‘It’s about Vincent. He was one of the group that night. In Digbeth, you know. He was part of the gang involved in the assault.’
Jim Bowskill didn’t say anything, but lowered his head and looked at his hands. They lay in his lap, strong hands but with slightly swollen knuckles, a result of his years spent working at the engineering factory. He was grasping his fingers together, and Fry saw that he was trying to stop them from shaking.
‘Dad? Are you all right? I didn’t think you would be so upset about Vince. You must have known what sort of company he’d got into.’
He shook his head, and Fry was shocked to see a tear break free from his cheek and plop on to the back of his hand.
‘Diane, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘We’re both really sorry. We didn’t know what else we could do.’
He spoke in a very small voice, as if it was painful for him to get out the words. At first, Fry didn’t understand. She wanted to go over to his chair and comfort him for his distress, but something was holding her back. Somehow, she knew that his words were more than just an expression of sympathy. That had all been said before, years ago. This was something more, something much bigger. These were words that would change everything. Jim Bowskill was apologizing.
‘Dad?’ she said. And then she asked the toughest question of all. ‘You knew?’
‘Yes, Diane,’ he said. ‘We knew.’
29
Once again, Cooper allowed himself to be swept up in the activity, the arrival of the whole caravan in response to his call. The field had been taped off, and a scene-of-crime tent stretched across the dry river bed to the opposite bank, though it was much too late to worry about protecting the remains.
Sergeant Wragg had attended from Ashbourne, and DC Becky Hurst arrived from Edendale, close behind the medical examiner. There was nothing for Cooper to do at the scene now, so he moved himself out of the way.
Only now, when he stood back on the roadway, did Cooper notice the limestone cliff above the swallet hole. Crevices and fissures in the rock had formed the crude outline of a face, like a primitive wall carving. Two eyes, a nose, and a narrow cleft for a smiling mouth.
No, not a wall carving. It was just like a cartoon face, drawn by a child.
The medical examiner brushed dirt off his gloves as he walked back across the field.
‘You’ll need a forensic anthropologist for a specialist opinion,’ he said. ‘The pathologist won’t be too interested in this one. Not enough flesh or soft tissue left on the bones. Well, there wasn’t much there to start with.’
‘Meaning, Doctor?’
‘A neonate. It was a new-born baby. No more than a few hours old, I’d say. Perhaps it was never even alive.’
‘Will we be able to tell that?’
The ME shrugged. ‘Well, a birth is considered live if the child breathes after being born. Since most killings of neonates occur immediately after birth, before the ingestion of food or healing of the umbilical stump, the only method of determining whether a child was born alive is by examination of the lungs.’
‘The lungs?’ said Cooper.
‘A hydrostatic test.’ He stripped off his gloves and gestured with his hands. ‘Basically, you take out the lungs and put them in water. If they sink, we can presume the child was stillborn. If the lungs float, the child was born alive and breathed. A bit like the test for witchcraft, I always think.’
‘What? Oh, yes. If you float, you’re guilty. If you drown, you’re innocent.’
‘That’s it. But obviously, there’s a problem here. The remains are too decayed, from exposure to the air. There are no lungs.’
Cooper turned away. He’d seen and heard enough here.
‘You haven’t asked me how long the remains have been here,’ said the ME. ‘Don’t you usually want to make unreasonable demands for my estimate on the time of death?’
‘I don’t think I need to ask that,’ said Cooper. ‘It would be around two years ago, I imagine.’
The ME raised his eyebrows. ‘A very good guess, DC Cooper.’
‘Acting DS.’
‘I’m sorry. Promotion obviously improves your speculative abilities.’
‘Actually, I’d go a bit further,’ said Cooper. ‘I’d say this child died on the thirtieth of June.’
Cooper was walking slowly back down the trail towards his car when his phone rang. He heard a young woman’s voice.
‘Hello. You gave me your card. At the funeral.’
‘Is that Lauren?’ said Cooper.
‘Yes. How did you know?’
‘It wasn’t too hard to figure out. Where are you?’
‘I’m not sure I want to say.’
‘But you do want to talk to me?’
‘Alex told me you’d been asking questions,’ she said.
‘So you’ve been in touch with Alex?’
‘I emailed him. We keep in contact that way. Then he can delete my messages, so Mum never finds out.’
‘Of course,’ said Cooper. ‘I suppose I ought to have guessed that.’
Cooper watched the activity taking place around the dry river bed.
‘Lauren…’ he said hesitantly.
She seemed to detect a seriousness in the tone of his voice.
‘You’ve found out something, haven’t you?’
‘Yes. I’m near Wetton Mill right now. At the spot where the river goes dry. You know where I mean, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Lauren, we found the remains.’ He paused to let it sink in. ‘Please, tell me — whose baby was it?’
There was a long silence, and for a while Cooper thought he’d lost her. But he could hear her faintly in the background. She had either put down the phone, or taken it away from her ear so that she didn’t have to hear what he said next. She sounded to be having trouble breathing. He heard a ragged sob, and wondered if she was totally on her own somewhere, with no one to comfort her.
‘Lauren, don’t go. Where are you? I’ll come and meet you anywhere. Lauren?’
‘I’m still here,’ she said.
Cooper could barely hear her, because her words were almost swallowed by her sobbing.
‘It’s all right, Lauren. Everything’s okay. I just need to know — ’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The baby was mine.’
Cooper drove through Ashbourne, negotiating another busy market day to reach Church Street, and heading towards some of the oldest buildings in the town — the alms houses, the original grammar school. At least they were made of stone. It made him feel a bit more at home.
Lauren was waiting for him near the entrance to the churchyard, a dark figure in black clothes that swung as she turned to meet him.
‘The same place that we met before,’ was all she’d said. Of course, here was where her sister Emily had been buried. Perhaps Lauren’s floral tribute still lay here somewhere, too. Remembering 30th June for ever.
Lauren’s Doc Martens crunched on the gravel as they walked towards the newest gravestones and stood for a moment in front of Emily’s gleaming, pristine memorial.
‘I don’t know how you managed to keep it quiet,’ said Cooper.
She shrugged, feigning indifference now.
‘It wasn’t that difficult. I wore a lot of baggy clothes, so nobody would notice for a while. It helps when
