Missing pieces, p.4
Missing Pieces, page 4
The group stood in silence for fully two more minutes, and it felt like twenty; somewhere out beyond the single, winding street of Stone Warren was the sound of a vehicle approaching. Greene caught Waters’ eye, and the latter wondered whether he ought to go out and flag down any passing archaeologists. He didn’t, assuming the Norman church tower would be a clue for them, and sure enough, the noise from the engine fell silent at just about the right place.
Then a creaking and the door of the church opened properly. The Reverend Gregory Gray was wearing the full attire of his office – black cassock, white surplice, and a white, gold-embroidered stole around his dog collar and hanging down across his chest. The latter added a touch of colour and drama to the situation. In his right hand he held a bible and in his left a small silver crucifix, as if he had emerged from the building expecting to confront the old enemy in person. Waters remembered Serena’s description of him – ‘He’s like an angry guinea pig’ – and there was something rodent-like in the features. Perhaps it was divine guidance that led the vicar to identify the leader of this outrage; at any rate, he walked up to the detective inspector without further ado.
‘Do you have the necessary authority?’
Tom Greene lifted the briefcase a little and said, ‘I have with me the Home Office licence. If you-’
‘As far as I am concerned, only one authority applies in this matter. That is the authority of the Anglican church. Do you have anything relating to that?’
The vicar’s manner was abrupt and his tone was plainly annoyed – he was making no effort to disguise the fact. But if he thought to intimidate DI Greene, he had misjudged his man. In no hurry at all, the policeman opened the catch on the briefcase and reached inside – within seconds he had found what he wanted. He held it up for public view – it seemed to be a letter – and said, ‘I believe this is what you are referring to, Reverend Gray. A Bishop’s Faculty? It is dated yesterday and signed by the Right Reverend Willingham.’
Gregory Gray stepped forward and took the document – for a man of faith he seemed to have little enough in his fellow man. He read it and said, ‘Signed yesterday? How have you come by it so quickly?’
Greene said, ‘He gave it to me in person. If you look at the witnesses’ signatures, sir, you’ll see that one of them is mine.’
The paper was handed back to him without another word. Then the vicar turned his back on the pair of them and spoke to the rest of the party. He said, ‘Very well. It appears this procedure is to go ahead. The young woman has lain here in peace for twenty years, and now that peace is to be disturbed. I ask that everyone concerned is respectful and takes this matter as seriously as I do. Please follow me.’
The Reverend Gray set off along a path that led down by the side and towards the rear of the building – Waters had already observed that was where the churchyard itself must be. A procession formed as they lined up to follow the vicar. There was still no sign of the archaeologists. Waters asked if he should go in search of them and Greene said no – ‘He’s looking for an excuse to stop this. I’d like two pairs of our eyes and ears on it, Chris, until everything’s underway.’
The detectives brought up the rear of the line as it made its way behind the church. Waters thought, well, we have all sorts of people here, but who is going to do the digging? Perhaps we’ll all be rolling up our sleeves and taking turns. If that’s the case, John Murray would have come in handy…
The back of St Mary’s was lit by the early morning sun now. If one had searched for a traditional English churchyard to paint or to photograph, one would have looked long and hard to find a more beautiful one. Here was the subtle intimacy that comes only with a little neglect – or perhaps that should be, with a little respect for the natural world of which we are, for all our efforts, only a part. The older gravestones, tilted by the gentle hands of time, stood in a haze of fading cow parsley flowers. Some faithful villager had mown paths between but had left alone the hedgerow shrubs and bushes that marked the borders of the cemetery; the foamy cream flowers of the elder were past their best but among them clambered the wild dog roses in their full glory – every delicate shade of pink imaginable. Close to the church, three ancient yew trees spoke of an older time, perhaps even of an older religion, and beneath them was a pool of deep shadow, a spot where the sun would never shine.
But the people ahead of Waters moved on in a serious line and seemed to see nothing of this. As if they were the blind ones… It was the kind of place Miriam liked him to take her – to sit on that bench, to breathe in the summer-scented morning, to listen to his efforts to convey what he could see. Since he had begun to do this for her, he himself had begun to look at the world differently. At times he thought it had in some odd way made him a better detective.
They turned another corner on one of the mown paths, and Waters realised they would not need to roll up their sleeves. Two men wearing hi-vis jackets were already here – the older one was seated at the controls of a mini digger and the other was leaning against the machine with a hand resting on a shovel. As the group reassembled, Waters noticed a cigarette smouldering on the grass a few feet away – the workmen might not know the Reverend Gray well, he thought, but they had certainly encountered him already.
The vegetation surrounding the grave nearest the digger had been flattened. Without being asked by Greene, Waters took the digital camera out of his pocket and photographed the headstone; there had been some debate about whether an official police photographer should be present to record this procedure. The conclusion had been that the reinvestigation was proving far more costly than anyone could have anticipated and as Waters knew his way around a camera, he could do it.
