She took off her glasses and polished them on the sleeve of her lab coat. Her face was transformed into something far less intimidating. ‘We have a real-time link with the pathology suite these days,’ she said, replacing her glasses and re-establishing the hierarchy. ‘We hear their findings as they make them. It’s very useful to have such a joined-up process.’
‘And?’ He looked expectant.
‘So far we have discovered eight sets of remains and we’re in the process of recovering them. It’s not quite as straightforward as the bones because, as I said, some of them are partially fleshed because of the conditions of the burials. That means we have to take rather more time in removing them, and the surrounding soil. It’s not pretty,’ she added, a faint curl of the lip for emphasis.
‘It sounds like these are definitely in a different category from the human remains in the front lawn?’ This was one assertion he felt fairly confident about making. Particularly in the light of what he’d heard of Martinu’s revelations.
A fleeting smile. ‘You know we hate to leap to conclusions here, Sergeant. But first impressions are that these body disposals are different in every way. For starters, the wrappings are entirely different. As I told you, the girls’ bodies were enclosed in shrouds made from a linen and cotton mixture. The second group have been wrapped in bed sheets – a polyester cotton mix, so what we’ve got are bits of dyed polyester, elastic from the corners of fitted sheets and fragments of relatively intact material. The sheets were sealed with packing tape, which hasn’t decayed, so some of the original fabric was sandwiched between bits of tape.’
‘And labels? Sheets have labels, right?’
Dr O’Farrelly smiled. ‘You’re a fast learner, Sergeant. I’ve no doubt we’ll find some labels in the environment of the bodies. Now, most of these bodies are practically skeletonised, so they’ve clearly been in the ground for a while. Years, probably, in most cases. We’ve do have quite a few bits of clothing, though. Man-made fabrics of one sort or another. Polyester, lycra, the plastic of trainers, metal eyelets from lace-holes, rivets and zips from jeans. Elastic from jogging bottoms. Other stuff. A couple of replica football shirts, for example. Still surprisingly identifiable. One Arsenal, one Bradfield Victoria.’ She paused, her line of sight drifting up to the corner of the ceiling, as if she was searching for the right words.
‘These are without doubt homicide victims.’ She spoke flatly, without inflection.
Alvin sat to attention. ‘You can be sure about that? Already?’
Dr O’Farrelly looked out at the lab where her team were squirrelling away at their several tasks. She sighed. ‘They had plastic bags taped over their heads. They will have asphyxiated.’
‘All of them?’ He imagined the struggle for breath and felt sick.
She nodded. ‘All of them. The older bodies have decomposed, so what happens over time is that the bodies decay as they normally would. The neck eventually decomposes sufficiently to allow the environments inside and outside the bag to become continuous. Eventually, there’ll be no discernible difference in the state of the head and the rest of the body. Except that there’ll be a taped-up plastic bag over the skull to tell the tale of how they died.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Alvin said.
‘Well, not bloody, actually, as homicide goes. There is one body, however, that is slightly different. My soil scientist colleague put her head together with an anthropologist who specialises in rates of decay, and between them they estimate it’s only been in the ground for a matter of months. Somewhere between six and eight months. There’s reasonably advanced decomposition of the body, so there has been some access via the neck to the head. Inside the bag . . . well, let me just say there are some things I am very grateful to see on a screen rather than in reality.’
Alvin took a deep breath. ‘I don’t want to hear this but you’re going to have to tell me.’
‘The flesh is mushy. The whole head is sitting in what looks like a puddle of slimy vomit. Murky milky pools inside the bag. The skin’s slipped off, taking the hair with it. One of my colleagues referred to it as “hairy soup with bits of skin like torn up lasagne floating in it”. The smell will have been hideous.’
Alvin could feel his stomach folding in on itself. He fought the urge to run from the room and find the nearest toilet. Swallowed hard. Wiped a sheen of sweat from his top lip.
She fetched a bottle of water from a cabinet in the corner and handed it to him. ‘Drink,’ she commanded. Alvin did as he was told. He felt the water run down his gullet, its cold passage taking his mind off the nausea.
Dr O’Farrelly waited till he’d composed himself then said, ‘Nothing glamorous in this line of work, we both know that. But there is a marginal upside, which is that we should be able to give you DNA on your man fairly quickly.’
‘“Your man”?’
She nodded. ‘So far, three bodies have been examined in some detail and the pathologists can say with a high degree of certainty that these are the bodies of young men. Definitely not little girls from the convent.’
‘That’s something.’
‘It’s about all I have for you right now. It all takes time, and we never have enough technicians to do the work. And every time you turn around, there’s something new coming at you down the turnpike. I was at a meeting last week where they were telling us that you can find DNA even after the bloodstain’s been washed out of clothing. The chromophores disappear but the DNA remains. Great, I’m thinking. As if we didn’t have enough of a backlog. Now we’re looking for the invisible man.’ She shook her head.
‘Believe me, I know what that feels like. Is there any possibility of getting the killer’s DNA or prints from the adhesive tape?’
‘Hard to say at this stage. But
