‘And we know his father was brutal, if he beat Alistair up and possibly killed the horses.’ She stared into the woodland. ‘But I still can’t see that this has anything to do with River Sloane being killed, or Lara Black disappearing.’
‘If I wanted to distract attention away from a murder, this is the can of worms I’d want to open. I think they are related, somehow.’
She let his words settle, make sense. ‘Any more research on Lara?’
‘Quite a lot. Unfortunately, not all digitised and online yet.’ He scrolled through pictures on his phone. ‘The thing is, most of the papers ran this image from 1992.’ He showed her a picture of a wild child in hippy chic, holding a banner for an animal rights organisation, Liberation Wild. The banner had pictures of tortured rabbits. ‘But the local paper ran this one.’ An angry older man was yelling, shaking a fist over his head, and at his side, looking straight into the camera, was a young man. Just a boy, but still recognisable as Alistair Chorleigh. Behind him, in profile, was Lara Black. The headline read ‘What happened to Lara?’
‘So that was George Chorleigh?’ Sage couldn’t decide if the boy looked angry or scared. Overwhelmed, perhaps, at his father’s anger at the young girl’s banner. ‘Are the press using these pictures of her now? I saw how much coverage the linked cases are getting on the news.’
‘These images aren’t available online, I had to get them from the New Forest Weekly Journal’s archive. It had a very limited run at the time. If it hadn’t been written by a Hampshire author it would have sold even fewer copies. But the article was very pro-Lara and did suggest the hunting lobby were aggressive.’ He glanced in the direction of the house. ‘Where is Chorleigh?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Sage. ‘I haven’t seen him.’ Marina stopped the machine and waved to her.
‘Looks like she has something.’ Sage walked over to the stable to stand by Trent.
‘Sorry, guys.’ Marina shook her head. ‘It’s a completely normal slab of concrete. I’ll try electrical resistivity and the metal detector again, but I can’t see any voids, no bones, nothing obvious. I don’t think it’s worth digging up.’
Sage’s feelings were mixed. It was a relief that the girl wasn’t under the stable but the question remained: where was she?
* * *
In the afternoon, Sage, Trent and Felix headed back to Trent’s office at the university. He started opening maps, laying them out on the table.
‘Make yourself at home, Felix,’ Trent said. ‘As you know there’s nothing obvious under the concrete, nor under the ground immediately around the stable. The bits we could get to, anyway,’ he said. ‘But I brought you back to look at the grounds on the LiDAR.’
Felix looked at Sage. ‘LiDAR is…?’
‘Light Detection and Ranging. It’s a mapping technique that helps us see the ground under foliage and forestry,’ Sage said.
‘I found some historical photographs of the barrows, too,’ Trent said, sitting back. He pulled up an old black and white photograph of the barrows on his laptop, the grass overgrown even then. A newish-looking barbed wire fence surrounded both, she recognised the remnants. ‘Does the top look sunk in or not?’
Sage stared at the photograph. ‘It does, a bit. Is this from before Lara’s disappearance?’
‘It is,’ Felix said, pulling out his tablet. ‘That I do recognise – it’s a picture from an article I read about some bones discovered in the excavation.’
‘Really?’ Sage said.
Felix started to read the article out loud. ‘“Local magistrate and verderer Mr James Chorleigh has announced that an excavation by a team of archaeologists and historians from Oxford University have found the remains of a Bronze Age chieftain with his faithful hound.” That’s a bit of a leap, isn’t it? When was this? July 1913.’
‘As far as we know the only “team of archaeologists” was Edwin Masters.’ Trent pulled up another article, with the banner ‘Mysterious Disappearances on Haunted Tomb!’ ‘Then he disappeared. Shortly after this dig, there was an outcry from the local church demanding a Christian burial for the bones in the barrow but the Chorleighs reinterred the remains themselves.’ He sat back. ‘It’s a hell of a coincidence, isn’t it? Two people disappear and one is buried, all on Chorleigh land. I just can’t see the connection. But then I found this.’ He pulled up an image on an interactive whiteboard that ran along one wall.
