by Wonny Lea
‘Sorry to interrupt your deliberations, I’m Detective Chief Inspector Martin Phelps and this is my colleague Detective Sergeant Matt Pryor. Professor Moore has suggested you may be able to give us a bit more information on this body.’
‘It’s hardly a body, guv,’ remarked Matt. ‘I didn’t expect this – it really is a skeleton. How can you tell that it’s a woman?
One of the visiting professors was a Prof. Moore look-alike, but the other was much younger: more of an Alex Griffiths double, but even taller and very imposing. He introduced himself simply as Patrick Harries and his colleague more formally as Fedar Yeltsov, visiting Professor of Forensic Medicine from Lithuania.
Professor Harries answered Matt’s question. ‘It’s actually relatively easy, Sergeant, although people have been known to get it wrong. The overall size and general robustness of the skeleton is different between men and women, although that differential gap may be closing as stereotypical roles change.
‘Traditionally we’ve seen more bone development at muscle attachment sites in the male skeleton, but with modern woman taking up labouring jobs and men choosing to be house-husbands there will, in my opinion, eventually be evolutionary changes to consider.
‘Our best indicator is the pelvis, as even when a woman has never borne children her pelvis was designed for the purpose and there are several significant differences in this area. Take a look at the sciatic notch here. It’s much broader than one would expect to see if this was a male skeleton, and the angle where the two pubic bones meet in the front is much wider.’
Matt looked at the pelvis and nodded. ‘What about when she died? What are the scientific factors that help with that?’
Professor Harries smiled. ‘Well, I just said that scientists have been known to get the sex of a skeleton wrong, and when it comes to dating the period of death they have occasionally been proven to be wildly out. There are dozens of variables to consider. Was the body left indoors and protected, or out in the elements of a warm or a cold climate? A cold, dry environment will protect the body for longer than a hot and damp one, and contrary to most people’s beliefs a body will decompose slower in water than in open air.’
Martin joined the conversation. ‘In this woman’s case we have more tangible evidence on how long she’s been dead, because we know the last time work was done at the site where she was found. It was originally thought that financial or relationship difficulties had caused that building work to come to a full stop but it looks like there’s a more sinister reason.’
‘If we didn’t have that information, how would you go about determining the period of death?’ Matt and Martin were both enthralled with hearing about the scientific methodology and Prof. Harries readily obliged.
‘We would take account of where she was found and factor in some beliefs that have become forensically acceptable. For example, we could assume that within a few days the body would be infested with insects and they would eat their way through the flesh. Inevitably there would be flies and maggots and it could take anything up to a couple of months for the body to dry out and cease to be of interest to the original predators.
‘There may have been a few rodents helping with the flesh-eating but when things get down to just ligaments and tendons it becomes the domain of the minibeasts and in particular the beetles, who can chew their way through anything. All of that could take up to a year depending upon the level of activity and when there is nothing left except bone, teeth, and hair, there are types of bacteria and some moths that will consume the hair.
Matt grimaced. ‘It sure puts a whole new angle on recycling doesn’t it?’
‘Yes and with individual skeletons we can never be sure how nature secretly and randomly selected the methodology of decomposition, but there is a vast body of knowledge to which we can refer. It will be your detective work that will find out who she is and how and when she ended up in that place and then what we have described will add to that body of knowledge.’
Whilst the three men had been talking Professor Yeltsov had not uttered a word but had taken dozens of measurements and made copious notes. He seemed blissfully unaware that there were living people around him and all his attention was on the skeleton that he had decided to call ‘Bepa’, which was ‘Vera’ written in Cyrillic.
‘You won’t find a skeleton in any of the universities world-wide that has not been given a name,’ smiled Patrick Harries. ‘We are privileged to have Fedar Yeltsov taking an interest, he is a world-renowned forensic anthropologist and I couldn’t see why he shouldn’t name this one.’
Martin shook his head. He liked the taller version of Alex and asked him a few more questions. ‘Are you able to tell us any more about the woman? Her age, for example, and what about clues regarding her cause of death?’
‘Happy to oblige on both counts, but with the understanding that we will need to finish our work before my initial thoughts are confirmed. I would put her as around five feet eight inches, perhaps a bit taller, and her age as no more than thirty.’
‘I could guess at the height myself, but how can you tell her age?’ asked Matt.
‘As we age the process of ossification occurs and bones throughout the body fuse at reasonably standard times and in a known pattern. If you look at this part of her hip you can see that the bones are fused but if you look here at these bones in her skull you’ll see there isn’t total fusion.’
Patrick Harries was enjoying himself and in this respect he was more like Prof. Moore than was originally evident – they both liked an audience. ‘It’s impossible to say if she was fat or thin as layers of fat do not leave distinctive marks on the bone.
‘Her teeth are perfect and it’s not often you see a complete absence of cavities. The fact that she has all thirty-two, including her four wisdom teeth fits in with the age profile. She had quite a wide jaw and I suspect that she could have been a candidate for toothpaste advertising.’
