He’d tried to explain that most of his hanging around time involved being watchful and alert, not absorbed in whatever Harry Bosch was up to. She’d harrumphed at him and muttered, ‘Excuses, excuses. That’s all I ever hear from you and the kids. Either do what I’m telling you or stop complaining, Alvin, you big baby.’
He navigated his way past the reception desk, mostly by flashing his ID and using his most intimidating frown. Even in a law enforcement establishment, his size and the colour of his skin tended to provoke anxiety and induce compliance. He followed the receptionist’s meek directions to the room where the scientists talked to investigating officers. It had a glass wall that looked into a lab that was satisfyingly similar to the sort of scenes he’d seen on TV. People in white coats and nitrile gloves with masks and protective goggles fiddling with equipment and looking down microscopes or deep in conversation over some glassware on a bench. All very reassuring.
The woman who was waiting for him looked like someone who had served her time at the rock face. Brown hair threaded with silver pulled back in one of those buns that resembled a Danish pastry. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out how they worked. Outsize glasses with black frames that reminded him of Brains in the Thunderbirds movie that his kids had once been obsessed with for about six weeks. Lines round her eyes that he could have mistaken for laughter lines if he hadn’t also clocked the pursed lines round her lips. But she smiled warmly enough when she extended a hand. ‘Sergeant Ambrose? I’m Dr O’Farrelly. Chrissie O’Farrelly. I’m the associate director here, I generally handle the police liaison. Take a seat.’
A small conference table with half a dozen chairs. Alvin chose one facing the lab and Dr O’Farrelly sat opposite him. ‘You’re here about the remains found in the grounds of the Blessed Pearl convent, am I right?’ The phrasing betrayed the faintest trace of an Irish accent.
‘That’s right. I know it’s early doors, but anything you can give us at this stage . . . Well, it’d maybe get us moving.’
She nodded and opened the folder she’d been carrying. ‘You’ll appreciate this is a large and complex inquiry. We’re estimating somewhere in the region of forty individuals, all of them children. So far, there are no fleshed remains, just bones and some clumps of hair. Our first job is the jigsaw puzzle of what belongs to whom. We might be able to get DNA from some of the skeletal remains but it’ll take time, and unless you’ve got relatives to compare it against, it’s probably not going to help much with positive identification.’
‘Given the kind of backgrounds some of the kids probably came from, we might well find familial matches on the database. You never know. Can you tell how long the bodies have been there for?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s not easy to say. Once the soft tissue is gone, it’s pretty much a guessing game.’
‘Can’t you do carbon dating?’ He parroted Rutherford’s words as if he had the faintest idea what they meant.
‘I could tell you whether they were three hundred years old or three thousand. But even with the atmospheric changes following the nuclear tests of the 1950s, which altered the balance of radioactive isotopes globally, it’s still only a macro.’
Alvin tried not to show he was lost already. ‘That’d be a no, then?’
A quick smile. ‘I’m afraid so. But there is a little ray of hope. We’ve got some strands of fabric among the bones. From our preliminary examinations, it looks like the bodies were wrapped in shrouds, probably linen or a linen mix. And underneath those shrouds, they were wearing underclothes. The natural fabrics have rotted, but a significant number of the labels are synthetic fibres. That tells us two things. Firstly, these are relatively modern bodies. Woven labels really only started appearing in the early twentieth century and synthetic ones didn’t become commonplace until the 1960s. What we’re seeing are quite badly stained, but we should be able to read them.’
‘How will that help us?’ Alvin was afraid the question made him sound stupid, but that was a price he was prepared to pay if it carried them forward.
Again the twitch of a swift smile. ‘Well, apart from the washing instructions . . . Some will have the name of the shop they came from. They’ll have sizes, which helps us with the inexact science of ageing the remains. They might have elements that allow us to date them more precisely. When you take your pants off tonight, have a look at the label. It’ll probably have a code on it that corresponds to the retailer’s database. It’s possible they’d still have records for those codes. Again, not very accurate for somewhere like a children’s home, where clothes might well be handed down. But at least it gives you an end point.’
Alvin nodded, glum. ‘It’s not much to go on, is it?’
She silently tapped her fingers on the edge of the table, as if she were playing a piano. ‘Not at this point. But it is early days.’ She glanced back at the folder, flicking over the top sheet of paper. ‘One of my colleagues who is at the site is fairly confident that the graves were dug with
