'I was told she was about forty.'
'That's our impression from the clothes.'
'Any possessions? Handbag?'
'Not yet. We're still picking up bits.'
'Rings?'
Bowers shook his head.
'How about the bullets?'
'You're joking, I hope.'
'I suppose she was shot somewhere else and brought here.'
Bowers sniffed and looked away, 'Yeah, we worked that out'
'Why wasn't the body noticed before today, with trains going by all day?'
'You didn't see the place before we started to clear it. You could hide the Red Army here and no one would know.'
'At this time of year, yes. What about six months ago?'
'The scrub would still have been dense enough to hide a stiff, no problem. There's years of growth. A railway embankment is a clever place to dispose of anything, when you think about it. Nobody much comes down here apart from railway workers.'
'So who discovered it?'
Bobby Bowers rolled his eyes. 'A prize nutter. All the trains are held up for some reason, stacked up waiting for a signal, so chummy decides to get out and board the one in front, the fast one he missed back at Guildford. He hasn't gone more than a few yards when he sees this half-chewed leg beside the track. Gets the screaming abdabs and climbs back on the train. But - mark this -he doesn't call nine-nine-nine till he gets to work. It's a crowded commuter train. You know what they're like these days with bloody mobiles going off every couple of minutes. Our wiseguy insists that the rest of the good citizens on the train told him not to call the fuzz right away because it was sure to mean another delay. That's your great British public. We finally got the shout at ten-twenty.'
'You've made some inroads, then.' Encouragement is always appreciated and Bobby Bowers sounded as if he needed some.
And sometimes it has to be underlined. 'It's no picnic,' Bowers said. 'My lads have a job to keep their footing. The pathologist said he wanted danger money.'
'What did he say about the dismembering?'
'That's down to the foxes. They're rampant around here. There's no sign she was hacked about by the killer.' He glanced along the embankment. 'Ay-up - somebody's found another bit.'
Conversation was suspended while they stepped along the side of the track to where one of the search party was waving. 'What have you got for me, Marty?'
'Two fingers, sir.'
'I know how you feel, but what have you got for me?'
Marty gave a tired grin. They clambered up the incline to examine his find: the brown bones of the fingers with enough skin still attached to link them at the base. They were well camouflaged against the dark soil. The searchers had to be eagle-eyed.
'You were asking about rings,' Bowers said. 'This will be the little finger and the ring finger of the left hand. We already found the right.'
'No joy, then.'
'None for us, anyway. The killer may have removed it, of course.'
'Or she may not have had a ring.'
Some sinewy material remained attached to the bones, and there were traces of varnish at the base of a fingernail, but there was no chance of finding the impression of a wedding ring.
Bowers thanked his man and had the find marked and called for a photographer.
Diamond asked about the skull. Was it still where they had found it?
'No, the doc decided to lift it. It's in one of our boxes waiting to be moved to the forensic lab. You can see it if you want.'
They trudged back to the centre of operations. He had the box opened and the skull grinned at him, or that was the effect. The bared teeth and the curve of the jawbone, picked clean by the joint efforts of foxes, magpies and larvae, seemed to pass on the message 'Don't count on me to give you any help'.
Trying to ignore that, he looked at the circular bullet holes on the right side, just above the ear cavity. No exact match with the pattern of Steph's shooting, but the firing of two shots at such close range did suggest a professional killing.
'Lift it out if you want,' Bowers offered. 'You might like to look at the hair. Some is still attached at the back.'
'No need,' Diamond told him. 'I don't know what I'm looking for. Dark, is it?'
'Tinted brown.'
He switched his interest to the teeth. 'One or two fillings, anyway. If you can find her dental records, you might get a name.'
