by Alex Walters
'Mary Ford,' Marsh corrected. 'Widow.'
'Her husband–?'
'Killed in the war.'
'Not even a bloody hero,' Hoxton said morosely from the back of the car.
Winterman glanced at him in surprise. Another part of the unspoken etiquette. Everyone – especially those who had been called up – had been a hero unless there was good reason to say otherwise.
'Don't get me wrong,' Hoxton went on. 'No disrespect intended. He was one of us before the war – on the force, I mean. Decent bloke and a good copper. Just an unlucky bugger.'
'Unlucky how?'
'Mary doesn't talk about it much,' Marsh said, with an odd edge to his voice. 'He was one of those evacuated at Dunkirk. Was on a fishing boat, got turned over. Not through any enemy action. Just blind panic, I imagine.'
'He died at Dunkirk?' Everyone had their stories, Winterman thought. All different. All the same.
'No,' Hoxton said from the back seat. 'That's just it. That's why he was an unlucky bugger. Nearly drowned at Dunkirk, but was picked up by some Naval launch.'
'Doesn't sound unlucky,' Winterman said. 'Sounds bloody lucky. In the middle of that mêlée.'
'Ah, well. Got picked up – nearly dead from the cold. Touch and go. But he gets shipped back to England and pulls through. That's when he meets Mary, ain't that right, Marshy? Falls in love, gets married. Seized the moment like we all did in them days. Then he's back into training, ready to be shipped out somewhere else. And the poor old sod only goes and gets himself shot.'
Winterman looked back, his eyebrows raised. In his mind, he had already designated Hoxton as the raconteur of the unit, though that was perhaps a generous term. He clearly revelled in local gossip, even when it concerned one of his own colleagues. 'Okay,' Winterman said. 'I'll bite. Shot by whom?'
'By whom?' Hoxton echoed, with only the faintest trace of mockery. 'I don't think even Mary ever found out. It was all hushed up. Some mess up in training, apparently. Shot by one of his own team. One of his mates probably.'
It was hardly a unique story. Not even that unusual, Winterman suspected. Plenty of servicemen had been killed in training accidents, often through their own or someone else's ineptitude. It wasn't even that surprising. Soldiers were, by definition, dispensable, though nobody ever expressed it like that. In this war most of them had been inexperienced, thrown into situations they could never had imagined. Mistakes had inevitably been made, many of them much more serious than this one.
'Poor old Mary was left in the family way,' Hoxton went on. 'He'd been back just long enough for that.'
'Twins too,' Marsh added. 'A boy and a girl.'
'Sounds as if she was the unlucky one,' Winterman said. 'Left on her own.'
'You're right enough there,' Hoxton said. 'She's not had an easy time of it.'
'She works part-time for us?' Winterman asked, vaguely wondering whether there might be scope to extend this arrangement.
'Only through the goodness of Mrs Sheringham's heart,' Marsh said. 'Which shows you how deserving a case she must be. There isn't really the workload to justify it, but Mrs Sheringham pulled a few strings.'
Marsh took his hand momentarily off the steering wheel and gestured in front of them. For the first time, Winterman could make out a line of pale lights in the distance. 'Framley in all its glory. Forty houses and a pub.'
'And a church,' Hoxton said. 'Don't forget the church.'
Winterman nodded. 'I'll try not to.' He had the feeling that, by the end of all this, he might be in need of a little succour. But he was probably more likely to find it in the pub than the church. 'I always try not to.'
Chapter 8
PC Brain sometimes worried he was more of a nuisance than a help, but Mrs Griffiths seemed pleased to have had him there, at least until Mary had returned.
'I'd never say no to another nice cup of tea,' he said, though he wasn't entirely sure Mrs Griffiths had actually offered him one.
'I'll go and put the kettle on,' she said. 'You'll be wanting one, Mary?'
Mary looked at her blankly. She seemed even more disturbed by the discovery than her mother had been. 'What?'
'Tea, Mary. You'd like another cup of tea? I'm making some for Bryan.'
