‘If her body was subjected to a post-mortem examination,’ asked the tall, thin detective, whom Harry thought was the more senior of the two, ‘wouldn’t it be obvious? Don’t you have to cut the chest open, remove the organs?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Clarke. ‘A full internal post-mortem involves cutting through the ribcage and removing the breastplate. The internal organs are taken out, examined, put inside a biohazard bag and replaced inside the chest cavity. The top of the skull is sawn open so the brain can be examined. All very difficult signs to miss.’
‘So…’
‘Unfortunately, not much help to us here because a full internal post-mortem wasn’t done on Lucy Pickup, just an external examination. It’s always a bit of a judgement call, whether or not to go the whole way and open the body up. The circumstances surrounding the death are taken into account, quite often the wishes of the family are considered. My guess is that the examiner at the time didn’t feel the full Monty was merited. What we do have, though, are signs of the embalming work done.’
Clarke turned to one of his assistants, ‘Pass me that bag, please, Angela,’ he said. The older of the two lab assistants took a clear plastic bag from the counter behind her and handed it to him. He held it up to the light, beckoning the officers closer. To Harry, at the back, the bag looked empty.
‘What we have in this bag,’ said Clarke, ‘is an eye cap. Can you see? Looks a bit like a very large contact lens. Embalmers use them to keep the eyelids closed, make the deceased look like they’re sleeping peacefully.’ He reached a gloved hand inside the bag and removed the translucent plastic disc. ‘We found this lodged inside number one’s skull,’ he said. ‘It would have been placed on the eye with adhesive to keep the eyelid in place.’ He returned it to the bag and handed it back to his assistant.
‘We also found traces of wire in the jaw,’ he said. ‘Consistent with the type used by embalmers to keep the lips together. And if you look at the skull, gentlemen—’ He moved back to the body on the gurney. The others followed and gathered at the head end. Harry moved just close enough to show willing. Clarke was pointing out where the fractured pieces of the skull lay separate from the head. ‘If you look carefully,’ he said, ‘you can see where the skull appears to have been glued together in places. Repairing an injury in that way is classic embalming procedure. It’s all about preserving the body and making it as presentable as possible for the relatives in the days leading up to the funeral. Interestingly, this is the only one of the three showing any signs of embalming. We’ll send tissue off for analysis, of course. Formaldehyde is pretty nasty stuff, tends to hang around for a while.’
Clarke stepped away from the body, peeled off his gloves and dropped them in a biohazard disposal bin. Reaching up, he took a new pair from a dispenser. ‘We can also do a DNA analysis to be absolutely sure,’ he said, pulling on the gloves. ‘I understand the parents are coming in this morning, but if you ask me, I’m 95 per cent certain this is the little lady whose grave was disturbed last night. This is Lucy Pickup.’
No one spoke. Above their heads the fans of the air-conditioning unit suggested a coolness in the room that Harry just did not feel.
‘Right,’ said Clarke, and Harry almost expected to see him rolling up his sleeves. ‘That’s the easy bit over with. Now let’s have a look at her two friends, shall we?’
DS Russell glanced over at Harry, as if wondering how he’d respond to any suggestion of disrespect. Harry dropped his eyes. When he looked up again, the pathologist had turned to the second gurney. The others gathered round.
‘This child is a very similar size,’ said the detective inspector. ‘How sure can you be that this isn’t Lucy Pickup?’
‘These remains haven’t been in the ground for ten years,’ replied Clarke, without even pausing to think. ‘I’d be surprised if they’ve been in soil for more than a couple of months. Completely different state of preservation.’
Harry stepped closer and DS Russell moved aside to allow him to approach the gurney.
‘Number three is the same,’ said Clarke, indicating the third trolley. ‘Can you see?’
‘Not skeletonized at all,’ said Rushton. ‘They still have skin. They look…’
‘Dry?’ suggested Clarke, nodding his head. ‘They should. They’re mummified.’
Harry looked from one child to the next. They were, as the pathologist said, completely dry, as though something had sucked all the moisture from their bodies. Their skin was shrivelled, dark as old leather, wrapped like cling-film over their small bones. Their scalps still had hair, there were tiny fingernails on their hands. ‘Incorruptible,’ he murmured to himself.
