How the Dead Speak

by Val McDermid

  ‘What’s this?’ Paula glanced at the top sheet, a list of names.

  ‘Electoral rolls. Nuns vote. Who knew? And they have to register under their real names, not their aliases, so it makes it easier to track them from place to place.’ Stacey picked up the first group. ‘These are the nuns who were at Bradesden when it closed down. Or at least they were there when the electoral roll was compiled the previous year. I’ve got twenty-three of them at that address.’ She gave a quick glance round the room and dropped her voice.

  ‘I matched them against the 2011 census, and they all showed up – all except one. That gave me details on age, and that in turn let me in to birth records. So I’ve got them all down with d.o.b. and the address of where their family was living when they were born. Not hugely helpful, but it might come in useful.’

  ‘Nice one,’ Paula said. ‘Can you search the current electoral register for these other locations?’ She pointed at the list of convents on her screen. ‘Supposedly the nuns from Bradesden were shared out among the other houses of the Blessed Pearl. Let’s find out who’s where, and if anybody’s unaccounted for. Oh, and while you’re at it, can you go back further and get me a list of the nuns who were at Bradesden five and ten years before the closure? I’ve got a feeling the women we’re really going to be interested in are the ones who were there for a long time.’

  Stacey folded her hands in the namaste gesture and dipped her head in a bow. ‘Your mouth to my ear.’

  Paula snorted and cut a knowing glance towards Sophie. ‘Just make sure you cover your back.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll fill in the trench as I go. You won’t get anything that doesn’t have the patina of legitimacy.’

  Which, Paula thought, would slow things up no end. ‘I’m not even sure why Rutherford thinks we should be investigating this. All we’ve got is a collection of bones. OK, when there are that many, chances are something very wrong has gone on. But unless they’ve been shot through the head or hit with knives or machetes so hard there are notches on the bones, we’ve got no way of establishing suspicious death, let alone murder. At best, all we’re going to be able to do is charge a bunch of probably elderly nuns with illegal disposal of bodies. Which is not what this unit was set up to do.’

  Stacey nodded. ‘It might not even be illegal disposal. I’ve been looking at the crime scene photos and there’s a whole graveyard round the other side of the convent. Headstones and marble chips and everything. Nuns and priests, that’s who got the grave marker treatment. So they probably had all the licences and permits necessary for burials.’ She shrugged. ‘Let’s just hope there’s not some proper major incident going unnoticed out there.’

  13

  Not everyone involved in law enforcement is comfortable with the idea that psychology is a legitimate science. They prefer the more quantifiable hard sciences where samples can be analysed using replicable and reliable methods. In an ideal world all cases would provide that sort of evidence. In reality? Dream on.

  From Reading Crimes by DR TONY HILL

  The intricacies of forensic science had never been Alvin Ambrose’s comfort zone. He hadn’t even got a single science GCSE. He wondered whether the new guv’nor was deliberately trying to wrongfoot him or just didn’t know enough about the skill sets of his team members yet. Either way, it wasn’t the perfect strategy for getting the best out of him. Or out of the crime scene techs and the lab team.

  Just as five police forces had banded together to form ReMIT, so they had collaborated with a private company in setting up a joint forensic science service. The days when crime scene evidence was analysed by a national forensic service paid for by taxpayers were long gone. Now the jobs went to the lowest bidder. And the collective lab somehow always seemed to end up in that slot.

  The labs were physically situated on an industrial estate just off the M62, theoretically equidistant from each of the five contributors. In reality, traffic density meant it took longer from Bradfield than from any of the other four HQs. By the time he reached the labs, Alvin was already grumpy from spending most of his morning in nearly stationary traffic. He almost wished he’d listened to his wife, who regularly told him, in the same patient tones she used with the kids, that he should start listening to talking books. ‘You’re always complaining that between the job and the kids, you don’t get time to read any more. So use all that hanging around time to listen to one.’

  He’d tried to explain that most of his hanging around time involved being watchful and alert, not absorbed in whatever Harry Bosch was up to. She’d harrumphed at him and muttered, ‘Excuses, excuses. That’s all I ever hear from you and the kids. Either do what I’m telling you or stop complaining, Alvin, you big baby.’

