dissemination of information could be helpful to an inquiry, but the untimely release of an investigation’s details could be disastrous.
Babcock was glad, therefore, to have a few days’ grace before deciding what should be released to the public. That way, if they hadn’t made an identification by the time the paper went to press, he could use the opportunity to make a public appeal.
“Any luck finding the farm’s previous own ers?”
“No. House- to- house has had a go again this morning. Apparently quite a few of the surrounding properties have changed hands, and the one neighbor we’ve been told might have an address is away on holiday.”
Babcock absorbed this. It meant they’d have to widen their inquiry, and that meant more manpower. “What about the incident room?” he asked. Late the previous evening, Babcock had organized a temporary incident room at the divisional headquarters in Crewe. “Do we have anyone to spare for slogging round the countryside?”
“We’ve managed to find a few warm bodies, although not particularly happy ones. They seem to think the villains should agree to a Christmas truce.”
Babcock glanced at his sergeant, surprised at the reference. During the Great War, in the first battle of Ypres, the soldiers on the British and German sides of the lines had left their trenches to exchange Christmas greetings and make gifts of their few possessions.
Rasansky seemed an unlikely student of history.
“Ah, well,” he said instead, “we’d still have to deal with the holiday suicides.” With that cheerful pronouncement, the inner doors to the morgue swung open.
Dr. Elsworthy’s assistant, a large ginger- haired young woman, led them back to the examination room, saying, “She’s just starting.”
The doctor acknowledged them with a nod. In her scrubs and apron, with her flyaway gray hair tucked under a cap, she looked
years younger, and Babcock was struck again by the strong planes and angles of her face.
But if Althea Elsworthy looked more human this morning, the tiny form on the examination table looked less so. With the removal of the blanket and clothing, the child might have been a tattered scrap of a doll made from leather and hair, or the remains of a small animal left to shrivel by the side of a road. He noticed that there was very little smell, merely a faint mustiness. That, at least, was a relief.
For once, he wouldn’t have to spend the postmortem trying to work out how to talk and breathe through his mouth at the same time.
When Rasansky shook his head and made a clicking sound of disgust with his teeth, Babcock remembered that the sergeant had an infant at home. If he was ever tempted to envy other people their children, a child’s body in the morgue was a sure cure.
He transferred his gaze to the X-rays clipped to the lightboard, where the white tracery of bones shone like frost on black velvet.
Elsworthy followed his glance. “Skeleton’s intact,” she said with her usual economy of words. “No evidence of blunt-force trauma, no previous fractures.”
“So what does that leave us?” Babcock asked.
“Suffocation. Drowning. Poisoning. Natural causes.” There was a gleam of humor in her eye as she added the last.
“Right.” Babcock’s lip curled with the sarcasm. “What about stabbing or puncture wounds? Gunshot?”
“Possible, but I’ve not found any damage to what’s left of the tissue, nor nicks on the bones. And I’ve very rarely seen an infant shot or stabbed. It could have been shaken, of course, but any swelling or bruising of the brain tissue has long since disappeared.”
“
“Not conclusively, no. There’s not much organic matter left in the pelvic area, certainly not enough to tell if this child possessed a penis.
And at this age it’s hard to differentiate the skeletal structure.
“But from the clothing, I’d guess female. The DNA testing should clarify it, but you’ll have to be patient.” The glance the doctor flicked at him told Babcock she knew patience was not his strong suit.
“Okay. Female, then. Jane Doe. Age?”
“From the measurements, anywhere from six months to a year, perhaps even eighteen months. Development can vary greatly, depending both on genetics and the child’s health and environment. If the child was malnourished, for instance, she might have been well under the predicted size and weight.”
As she spoke, she’d turned back to the corpse and begun probing with tweezers. Her touch seemed surprisingly gentle for such a brusque woman.
“There’s no sign of insect activity,” she went on, “so I think you can assume that the child died during a period of low temperature and was interred quite soon after death.”
Rasansky spoke for the first time. “You think she was abused, then?”
“As I’ve just said, Sergeant, there’s no specific evidence,” Elsworthy said testily. “It’s quite common that babies who have been abused show healed fractures, but the lack of such doesn’t rule out mistreatment. And most people who care for their children well don’t inter them in old barns.”
Her comment made Babcock think of his aunt’s parting words, and he asked the question he’d been holding back: “How long do you think she’d been there?”
Elsworthy frowned and continued her examination in silence for a few moments before she answered. “Probably more than a year.
That, of course, is just a guess.”
“More than a year? As in five, ten, fifteen, twenty? That’s all you can tell me?”
This time Babcock was the object of the doctor’s glower. “You wanted miracles? The degree of mummification will have been affected by the amount of lime in the mortar and the stone. The lab
results may help narrow your time span down a bit, but in the meantime, you may do better with the clothing.
“Both the sleep suit and the blanket appear to contain some synthetic fibers, and the snaps on the sleep suit are only partially corroded. And”—she paused, ostensibly to probe the child’s rib cavity, but Babcock was beginning to suspect she enjoyed teasing him—
“best of all, there’s still a tag on the sleep suit.”
“Wh—”
She nodded towards her assistant. “I’ve written down the brand information. The manufacturer should at least be able to give you a production span.”
“Bloody marvelous,” Babcock said with bad grace. Knowing the production span on the suit or blanket would give them a starting point, but not an end point. The things could have been stored away in a cupboard for years before they were used in the makeshift burial. “We’ll not be able to reach anyone at the manufacturer’s until after Boxing Day, at the least.” Tracing that information would be a job for Rasansky.
Ignoring his grousing, the doctor said thoughtfully, “You’ll notice that although the child was dressed in a sleeper and wrapped in a blanket, there’s no sign of a nappie. That’s rather odd, don’t you think? It suggests that the child was dressed—or re-dressed—after death. That might indicate care on the part of whoever interred her, or on the other hand, it might be part of a ritual that increases some satisfaction to the perpetrator.”
“You’re not saying we’re dealing with a serial baby killer?”
Elsworthy shrugged. “Unlikely, with the absence of gross injuries, but one should always keep an open mind, Chief Inspector. I take it you’ve had no luck tracking down the property’s previous own ers?” she asked, with what might have been a trace of sympathy.
“It would seem that either the mortar work was done by one of the owners, or with their knowledge.”
Babcock shook his head. “The Smiths, who were apparently an
eminently respectable older couple, seem to have vanished without a trace.”
As Annie motored north from Nantwich Basin, she felt as if she were leaving a calm oasis. Not that there was much movement evident on the canal, but in her brief stay in the basin she’d felt more at peace than she could remember in a very long time. She’d rung Roger, and although she hadn’t reached him, she had left a message suggesting they meet for a Christmas meal. Knowing Roger, he was out walking Jazz, the German shepherd he’d bought himself when she’d left—his consolation prize, he’d told her. She suspected the dog had proved better