He enlarged the image a little to check the settings. The inscription on the stone read “Unknown, But Loved By The Lord – May She Rest In Peace.” The date was the 25th of October; exactly four months after she had been discovered in Spring Covert by Jim Goodrum. Presumably the body had been kept in the police mortuary in Norwich for those four months. That didn’t seem long, though, before someone concluded they were not going to identify her and be able to pass on her remains to a family. And, he thought, why here? Is it the custom to bury an unknown person in the nearest available Church of England cemetery? After a time it becomes second nature, the asking of questions.
The immediate one had become who will give the order to begin? The vicar, unsmiling, stood with his bible and crucifix, eyeing the rest of them in turn, as if defying anyone to give the word. Waters had seen the technical instructions, and you don’t just dig a hole – there is a procedure, as there is with any gathering of evidence. They could use the machine to take away the top layer but at some point human hands must take over. How deep is ‘the top layer’? One foot? Three feet? Is there anyone standing here who knows the answer?
There were noises behind and one by one the heads turned to see a generously-proportioned woman of mature years advancing towards them at a good pace. She was carrying one too many bags and seemed permanently about to drop one of them. Behind her came a much younger person with more equipment, including various poles, what appeared to be rolled-up sheets and a camera tripod.
When the lady reached them, she dumped the bags unceremoniously, stood with her hands on her broad hips and caught her breath. Waters glanced at Tom Greene who had plainly decided not to commit himself to any reaction at this point. The Reverend Gray, on the other hand, seemed to have had his suspicions that this was all the work of the devil confirmed – he was appalled by this disrespectful arrival.
The woman blew out her cheeks, took one breath and said, with a shake of her head, ‘Satnavs!’
Chapter Five
It was plain enough, at least to the two detectives, who these people were. Greene introduced himself and Waters, and the woman stepped forward and shook hands with them – a no-nonsense sort of handshake as she said, ‘I wish we could have met under happier circumstances.’
She was smiling and this seemed to be if not a joke then a light-hearted comment – perhaps it was the sort of thing forensic archaeologists are trained to say to break the ice at exhumations. Then she added, ‘Professor Lindsay, from Cambridge. Alice to my friends. And this is Robin, one of my PhDs. They will be assisting me this morning.’
Waters looked around for the others but none had appeared – and then he understood. Robin still had their arms full of equipment, making no attempt to put it down in order to shake hands. The look on their face was not defensive but rather said, if you’re going to be boring I’d rather not get to know you. Waters said hello and received a nod of acknowledgement.
Greene went around the group, introducing them one by one; he had remembered not only their names but their roles, which Waters thought an impressive feat of memory – he hadn’t seen the detective inspector write anything down. Professor Lindsay greeted them but gave no sign of wanting to shake hands with everyone. Behind her, Robin was already laying out the equipment on the short grass of the path.
The professor said, ‘And Reverend Gray? The priest of this parish?’
She has, Waters thought, an unerring instinct for something, if it’s only trouble. Gray said curtly that he was that person, and then the woman said, ‘Before we begin, Reverend, could we have a private word?’
The two of them walked back together along the path towards the church. An odd couple, the vicar in his best robes and the dumpy woman in her ill-fitting jeans and charity-shop jumper. They went far enough to be out of earshot. Greene approached Robin and asked whether they could assist in any way, but Waters kept one eye on the unheard conversation. The professor did most of the talking at first, asking questions – when Gray began to say a little more, she listened intently, her head cocked to one side like a plump little bird. Then she spoke again and Gray was nodding. When she placed a hand on his arm as she asked one final question, Waters realised for the first time that Professor Alice Lindsay was probably a genius.
She also had, when the occasion demanded it, a surprisingly loud voice. The procedure she intended to follow had been explained to them all before the work began. Anyone who wished to observe closely must wear a disposable plastic suit like the one she was putting on, and they would need to have brought their own because those were not part of the service. And anyone who wanted to be really hands on would need to be wearing a mask… She looked around but there seemed to be no takers for that one. When there were no more questions, the driver of the digger, a man in his sixties with a teddy-boy quiff and the unlikely name of Duane, fired up the machine and began to remove the top layer of the turf covering the grave. He did not see her hand signal nor hear her first order to stop but he heard the second one, as did, Waters suspected, most of the residents of Stone Warren who were not still asleep in their beds.
Duane had gone several inches into the ground with his first manoeuvre – the bucket had paused in mid-air at the professor’s stentorian command, before he could make a second. When the driver half-stood to see what was wrong, she held up a hand and made a gesture with first finger and thumb – a gesture which clearly conveyed the message too much, way too much. She wanted him to scrape away just the top inch or so, that was all. Duane nodded, shrugged to his companion grave-digger and adjusted his approach accordingly.
