Lloyd blinked, as if he’d already dismissed Cooper from his mind. ‘There are automatic controls built into the system to maintain a slightly negative pressure in the cremation chamber,’ he said.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means we make sure any unpleasant odours don’t leak out. They’re kept firmly on the inside.’
Back at the office, Cooper picked up the phone on his desk and rang through to Scenes of Crime. He was in luck for once - Liz Petty answered.
‘Liz, is it possible to identify cremated remains using DNA?’ he said.
‘Nope. Cremation destroys DNA. The lab can’t get anything usable from cremation remains.’
‘That’s a pity.’
‘Well, don’t despair, Ben. There’s another possibility.’
‘Yes?’
‘One thing the public doesn’t realize about cremation is
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that teeth stay pretty much intact, even after the bone residue has been pulverized. If you poke about a bit in the urn, you can often find a few teeth, fillings, posts, that sort of thing.’
Cooper raised an eyebrow. ‘I think that probably counts as one of the things the public doesn’t want to know.’
‘I expect you’re right. But it might be useful, eh? You could get some partial dental mapping done. Artificial teeth are more difficult to destroy than natural teeth, so if your deceased person had crowns or bridgework, you might be in luck. Sometimes, it only needs one tooth.’
‘Hoping for another match from dental records?’ said Cooper. ‘But I need to get a possible ID first.’
‘Of course. But you’ve already trawled through the mispers for that period, haven’t you? When you were trying to ID Audrey Steele’s remains.’
‘A lot of good that will do me,’ said Cooper. ‘Skeletonized remains are one thing - at least the experts can come up with information on age, height, gender, racial background. And I was lucky that I got a facial reconstruction done, otherwise Audrey Steele would have remained unidentified. But tell me how do I go about obtaining a biological identity from a few pounds of bone ash?’
The list of cremations was the first to come through on the fax machine. Eight names and addresses, complete with details of next of kin and the funeral director responsible for the arrangements. In addition to Audrey Steele, that meant seven more dead people with bereaved families.
‘Maybe that was the point,’ said Fry, when Cooper briefed her on his progress.
‘What was?’
‘Well, somebody was willing to risk Audrey Steele’s remains being identified and traced, weren’t they?’
‘It was a very small risk. We were lucky with the reconstruction.’
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‘Nevertheless, the risk was there. And the only reason I can think of that somebody might take that risk would be if they were convinced it would be impossible for us to identify the second body.’
‘It’s not entirely impossible,’ said Cooper. ‘With time, effort and perseverance …’
‘Impractical, then,’ said Fry. ‘You know how many missing persons there are on the files, Ben. You have no way of narrowing them down. And there’s always the possibility that it was someone who was never reported missing.’
Cooper sighed. ‘You’re right. I suppose I might be able to make more progress if I come at it from another angle.’
Fry leaned back in her chair. ‘And what if there never was another body? You might be approaching this from a false assumption, Ben. The explanation could be something much more prosaic’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, imagine for a moment that something went badly wrong at the crematorium that day, and one or more people took a lot of trouble to cover it up. In other words, a cock up rather than a conspiracy.’
‘No,’ said Cooper. ‘That’s a cock-up and a conspiracy.’
‘Whatever. But there might not have been an extra body to dispose of at all. Do you see what I mean?’
‘So whose ashes would be in Audrey Steele’s urn?’
Fry began to warm to her theory. ‘Maybe they just shared out the ashes that they already had. How many other cremations took place that day?’
‘Seven.’
‘Well, that’s enough, don’t you think? A few ashes from one cremation, a few from another. You’d soon have an extra urn full enough to convince a relative.’
‘Ashes from several bodies mixed together?’ said Cooper thoughtfully. ‘Mr Lloyd admitted himself it’s the biggest concern that families have at a cremation.’
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‘There you go, then. Perhaps he has a guilty conscience.’
But Cooper shook his head. ‘Hold on, Diane - the computer records show a normal burn time and a normal weight of residue. I’ve got a printout in the file.’
‘Are you telling me that computer records can’t be falsified?’ ‘If you knew what you were doing, I suppose …’
‘Well, before you go off looking for a murder victim who never existed, you might want to take a look at those other cremations,’ said Fry. ‘See if you can track down the ashes and let Forensics do some comparisons. All you need is one match between urns and your body-swap theory goes up in flames.’
Cooper looked at her to see if she was joking, but she wasn’t. ‘That’s going to take time, Diane.’
