‘OK.’
‘Particularly this, sir,’ she said, holding up one of the bags.
‘A skeleton key-ring. Glow in the dark, is it?’
‘I believe so.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yes, we’d like a list of caches in the area. Their names particularly.’
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‘Well, that’s easier. But what area? There must be sixty caches within ten miles of Petrus Two.’
‘Within three miles,’ said Fry, ‘will be fine.’
‘You know, I’ve been thinking about this body-swap scenario,’ said Cooper, after David Mead had left. ‘It doesn’t make any practical sense, does it?’
‘What do you mean, Ben?’
‘Well, think about it. Put yourself in the position of an individual who’s ended up with a body on his hands, for whatever reason.’
‘A murderer, you mean?’
‘Not necessarily. It could have been an accident.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Well, whatever. But you have a dead body on your hands, right? You have to find some way of disposing of it.’
‘And your friend the manager of the crematorium won’t play ball?’ said Fry. ‘If we believe what Christopher Lloyd told us, that conversation with Richard Slack could well have been the first attempt at disposing of the body. But when Lloyd said “no”, some other means had to be found.’
‘Exactly. And you’re someone who has access to the chapel of rest at the funeral director’s, where you know there’s another body already casketed up, ready to be cremated next morning.’
‘OK.’
‘So you take your body back to the shop and you do the changeover. On your own, that would be a difficult thing to achieve, but perhaps not impossible. I guess they have trolleys and so on. It would take time, though, and a lot of physical effort. You’d have to tidy up and make sure everything looked in order for the funeral next morning. And then you’d have to put the legitimate body back into your vehicle, wouldn’t you?’
Fry frowned. ‘Yes.’
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‘Well, what have you achieved with all that work and effort? Not to mention the risk? The fact is, you still have a dead body to dispose of. In practical terms, you’re back to square one.’
‘You think he went to all that trouble for nothing?’
‘It seems like it, doesn’t it?’
‘I think he’s far too clever to have done something like that for no good reason.’
‘Well, he had a different body, that’s all. Why didn’t he just dispose of his original victim in the woods instead of poor old Audrey Steele?’
‘One good reason - there was something about the other body he needed to conceal. Probably some evidence of the way the victim died, a clue that would lead directly back to him. He put that evidence permanently beyond retrieval, by means of cremation. On the other hand, Audrey Steele’s body bore no evidence that could incriminate him.’
‘But surely he must have known that once we identified her remains, it would take us straight to the doors of Hudson and Slack?’
Fry nodded. ‘I think he was relying on two things. Firstly, that we might never be able to identify her, even if she was found. The longer she remained undiscovered, the more remote our chances. If it hadn’t been for the accuracy of the facial reconstruction ‘
‘And a bit of persistence,’ said Cooper.
‘OK, OK - and your persistence.’
‘What’s the second thing?’
‘Well, we might have been led to the doors of Hudson and Slack, but after all this time, how can we possibly hope to prove which member of staff was responsible for swapping the bodies? Any forensic evidence is long gone or contaminated beyond recovery. And the more time passes, the fainter the memories of potential witnesses.’
‘And some of them might have left in the meantime. We’re going to have to track them all down,’ said Cooper.
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‘It’ll be difficult to justify the time and resources for an exercise like that, Ben, when there are more pressing cases to be dealt with.’
‘I was afraid you might say that.’
‘If we had an easier, quicker lead to follow up, it would be different. Possibly our only real hope is that a member of staff noticed something wrong at the time. Or had their suspicions, at least.’
‘And that they’re willing to share what they know with us,’ said Cooper. ‘Which isn’t exactly a given.’
‘No. But without that, he might well get away with it. Suspicions are nothing without evidence. And in this case, we have no evidence at all. You know, sometimes you hear of a murder enquiry with no body. This is the first case I’ve ever known where we have a body - but it’s the wrong one.’
‘It’s got to be that way, hasn’t it? Too many people would notice if there was no corpse in a coffin sent for cremation.’