Sage looked at the brightly coloured lines and shapes of the LiDAR scan, looking for landmarks. Trent unfolded the ordnance survey map on the table.
‘This is the Chorleigh estate.’ He ran his finger over the map. ‘There’s Blazeden Farm, almost exactly south. Chorleigh House faces south-east; I suppose that’s why they orientated it side-on to the road, to get the sun.’
Sage bent over the sheets. ‘This is an old map. You can still see a clear area around the house now, then a defined area of forest encroaching here.’ She ran her finger along the edge of the lawn. ‘It’s all overgrown now, there are trees advancing into the garden.’
Felix leaned forward. ‘There’s a shape there, by the house. Vegetable garden?’
‘That’s the old tennis court,’ Sage replied. ‘River was buried there, towards the far corner. That’s where we picked up small Bronze Age potsherds. I saw an old picture of the manicured lawn and flower beds, then the tennis court. All shaved grass, it must have taken hours to mow.’
‘They probably had staff, gardeners and stable lads.’ Felix peered at the map.
Trent pointed at the LiDAR image. Even low features showed up in contrasting colours. ‘You can see here, the tennis court is still exceptionally flat, whereas the rest of the garden runs gently down towards the south-east.’ He turned the image to line up with the map. ‘The land on the other side of the house runs down to this ridge, the river’s floodplain is beyond.’
‘It would have made a great view from the back of the house,’ Felix said. ‘Lots of evening sun.’
Trent pointed to the mess of lines and splodges over the earthworks. ‘I was hoping to see some anomalies around the barrows, where the ground would have been easier to dig.’
Both Trent and Sage studied the images but nothing jumped out.
Sage then studied the whole area for comparison and noticed something by the house. She pointed at a splodge of pink at the edge of what might have once been a flower border. ‘What’s that?’
It almost looked like a computer glitch; the edges were a little smudged and lines ran into each other. Trent zoomed in. ‘It’s small and very close to the house. Only about a metre by a metre and a half. That’s why I didn’t notice it immediately.’
‘It’s rectangular.’ Sage’s heart started to bump unevenly. ‘Could it be a grave? Could that be where they buried Lara Black?’
‘I think it would have been an unlikely place for a burial. It would have been a very obvious excavation at the time, just in the border beside the edge of the lawn,’ Trent said, leaning forward to squint at the printout. ‘Look, you can see the profile of the lawn itself, quite regular, gently sloping to the side boundary with a deep border of shrubs running into the woods. Someone edged that lawn for decades; it’s made a little raised feature.’ Returning to the screen he enlarged the image until it was almost too fuzzy to read. ‘This would have been right in the flower bed adjacent to the grass. Someone would have noticed a recent grave in the nineties, surely? They were looking for a missing girl – even the postman would have seen it.’
Sage compared the rectangle with other features on the fields around and the garden. ‘Look, the edge of the drive is much sharper. Someone could have buried her after the police stopped looking. And it is in the flower bed, with exposed earth – maybe it looked like they just created a flower bed. It’s raised, unlike most burials.’
Felix shook his head. ‘I was there in 1992. We would have noticed it.’
Sage nodded. ‘It looks shallow, maybe it’s older. Surely the Lara Black investigation must have
included sniffer dogs? Trent once spent two days digging up a feature like that we found in a park. It turned out to be a pet Labrador.’
‘No dogs; the investigation was curtailed in 1992,’ said Trent. ‘The search warrant was challenged by Chorleigh’s solicitors.’
Felix stood up, sighing as he rubbed his back. ‘So what do you do next?’
‘We need to talk to the police,’ Trent said. ‘Lenham thought we would have a confession by now and there wouldn’t be any urgency about the leaf evidence but now we need to organise that. Sage, swing by the mortuary and talk to Martin or Megan about how they want you to work. Then we need to excavate this site to rule out a burial.’ He looked out of the window. ‘But we can’t do much tonight. Look out there.’ The rain was running down the windows in sheets and the sky was almost dark. He looked at Sage. ‘Let Lenham know about the anomaly you found on the LiDAR, and tell him we need to dig. Maybe we’ll find Lara Black buried right under our noses.’
