Liam watched him spiralling, and much as he was enjoying the sight of a buttoned-up civil servant losing it, an exchange of looks with Craig said that it had to stop, so the D.C.I. leaned across the table and shouted in Hardy’s face.
“STOP!”
Either the word’s meaning or its volume had the desired effect, and the deputy secretary fell immediately silent and concertinaed down in his seat, giving Craig the space to speak again.
“I’ll need the detailed plans of the cellar, and the name of the person you kept on as site-security until the property was sold.”
Hardy’s next words were a squeak.
“Just tell me that it wasn’t a child.”
His concern made Craig warm to the man, but the body might have belonged to a sixteen-year-old and he couldn’t lie on a case, so he sidestepped the plea by addressing a different point entirely.
“We’re not certain yet that the cellar had anything to do with it.”
It wasn’t a lie and if it eased the man’s anxiety, why not? It was the right call and galvanised Hardy into full cooperation mode.
“Mister Tanner was the Department’s caretaker, Brian Tanner. He stayed on to provide security during the day until the site was sold, and we hired an outside firm for the nights. I’m sure I can find you their name.”
“Was Mister Tanner given the run of the building in that period?”
The quizzical expression reappeared. “Yes. Why?” The official didn’t wait for an answer. “Well, when I say the run, all of the offices would have been emptied of documents and locked when we left, but he would have had keys to open everywhere in the building. For fire checks and so on.”
A quick glance from Liam said he was wondering whether Tanner had had a side-line in flogging televisions and microwaves. The fact that Craig had been thinking the same thing said nothing about telepathy but everything about their cynical coppers’ minds.
Craig rose to his feet, preparing to go. “I’ll need those floor-plans, full details of the sale, the exact dates of vacating and then handing over the building, and the contacts for Mister Tanner and the night security firm.” He slid his business card across the desk. “Once you’ve gathered them, my PA will give you the email for forwarding.”
He saw Hardy hesitate and read his mind.
“I can get a warrant for the information.”
The civil servant’s doubts evaporated.
“No, no, that won’t be necessary. I’ll send everything across as soon as I can.”
“Good.”
As they were walking back to the car Craig called Nicky.
“Nicky, there are some files and details coming across from Jackson Hardy. If they haven’t arrived by tomorrow morning let me know.” He knew only too well that the wheels of officialdom often ground dropping slow. “There should be the contacts for a man called Brian Tanner-”
The PA thought she’d listened for long enough so she interrupted.
“Doctor Winter’s been on. He’d like to see you at the lab.”
Craig glanced at his watch. He’d been planning to go there later, but they could nip round the north circular before they went to the building site.
“OK, we’ll head there now. While we do that, could you find out where Kamran Barr is going to be after two-thirty, please? I want to see him after we meet Kelly at the site. Ash gave me his home address on the Malone, but we don’t have his office details, and I’d like to know which one he’ll be at so that we don’t have to chase around.”
“I’ll text it through.”
Getting an answer from his PA without the addition of any backchat or gossip made the detective instantly suspicious; Nicky always had some additional comment to make. Reluctant as he was to open a can of worms, Craig felt compelled to ask.
“Anything else, Nicky?”
“Nope.”
Liam had overheard the last response and it made him suspicious as well, especially as it had been said in an upbeat tone.
Craig sighed, knowing he was about to regret his next question.
“OK, I’ll bite. What’s up?”
“I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
“Oh, yes you do. You’re up to something.”
A giggle told him that he’d been right.
“What is it?”
The giggle became a full-blown laugh, and with Nicky’s loud, husky voice that was quite a sound.
“OK, then, you’ve got me.”
She dropped her voice to a whisper, telling Craig that the reason for her merriment was close at hand. He put the phone on speaker so that Liam could hear.
“You know the way Mary has all these tattoos and piercings.”
He didn’t actually. He hadn’t noticed any tattoos, although to be fair he wouldn’t have noticed a truck bearing down on him in the past few months.
Just as he was about to start worrying about his powers of observation she added, “Of course, she keeps them covered up at work. Apart from those piercings in her ears and nose, and you made her take those out.”
How could he forget? The debacle was seared upon his brain.
Liam cut in curiously.
“Where are the tattoos?”
The answer was tart.
“Never you mind, nosy. I don’t want your dirty mind running wild.”
“So, you know then?”
When he didn’t receive an answer the D.C.I. tried another tack.
“What do the tattoos say?”
“I’ve only seen the one on her ankle and it’s some sort of bird.”
Craig winced. “I bet that hurt, over a bone.”
“Hopefully.”
Nicky’s view of Mary hadn’t been favourable since the ‘Battle of the Ear-Studs’ when the D.C. had first joined them, and it deteriorated daily.
“Anyway, the reason I’m laughing is she got her belly button pierced yesterday and it’s giving her hell.”