‘On a more serious note, you asked about the cause of death and our first thoughts are that she was asphyxiated. How that happened is for you to discover but if you look at that small U-shaped hyoid bone in the centre of what would have been her throat you will see that it is damaged. There is also slight separation of some of the cervical vertebrae and that could be significant.
‘Although we believe she was a young woman when she died she had during life received more than the average share of trauma. Her left tibia and fibula and her right femur have all been broken but all have been simple fractures with none of the injuries requiring surgical intervention. Her collar bone has healed on more than one occasion and she’s had several cracked ribs.’
‘Quite a story from a heap of bones,’ commented Matt as he and Martin changed and made their way back to Incident Room One where Alex was already set up and waiting for them.
The whole team had assembled, and initially it would have been to close two crimes, but there was an extra buzz of excitement as everyone became aware of possibly a third. Martin only had to listen to a few comments to know that there was some confusion and quickly brought everyone up to date.
‘We couldn’t have asked for a better result from the kidnapping of Jason Barnes. He has been discharged from hospital and is safely at home with his mother. The man who actually snatched him is locked up downstairs and as you will have all seen from this morning’s newspaper revelations it is being suggested that Dan Painter is Jason’s biological father. It is not something Tina Barnes wanted her son to know but DC Cook-Watts spoke to her earlier and Miss Barnes is not going to deny it. She realises her son may be taunted with the fact when he returns to school and is doing her best to put a positive slant on things before that happens.’
‘He’s a great little kid,’ Helen added. ‘Tina has done a cracking job raising him on her own and now she’s got to tell him that his friend’s grandfather is his dad and that his dad is the man who kidnapped him. If you add to that the fact that he may have actually witnessed his newly discovered dad
strangle a woman, then God only knows how a kid of his age will cope with all that. We haven’t questioned Jason in any detail about what happened in the caravan because we have an actual confession from Dan Painter, but it’s something that will have to be done. The boy’s recollection of events may support Painter’s statement that describes an almighty great fight between him and Susan Evans that got out of hand. It could make the difference between murder and manslaughter.’
‘Given that the two of them were planning on flying off to Mexico I can believe that it was a domestic that went badly wrong,’ Matt opined. ‘From what Diane Evans has told us about her sister my guess is that she was always destined for a sticky end. I get the feeling from talking to Painter that he would have held his hands up to choking Susan straight away, but of course he was in one hell of a mess with a sick, kidnapped child on his hands.’
Martin nodded. ‘That’s how I see it, but unfortunately for Painter what he did after killing Susan Evans will not bode well for him in court. Hiding the body the way he did shows his intent to try and get away with it, and not seeking medical help for the boy will be the final nail in his coffin. However it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and if Painter hadn’t buried Susan Evans, Matt wouldn’t have found Bepa.’
Chapter Seventeen
Spain
Manuel Romanes basked in the warm sunshine of a glorious October afternoon on the Costa del Sol. He watched his five-year-old son diving off the side of the pool and swimming almost the whole length under water, and then his eyes scanned the shaded area of the garden and stopped beneath a crimson hedge of bougainvillea. Rachel was sitting beneath a multi-coloured parasol, just about managing to balance cross-legged on the edge of one of the sun-loungers.
‘You look decidedly uncomfortable,’ called out Manuel. ‘Why don’t you go indoors and rest for a while?’
‘I’m summoning up the courage to jump in the pool with Anton, but as soon as I get in, he’ll get out. I think he’s afraid that I’ll give birth in the pool and the water will turn into a blood bath. He has a vivid imagination backed up by a poor understanding of the facts.’
Manuel laughed but as he watched Rachel stand up and walk towards the pool he could understand the concerns of his young son. She looked like a balloon ready to pop, and he could imagine that any normal little boy would want to be out of the way when that happened.
As expected Rachel waded into the shallow end and at the same moment Anton heaved himself out of the deep end. Manuel and Rachel exchanged knowing looks but it was Anton who spoke.
‘My friends are coming over soon and we’re going to play football if I can find my ball. Have you seen it?’ he asked his father.
‘Yes, it’s under the hedge over there,’ replied Manuel, pointing to a spot near the garage. ‘Both our cars are inside so why don’t you use the outside parking area as your football pitch, and that way we won’t have any more broken windows.’
Anton made a face at his father and responded in Spanish. It pleased Manuel that his son always spoke in English in Rachel’s company, and he was over the moon that at just five years of age his offspring was fluent in two of the world’s most widely spoken languages.
Rachel was not Anton’s mother, but she had come to love the boy as if he was her own and she hoped he would take to his new half-brother or sister as well as he had done to her. The baby was due any day and the delivery couldn’t come soon enough for Rachel, who had struggled with being pregnant at the height of the temperatures churned out by a Spanish summer.
She had sometimes longed for the cool, often downright cold, and wet summer days of her home: the seaside resort of Porthcawl in South Wales, but on the whole she wouldn’t swap Nerja for Porthcawl’s Coney Beach. Everything anyone could possibly want was at her fingertips and as a partner she couldn’t ask for better than Manuel.