16
‘As Williams-Freeman stated, archaeologists are in the scientia scientiarum, and all other sciences are its handmaidens. As I look over the wilderness I have never been more aware of my need to be a geologist, a historian, a mythologist, an osteologist and anatomist as well as a natural historian.’
Journal of Edwin Masters, 3rd July 1913
Today we found the first bone within the stone tomb, in the centre of the barrow. Peter was standing beside the upright slabs of stone, brushing away a layer of black dirt. He gave a little yelp when he realised what he was looking at. He called me over and showed me what must be a fragment of pelvis, including part of the curved hip socket.
We slowed our scraping to brushing and feeling our way gently with trowels. Peter stopped us at intervals to take pictures with a ruler for scale. Molly, who was pale but resolute in the presence of the ancient bones, found a comfortable perch on the unexcavated barrow and started making sketches. Our laughter and chatter stopped; we worked in silence.
‘I think there is more than one individual here,’ Peter finally said. His cheekbone was smeared with mud; a little drizzle had at least cooled us down but it made the earth sticky.
‘I agree,’ I said, looking at the bones. Something was very odd about them. There was a knee and a kneecap, a fibula and tibia. The remaining straight leg bones were twisted and fine. ‘Are they animal bones?’
‘They might be. Can you follow them down to the foot? That would be different, surely?’
I had spent many hours in comparative anatomy, identifying sheep and cattle bones from human. These did not resemble either.
Molly stopped drawing. ‘It’s sad,’ she said. She shivered. She was wearing a light summer dress with her cardigan around her shoulders, huddled under a large umbrella. It had stopped raining, at least.
‘Take my jacket,’ I said, pointing at my bag with my trowel. She got up and put it on.
Peter called out. ‘Here, Ed. Look at this.’
At the bottom of the grave was a jumble of bones. The smaller ones were crumbling away at the edges, soft like wet, yellow chalk. The toe bones were all wrong, angled oddly, the leg bones slim. ‘I think it’s a dog,’ I said. ‘Look at the metatarsals.’
Peter waved to Molly. ‘Come and draw this, Molls.’
‘I don’t want to.’ I turned to see her standing behind us.
Peter scoffed a little. ‘Don’t be silly. It’s just a few old bones.’
‘I don’t care,’ she said. ‘I think they’re creepy.’
I nodded. ‘I don’t think you’re being silly at all. It is a bit strange to think of the man and the dog, lying there all those years under the ground.’
She looked at me. ‘It’s just seeing them.’ I held out my hand and she put her cold fingers into mine. ‘You understand, don’t you?’
‘I do.’
Peter waved. ‘You’d better do it, then, Ed. You’re a better draughtsman than me. And I’ll get a few photographs.’
I let go of Molly. ‘Let me know if you change your mind. You’re such a good artist compared to me.’
‘I’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘It just gave me a shock, seeing the bones like that.’ After a few minutes, she came and joined me, and started drawing for me, correcting my rather shabby effort. ‘I’m all right now,’ she whispered. I remembered she was in fact only seventeen years old.
* * *
Letter to R. Conway, Balliol College, Oxford, 3rd July 1913
Dear Professor,
Exciting news! At last we have revealed the central structure of the mound, a stone case for bones, human and animal. We are fascinated by the discovery, despite there being no other materials in the burial chamber itself, we have found the bones of a person buried with what we think is a dog. Using Pearson’s method of estimating height from the femur we find that the individual, buried lying on his side with his knees a little drawn up, was at least six feet. Among the human leg bones are those of the animal, the foot bones being mixed up. Although the smaller bones are crumbling the larger bones are in good condition.
I have never heard of such a burial, and I wondered how much you know of animal interments with a human? It was entombed with some ceremony, it would seem, the bones lying above the man’s (assuming such a large person was likely a male). The pelvis of the dog lies somewhat in front of the man’s, its neck arched backwards. We have not yet uncovered the skulls although we can already see the tip of a lower jaw. We believe they were not covered with earth, as we have found two pockets of air within the soil, which I believe has been washed in from the overlying sediments. Instead, they were enclosed in a rectangular stone tomb (see enclosed sketch, photographs to follow). I will write tomorrow when we have the skulls. My friend Chorleigh’s sister is a remarkable artist and I will ask her to make a copy of her sketch for you.