Craig wasn’t sure how to react, people’s fascination with self mutilation completely flummoxing him; but Liam perked up considerably.
“I like those rings. They’re kind of exotic looking.”
The PA snapped back primly. “She’s young enough to be your granddaughter, so get that thought right out of your mind!”
“She could not be my granddaughter! She’s mid-twenties!”
“Well, your daughter then.”
It did the trick. Picturing his precious seven-year-old Erin mutilating her body when she got older made Liam screw up his face.
“If Erin ever did that I’d disown her.”
“Huh, if you think that’s the worst thing kids can do then you’d better brace yourself for when she grows up.”
Nicky’s son Jonny was a teenager, who despite, or perhaps because of his mother’s almost military discipline, was starting to rebel big time.
The fact that Craig hadn’t joined in the discussion on children wasn’t even noticed, the others assuming such disinterest was to be expected of a childless man. They were in for a shock very soon and it was time to end the call before he said something to give the game away, not that he would mind but Katy had said that she wanted to keep her pregnancy private, until or unless they sorted their relationship out.
He brought the discussion to a halt with logic.
“If the piercing’s hurting Mary that much she might need to see a doctor. OK, we’re going to the lab.”
The call was cut abruptly, earning him a questioning look from his deputy.
“What? It was just turning into gossip, Liam, and we have work to get on with.”
The D.C.I. wasn’t fooled, and it added to his determination to speak to Katy face-to-face and find out what was up between the pair.
****
Belfast.
“What are we going to do about it?”
The day before’s two-man phone-call was four-man now, and the earlier nagging was threatening to be replaced by hysteria until a dominant voice took charge and barked, “SHUT-UP!”
/>
When the others complied instantly the agent smirked at how easily people were cowed. He carried on speaking in a quieter but still stern tone.
“They can’t link her to any of you. There were thousands of people working around that building, and you left nothing behind to ID her with. Just hold your nerves and we’ll all be fine.”
A frailer, older voice begged to object.
“It’s all right for you! You’re not local, but some of us are. If the police come knocking I don’t know what I’ll-”
The leader cut him off.
“You’ll say nothing! If one word of this leaks then we’ll all be done for. Get hold of yourself, man, because if you can’t then I will.”
It was enough to silence all of them and left nothing more to be said, but as the call ended every man amongst them was formulating his exit plan.
****
The Pathology Labs. 2p.m.
Craig stared at his best friend incredulously, not certain that he’d heard him correctly, and it was only that faint doubt that stopped his incredulity from descending to despair. Reluctant to speed the fall any he left it to Liam to ask the obvious question.
“You’re sure, Doc?”
John Winter sighed and nodded before speaking again.
“I’m sorry, but yes. We rushed the DNA comparison between the hyoid and the femur and there’s no doubt about it, there are the bones of two different women in that floor. The one you already know about was young and small, and I would have said that she’d had dark hair, except that until we test the hair’s DNA too we can’t know which woman it actually belonged to now. The second woman was slightly larger, but that’s almost all that I can say about her so far.”
Craig only half-heard the ‘almost’, still shocked. Seeing the detectives’ glum expressions Des Marsham decided to inject a note of hope.
“The red fabric is silk. Very high quality. I’m waiting for the dye to be identified, then we might be able to get batch numbers and even sales outlets. I don’t imagine many places sell cloth that expensive.”
After more silence from the policemen, John picked it up again.
“The dentist has confirmed that the younger woman had some work done abroad, perhaps Dubai, but he’s getting back to me on that. I’m still waiting for the forensic anthropologist’s report on the bones and the chemical analysis is running, and-”
Craig raised a hand to stop him and turned to his deputy. “We need to dig out that cellar. With two victims we’re looking at a lot more bones, and the rest of them are probably still in the ground.”
The D.C.I. nodded grimly. “And maybe more victims besides, boss. What if someone had been using the place to dump women since the DoE left in oh-six?”
“With the caretaker still there?”
It was a facile question and Craig knew it; the caretaker had probably been employed at the site when the floor had become the grave of the two victims they already knew about.
Liam shrugged. “Maybe he even killed them, or was in on it. Or maybe he just never bothered looking in the cellar once the civil servants left.”
“Then who told people it was flooded?” He sighed. “Either way we’ll have to dig it out.” He turned to the Head of Forensics. “We’ll need your people there when we do, Des, to make sure that no evidence is lost. Are they still at the dump?”
“Yep. I sealed off the dumping area earlier and they’re going over it and any debris we’ve already gathered downstairs with a fine-tooth comb, just in case there’s something we missed. But I can help you with the excavation myself. When are you going to start?”
Craig thought for a moment. “We’ll need a court order to completely shut down work on the site, at the moment it’s only suspended, and another one to give us permission to dig because its private land, but I can probably get those this evening. Would tomorrow morning work for you?”