They had met through Manuel’s wife Catherine, who used the riding stables where Rachel worked. The two women had a mutual love of horses but little else in common, with very different personalities and backgrounds.
Catherine Romanes came from a privileged horse-racing family whose home was not far from Ascot racecourse. She had ridden horses practically since before she could walk and had met Manuel when his family had come to the UK to purchase two horses for breeding.
The handsome Spaniard had fallen hook, line, and sinker for a woman who looked like the epitome of an English rose but who underneath was as hard as nails and used to getting everything she wanted. Their wedding was one of the social events of the year but was the beginning of a serious rift between the two families.
The rift was over religion, as in the eyes of her new in-laws their son’s wedding in a quintessential English Anglican church did not see him married in the sight of God. A compromise was reached and the couple went through a ceremony that blessed their union in the Baroque-style Roman Catholic Cathedral in Malaga.
If he was honest Manuel would have to admit that he had felt equally out of place in both settings, as like the majority of Spanish men of his generation religion did not figure high on his agenda. Since becoming an adult he had only attended weddings and funeral services, and avoided family discussions on faith. The spectre of religion did not raise its head again until after their son was born.
The start of their married life had been difficult for the couple, as due to some bad investment decisions Catherine’s father’s business had folded dramatically and the family had lost everything, including their spectacular Berkshire home. Her parents, Peter and Margaret Washington, were helped by Margaret’s sister Elsie, who since the death of her husband had lived alone on a small farm in South Wales.
At the time Catherine and Manuel were living in Nerja with José and Claudia Romanes, and on hearing the news José offered to help.
It was less than a two-and-a-half-hour flight from Málaga to the Cardiff International Airport and within days the two families were sitting around a huge farm-kitchen table at Elsie Hopkins’ home, deciding strategy.
Peter Washington was a proud man and was adamant that he would not accept financial help for himself from this recently formed ‘Spanish alliance’. He was already struggling with having to be the non-contributory guest of his wife’s sister and this foreign aid was out of the question.
In spite of their differences the families stayed together at the farm for almost two weeks and during that time Manuel fell in love with the surrounding countryside and the coastline that looked out over the Bristol Channel.
Catherine had always been close to her father and she could see how the crash of his business had affected his health. She colluded with Manuel and his father and they came up with a plan that would put the Washington’s in a good position and at the same time save face for her father.
She described the perfect place that she and Manuel had found for a home. There was a notice to say that the land was for sale and it was ideally positioned in the cradle of two hills and with a view across the Channel. It had always been understood that José Romanes would put up the funding for the couple’s marital home, but he had supposed that home would be in Spain as traditionally in his family couples lived near their husband’s parents.
Before he returned to Spain Señor Romanes had made an offer for the land and instructed architects to draw up the plans for a spectacular single-storey building with a two-storey annex. Catherine told her delighted mother that she could design the annex exactly as she wanted it and live there in return for a generous amount of baby-sitting. It all sounded idyllic and Peter was relieved for the first time in months to have something to take his mind off his business failure.
Unfortunately even the best laid plans of mice and men cannot be totally relied on, and the purchase of the land was fraught with a number of legal difficulties. It was almost a year before a spade was sunk into the ground.
Manuel had to spend most of his time in Spain as he was still playing a vital role in the family business. There were plans to op
en a UK branch of the Spanish stud farm in the Vale of Glamorgan, but the negotiations were dragging on and Catherine started to feel neglected. She sometimes went to Spain with Manuel but hated the tight family set-up, where she felt constantly under the microscope and surrounded by Romanes women while her husband worked long hours.
She took more and more to staying at the farm, where she was footloose and fancy free. Manuel had bought her a horse that was kept at the stables where Rachel worked as a riding instructor. It didn’t take Catherine long to get in with some of the exceptionally affluent users of the stables, and horse riding turned to other forms of socialising, and then to all-night weekend parties.
Rachel had met Manuel when he purchased the horse, and it had been the only time in her life when a complete stranger had made her stomach flip. She thought Catherine was a complete idiot to risk losing such a man for the likes of the morons she had attached herself to. Suddenly Catherine stopped coming to the stables and the owner was given instructions not to allow her to ride during her pregnancy. Rachel had several thoughts when she heard the news, and the first was to hope that the baby would be Manuel’s child and not the result of one of Catherine’s several flings, liaisons that were openly boasted about by some of the men who used the stables and rode more than just the horses.
She also wondered how they would stop Catherine riding if she turned up, because the woman was certainly not one for doing anything other than exactly what she wanted. In reality, it wasn’t something that needed to be considered, because it was almost a year before Catherine showed up at the stables again.
She had endured a nightmare of a pregnancy – it was like a textbook of everything that could possibly go wrong. Even before she knew she was pregnant Catherine had been blighted by morning sickness, and in her case it had been the all-day variety. She constantly felt sick and was actually retching and vomiting dozens of times throughout the day. It was discovered that she was suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum and was admitted to hospital several times for rehydration and assessment.
