaction. ‘I want a complete chronology of everyone who’s lived here, who rented it, who lodged here, even anyone who ever dropped in to use the loo.’

‘Between which dates?’

‘This dig has come about because of Jane Osborne’s observations, so go back to the year when she ran away.’

‘2003?’

‘Yes, from then until now. Once something more substantial is unearthed, we’ll be able to narrow it down further. Anyone who has lived at that property at any point is a potential witness, so the more names and dates the better, as far as I’m concerned.’

His mobile sitting beside him on the tabletop started to ring, and Marks looked down at the caller display. ‘Here we go,’ he muttered before snatching it up and pressing it to his ear. ‘Yes?’

Every search came with its own challenges, and although the excavation of this cellar had lasted only a few hours, the confined space and airlessness had produced the same jaded expressions as characterized a far longer dig. Finding a body was hardly a cause for celebration, yet Marks could understand the sense of achievement and relief that came at the moment a search like this suddenly bore fruit.

The call Marks had taken had come from George, a SOCO who looked like a hobbit and had the complexion of a man who rarely made it out into the daylight. Everything about him was like a geeky fifteen-year-old, except the obvious fact that he was now getting closer to forty than thirty. George’s pride in his work edged towards the macabre: a total fascination with the scene itself and virtually no interest in any part of any case surrounding it. Marks knew that even when George had taken a break from the excavation, he would have stood on the cellar steps and watched, unwilling to miss the crucial moment of revelation.

Job satisfaction was a good thing, but, as Marks followed George down into the cellar, he had to admit that in this case such zeal was a tiny bit disconcerting.

The room had been rigged with bright LED lighting, which gave off no heat, and the stark and shadowless space felt unnaturally clammy. All things considered, the excavation had been extremely swift; it could often take a full two days to uncover a buried body. In his peripheral vision he could see George moving restlessly, and could imagine his bony fingers working deftly through the rubble.

Marks was careful to avoid looking down at the corpse until he stood right next to the grave. He wanted to concentrate on just that and nothing else.

At first glance there was surprisingly little to see. The earth had been removed in layers and, apart from a few protruding glimpses of bone, all the rest had yet to be excavated.

George squatted at the edge of the pit and pointed towards a small section of skull. ‘That’s the right parietal bone, close to the sutures where it joins the occipital and temporal bones. If you imagined the head being positioned with the left eyebrow, cheek and jawbone resting on the floor, that’s the angle I’m talking about.’ He indicated a series of points within the trench, tracing a pattern that loosely resembled the constellation of Pisces. ‘There is some brickwork down here that probably came from an older structure. The body itself is actually positioned in a narrow channel, which explains why it is lying on one side, with its legs bent back like that.’

‘The position looks very unnatural?’

‘Dead is dead, I guess,’ George shrugged. ‘It’s not as though comfort was of any importance. But you’re right, squeezing a body into that confined space would have involved quite a bit of physical manipulation.’ He eyed the narrow channel thoughtfully. ‘Stamping on it might have worked. And, as far as we can tell from the bones we have uncovered, the body was naked when it was buried. It’s possible that part of the incentive for removing the clothes was to try to fit the body into this space.’

Stripping a body was also a good way of delaying identification. A few years underground could strip the skeleton whilst leaving any synthetic clothing barely out of shape. ‘I don’t suppose there are any clues to the identity yet?’

‘Do you know how much of the skeleton is fully excavated so far? Two intermediate and three distal phalanges.’

This time Marks gave up. ‘Parts of the skull I could just about manage, so which bits of the body are we talking about now?’

‘Fingers!’ George beamed. ‘Finger
tips
to be precise.’ He held up his hand and would have given a joint-by-joint explanation, but Marks interrupted him.

‘How long till it’s fully exposed?’

‘Hard to say, but we won’t be holding back.’ For a man who hadn’t slept much, George had far too much of a sparkle in his eye.