‘There are no bandages,’ said DS Russell. ‘I thought mummies were wrapped in bandages.’
‘Mention mummies and everyone thinks of Ancient Egypt,’ said Clarke. ‘But strictly speaking, a mummy is just a corpse whose skin and organs have been preserved by exposure to something like chemicals, extreme cold or lack of air. The Egyptians and a few other cultures created their mummies artificially, but mummies occur naturally the world over. Most typically in cold, dry climates.’
‘It can’t happen in the ground?’ asked Rushton.
Clarke shook his head. ‘Not in normal soil, anyway. There’s a property in peat bogs that prevents oxygen getting to the body and so halts the process of decay. That’s why we find so many preserved bodies in peat.’
‘Could these be peat bodies?’ asked Rushton.
‘Doubt it. No sign of staining. My guess is that these two were kept above ground, somewhere cold and dry, where the oxygen supply was limited. Some time within the last two or three months – we can have an entomologist check insect activity, give us a clearer idea – they were moved from wherever they’d been kept and put in the grave with Lucy. If I were you, gentlemen, I’d be asking why.’
For a few seconds, there was no sound in the room but breathing.
‘St Barnabas number two would have been around 105 centimetres tall,’ continued Clarke, ‘putting her in the three-to-five-year age bracket. From what I can tell from the skull sutures, she’d be in the upper half of that scale, maybe around four. Our best friends, though, in these cases, are the teeth.’ He indicated the area around the jaw bone. ‘Primary dentition consists of twenty teeth commonly known as the milk teeth. These start to erupt at around six months and are usually fully through by three years old. From about twenty-four months onwards, the adult teeth start to form underneath the milk teeth.’ He ran a gloved finger along the jaw bone. ‘Milk teeth start to be lost at around five to six years old,’ he continued. ‘Of course, this does vary quite considerably from one family to the next, but a child who has lost several of their front milk teeth is likely to be at least seven or eight. The adult teeth come through in an order that looks random but isn’t. This makes it relatively easy to age the skull of a young child. There are even some pretty good charts I can show you, once we’ve got the bones clean and can see the teeth properly.’
‘Any idea at this stage?’ asked the DI, whose name Harry simply couldn’t remember. Dave? Steve?
‘Tricky until we do the X-rays, but from what I can tell, number two appears to have a full set of milk teeth, suggesting a child between four and six years old.’
‘Boy or girl?’ asked Rushton. Both detectives looked at the senior officer, then back to the body.
‘This was a girl,’ said Clarke. ‘Thanks to the mummification I can say that with some confidence.’
‘Is anyone else thinking what I’m thinking?’ asked Rushton, looking at the ceiling.
‘I think we all are, boss,’ said DS Russell.
I’m not, thought Harry.
‘Anything I’m missing?’ asked Clarke, looking from one man to the next.
‘Megan Connor,’ said Rushton. ‘Four years old. Local child. Disappeared on the moors not far from here six years ago. Biggest case of my career. Massive man hunt. We didn’t find a trace.’ He turned to Harry. ‘Ring
any bells, Reverend?’
Harry nodded. ‘I think so,’ he said. The story had dominated the news for quite a few weeks. ‘To be honest, though, I hadn’t connected the case with this area. I hadn’t realized exactly where it happened.’
‘Not two miles above Heptonclough,’ said Rushton. ‘Lass wandered off from her parents on a family picnic. Never seen again.’ He turned quickly back to the pathologist. ‘Any clothes found with the body, Ray?’
‘Yes. This one was wearing waterproof clothes,’ replied Clarke. ‘Raincoat and wellingtons. Just one wellington found, though. It’s over here. Size …’
‘Size ten, red,’ said Rushton, who was staring down at the dead child. ‘The raincoat is red too, hooded, printed with ladybirds. Am I right?’
‘Yes,’ said Clarke. ‘They’ve been removed and bagged.’
‘I see those clothes in my dreams,’ said Rushton. ‘Where are they?’
