but we’re still waiting on the odontologist in Sheffield. We’re told tomorrow for a preliminary report on the bite — but comparisons with the moulds that Sherratt and Holmes have provided will take longer.’
Ben Cooper looked around the incident room, but saw no sign of Diane shee, or of DI Hitchcns. He concluded that the
O J
party of hikers had been located, and that the two of them
wore already somewhere to the north, following a lead that he
^ o
himself had reported from Moorhay.
‘Holmes’s story of Laura Vernon being sexually experienced is backed up by the postmortem findings,’ said Tailby. ‘Also by her own brother’s statement. So if Holmes is right about the victim’s sexual inclinations, can Lee Sherratt be believed when he says he had nothing to do with her? As Holmes stated in his interview, “You don’t say no, do you?”’
Tailby shuffled his papers. There was a diminishing number of officers in the incident room tonight. It looked as though
O O
the enquiry was already starting to be scaled down. Most of the TIE actions had been completed. Many of the individuals peripherally involved had been discounted. Traced, Interviewed and Eliminated.
Now, though, the leads that were being followed up were
‘ o ‘ o r
more focused. A shortlist of individual subjects were being
targeted. Mr Tailby had sifted his priorities and chosen his lines of enquiry. He had to feel fairly confident of the avenues that were worth pursuing. There was an underlying belief that the forensic scientists would produce the evidence that would seal the case.
‘We also have the rest of Daniel Vernon’s story,’ said Tailby, ‘which may be totally irrelevant. But if he is telling the truth, then it indicates that Sherratt is lying. And we might ask ourselves — if Sherratt was willing to conduct an affair with the mother, why not with the daughter? We remain to be convinced on that. Until
o
Holmes’s alibi is satisfactorily checked out, we have to consider that either of these youths could have been the one seen talking to Laura earlier that evening. On the other hand, it could have
o ‘
been someone else entirely. So we’re struggling without the physical evidence. There’s a weapon out there somewhere, but
234
there’s also a second trainer belonging to Laura Vernon. Both are crucial, but the trainer is going to be easier to identity.’
O o J
The DCI paused and tried to look at each officer individually. Some of them met his eye, but others were busy reading notes or staring at the photographs and maps on the wall.
‘So here’s what we do,’ he said. ‘We go round the houses in
‘ o
Moorhay again. With all the publicity and activity in the village, no one’s going to want to hang on to evidence like that — and I’m reckoning it will have been disposed of in the area. So we check out streams, ponds, ditches. And we look for signs of recent digging or burning. That would be the most obvious way to dispose of something like a trainer. Burying or burning. Someone must have been doing that in the last few days.’
Tailby pinned another blown-up photo on the wall behind him. ‘This is Holmes. We’re asking questions about both him and Sherratt now. But don’t overlook other possibilities, of course.’
Ben Cooper sat up with a sudden lurch of excitement when he saw the photo of Simeon Holmes. He had seen him already, and in Moorhay too. Not only that, but at the time, the youth had been digging. And a friend with him had been burning something. Cooper hesitated for a moment. It seemed bizarre — but he knew he had to speak now, not later.
‘I’ve seen him, sir,’ he said. ‘Earlier today. In fact, he must have come straight from the smallholding to be interviewed here.’
All eyes turned on Cooper. Hesitantly, he told them about the vast compost heap that had been taking shape at Thorpe Farm that morning. He told them about seeing Simeon Holmes
o o
himself tipping barrowload after barrowload of fresh manure on to the heap, and about the old men carefully covering it over and treading it down. He told them about the unidentified youth with his small bonfire, and about what could have been a deliberately distracting conversation as he himself had stood in front of the heap.
As he spoke, he could sense the officers in the room pulling faces and drawing away from him as though they could actually smell the manure on his clothes.
When he had finished his story, he waited for a reaction. He
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was thinking of the words repeated hv Sam Beeley and Wilford Cutts — ‘blood and bone’, they had said. And again: ‘blood and bone’.
Tailby stared at him, and groaned.
‘Oh Jesus,’ he said. ‘We’re going to have to dig it up.’
A hastilv assembled team arrived at Thorpe Farm an hour later in a variety of vehicles, which parked on the track between the jumble of outbuildings.