  He navigated his way past the reception desk, mostly by flashing his ID and using his most intimidating frown. Even in a law enforcement establishment, his size and the colour of his skin tended to provoke anxiety and induce compliance. He followed the receptionist’s meek directions to the room where the scientists talked to investigating officers. It had a glass wall that looked into a lab that was satisfyingly similar to the sort of scenes he’d seen on TV. People in white coats and nitrile gloves with masks and protective goggles fiddling with equipment and looking down microscopes or deep in conversation over some glassware on a bench. All very reassuring.

  The woman who was waiting for him looked like someone who had served her time at the rock face. Brown hair threaded with silver pulled back in one of those buns that resembled a Danish pastry. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out how they worked. Outsize glasses with black frames that reminded him of Brains in the Thunderbirds movie that his kids had once been obsessed with for about six weeks. Lines round her eyes that he could have mistaken for laughter lines if he hadn’t also clocked the pursed lines round her lips. But she smiled warmly enough when she extended a hand. ‘Sergeant Ambrose? I’m Dr O’Farrelly. Chrissie O’Farrelly. I’m the associate director here, I generally handle the police liaison. Take a seat.’

  A small conference table with half a dozen chairs. Alvin chose one facing the lab and Dr O’Farrelly sat opposite him. ‘You’re here about the remains found in the grounds of the Blessed Pearl convent, am I right?’ The phrasing betrayed the faintest trace of an Irish accent.

  ‘That’s right. I know it’s early doors, but anything you can give us at this stage . . . Well, it’d maybe get us moving.’

  She nodded and opened the folder she’d been carrying. ‘You’ll appreciate this is a large and complex inquiry. We’re estimating somewhere in the region of forty individuals, all of them children. So far, there are no fleshed remains, just bones and some clumps of hair. Our first job is the jigsaw puzzle of what belongs to whom. We might be able to get DNA from some of the skeletal remains but it’ll take time, and unless you’ve got relatives to compare it against, it’s probably not going to help much with positive identification.’

  ‘Given the kind of backgrounds some of the kids probably came from, we might well find familial matches on the database. You never know. Can you tell how long the bodies have been there for?’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s not easy to say. Once the soft tissue is gone, it’s pretty much a guessing game.’

  ‘Can’t you do carbon dating?’ He parroted Rutherford’s words as if he had the faintest idea what they meant.

  ‘I could tell you whether they were three hundred years old or three thousand. But even with the atmospheric changes following the nuclear tests of the 1950s, which altered the balance of radioactive isotopes globally, it’s still only a macro.’

  Alvin tried not to show he was lost already. ‘That’d be a no, then?’

  A quick smile. ‘I’m afraid so. But there is a little ray of hope. We’ve got some strands of fabric among the bones. From our preliminary examinations, it looks like the bodies were wrapped in shrouds, probably linen or a linen mix. And underneath those shrouds, they were wearing underclothes. The natural fabrics have rotted,
but a significant number of the labels are synthetic fibres. That tells us two things. Firstly, these are relatively modern bodies. Woven labels really only started appearing in the early twentieth century and synthetic ones didn’t become commonplace until the 1960s. What we’re seeing are quite badly stained, but we should be able to read them.’

  ‘How will that help us?’ Alvin was afraid the question made him sound stupid, but that was a price he was prepared to pay if it carried them forward.

  Again the twitch of a swift smile. ‘Well, apart from the washing instructions . . . Some will have the name of the shop they came from. They’ll have sizes, which helps us with the inexact science of ageing the remains. They might have elements that allow us to date them more precisely. When you take your pants off tonight, have a look at the label. It’ll probably have a code on it that corresponds to the retailer’s database. It’s possible they’d still have records for those codes. Again, not very accurate for somewhere like a children’s home, where clothes might well be handed down. But at least it gives you an end point.’

  Alvin nodded, glum. ‘It’s not much to go on, is it?’