'Yes. That would be good, Mam. Thanks.' Mary's eyes were fixed on the twins who were playing together, apparently good-naturedly, in front of the open fire, their heads silhouetted against the nimbus of flames. She looked across at the PC. 'How long are they going to be? Your colleagues, I mean.'
'My coll–?' PC Brain had almost been caught out by the question. He had tried hard earlier to convey the impression that he was accustomed to working alongside his plain-clothed counterparts. 'Not long, I imagine. Probably not easy driving in these conditions.'
'I hope we're not wasting their time.' Her tone suggested she meant the opposite. 'I mean, we don't know for sure what it is.'
PC Brain nodded solemnly. 'Better safe than sorry. Always better to call about something like this, even if it turns out to be nothing.' He had been rehearsing these lines in his head, in case he had to use them in his own justification. He was already beginning to worry he might have been precipitate in calling in CID.
What if there was some innocent explanation? If the bones were not those of a child, but just some animal? Earlier he had been in no doubt, but he had been reluctant to approach the skeleton too closely.
Perhaps he had been over excitable, his judgment clouded by that other body they had found. That had turned up on his day off, and by the time he started his next shift, the team from headquarters had already taken over. Wasn't that typical? The first dramatic case on his beat in years – even the war hadn't brought too much excitement to this neck of the woods – and he hadn't been here to witness it. Perhaps, in his eagerness to get involved, he was about to make a fool of himself.
'I thought they'd be here by now.' Mrs Griffiths re-entered the room bearing a tray containing a pot of tea, three cups and a jug containing as much milk as she felt able to spare.
'Any time now, Mrs Griffiths,' Brain said confidently.
That was his real job, he thought. To reassure, inspire confidence that all was well. It was what he spent most of his time doing, pedalling his burly frame from village to village, dealing with the occasional errant schoolboy or over-inebriated reveller. There was no real crime out here, just the odd misdemeanour for him to dismiss with a sharp word. When Mrs Griffiths had waved him down from her front gate, he had assumed she wanted to chat. Even her anguished expression had raised thoughts only of lost cats or minor vandalism.
Mrs Griffiths busied herself pouring the tea, while her daughter still stared blankly into the crackling coal fire. Finally, Mary looked up. 'Do you really think it is?' she asked.
For a moment, Brain contemplated pretending he didn't know what she meant. But he knew this young woman – the girl he still thought of as Mary Griffiths – well enough to know she was no fool. He lowered his voice, throwing a warning glance towards the youngsters by the fire.
'Another body? I honestly don't know. If it is, I don't know what that might mean.'
'Have they found out anything about the other one?' Her voice was only a notch above a whisper.
In truth, he knew little more than she did. He had tried to call a couple of acquaintances at headquarters, in the hope they might be able to update him on the case. But either they had not known, or they were not saying. The DCI from headquarters had promised to keep him updated, but no one had made any effort to contact him. Any knowledge Brain had was drawn from the regional evening newspaper.
'I don't believe so,' he said finally. 'They've got no reports of anyone missing, as far as I know. But it goes back to the war, so the records aren't always what they might be.'
Mary's eyes were still fixed on the fireplace. 'Poor little thing though. Whoever it is.'
Brain gazed at her, wondering what to say. It wasn't one of his strengths, this side of the job. Bluff, hale and hearty. Thos
e were the kind of adjectives people used to describe him. He could deal authoritatively with the local menfolk – the cynical farmers, the labourers, the returning servicemen, the increasingly disaffected youths. He could chat amiably with the older residents – those who'd known and respected his own parents. He could act tough when he needed to – breaking up a petty brawl outside The Angel on a Friday night, or moving on the gippos who'd camped outside the back of the church.
But the sensitive stuff – he was never comfortable with all that. Once in a while, he had to be the bearer of genuinely bad news – a labourer who'd been trapped in some farm machinery, a child who drowned one summer late in the war somehow trapped head down in a dyke. He wasn't good at it. He delivered the news ineptly, insensitively, often even more distraught than the relatives he was supposedly comforting. Fortunately, they barely seemed to notice, caught up in their own misfortune.
