Old Bones

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘More time for golf and the missus,’ Slider murmured.

  ‘S’right,’ Hobbs said. ‘D’you play golf?’

  Slider avoided that one. ‘How do you know the Freelings? Have you worked for them before?’

  ‘No. I’ve never worked in this street before, though I did do a job in Magnolia last year – that’s two streets over. But I’ve started putting an ad in the local freebie paper, and Mrs Freeling give me a ring from that.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Be – what? – two weeks ago. Two weeks last Saturday. Wife took the call. Mrs Freeling said would I take down an old shed and put up a new one, and Judy – the wife – put her in the diary. Never met her till today. I got here just before seven – I like to start early when the light’s good. And before the traffic starts. They were having their breakfast. They let me in down the side gate, I took down the shed – well, it was falling apart, prac’ly came down on its own. They said they didn’t want the water butt or the slabs—’

  ‘Slabs?’

  ‘Butt was standing on two old concrete slabs – to level it, I s’pose. It must’ve been connected to the guttering round the shed at some point, but there was no pipe going into it when I got here, and it was empty.’

  ‘Right. Go on.’

  ‘Well, I put ’em on my van. I can always find a use for ’em. Then I started digging and up come the bone.’ A look of distress crossed his broad features. ‘Straight away I thought it looked like a human bone. Too big for a dog to’ve buried it. What a life!’

  Slider concurred. Hobbs seemed a straightforward bloke whose involvement was purely coincidental. He had already given his contact details to McLaren, who had been in the middle of taking his statement. Slider told him to finish it and let Mr Hobbs go. The gardener looked hugely relieved, but with a hint of disappointment. Slider supposed it made a nice change of speed to be at the centre of a drama – even one twenty years out of date.

  The Freelings – Toby and Nicola – were smart young people in their early thirties which, if Freddie was right about the length of time the body had been underground, ruled them out from the start. Toby Freeling apparently hadn’t thought that far, because he was seething with the self-righteous indignation of someone who thinks they are about to be blamed for something they didn’t do.

  ‘Look here,’ he attacked Slider as soon as he appeared, ‘it’s completely outrageous to keep me here like this. This whole thing has got nothing to do with me. I’ve got important meetings I’m missing.’ His smart phone, clutched in his hand, rang, and he gave it the distracted look of the owner at one of those small, yappy dogs that are constantly demanding attention.

  Slider studied him while he answered it. He was slim and of middle height, in a sharp suit, with an expensive textured haircut, and enough designer stubble to have housed a clan of very picky field mice. His face missed being handsome by only a few degrees. Probably if he had smiled it would have made it. His wife was smaller, pretty, very dark of hair and eyes, and in a flowered print dress; she appeared to be slightly pregnant.

  ‘If I lose business because of this I shall sue!’ he resumed when he’d finished the call.

  ‘Keep your hair on, sir,’ Hart answered him. ‘It’s a serious thing, turning up human remains in your garden. We gotta do everything by the book.’

  He gave her a furious look and was about to retort but the phone rang again and distracted him.

  Slider turned his attention to the wife. She was placatory where her husband was angry, and answered Slider’s questions the more eagerly for his rudeness, which had her flicking anxious glances at him as he snapped into the phone. She confirmed what Hobbs had said, that she had rung him in consequence of his entry in the small ads. She was a nervous and discursive witness, and Slider eased her along patiently, gathering that she had wanted to use a different firm but that her husband had vetoed it on grounds of cost and found the Hobbs advertisement himself.

  He’d obviously been half-listening because, ending the call at that moment, he chimed in with confirmation.

  ‘It’s only a small job. No point in using a big VAT-registered contractor for something like that and getting screwed, cost-wise. Nicky wanted to go with the firm the garden centre recommended. I said no bloody way! They’ll have fixed it so they get a kickback – and who do you think ends up paying for that?’ He glared at his wife. ‘The poor bloody customer!’

  ‘I just thought—’ she began weakly.