  She silently tapped her fingers on the edge of the table, as if she were playing a piano. ‘Not at this point. But it is early days.’ She glanced back at the folder, flicking over the top sheet of paper. ‘One of my colleagues who is at the site is fairly confident that the graves were dug with a mechanical digger.’

  ‘You can tell that by looking?’

  ‘The bucket of the backhoe compresses the soil as it cuts through. Even after it’s been filled, it’s sometimes possible to see where the bucket has sliced through. I’m sorry we’ve not got more for you yet. However, sometimes when we examine the soil around the remains more closely, we find external evidence of dating. A dropped coin. A piece of jewellery with engraving. Sometimes even a credit card, though obviously with children, that’s a pretty remote possibility.’

  ‘Sounds like we’re really up against it.’ Alvin rubbed the back of his shaved head, a familiar gesture of frustration. ‘I suppose it’s too early to say how they died?’

  Dr O’Farrelly gave him the sort of look his mother handed out when he’d done something particularly inane. ‘We might never know. So far, from the very superficial look I’ve had at some of the remains, there’s nothing obvious like bullet holes or smashed skulls. This one is going to run and run, Sergeant Ambrose. There’s going to be a lot of powerful people demanding answers. And just as many determined to keep those answers under wraps.’

  Alvin hated to admit it, but he had a dread feeling she might be right.

  14

  Every offender who commits acts of sexual homicide has an individual initiating stressor – what the lay person would call a ‘hot button’. I examine every aspect of the commission of a crime that I can access and I try to draw inferences from that information that can lead me back to identifying stressors, thereby creating a picture of the offender’s psychological state but also of the circumstances of their history. Figuring out hot buttons can be just as useful when it comes to setting up an effective interview. And not just where killers are concerned.

  From Reading Crimes by DR TONY HILL

  The shock of recognition made Carol stumble slightly. She caught herself then walked slowly towards Bronwen Scott. No time for social niceties. ‘Has something happened to Tony?’ Carol demanded, halting a few feet away.

  Bronwen smiled. Carol thought it was probably meant to be reassuring. If so, it hadn’t scored a pass mark. ‘I’m not here because of Tony. I’m here to see you, Carol.’

  Her words achieved what her smile hadn’t. Carol could feel the physical release in her chest. But the second part made no sense. As far as Carol was aware, her sheet had been wiped clean when she’d left the job. It had been one of the conditions both sides had been happy to agree on. There were things in her past that reflected just as badly on her employers as they did on her. She didn’t need a defence lawyer.

  The only thing she could think of was that Bronwen wanted to use something in her past as leverage in the defence of one of her clients. In which case, she’d had a wasted journey. ‘I’m not going into the witness box for you,’ she said, moving past the car and heading for the front door.

  ‘That’s not what this is about,’ Bronwen said, catching her up as she put her key in the lock. ‘Carol, all I’m asking is a few minutes of your time. If you have something else lined up’ – she couldn’t quite control the quirk of her lips, suggesting incredulity – ‘I can come back another time.’

  Carol paused, head down, breathing deeply, staring at the key in the lock. ‘The life I lead now – you’ve no place in that, Bronwen. I know you did a terrific job for Tony and that tips the scales back to somewhere around even. But that was then and this is now.’

  ‘Please, Carol.’

  She turned her head, wondering. She’d never heard Bronwen plead, and that had definitely been a plea. In spite of herself, Carol was intrigued. ‘Five minutes,’ she said, unlocking the door and walking inside without a backward glance. She took off her jacket and boots and carried on into the main room of the barn.

  ‘Wow,’ Bronwen said, close on her heels. ‘You did all this restoration yourself, didn’t you?’

  Carol felt the mixture of pride and regret that the barn provoked whenever she stopped to think about it as more than just a machine for living. ‘Yes. I had to learn a lot of unfamiliar skills. Turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks.’ She turned to face Bronwen, Flash taking up her station between them, her ears pricked. ‘You’re wasting your minutes, though.’