He sat, twisting his hands. 'We don't know yet. Might be no one. Might just be some animal.'
She looked up at him, her expression giving nothing away. 'You know. I know. We both know.'
He opened his mouth, without knowing how he was going to respond. But before he could speak, there was a fierce rapping on the cottage's front door. The sound, Brain thought, of someone more confident in his authority than he would ever be.
'Well,' he said with relief, 'it looks as if we'll find out soon enough.'
Chapter 9
Fisher stepped cautiously out into the darkness of the garden. He had been drinking heavily all evening. That wasn't a problem in itself. He was accustomed to drinking heavily, night after night, and to looking after himself, finding his own way home. Avoiding disaster.
Tonight, there was no need to find his way home. He was already home. Perhaps that was the problem. He had his familiar corner at the pub. He preferred to be there, even though he shunned the other customers. He felt more comfortable with the noise and the conviviality, though he wanted no part of it himself. If nothing else, it legitimised his own drinking.
But for the last few weeks he had not wanted to go out. He told himself it was the weather, that the snow had made the journey impossible. But the truth was that, even if there had been no snow, he did not want to face the long walk past the deserted cottage. Did not want to think about what he had found there. Did not want to think about what it might mean.
He stepped warily on the frozen snow. It was another cold night, though slightly milder than earlier in the evening when the sky had been clear and empty. The chill air sobered him momentarily.
He remembered finding the body, of course. How could he forget that, for all his inebriation? The poor little twisted thing, shrouded in those shabby fragments of clothes, the shreds of strange dark leathery skin. But he remembered things he could not have seen. A child's body, uncorrupted, no sign of decomposition, cold and dead on those hard kitchen tiles. A child's bonnet, tossed across that floor.
He took some more steps towards the bottom of the lawn, among the twisted trunks of the old apple trees, the long-abandoned child's swing. For a moment, for all his caution, he slipped, almost losing his footing on the icy ground. He grasped the wooden frame of the swing, felt the slimy woodwork beneath his fingers. Breathing heavily, he straightened, gazing over the back fence to the white fields beyond.
Suddenly, he felt something on his cheek, delicate and cold. The fingers of a ghost child, a lifeless hand reaching out for human warmth.
Then the sensation was repeated, again and again, with increasing frequency, and he was tempted to laugh at his own fanciful poetics. A man of God who had long ago lost touch with his own faith, overwhelmed by nonsensical superstition.
More snow. That was all. They had predicted it on the wireless earlier in the afternoon. Further heavy snowfalls, up the Eastern coast, spreading across the country.
He looked into the heavy winter sky. He could see it now, the dark swirling mass of snowflakes. It was already settling on the grass around him, a pale sheen thickening on the boughs of the trees, the angular wooden crosspieces of the rotting swing.
Snow. Falling fast and heavy. Covering everything.
Chapter 10
'This is far from ideal,' Pyke said.
'You're telling me. At least you're under shelter.' Winterman was crouched on the slippery wooden planks, holding an umbrella at an angle. The police doctor, clad in wellington boots and an ex-services sou'wester, was hunched below him, a cumbersome electric torch in his hand, peering into its ineffectual light.
The snow had been falling for some time, deepening on the road beside them. Winterman could feel it melting on his neck, the water dripping from his hat and shoulders. If he stood like this for long enough, he would turn into a snowman.
'I'm hoping to get home tonight.' Pyke raised his moon-like face towards Winterman. The torchlight glinted blankly across his spectacles. 'Don't want to hang around in this.'
'You and me both. So let's be as quick as we can.'
Winterman had had to persuade Pyke to come out in the first place, given the predicted further snowfalls. That was the trouble with these academics, he thought, life's too cosy for them. But he knew that was unfair. He'd come across Pyke before and judged him to be decent and reliable. Anyone would have thought twice about being dragged out on a night like this.
Pyke grunted an acknowledgement and continued scuffling about in the shadows, the torchlight flickering back and forth below the makeshift bridge.
