‘Are you the officer who emailed me a set of dental records?’
‘That’s right.’ CID had obtained a set of records from Danuta Barnes’s dentist back when she’d first gone missing and at the suggestion of one of the Cumbrian cops, Sam had forwarded it to the University of Northern England at Carlisle.
‘Good. I’m Dr Wilde, forensic anthropologist at UNEC. I’ve been taking a look at the remains from Wastwater. I’m not done yet, but I thought you’d appreciate an update.’
‘Anything you can give me,’ Sam said.
‘Well, the good news, depending on your perspective, I suppose, is that the dental records match the smaller adult skeleton, which I am pretty certain is that of a woman aged between twenty-five and forty.’
‘She was thirty-one,’ Sam said. ‘Her name was Danuta Barnes.’
‘Thank you. I’ve got my students working up DNA for all three sets of remains. We should be able to establish whether she’s the mother of the child. Who is aged between four and six months, I’d estimate,’ Dr Wilde continued.
‘Lynette. Five months,’ Sam said. He’d been struck by the pitifully small bundle sandwiched between the two larger ones. He wasn’t given to sentiment, but even the hardest heart couldn’t avoid being touched by so early and unnecessary a death.
Dr Wilde sighed. ‘Hardly a life at all. Not much of an epitaph, is it? “Lived for five months: made a great teaching aid.” Anyway, as soon as I can confirm that connection, I’ll let you know.’
‘Appreciate it. Anything you can tell me about the other body?’ Not that he was expecting much from a bag of bones and some slurry whose components he didn’t want to think too much about.
Dr Wilde chuckled. ‘You’d be amazed. For example, I can tell you his name was Harry Sim, and he died some time after June 1993.’
Sam was thrown for a second. Then he laughed. ‘What was it? Credit card or driving licence?’
She sounded disappointed. ‘Smarter than the average DC,’ she said in a cod American accent.
‘I like to think so. Which was it, then?’
‘Credit card. A Mastercard that ran from June 1993 to May 1997 in the name of Harry Sim. That should give you something to chase. I hope you’re pleased.’
‘You have no idea,’ Sam said with heavy emphasis. ‘Will you be checking his DNA against the kid as well?’
‘Oh yes,’ Dr Wilde said. ‘It’s a wise child who knows its father.’
‘Anything on cause of death?’
‘They make them greedy down Bradfield way,’ she said, not so amused now. ‘Impossible to say at this point. No obvious trauma to any bones, so probably not shot, strangled or battered with a blunt instrument. Could have been poisoned, asphyxiated. Could have been natural causes, but I doubt it. I suspect we’ll never be able to establish a cause of death. If you’re hoping for a murder charge, you might have to settle for circumstantial evidence.’
That was never good news. But he had no grounds for whining about it, given how much Dr Wilde had already given him. Who knew what he’d find when he started unpeeling the layers of Harry Sim’s life and mysterious death? He thanked Dr Wilde and hung up, already knowing the next stop on his journey.
CHAPTER 24
The only time Carol ever minded being driven was when she was en route to crime scenes with bodies at their centre. Even with the most competent of chauffeurs, which Kevin undeniably was, the journey invariably seemed interminable. Her mind raced ahead, wanted to be there at the scene, calculating what would need to be done. It didn’t matter that the victim was beyond the constraints of time. Carol was determined not to keep them waiting.
Kevin turned on to a narrow moorland road, the twisting turns forcing him to lower his speed. Carol looked around her. Her earlier visit to Vanessa had brought her near here earlier this morning. Although this landscape had been used as a burial site in the past, most notably by Brady and Hindley, the Moors murderers, it had never crossed her mind then that she might be passing the place where Seth Viner’s killer had chosen to dump him.
‘He likes isolation, this killer,’ she said, hanging on to the grab handle as Kevin threw them round another bend.
‘You think he’s local?’
‘Depends what you mean by local,’ Carol said. ‘A quarter of the population of the UK is within an hour’s drive of the Peak District National Park. We’re not that far north of there. This place looks empty, but it’s a huge recreational area. Walkers, runners - like the ones who found the body - picnickers, orienteers, bikers with their stupid road races, people out for a drive on Sunday . . . There’s a lot of legitimate reasons for knowing the moors quite well.’
‘It should be over the next hill,’ Kevin said, glancing at the satnav.
‘Let’s hope West Yorkshire aren’t going to get all possessive on us,’ Carol said. Although Seth had gone missing from Bradfield, his body had been found about four miles over the border in the neighbouring force’s area. She’d never worked directly for West Yorkshire but she’d managed to piss off most of their senior CID officers a few years before when she’d been working off the books with Tony on a serial killer investigation nobody but them would take seriously. ‘They’re not very keen on me over there,’ she added.
Kevin, who knew all about the history, grunted. ‘You can’t really blame them. You made them look a right bunch of wankers.’
‘I’d hope they’d be over it by now. It was a long time ago.’
‘This is Yorkshire. They’re still feeling aggrieved about the Wars of the Roses,’ Kevin pointed out as they
