The Skeleton Room (2 page)

Marty shrugged his shoulders, still on the defensive. ‘It used to be some posh girls’ boarding school. Then it was empty for
a few years until Kilburn Leisure bought it and decided to turn it into a hotel. There’s going to be a health spa and a golf
course and . . .’

Wesley looked around at the chaos, the protruding electrical wiring and the debris-strewn floor. ‘Very nice,’ he said, imagining
the finished result.

‘It’ll be a bit beyond our pockets but the Chief Constable might give it a go,’ mumbled Gerry Heffernan with what sounded
like envy. He nodded to the constable, who was hovering near the door, preparing to usher Marty and Ian away.

Marty raised a hand, as if about to say something. But the constable shot him a discouraging look and the two men filed out
meekly.

Wesley Peterson watched them disappear through the doorway. ‘I can’t see that their statements are going to tell us much.’

‘We’ve got to go through the motions, Wes. And you never know, one of them might have done it.’

‘Hardly likely.’ Wesley grinned at his boss. ‘I bet this room – if it is a room – has been sealed up for years.’

‘We’d better take a look, I suppose. After you.’

Wesley ventured into the room first. Although the entrance had been enlarged since Marty’s initial discovery, he had to lower
his head as he crossed into the unknown. The space was pitch dark, and Wesley wrinkled his nose at the musty odour of decay.
He could hear Gerry Heffernan breathing close behind and he found some comfort in the thought that he wasn’t alone. And at
least, unlike Ian and Marty, he knew what to expect. He flicked on the torch he had borrowed from the constable and moved
its beam about the room.

It was small, this chamber of death: around eight foot by
nine. As the light played around the cobweb-covered walls he could make out a dark shape in the corner.

The torch beam came to rest.

‘Ruddy heck,’ Heffernan murmured.

Wesley said nothing. He stared at the thing sitting there; a complete skeleton slumped on a large, solid-backed, wooden chair.
Its wrists appeared to be tied by wisps of rope to the chair’s arms and the skull grinned up at them, as if pleased to have
some company. A hank of fairish hair was still attached to the skull and decayed scraps of cloth and tissue clung to the bones.
Wesley looked away.

‘Poor sod. Looks like he’s been tied up in here and left to die.’ Gerry Heffernan began to back out of the room. ‘Has someone
called Colin Bowman?’

‘He was in the middle of a post-mortem but he said he’ll be here as soon as he can.’

‘Come on, Wes, let’s get out of here.’

Wesley didn’t protest. He would be as glad as his boss to be out of that tomb chamber. Wesley, who had studied archaeology
at university, had seen many bones in his time, but somehow these filled him with a particular horror. It was the circumstances
– the squalid little room, the chair and the remnants of rope that suggested the victim had been alive when he was left in
there; that he had been helpless as he listened to his tomb being sealed before facing a slow death in the darkness.

They stepped outside into the larger room, a room on the first floor which would probably have been used as a bedchamber when
the house was built in the eighteenth century but which was now earmarked as an office for the new hotel.

‘How long do you think he’s been there?’ Heffernan asked anxiously. If it was less than seventy years it was their job to
launch an investigation.

‘Haven’t a clue yet but there’s bound to be something that’ll give us a hint. And by the way, I think it’s a she.’

Chief Inspector Heffernan looked at his subordinate in wonder. ‘How do you work that one out?’

‘The look of the skull. I could be wrong but . . .’

Gerry Heffernan said nothing. Man or woman, the skeleton in the sealed room at Chadleigh Hall – soon to be the Chadleigh
Hall Country Hotel – was something he’d rather not think about.

The constable announced the arrival of the pathologist.

Gerry Heffernan was relieved to see Colin Bowman. Last time he had encountered a suspicious death he had had to make do with
Colin’s locum – and Gerry hadn’t quite made up his mind whether he approved of lady pathologists like Laura Kruger. To Gerry
Heffernan a woman’s place was with living patients, preferably in a mother-and-baby clinic.

Colin, his usual relaxed self, indulged in his customary ten minutes of social chitchat before borrowing a torch and venturing
into the small chamber where the skeleton sat, now the focus of the police photographer’s attention. Wesley and Heffernan
waited outside the room for the verdict: there wasn’t room in there for all of them.

After a few minutes Colin emerged, his amiable face serious. ‘Nasty business.’