Winterman looked back along the lane. He'd left Hoxton and Marsh in the cottage with Mary and her mother. The children had been sent to bed, though Winterman assumed their noses were pressed against the windows observing his movements outside. They'd tried to persuade Brain his presence was no longer required, but he was still there, drinking his umpteenth cup of tea, supposedly looking after the old lady. Winterman could hardly blame him. As a young copper, Winterman would have given anything to be involved in a case like this.
He was growing conscious of the melting snow permeating his clothing, the ache in the hand holding the umbrella steady. 'What do you think?' he shouted, peering down at Pyke's hunched body.
Pyke straightened slightly. He aimed the torch beam under the planks and gestured towards the scattering of pale bones. 'Definitely dead.'
'Thanks for that, Pyke. Always pays to ask the expert.'
Pyke smiled faintly. 'And human. Definitely human.'
'Ah.' Winterman lowered the umbrella, and eased himself down the edge of the dyke, keeping well back to avoid disrupting the area around the body. He could make out the tiny skeleton, the angled bones draped in scraps that Winterman didn't want to think too closely about. 'How old?'
'Young. Nine or ten maybe. Female.'
'Cause of death?'
'You know, my psychic powers must be waning. I've been peering at those bones for several minutes and I still don't know.'
'Sorry. I just meant anything obvious.'
'You can rule out decapitation, if that's any help.'
'Sorry,' Winterman said again, wondering why he was apologising. 'How long do you think it's been there?'
'There?' Pyke waved the torchlight towards the hollow space. 'Not long, I'd say. Maybe a day or two.'
'But how long since death?'
'Now that's a different question.' Pyke pressed his hands into the small of his back and arched his body, with the air of a tenor about to burst into song. 'I don't know. Years though. Five, six. Maybe more. Looks as if the body was buried in the Fens. Some of the flesh is well preserved.'
'So how did she get here?'
'Forgive me, Inspector, but I'd rather assumed that was your job.'
'Any advice gratefully received, as always. You know it's not the first.'
'I was called out to that one as well.' Pyke spoke as if Winterman had been personally responsible. 'So yes, I know.'
'Similar?' Winterman had read Pyke's report in the file, though the content had been only partly comprehensible to him. 'From your per
spective, I mean?'
'The worm's eye view?' Pyke nodded thoughtfully. 'More or less. Similar age. Broadly similar time of death, give or take a year or so. Also female.'
'Cause of death in that case?'
Pyke gazed at him impassively, the drifting snow gathering on his eyebrows and spectacles. 'You'll have read the file, Inspector.' It wasn't a question.
Winterman nodded. 'No evident signs of trauma. Difficult to give a definite view after so long. But most likely asphyxiation. That's what you think?'
'It's what I wrote. So it's what I think. Probably suffocation. Perhaps strangulation.' He looked up at the pale night sky, the thickening swirling snowflakes. 'I'd like to be getting back, if that's all right with you.'
'Of course. You see anything else down there?'
'Clues, you mean? A dropped cufflink. A book of matches with the name of an exclusive cocktail bar printed on it. The footprints of a gigantic hound.' Pyke shook his head. 'No. Just bones and flesh.'
Winterman took the torch and shone its yellow beam under the planks, steeling himself for the sight of the remains. They were less fearsome than he had expected – a loose assemblage of stripped bones, some lingering ochre strips of what might have been either flesh or fabric, resting on the rich black ooze characteristic of the flatlands. He moved the torchlight around the recesses beneath the planks, but, as Pyke had said, there was no sign of anything else. Nevertheless, it would have to be treated as a crime scene and would, in due course, be thoroughly searched.
Winterman straightened. No likelihood of that tonight, he thought. The snow was falling thicker than ever, slowly transforming the landscape into a uniform white. Pyke was already scrambling up on to the roadside. The site was unlikely to be disturbed, and he could get Brain to keep an eye on it until it could be cleared and searched properly in the morning. Brain, he felt sure, would appreciate being asked.
Winterman dragged himself up on to the road beside Pyke. 'I'll get the remains to you as quickly as I can.'