‘They’re over here,’ said Clarke. He turned and walked round the third gurney to the counter. A series of large, clear plastic bags lay in an orderly row. He picked up first one, then another and held them out to Rushton. Both had been labelled with lettering and numbers. Rushton took the bag containing one small wellington and softly shook his head.
‘She was also wearing jeans and some sort of sweater,’ said Clarke. ‘Underwear too. Should help with identification.’
‘I find myself relieved she was buried wearing her clothes, lads,’ said Rushton, still unable to take his eyes off the wellington. ‘What does that say about me?’
No one replied.
‘Any thoughts on cause of death, Dr Clarke?’ asked the thin-haired detective. ‘The skull bones seem to be …’
‘Yes, don’t they,’ agreed Clarke. ‘Very similar injuries to the first child. Severe blunt trauma to the skull, mainly the parietal and frontal bones, and in this case we have a fractured right clavicle or collar-bone, a mid-shaft humerus fracture on the right arm and a distal fracture of the right radius bone. Certainly consistent with a fall, although whether this was before or after death it’s very difficult to say.’
‘So both these children fell from a considerable height?’ said Rushton. ‘How sure are you about number two? Could her bones have been broken some other way? Could she – could both of them – have been beaten?’
‘Unlikely, if you look at the pattern of injuries,’ said Clarke. ‘Number one suffered trauma to the rear of her skull, to her spine and to her right leg, all consistent with falling from a height and landing on her back. Number two’s injuries are all down the right side of her body, again consistent with a fall and landing on her right side, possibly putting out her right arm to brace herself. When children are beaten, their injuries are more random. They tend to be concentrated around the head and upper torso, although you might see trauma on the arms if the child tries to defend itself. There are no obvious defence wounds on either of these two.’
‘Could these breaks have happened last night when the grave opened up?’ asked the DI.
‘Can’t rule it out,’ said Clarke. ‘There’s no sign of these bones starting to heal so the breaks definitely occurred very close to death or post mortem. But you had a lot of wet soft ground, and from what I’ve been told, the remains tumbled rather than fell; a height of – what – six feet.’ He looked again at the damage to number two’s skull. ‘I rather doubt it, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Everybody ready for number three?’
No, thought Harry.
The group around the gurney broke apart and moved away, collecting together again at the third and final corpse. Harry was the last to take his place.
‘Disturbing similarities,’ Clarke was saying. ‘Another very young female child, remains largely mummified. What I can see of teeth and bone development suggests an age of between two and five years old. Her height would indicate …’
‘She was clothed last night when I saw her,’ interrupted Harry. ‘What happened to …’
‘Taken off and bagged,’ said Clarke, narrowing his eyes and looking more closely at Harry. ‘Why?’
‘Can I see it?’ asked Harry.
‘What is it, lad?’ asked Rushton.
‘I’m not sure,’ said Harry. ‘It was dark last night. I probably wasn’t thinking straight. Is it possible to see the nightdress, or whatever it was?’
Clarke nodded at the younger of the two lab assistants, who crossed to the counter and checked a number of plastic bags before lifting one and carrying it across. Harry took the bag and held it up to the light.
‘It’s a pyjama top,’ said the lab assistant. She was a young woman, hardly more than twenty-five, slim, with short dark hair. ‘We need to scrape away the surrounding soil, check it for any trace evidence and then we’ll wash it,’ she went on. ‘It’ll be a lot easier to see when we’ve done that.’
‘Just the top?’ asked Harry.
‘That’s all they’ve found so far,’ replied the girl. ‘The bottom half could turn up later today. It’s quite a distinctive garment, though. Handmade, from what I can tell. No label or washing instructions and these animals seem to have been hand-embroidered.’
‘They were,’ said Harry, looking at the tiny figure of a hedgehog.
‘What’s on your mind, Vicar?’ asked Rushton.
Harry turned to the pathologist. ‘Could these be the remains of a twenty-seven-month-old little girl?’ he asked. ‘Been dead for about three years?’
‘Well, certainly nothing to suggest otherwise,’ said Clarke.
‘What’s going on?’ said Rushton. ‘Who do you think she is?’
‘She’s a child called Hayley Royle,’ said Harry. ‘Her mother is a parishioner of mine. She was thought to have died in a house fire three years ago.’