‘How long do you think it’s been there?’ Wesley asked. ‘It is old or . . .?’

‘Well, I can pronounce life extinct but not much else at the moment. If I had to hazard a guess I’d say she – and I’m pretty
sure it’s a she, incidentally – has been there for some years. But how many years . . .’

‘Can’t you give us any idea?’ Gerry Heffernan sounded impatient. If he wasn’t under any obligation to investigate the unknown
woman’s gruesome death, he wanted to get back to the police station for a nice cup of tea.

‘Sorry,’ said Colin Bowman. He picked up his bag. ‘Well, gentlemen, if you can arrange for the remains to be brought to the
mortuary, I can make a more thorough examination.’ He looked around. ‘This place was a school
for years, you know. A girls’ boarding school. An aunt of my wife’s was an old girl.’

‘And did she tell you if they used to wall up their pupils when they misbehaved?’ said Wesley with a smile.

‘She never mentioned it and I can’t really ask her as she’s in South Africa.’

Heffernan slapped Wesley on the back. ‘Time we were off, Wes. We can’t do much here until Colin’s given us his verdict and
I want to catch up with some paperwork.’ He sounded subdued, serious. Not his usual ebullient self.

Heffernan had begun to march towards the staircase and Wesley followed, wondering what had brought about the boss’s change
of mood and this unaccustomed desire to catch up on paperwork – he usually behaved as though it didn’t exist. Perhaps the
thought of the woman in the sealed room had affected him more than he would care to admit.

‘Are you okay, Gerry?’

‘’Course I am.’

Neither man said anything as they walked towards the car. Then Wesley decided to break the silence, to distract them both
from thoughts of death.

‘How are Sam and Rosie settling in?’ Gerry Heffernan’s children were both home from university for the summer.

‘Okay. Rosie’s got herself a job playing the piano in some posh restaurant. And Sam’s working for a landscape gardening company.
Makes a change from last year.’

Wesley grinned. Last summer Gerry’s son, Sam, had found a particularly enterprising way of supplementing his student loan.
It was something Wesley could hardly forget.

He was about to unlock the car door when his mobile phone rang. Heffernan looked irritated. ‘Whoever invented those things
should be shot,’ he muttered as Wesley answered it.

After a brief conversation Wesley turned to his companion. ‘A body’s been found in the sea off Chadleigh Cove. They want
us there. It’s not far away.’

‘I know where it is, Wes. We used to take the kids there when they were little. Nice beach. Kathy always used to like places
where you didn’t get the crowds of day trippers.’

Wesley noticed a faraway look in his boss’s eyes, the look that always appeared when his late wife’s name was mentioned.

He opened his mouth, about to mention that Neil Watson was working on some eighteenth-century shipwreck at Chadleigh Cove.
But he thought better of it. ‘I suppose we’d better get over there.’

‘Two bodies in one day, eh?’ said Heffernan gloomily. ‘Don’t suppose we’ve got much choice.’

The beach was inaccessible to vehicles so the police and ambulance personnel had to make their way along the steep path that
led down from the cliff top.

Neil Watson had watched as a couple of the divers working on the wreck had carried the body ashore. A woman’s body, barely
recognisable after the sea creatures had feasted greedily on the eyes and soft flesh, swathed in sodden and shapeless cloth,
filthy with mud and seaweed. There were no shoes on the waxy, swollen feet but there was a wedding ring on her finger, cutting
into the bloated flesh.

The divers stood around on the golden sands, not quite knowing what to do. When Dominic Kilburn had seen their discovery,
he had pleaded a business meeting and left. But Oliver still hung around, watching.

A young constable in shirtsleeves, first on the scene, busied himself trying to convince everybody that there was nothing
to see. But nobody seemed to be taking much notice of him.

When Heffernan and Wesley arrived the body was ready to be moved by a couple of well-built ambulance men. The police surgeon
– or Forensic Medical Examiner, as he was now known – had pronounced life extinct and had authorised
the woman’s last journey to Tradmouth Hospital mortuary to lie with the Chadleigh Hall bones in a room of stainless-steel
drawers.

There was nothing more to be done until they knew her identity and Colin Bowman had determined exactly how she died. Just
as Gerry Heffernan was suggesting that they return to the station for a cup of tea, Wesley spotted a familiar face.