  ‘You never do think, that’s your trouble. Look here,’ he addressed Slider. The phone gave a text message warble, he glanced at it and cancelled it. ‘Look here,’ he began again, giving Slider a firm, straight look as though trying to close a negotiation, ‘that body can’t be anything to do with us. We’ve only lived here eight months.’ Ah, thought Slider. He’s got there at last.

  ‘Nine,’ said Mrs Freeling, anxious to be exact. ‘Nearly ten.’

  Freeling ignored her. ‘It’s a skeleton, isn’t it? So it must have been there longer than that. I mean, it takes – what? – years to, er, skeletonize. You can’t pin it on us.’

  ‘I’m not pinning anything on anyone, sir,’ Slider said. ‘I’m just making preliminary enquiries.’

  ‘Well, can’t you damn well make them and get out of our hair so we can get on with our lives? My wife’s pregnant, you know.’

  It was a fine non-sequitur. ‘That’s exactly what I’m hoping to do, sir,’ Slider said, at his most emollient.

  Hart caught his eye questioningly, and he knew what was on her mind. Where there was one body there might be others. The shadow of Fred West hung around in the back of the mind when female remains were discovered. Thank God these houses had no cellars. But the whole garden and ground floor would have to be scanned, and if anything showed up, excavated – which would necessitate the Freelings moving out.

  Freeling’s phone had rung again, and he had answered it, a modern rudeness Slider did not like, so he was saving, in order to relish it more, the news he was going to enjoy delivering – that they were a long way from being out of the Freelings’ hair.

  The Freelings had bought the house from the Barnards, an older couple – Freeling estimated in their late fifties. Slider had got him to turn his phone off at last, but he kept casting it fretful glances. ‘We only met them once, when we first came to look at the house, but they just seemed like ordinary, respectable people.’

  ‘How long had they owned the house?’

  ‘I don’t know. I never asked. But a long time, I think – the kitchen was very tired. Well, all the decorations were tired. As you can see.’ He waved an arm towards the hall, to indicate the rest of the house. ‘We’ve only just started putting it right. Have you seen the kitchen?’

  It was a rhetorical question, but his wife opened her mouth to answer, and shut it again quickly when he glared at her.

  ‘Do you know where the Barnards went?’

  ‘No. Why should I?’ He was growing indignant again.

  ‘I think,’ Mrs Freeling said hesitantly, ‘the agent said somewhere in Ealing. He thought they wanted somewhere with a garage. The parking here,’ she said apologetically to Slider, ‘is very difficult. We had to put our cars out this morning so the builder could come in.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to know about parking,’ Freeling snapped at her. ‘We don’t know where the Barnards went, all right?’

  It didn’t matter. They could find out from the estate agent or the land registry, or if necessary the Electoral Roll.

  ‘And have you done anything in the garden?’ he asked. ‘Have you worked out there, planted anything, dug anything up?’

  ‘Nothing, except replacing the fence. It’s just as you see it now, except for the shed, which only came down this morning. We haven’t had time to do anything yet. We’re not really keen on gardens, anyway.’

  ‘But you prioritized the fence?’

  ‘Security. It was in a terrible state, sagging all over the place. Anyone could hav
e just pushed their way through it.’

  ‘And the shed?’

  ‘That was practically falling down. But I wanted a bigger one, anyway. I paint,’ he added, with a hint of self-importance. ‘Watercolours. I find it relaxes me after a hard day at work. I need a bit of quiet time to myself to wind down after dealing with clients all day, so we’re putting up a studio for me.’

  Mrs Freeling gave an eager, affirming little nod. Slider thought she’d probably be glad to have him go down the garden instead of hanging round the house bullying her. He wondered idly if the new shed would have a door that locked. From the outside.

  ‘The water butt that stood beyond the shed – was that yours?’

  ‘No, that was there when we moved in. I didn’t want it – we don’t intend to have any plants to water. We’ll probably be getting rid of the grass – replace it with a polypropylene-polyethylene mix artificial turf. It’s more practical and more hygienic. We’ve got a kiddie on the way – the garden’s going to be his play space and we want it to be safe. It’ll be—’

  He stopped himself with a sudden thought. His wife made a small noise of distress and they exchanged a look which Slider could interpret easily enough: our precious child, to have to play in a garden where a corpse was buried?