It would be strange to find a dog in a barrow known as Hound Butt, perhaps for thousands of years. It fits with many legends of ghostly dogs in the area, a lot of superstitious nonsense but having a grain of truth at their heart, perhaps.
Best wishes,
E. Masters
17
Later, Friday 22nd March, this year
Before she headed to the pathology department, Sage had called Lenham to organise digging up the rectangle on the edge of the lawn. Then she drove through the rain to the mortuary. She checked her watch: five-thirty already. Maxie would be having his tea, or maybe a bath.
The mortuary was as threatening to Sage the second time, and she was relieved to be directed to the conference room rather than to the body. Megan was there with a folder with ‘River Sloane’ written on the front.
‘Hi Sage,’ the pathologist said, with a small smile. ‘I just wanted to let you know we’ve set up the leaf and soil evidence in our forensic lab at the back of the building for tomorrow. They’ve all been refrigerated to stun the bugs and delay decomp. I just have a couple of suggestions about how you work; Trent asked me to brief you.’ She sighed. ‘I have to organise a viewing of the body first. River’s stepfather is coming in, he wants to say goodbye.’
Sage’s heart fluttered with adrenaline. ‘OK. I’m happy to wait.’
‘Her biological parents have already been in, separately. Everyone is heartbroken.’ She looked up and Sage could see tears in her eyes. ‘This one is getting to all of us. My daughter’s thirteen; she’s already taller than River was. You make connections, even though you have to remain professional.’
‘But behind closed doors—’ Sage tried to smile but it must have looked more like a grimace.
Megan took a deep breath. ‘Anyway. The poor kid’s been cleaned up as best we can. The funeral director will be able to cover up the staining on her face, but we don’t do that. You can wait for me in the forensic suite if you like or you can see how we handle family.’
Sage hesitated momentarily and then decided to ignore the fluttering in her stomach. ‘OK, that would be useful,’ she said. Sage followed Megan into a small room by the mai
n door. A stocky man was already waiting; Sage recognised him from the TV appeal. His face was pale; a teenage girl sat next to him holding an older boy’s hand.
The man stood up. ‘I’ve come to see River,’ he said. ‘I’m Owen Sloane, her dad.’ He looked down for a moment; his hands were shaking. ‘Stepdad. I’ve been her dad since she was seven years old but I suppose I’m her stepfather. I just wanted to see her. You know, to say goodbye. This is my daughter Melissa and River’s boyfriend, Jake.’
‘Of course, Mr Sloane,’ Megan said. ‘She’s in our viewing room, waiting for you. She’s been tidied up as best we can, but you understand she was left in the elements for a time.’
Sage stepped back against the wall, not knowing what to do. Sloane looked at Sage. ‘Have you seen her? Her mum said – she warned me she’s changed quite a bit.’
Sage looked at Megan. ‘I have. Are you sure you want to…?’
‘I have to. Do you have kids?’
Megan stepped forward. ‘We both do, Mr Sloane. She’s just in here.’ She opened a door on the other side of the corridor marked ‘Viewing Room’. ‘Are you ready?’ She looked at Sage as well as Sloane.
He looked over his shoulder at the girl. ‘Melissa, do you want to…? Just to say goodbye.’ His voice was strained.
‘No, Dad. We’re just here for you.’ The girl glanced up at Sage, impassive. The boy was looking down, his shoulders shaking as Sloane left the room.
Taking a deep breath, Sage followed Mr Sloane and Megan. A tiny form lay under a huge sheet that almost touched the ground. River’s outline was childlike. A female police officer stood at the foot of the table, her face tense.
Megan stepped around the table and asked Mr Sloane: ‘Are you OK?’
He nodded and Sage caught her breath as Megan exposed the girl’s face. She looked different now, less swollen. Much more like a teenage girl. Her face was unnaturally pale but not the grey colour it had been in the ground, in the fading dusk. Her eyes were properly shut, she looked clean and her hair was laid around her head, wavy, dry.
A Shroud of Leaves Page 14