“Send the details across once you have them.”
Liam had been staring at the tiny bone lying in front of John. “Can’t you tell us something more about Jane Doe Two from her hyoid, Doc?”
“This will be Jane Doe One, or just Jane Doe, I suppose. I’m calling the first woman The Princess for now.” The pathologist added a hasty, “Just for ease of distinguishing them”, in case there were any quips.
There weren’t. Whatever delusion got each of them through the day was fine with the rest.
“Really the only other thing I can tell was that the owner of the hyoid was older-”
Craig cut in. “How much older, John?”
The pathologist shook his head. “Difficult to say just on this bone.”
Something about his tone made Craig’s ears prick up. John was holding something back for some reason, and suddenly he heard again the word “almost” that had failed to register before. He nodded the pathologist to continue, wondering whether John would eventually volunteer what he was hiding or he would have to ask.
“The bones are very clean, indicating there was no exposure to the elements, and both of them were kept warm and dry, so essentially mummify-”
The medic broke off abruptly, his eyes widening, and Craig sat forward eagerly, knowing that something had just dawned on him.
“What? What have you just realised?”
The pathologist banged his forehead with his palm. “Stupid, I’m stupid, that’s what I’ve just realised! How could I have been so blind?”
Liam interjected.
“You’ll be unconscious as well if you don’t stop banging your head.”
John ignored him, shaking his head for a few seconds until he was ready to speak.
“Neither woman’s body should have been reduced to bones, not if they’d been buried intact in the concrete after death, or even buried in it alive. In both of those cases their bodies would have been sealed in warm dry air which would have slowed or even have prevented any decay. I’ll have to check the timings, but I’d say that if they’d been put in the concrete intact less than fifty years ago, then we wouldn’t have found bones at all, just mummified remains.”
Craig’s eyes widened. Could they be looking at a historical case? Before he could recall the handover procedure to the HRS John spoke again.
“But we definitely know that they were killed more recently than that, or at least the younger woman was, and it would make sense that they were both killed at the same time.”
“How can you be sure of that, John?”
“Oh, sorry, didn’t I say? The dentist said the girl’s dental work was very up to date. He said her implant post was only invented thirteen years ago.”
Des asked the next question before Craig could.
“OK, and that all means?”
“That the bodies must have already decomposed to bone before they were buried.”
Craig thought back to their discussion with Davy the day before.
“So, you’re saying that they definitely couldn’t have been buried in concrete and risen by releasing gas or fluids as they decomposed?”
John shook his head, with more certainty this time.
“Any release would have been minimal in those conditions even if they had been buried intact, because they wouldn’t have decomposed they would just have dried out. Desiccated essentially, that’s what mummification is.”
“I thought mummification required embalming.”
“That was the Egyptian way, but the term’s been applied to accidental desiccation for centuries.”
He furrowed his brow, wondering about the significance of the gas query. “Why?”
“Just a theory we were discussing, about the girl being buried in the cellar below the floor and then rising due to gas released during decay-”
Des cut in. “Hang on. The cellar was under the floor of The Howard Tower, right?”
Liam nodded.
“Just below where the first bones were found?”
“Yep.”
“But if the bones were left inside the cellar, then how could they ha
ve got up through its roof and on to the reception floor of the hotel?”
Liam gave Craig a look that said this one was his.
“OK...there are two ways the bones could have ended up in the reception floor. Either they were left in wet concrete that was laid above the roof of the cellar to form the new hotel floor, or they rose up from the cellar beneath, except that, as Des says, it had a roof. However, we found out a few hours ago that the cellar roof had a trap-door.”
Des nodded in realisation. “So the bones could have floated up through that.”
“Or been pushed down into the cellar through it from the reception floor, before or after it became a hotel. The excavation will tell us which.”
The scientist frowned. “I’m still not sure why the hotel owners wouldn’t have excavated the cellar. Even if it had flooded in the past surely they could have done something with it? It would have been useful space.”
Craig nodded. “You would think so.”
“That’s suspicious.”
“Agreed.”
Craig returned to his earlier point. “John, you’re definitely saying that the bodies must already have been bones when they were buried?”
The pathologist hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “Yes… yes, I am. I was going to say that perhaps there was still some decomposing tissue on them, but the bones you found were clean, not a speck of organic material on them.”
Liam had a question to ask. “How long does it take for a body to decompose to bone?”
“It depends on the conditions. Exposure to the elements, soil acidity, animal predators, chemical-”
It was Des’ turn to bang his head. “Damn! Chemicals. I didn’t test the bones for those. I’ll do it after this. Oh, by the way, Marc, there were no prints on any of them. I’d say that your killer wore gloves.”
Craig sighed; a nice fat print would have been too much to hope for.
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