  He wouldn’t give odds on their selling the house and moving somewhere else before the baby was born. In this age where everyone died in hospital, people were squeamish about dead bodies.

  At that moment, another uniform, PC Lawrence, poked her head round the door. ‘Doc Cameron’s just going, boss. He’d like a word.’

  Slider excused himself, leaving Hart and Gascoyne to start the statements.

  Freddie was still outside, his back to the tent, staring absently around him at the garden. In the bright summer sunshine, he looked tired, as though under some strain.

  ‘There was nothing underneath the skeleton when we moved it,’ he said. ‘I don’t think it can have been disturbed at all from the time it was first planted. I’ll get it back to the lab and do some more examinations, but I doubt there’s much more I can tell you. Length of time it’s been there is always going to be an estimate within wide parameters. My personal judgement.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Slider.

  ‘Speaking of personal judgements …’ He looked around, checking there was no one near enough to overhear.

  ‘What’s the joke, Freddie?’ Slider prompted.

  ‘Concerning Operation Neptune,’ Freddie said. ‘Have you heard anything recently? Do you know how it’s going?’

  ‘No. It’s all gone quiet,’ Slider said.

  ‘Suspiciously so?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  Freddie looked uncomfortable. ‘I’ve heard via the grapevine that they’ve called in another forensic pathologist to have a look at Kaylee Adams.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Who knows? But would it be paranoia to assume it’s to second-guess me? I can’t see why they would need a second opinion if they were happy with mine.’

  It made ominous sense to Slider. ‘That’s bad,’ he said. There was good reason to be paranoid when you knew everyone was out to get you.

  ‘There’s worse,’ Freddie said. ‘The FP they’ve called in is Sir Maurice York.’

  ‘The Home Office pet?’ said Slider. He was the establishment’s go-to forensic expert, whose fame had spilled out of technical circles and onto the street, thanks to two popular books and a television series. It didn’t hurt that he had a chiselled face and a mane of swept-back silver hair, and a voice so mellifluous you could have spread it on buttered crumpets for Sunday tea.

  ‘The very same,’ said Cameron. ‘The Home Office has used him before to debunk evidence they wanted debunking. Hence the knighthood.’

  ‘But surely he wouldn’t falsify his report?’ said Slider. ‘Aren’t there rules about that sort of thing? Couldn’t he be thrown out of the Captain Marvel Club?’

  ‘It’s not a matter of falsifying,’ said Freddie. ‘There’s always an element of opinion in these cases. I told you at the time it was my opinion Kaylee Adams had fallen. That was how I read the post-mortem signs. But another pathologist could read them differently – and given York’s history, I’m afraid he’s going to come up with an extremely persuasive narrative that explains exactly how those injuries are consistent with a hit-and-run incident. Otherwise,’ he went on as Slider began to speak, ‘why are they calling him in? Not just to confirm my findings, given what he charges per hour, and our current budget restraints.’

  Slider met Freddie’s eyes. It was what he had been afraid of from the beginning – but it hadn’t happened at the beginning. ‘But who’s trying to quash it?’ Freddie shrugged. It did no good to say it out loud. People at the top had been fingered. If there was something going on, that was the obvious place to look. ‘And why now?’ Slider went on fretfully. ‘Why not before?’

  Freddie had evidently given the matter some thought. ‘Letting some of the steam out, would be my guess. If they’d had a fight about it at the start it would have got the newspapers even more worked up. It would have looked like a cover-up. Now the story’s gone cold and nobody’s interested …’

  ‘Why aren’t they interested, that’s the question,’ Slider said. ‘Why have the broadsheets dropped it?’

  Freddie shrugged. ‘Not my province. Maybe they know more than we do. And I could be wrong about the reason for York being called in. There could be a perfectly innocent explanation.’

  Yes, there was an explanation, Slider thought, but not an innocent one. The fix had done it, just as Carver said. Whatever his source of information, whether it was a Masonic thing or a nineteenth-hole thing, or just the product of an overactive imagination, he seemed to have been right on the money.

