body after death were inevitable, why not turn them into something positive? Here, a corpse would be giving back life.
According to the manager of the site, they were getting a number of celebrity green burials around the country now. Dame Barbara Cartland had been buried in a cardboard coffin next to an oak tree in her own garden. It was a new alternative for farmers, too. All they needed was a bit of land that wasn’t used for anything else, and planning permission from the council.
Cooper hoped Matt didn’t get to hear about that idea. He already had enough to say about diversification as it was. Golf courses, holiday cottages, fishing lakes - and now burial grounds.
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‘Very unhealthy, isn’t it?’ said Fry.
‘Don’t you see?’ Cooper gestured around the burial site. In the middle, the weeping willow stirred its slender branches as it drooped protectively over the grave at its roots. ‘Audrey Steele’s tree isn’t just a memorial to her. In a way, it is her. It’s a continuation of her life in a different form. People buried here will never be dead. Not really.’
‘Well, I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.’
They began to walk back towards their car, parked out of sight beyond the trees. Then Fry stopped at the sight of one of the black-suited figures.
‘Ben, is that one of Audrey Steele’s relatives?’
Cooper followed her gaze. The suit didn’t really fit him at all. It was far too tight over his shoulders and belly. But it was certainly the man who’d let him into Vivien Gill’s house that morning.
‘Yes. Why?’
‘I recognize him from crown court.’
‘I thought he looked familiar, too. You must have a better memory than me for names.’
‘Well, it was only on Wednesday,’ said Fry. ‘He was sitting in the visitors’ gallery with the defendant’s family at my murder trial. I’m pretty sure he’s Micky Ellis’s brother.’
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23
When they got back to West Street, scenes of crime had inventoried the contents of the plastic box. In addition to the crayons, sunglasses, toy dog and Matchbox Land Rover, they’d found a Magic Tree air freshener, a Beatrix Potter book, a Digimon tiger, a Nike ski-pass holder, a London Zoo eraser, a glow-in-the- dark skeleton key-ring, three tungsten dart shafts, a magnifying glass, and a miniature screwdriver set.
‘Oh, and a purple plastic grasshopper, with a metal tag attached to it,’ said Liz Petty. ‘Here it is. I thought you might like to see this item, in particular.’
Cooper picked up the transparent evidence bag. He held it up to the light and turned it slowly. He could see that the tag pointed out by Petty carried a six-figure code number on one side, and identified itself, or the plastic grasshopper it was attached to, as ‘The Travel Bug’.
‘What does it say on the other side?’ said Fry.
Cooper spun the bag. ‘It says: “I go from place to place, picking up stories along the way.”’
Fry shook her head in frustration. ‘What about the notebook that was in the box with all this stuff?’
‘It’s just an ordinary spiral notebook,’ said Petty. ‘You can buy this kind of thing anywhere. As far as we can tell, it
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seems to be some kind of log book. The first page is headed “Petrus Two”, and various individuals have made entries at different dates.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as “Itinerant Maggie”. She says: “Great location another spot I’d never have visited, if it weren’t for the cache many thanks.”’
‘It means nothing to me.’
‘Nor me.’
‘Sounds like some kind of treasure hunt, doesn’t it?’ said Cooper.
‘Does it?’ asked Fry. ‘A treasure hunt?’ She looked at the bagged items taken from the box. ‘That is not treasure, Ben. Not by anybody’s standards. It looks like the debris from the back of somebody’s kitchen drawer.’
‘I meant treasure in the loosest sense, Diane. The fun of a treasure hunt isn’t the value of what you might find, but the excitement of the hunt. It’s a quest. People are always figuring out ways to take part in quests.’
‘Really?’ said Fry.
‘If it helps,’ said Petty, ‘there’s a website address on the Travel Bug tag.’
‘So there is - www.groundspeak.com. Anyone heard of it?’
There were shrugs all round the table. Fry looked across at Cooper.
‘Ben, you’re getting to be a bit of a whizz on the internet, aren’t you? See if you can find out what this is all about.’ She picked up the skeleton key-ring and spun it thoughtfully in its bag. ‘We need to know who’s been messing around up at that rock, when they were there, and why. If the people involved have no connection with our enquiry, then we need to eliminate them.’
‘OK.’
Fry put the key-ring back on top of the Beatrix Potter book, covering a quaint illustration of a fox wearing a coat and
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scarf. ‘Anyway, we’ve got some more news this afternoon. The forensic anthropologist had a toxicological analysis conducted on a sample from the first set of bones.’
Cooper looked at her. ‘Bones?’ he said. ‘You mean Audrey Steele’s remains?’
‘Yes, Ben. The old bones the walkers found.’
