‘I don’t know why,’ said Morrissey stubbornly. ‘I do knowthat the man who hitched a lift on the A6 was not my grandfather. 1 believe that man was an army deserter who had gone absent without leave from the transport depot at Stockport. He was a man named Fuller. The police arrested him later at his parents’ house in Stoke- onTrent.’
‘But your grandfather?’ asked Cooper. ‘What makes you think he stayed in this area? It seems very unlikely.’
‘TViis is what makes me think so,’ said Morrissey. She pulled a plastic wallet from her briefcase. Cooper could see that it contained a medal on a red-and-gold ribbon. The medal was
o
perfectly polished, and it gleamed in the fluorescent lights, flashing in their eyes as if sending a message across the decades.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s a Royal Canadian Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross,’ said Morrissey. She turned the medal over in her hands. ‘It arrived at my grandmother’s old home in Ottawa one day during the summer. There was a note with it, too. It was addressed to my mother, and it just said: “Remember your father, Pilot Officer Danny McTeaguc.”’
Cooper leaned closer to look at the medal. ‘This is your grandfather’s medal? Rut where did it come from?’
‘All we know,’ said Morrissey, ‘is that it was posted here, in Edendale.’
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1 he body from the Snake Pass had arrived in the mortuary at ndendale General Hospital, where it would be kept on ice, at least until it could be identified and somebody claimed it. When Diane Fry had driven up to the mortuary, she had left DC Murfm in the car, where he was no doubt adding to the pile of toffee WTappcrs on her floor.
Inside the mortuary, it was warmer than out on the street. V
The air smelled better, too — it was full of disinfectants and scented aerosols to suppress the odours of body fluids and abdominal organs.
o
‘We don’t get many of these now,’ said Mrs Van Doon. ‘People carry all sorts of identification with them these days, don’t they? But if not, we can usually match up their fingerprints or dentition, or their DNA. No luck your end so far, I take it? Nothing we can match him to?’
‘Nothing,’ said Fry. ‘We’re putting appeals out, of course. But at present his description doesn’t match the details of any missing person we know of/
‘So maybe no one’s noticed he’s missing yet.’
‘There seem to be a lot of people who go around not noticing things,’ said Fry.
The pathologist gave her a brief, quizzical look. ‘He doesn’t look like the average missing person to me/ she said. ‘He’s too clean and well dressed, for a start. Those shoes he was wearing are expensive/
‘I know. His shoes and the rest of his belongings are our best
o o
hope. They’re distinctive.
‘He wasn’t a hiker, not wearing those on his feet. The snow has ruined them/
‘No, he wasn’t a hiker/
‘A stranded motorist, perhaps? Trying to walk back to civilization from an abandoned car?’
‘That’s possible. All the cars found so far have been matched
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up with lixinsJ owners, hut there are a lew side roads the snow ploughs haven’t reached yet.’
‘You don’t sound convinced of that, either.’
‘o, I’m not.’
‘Any particular reason?’
‘Look at him. Look at his clothes. You pointed out vourselt how expensive they are. Would he rcallv set oft walking in the snow dressed like that? With no coat? Why didn’t he stay where he was until he was found? It’s not exactly the Antarctic somebody would have come across him within twenty-four hours at the most. And why didn’t he phone lor help? Lor God’s sake, every schoolkid has a mobile phone these davs. I can’t believe a man like this didn’t have one.’
‘You’re right, I suppose. I should restrict myself to the physical evidence and let you deal with the psychology.’
‘I didn’t mean that,’ said itv, noting the pathologist’s defeated air.
‘It’s all right.’
‘And another thing. Are we supposing that he set off walking down the road and that the first people who came along were some opportunist muggers who just happened to be driving over the Snake Pass in a bli/zard?’
‘I couldn’t possibly say.’
‘I’ll take that as a no.’
Fry glanced at the body. It had been cleaned and covered up. But the face of the man was still visible. He was aged about thirty, she supposed, a little thick about the neck but otherwise in reasonable shape. His hair was dark, cut short and tidy, with a tew flecks of grey at the temples. The stubble growing on his cheeks looked wrong; he was a man who would normally have been close-shaved. She looked at his hands. They were strong, but free of callouses, and the nails were trimmed.