  ‘Damn them,’ he said quietly, but with feeling.

  ‘Don’t get involved,’ Freddie said. ‘That’s my advice.’

  ‘I’m too far down the food chain to get involved,’ said Slider. ‘They won’t ask my opinion.’

  ‘Well, don’t go to the press,’ said Freddie, with the hint of an ‘again’ at the end of the sentence.

  Slider looked at him. ‘It wasn’t me. I told you that.’

  ‘Of course you did, old boy. I believe you. I just mean, let it go. I’m more impugned than you, if it comes to that.’

  ‘But it makes me mad.’

  ‘You’re jumping the gun. Maybe I’ve read it all wrong. Maybe they’re preparing the case and they think York will look better in court than me. I just thought you should be warned, that’s all. And now I’m off. Love to Joanna.’

  ‘Yes – love to Martha,’ Slider responded absently. He stood where Freddie left him, brooding, watching without seeing as the SOC team started their visual search, marking time, waiting for the GPR – Ground Penetrating Radar – equipment to show up.

  Then Hart came out. ‘Done ’em. Rude git, that Freeling, him and his bloody mobile! I give him the full street, accent and attitude, just to wind him up. It was fun.’ She gave him a curious look. ‘What now, boss?’

  Slider came to. ‘Back home,’ he said. ‘Nothing more for us here until we know the extent of it.’

  ‘How many bodies, you mean?’ Hart queried, with relish.

  ‘Don’t be ghoulish.’

  ‘Can I help it if I enjoy my job?’ she said.

  THREE

  The Anguish of the Marrow

  It was past lunchtime when they got back to the factory and Slider’s inner man was raising Cain. He went up to the canteen for some cruel and unusual nourishment – in this case macaroni cheese, which the canteen manager, in a fit of transatlantic entrepreneurialism, had advertised as ‘mac ‘n’ cheese’. It didn’t help. It was so stiff you could have used it to mortar over cracks. Slider forced down enough to stun the inner man into silence, and headed back to his office, feeling as if he had a bowling ball in his stomach.

  Hart met him at the foot of the stairs to say that two DCs from Carver�
��s firm were waiting to report to him. ‘They reckon they’re joining us.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Slider. He had been promised new bodies for some time, and Mackay was leaving at the end of the week on secondment to one of the specialist units, a temporary re-assignment that usually turned out to be permanent.

  ‘Why only two?’ Hart complained. ‘I thought we were getting the whole firm. I said to meself, where’re they all gonna sit?’

  ‘We were never getting everyone,’ Slider said. ‘Hewson, Botham and Cook are retiring as well.’

  Those were Carver’s closest henchmen, who couldn’t be expected to live without him. Benny Cook was going the traditional route, into security – he had a job in a shiny new office block in Hammersmith Broadway. He was a man who would feel diminished without some kind of uniform. Botham was going into his brother’s painting and decorating firm, and Hewson was opening a dry-cleaning business. He had savings to invest, apparently.

  ‘Twenty-five percent discount for all coppers,’ he’d said at the leaving do. ‘Just show your warrant card. Bloodstains a speciality,’ he’d added with a ghastly wink.

  Cook and Botham had looked as though they couldn’t see why that was a joke.

  ‘And some of them are going to other stations,’ Slider concluded.

  ‘Well, I s’pose two’s better than nothing,’ Hart said sniffily.

  ‘It would be,’ said Slider, ‘except that they’ll be bringing Mr Carver’s workload over with them.’

  The two were standing by Slider’s desk looking a little awkward. It was never much fun, he thought, being a new boy. Lessop was wiry and swarthy-dark, and cultivated a Captain Jack Sparrow look, with the whole facial hair thing, the big moustache and the beard ending in two short plaits. Regs had forbidden him the dreads and the beads, but the resemblance was still striking. Carver had loathed him, but had tolerated him on his firm because it was useful to have someone who could penetrate those areas of society that didn’t respond so well to the cheap Burton suit, lace-ups and Hendon-approved haircut.