Everyone in the room was looking at him. Suddenly he wasn’t hot any more. A cold stream of sweat was running down his spine.
‘The pyjamas were a hand-me-down,’ Harry continued, turning back to Lucy’s corpse. ‘From that child’s mother, strangely enough,’ he went on. ‘Her aunt made them, they’re unique.’ They were all staring at him. He was probably making no sense whatsoever. Then Rushton turned to the pathologist. He didn’t speak, just held his hands up in a mute question.
‘There’s no evidence of fire damage that I can see,’ said Clarke. ‘How severe was the fire?’
‘It burned for hours,’ said Harry. ‘The house is just a shell now. The child’s body was never found.’
The police officers were shooting glances at each other.
‘The mother was convinced the child didn’t die in the fire,’ continued Harry. ‘She believed Hayley had got out of the house somehow, had wandered away on to the moors. Looks like maybe she did.’
‘Holy crap,’ muttered DS Russell. ‘Sorry, Vicar.’
‘No problem,’ said Harry. ‘If this child didn’t burn, how did she die?’
Clarke seemed lost for words.
‘Did she fall too?’ asked Harry, thinking of course she did. Hayley had fallen from the gallery of his church. Like Lucy had. Like Megan Connor had. Their blood would be on the stones, the police would look later in the day, they’d find traces of it. He closed his eyes. Millie Fletcher had almost become a fourth.
Clarke was talking again. ‘Yes, I’m afraid she may have done. She has injuries to her skull, facial bones, ribs and pelvis. She fell from a height and landed on her front.’
‘Oh, I think we can stop pretending these children fell,’ said Rushton.
53
‘IT CAN’T BE HAYLEY,’ SAID EVI, SPEAKING IN A LOW VOICE, even though the two of them were alone in a corner of the hospital’s main reception. ‘Her remains were found.’
‘No,’ said Harry, still uncomfortably hot in his black shirt and jacket and tight clerical collar. ‘According to Gillian, there was no trace …’
‘Yes, I know what she’s told you. She said the same to me. But she was lying. Oh shit, this is so inappropriate.’ Evi sat back in her chair and ran a hand over her fac
e. ‘I really shouldn’t be talking about this,’ she said.
Harry sighed. ‘Isn’t there some exception to the rule, whereby if you believe someone’s life is at risk, you can break confidentiality?’ he asked.
‘Well, yes, but even so …’
Harry put a hand on the arm of Evi’s wheelchair. ‘Evi, I’ve just seen three dead infants, all of whom died in a very similar manner, two of whom should never have been in the grave in the first place. I really don’t think normal rules apply any more.’
Evi looked down at the floor for a second, then seemed to make up her mind.
‘I went to see the firemen who were on duty when Gillian’s house caught fire,’ she replied, without looking up. ‘They found Hayley’s remains the next day. Just ashes and bone fragments, very similar to what you’d have left after a cremation, but definitely human remains. The bones were examined.’
Harry felt as if she’d just hit him in the stomach. ‘Well, if that’s the case, I was wrong,’ he said. ‘The good Dr Clarke’s going to love me.’ They would all love him. ‘I was sure I’d heard Gillian talk about what Hayley was wearing that last night,’ he went on. ‘And after Jenny told me it was handmade by her sister, well, there didn’t seem any doubt.’
Evi looked as worried as he felt. ‘Gillian must have been mistaken,’ she said. ‘Severe trauma can play tricks with people’s memories. Maybe she gave the pyjamas to someone else and forgot. If they’re unique, they’ll still help identify the body.’
‘Maybe,’ agreed Harry. ‘The trouble is, the cat’s out of the bag now. The police will have to talk to her. I’m not sure how she’ll cope with it.’
‘I can go up now,’ said Evi. ‘I’ve cleared all my appointments for today.’
Harry heard footsteps approaching. When he looked up, Rushton was standing in the doorway. ‘We’re ready to go and see Mrs Royle now, Reverend,’ he said. ‘Are you fit?’
‘Of course,’ said Harry. He stood and turned to Evi. The back of her chair had two handles, one on either side of her shoulders. ‘May I?’ he offered.
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