  ‘Fine. Here’s the pitch. Everybody talks about what a great cop you were, meaning a great detective. I don’t disagree with that, but the one thing I admired about you more than any other aspect of your police work was your absolute commitment to justice. I spotted that early on as the thing that drove you.’

  Now she had Carol’s full attention. Because Bronwen had alighted on the element of her personality that Tony had valued too. Had he briefed her? Was he behind this second unexpected approach too?

  ‘You might not think so, given my track record of defending people you consider to be guilty, but I share your commitment to justice. The law is what fails us, Carol. As a lawyer, it’s my job to exploit the flaws and loopholes to do the best I can for my clients. I know you probably don’t believe me, but I would actually prefer it if that was a harder ask. And I do acknowledge that some of the people I get off should not be back on the streets.’ She bit her lip. ‘This is the bit I know you’re going to struggle with.’ She pushed her hair back from her face and met Carol’s eyes straight on.

  ‘I need some kind of balance in my professional life. I suppose you could call it atonement.’

  Carol couldn’t help the derisive grin spreading across her face. ‘You could just stop defending the scumbags.’

  Bronwen dipped her head, conceding. ‘Everybody’s entitled to a defence, Carol. And if it wasn’t me, it would be somebody else. And they’d do it less well, so there would be even more work for the Appeal Court.’ She matched Carol’s grin with her own, proclaiming chutzpah. ‘I’m not here to make you approve of me. I know that’s probably never going to happen. I’m here to put a proposition to you. And since I’ve only got five minutes, here it is.’

  Deep breath. ‘Innocent people end up in jail. Usually because of incompetence. Cops, lawyers, expert witnesses. We’re all guilty of failures, bad faith sometimes, occasionally downright crookedness. Sometimes it’s because the evidence at the time of conviction wasn’t capable of particular forensic analysis. Whatever the reason, people end up behind bars who shouldn’t be there. You agree?’

  Carol nodded. ‘It happens. You’re the one who mentioned the Appeal Court. That’s what it’s there for. That and the Criminal Cases Review Commission.’

  ‘The mechanism’s there, but the resources to produce the evidence to convince aren’t. There’s no provision for Legal
Aid to pursue speculative investigations. And some of us think that’s unacceptable. So we’ve formed an informal group of professionals to look into cases where we think there’s been a serious miscarriage of justice. We’re in the process of taking our first case through the CCRC and we’re feeling confident about the court overturning a life sentence for arson.’

  ‘Good for you.’ Carol folded her arms across her chest. She knew where this was going and she didn’t want to go there.

  ‘We want you to join us.’

  ‘I’m not interested. I’m done with that part of my life.’

  Bronwen looked round, her eyes snagging on Carol’s half-finished carpentry. ‘Given it up for woodworking, have you? You think Tony’s going to join you making dovetailed joints when he gets out of prison?’ Her tone was light but the intent was not.

  ‘I’m so far beyond the point where I can be taunted into things. I’m not interested in putting myself back in the front line of investigation.’

  ‘It’s hardly the front line, Carol. It’s digging through old files and trying to find a loose end to tug on. Maybe the occasional conversation with a witness.’

  Carol really didn’t want to engage, but there was one question she had to ask. ‘So who else have you talked into this?’

  Bronwen was smart enough to show no hint of triumph. ‘Two other lawyers – Cora Bryant, the QC, and Hector Marsh. He used to be with the CPS but he’s given up prosecuting and joined my firm. Morna Thorsson, who’s a law professor at Bradfield University, Dr Claire Morgan, who teaches forensic science there.’ She paused for effect. ‘And Grisha Shatalov.’

  That startled Carol. She’d worked closely with Dr Grisha Shatalov over several years. The Canadian had been the Home Office pathologist based in Bradfield for as long as Carol had worked there and she admired his attitude. He was thorough, respectful and willing to go beyond observation to offer theories as to how injuries might have happened. But as well as acknowledging his professionalism, she also liked him. He had a considerate manner and a quiet but sometimes lacerating sense of humour. She’d eaten supper round his table with his wife and family more than once. If he’d nailed his colours to the mast of Bronwen’s project, it wasn’t so easy to dismiss as a waste of time.