leather. A bulge of cloth, torn and faded, a surprising eggshell blue where patches showed through the dirt. And there had been a faint glint of metal, slick with the dampness of clay, reflecting a glimmer of light and the movement of his spade.
But most of all, he knew they were staring at the only thing worth seeing — that unmistakable object laid out in the mud, like a bird trapped in cement, or an ancient fossil preserved in the clay. It was like a five-limbed sea creature, bony and white.
It was the shape of a human hand.
Detective Sergeant Diane Fry stepped out of her car on to the muddy ground, drew her coat tighter round her shoulders and wiped the rain from her face. All the activity seemed to be taking place on the other side of the track. Uniformed officers setting up cordons, SOCOs climbing into scene suits, a bunch of bystanders gaping like idiots. She looked around with a weary sigh. A week before Christmas, and wouldn’t you know it? A major enquiry in prospect, if she wasn’t mistaken.
Fry slammed the door of her Peugeot, her hands already wet and slipping on the handle. There was only one ray of hope. From the initial reports that had come in to Control, this air of activity might be misleading. Something quite different was going on here.
In fact, everyone was waiting with barely restrained anxiety for a verdict on the age of the body that had been unearthed. If it was recent, the entire division was in for a ruined holiday. If they were lucky, it could prove to be a historic burial, the remains of a medieval graveyard disturbed by the construction work. And then they could hand it over to the archaeologists and drive off home with a cheery wave and shouts of ‘Have a good Christmas.’
All right, that was probably too much to hope for. But even a decade or two on the bones would be good news. At least they could take their time making enquiries. Victims who’d been missing for ten or twenty years would wait a little while longer for their identity to be established.
Besides, what family wanted a knock on the door over Christmas and a police officer standing on the step to inform them that their missing loved one had been found in a shallow grave in some godforsaken spot at the back of beyond? That sort of thing could ruin Christmas for ever.
She called to a uniformed officer in a yellow high-vis jacket. ‘Is DC Murfin here somewhere, do you know?’
‘Yes, Sergeant. Shall I fetch him?’
‘Please.’
Yes, Christmas. In Fry’s experience, there were already far too many families who were unable to regard it as a time for gladness and joy. This time of year had a nasty tendency to bring back memories for people. Recollections of happier times, of opportunities lost, of friends and relatives who had passed on to celebrate Christmas in a better place.
No, the festive season wasn’t all about peace and goodwill, not these days. Anyone in the emergency services could tell you that. Christmas didn’t make much difference to the lives of all those poor, pathetic and dysfunctional people who cluttered up the police stations and courts from one month to the next.
A few days ago, two men wearing Santa Claus outfits had raided a building society in Chesterfield. They’d been carrying baseball bats inside their fur-fringed sleeves, and a customer had ended up in hospital with a fractured skull when he got in their way. The suicide and domestic violence rates jumped at this time of year, the number of road accident victims multiplied, and the streets of Edendale were full of brawling drunks. The cells at West Street were never fuller, the hospitals were over-stretched, and hosing out the divisional vans was a full-time job. Lots of ho, ho, ho.
But perhaps she was just a bit jaundiced in her view. Personally, she hadn’t celebrated Christmas for over a decade. Not in a paper hat and cracker, turkey and mistletoe sort of way. There had never been a decorated spruce tree standing in the corner of her damp little flat in Grosvenor Avenue, no tinsel over the mantelpiece, no
DC Gavin Murfin appeared at her side, teetering dangerously on the edge of the mud. The bottom four inches of his trouser legs were rolled up to reveal a pair of green paisley socks and a strip of deathly white flesh. Fry looked away, feeling suddenly queasy. On balance, the sight of a partially decomposed corpse might be preferable.
‘Do you think there’ll be any overtime on this one, boss?’ asked Murfin as they approached a PVC body tent erected over the makeshift grave.
‘You’re already rostered for duty over Christmas anyway, aren’t you, Gavin?’
Murfin looked crestfallen.
‘Damn, you’re right. I’d forgotten.’
Fry heard the dismay in his voice, but felt no pity. ‘If it’s a historic burial, you could be the officer in charge for a while.’
‘Great. That’s just … great.’
‘Most DCs would appreciate that kind of opportunity,’ said Fry.
‘It makes a change from processing nominals, I suppose.’
Reluctantly, Fry smiled. Ah, nominals. The official name for the area’s most prolific criminals — the repeat offenders, all those individuals the law makers called ‘recidivists’. They came into custody at regular intervals, might even get a short prison sentence if they were unlucky. But, before long, they were back out there on the litter- ridden streets of the Cavendish Estate — or ‘the community’, as it was known in the criminal justice system. Edendale’s nominals would be celebrating Christmas, all right. No one wanted them cluttering up the custody suite.
Murfin was silent for a moment as they watched the medical examiner directing a SOCO where to uncover vital parts of the body. The exposed edge of a bone here, a bit of decomposed flesh there.
‘Diane, do you mean there are people who’d prefer to attend a postmortem than be at home carving the turkey?’ asked Murfin.
‘There isn’t much difference, is there?’
‘Now that you mention it. Not the way I do it, anyway. And the company might be better in the mortuary — especially since we have to visit the in-laws at Alfreton on Boxing Day.’
Fry peered over the tape into the grave. The hole was gradually getting bigger, even as she watched. The hand that had been exposed by the workman looked fairly fresh. But the torso that was now being painstakingly revealed seemed to be badly decayed.
A cold case, or a warm one? Fry was unashamedly ambitious — she wanted the next move up the promotion ladder, and for that she needed cases to her credit. Successful cases, airtight prosecutions that led to convictions. Clear-ups, not cock-ups. It would be PDR time in April, the annual round of dreaded staff appraisals. She had to file something away that she could point to as a recent triumph, evidence of her outstanding skill and expertise, proof of her ability to manage an enquiry to a successful outcome, blah, blah, blah. Senior management believed it if it was down on paper, typed on an official form. Would Pity Wood Farm give her that case?
‘OK, let’s move these people back behind the cordon. What are they all doing here anyway?’
‘They’re witnesses, Sergeant.’
‘All of them?’
‘So it seems.’
‘Well, get their names and addresses and put them somewhere out of the way, for God’s sake.’
‘They don’t seem to speak English.’
‘Oh, Jesus.’
Rain had begun to fall again — big, fat drops splattering on to the roof of her car and pitting the already treacherously soft ground. Around her, uniformed and paper-suited figures speeded up their actions, as if suddenly instilled with a newfound sense of urgency. Within a few minutes, they were all sheltering against the walls of the farmhouse or sitting in their vehicles.
And it was only then that Fry really noticed Pity Wood Farm for the first time. Until this moment, she’d been concentrating on the ground, trying to keep her footing in the slippery mud that was coating her shoes and trickling in between her toes. But she looked up, and she saw it in all its glory.