He walked towards Neil Watson, his feet sinking in the fine sand: it was difficult for a man wearing a suit on a sunny beach
to look anything but out of place. Neil saw him and grinned.

‘That body’s not going to hold us up, is it?’ Neil had always put his work first, ever since he and Wesley had been students
together at Exeter University; not a thought for the unfortunate woman who’d just been pulled out of the sea.

‘I shouldn’t think so. Tell me about this shipwreck, then. How are you getting on?’

Neil was only too pleased to satisfy his old friend’s curiosity. ‘The ship was called the
Celestina
. According to the records, she hit the rocks one night in 1772 and sank out there, just where the dive boat is.’ He pointed
to the divers’ small vessel that bobbed at anchor a couple of hundred yards out to sea.

Neil looked round to make sure Oliver Kilburn wasn’t in earshot. ‘Dominic Kilburn of Kilburn Leisure owns the manor of Chadleigh
and he has rights to any wreck in the sea off his land.’ He frowned, trying to remember the exact terms. ‘Any ship wrecked
as far out to sea as a man on horseback can see an umber barrel, that’s it. It’s one of those archaic manorial things.’

‘So why are you here?’

‘The County Archaeological Unit’s coordinating everything and making sure that anything of historic interest is dealt with
properly, but Dr James, who’s an expert in marine archaeology, is leading the actual dive. Kilburn’s
making a great show of cooperation, saying how he values our help and all that. But I get the feeling we’re just here to
keep the authorities happy, and we’re as welcome as a plague of cockroaches in his hotel kitchens.’

‘So how’s it going?’

‘Okay so far. Of course, it’s Jane who loves all this underwater stuff, and she’s having the time of her life working with
Dr James: she hangs on his every word.’ He grinned, pointing to a tall blonde in a black wet suit who was standing down by
the water’s edge.

‘I read somewhere that there are a lot of wrecks around this coast.’

‘Oh, yes. It’s famous for them.’

‘So why’s Kilburn so interested in this one? What’s in it for him?’

Neil smiled knowingly. ‘I dare say I can let you in on his little secret. According to contemporary records, the
Celestina
was on her way home from Portugal to Tradmouth carrying a cargo of gold coins and jewels. And as far as we know they’re still
down there waiting to be found. And if Kilburn has this ancient manorial right to the wreck, then legally . . .’

‘Any sign of them?’

‘Not yet. And we’re trying to keep the whole thing quiet. The last thing we want is treasure hunters.’

Large quantities of gold had always eluded Neil on his past forays into archaeology. But there had to be a first time.

‘How’s Pam?’ Neil asked suddenly, shielding his eyes from the light.

‘She’s okay. But she can’t wait for the end of term.’

‘I keep forgetting when the baby’s due.’

Wesley was rather surprised that Neil even remembered Pam was pregnant: such things usually passed him by. ‘Not until November
but . . .’

Wesley was interrupted in mid-sentence by a loud voice behind him. ‘I thought it was you. What are you digging up this time?’
Gerry Heffernan had arrived.

‘A shipwreck,’ Neil answered. ‘Was it murder, then?’

Heffernan looked confused.

‘The body in the sea – was it murder?’

‘I hope not. The weather’s nice and the holiday season’s coming up so the last thing we want is more work. Has Wes told you
about the skeleton we found at Chadleigh Hall?’

‘No, he’s been keeping that one quiet.’ Neil looked at Wesley expectantly.

‘Some workmen have just found a skeleton in a sealed room at Chadleigh Hall, about half a mile from here.’

‘How long’s it been there?’ Neil sounded interested.

‘We don’t know yet.’

‘Let me know if you want me to have a look at where it was found,’ said Neil. ‘Examining the historical context and all that.’

‘Skiving off work, you mean,’ Gerry Heffernan mumbled under his breath.

Neil grinned. ‘Call it helping the police with their enquiries. How about it?’

Gerry Heffernan shrugged. It would do no harm. Neil’s expert eye might spot something that would confirm that the skeleton
was a couple of centuries old – and that would give them the excuse they needed not to begin an investigation. ‘Okay, then.
You and Wes put your heads together and say the skeleton was killed by William the Conqueror while he was down here on his
holidays in 1066. And if you do find it’s less than seventy years old I don’t want to know. Right?’