Robin carried a top-end Nikon DSLR and plainly a part of their job was to keep a detailed photographic record of the site and the stages of the exhumation. Waters was reminded of the way Olive Markham worked with Robinson in the police mortuary when they were conducting a post-mortem; no superfluous words passed between them because this was a serious business and because they both knew exactly what was required to carry it out properly. Waters had his own photographic duties, of course, and, with his protective suit now in place, he began to take his cues from when the PhD student took pictures, though he did not always know why he was taking a particular image.
Now that his work had been successfully recalibrated, Duane handled the digger with some skill – he had successfully removed no more than two inches of the turf. He paused, looking to the archaeologist for further instruction, and she indicated that she wanted him to go about three feet further along, meaning that the final excavation would be about ten feet in length. Professor Lindsay explained to the two detectives that once they had located the coffin, a space would be needed at one end of it for her to carry out an in situ examination of the contents before anything was removed from the ground. She did not seem to think that any of the other officials who had gathered here this morning merited further attention, and from this point forward she paid them none. The Reverend Gray kept watch from the path, his face betraying little emotion.
Once the first layer of removal was complete, the professor raised her hand and Duane ceased operations. She went close to the earth and with a small trowel took two samples, one from each end, which she put into separate plastic bags. These were handed to Robin, who sealed, labelled and photographed them before they were placed into a tray. Then Alice Lindsay stepped back and held up her hands to the driver, showing him she wanted another foot of soil removed. The digging began again.
Greene asked her why she was taking samples of the soil from so far above where the coffin would be. She stood with them then and answered his question.
‘At some point, someone might ask me whether this grave has been opened before today. Soil samples taking at regular depths on the way down can give an indication of whether it has been.’
When she wasn’t in lecture-mode, her voice altered a little – there was a hint of a West Country burr in it. Greene caught Waters’ eye as he said to her, ‘Opened before? Does that happen often?’
She said, ‘No. Not often, but it has happened.’
Still with her eyes on the opening grave, she added, ‘She had a peculiar set of injuries, according to the original autopsy…’ as if this might in some way link to the possibility of the grave having been re-opened – for the life of him, Waters could not see how.
And then more brightly, Professor Lindsay said to Greene, ‘And we never know what we’re going to find. It’s a bit of a lucky dip. If she’s not there, you’re going to be asking me lots of questions, so I’m taking these samples, just in case.’
Greene said cautiously, ‘Not there?’
She said, ‘Well, it’s a possibility. We all believe her remains are in there, don’t we, but it’s only a belief, a sort of act of faith, that once a body is interred it won’t be removed. But they can be – and they have been, on occasion.’
She raised her hand again, and the digging stopped. She went forward to take the next set of samples, this time kneeling on the edge so she could reach into the reappearing grave.
If anyone present had been thinking this would be a quick process, watching the professor at her meticulous work would soon have put them straight. She was in no hurry at all. Some of the people stepped further back and one or two quiet conversations took place. The environmental health officer’s mobile rang on three separate occasions during the soil-sampling – in the end she waited near the church and the health and safety officer soon joined her. By the time the excavation reached four feet in depth, Robin had fetched a folding step-ladder from their vehicle, and this time the professor sent them down to take the samples – it was clear to Waters that Robin was being trained as well as acting as an assistant. Becoming a policeman had always been there in the back of his own mind as he grew up, thanks to his father’s job; he wondered at what point this young person had decided forensic archaeology, grave-opening and bone-handling was the career for them. They were intent and serious about the business, hardly noticing the presence of others.
This time there was a change in the procedure – after Robin had collected the samples, the professor went down the ladder herself. Waters and Greene moved closer to see what she was doing. With the trowel, she began her own small excavation into the soil, which was now lighter in colour and heavier in consistency. She looked up at them and said, ‘I was half-expecting some of that gault, but I think we’re going to be lucky…’
Their blank looks invited more explanation. She said, ‘Gault – horrible Cretaceous clay. It occurs in patches over Norfolk. Awful to dig through. Some of my colleagues think it can seal a coffin and cause anaerobic decomposition. Never gone along with that myself but I’m glad we’ve missed it.’
Then her attention was back on the earth in front of her. She dug carefully, inch by inch, and then they heard, ‘Ah. I think we’ve arrived.’
After the initial correction, Duane had given a master-class in working a digger. As Alice Lindsay watched and guided him, he was able to scrape away fine layers of the remaining soil until she raised a hand for him to stop, leaving just inches to be completed with the trowels. Then he widened one edge and the base of the excavation until it resembled an inverted capital T, giving the archaeologists room in which to stand and work. Robin went in first with a trowel and brush, and the coffin began to appear.
The detectives and the professor watched, and some of the other observers had come closer once more to see. The woman now very much in charge said, ‘Not too wet down there… Some dark staining but I’d say that’s maple wood. Very tough and long-lasting.’
A few seconds passed before Waters said, ‘Coffins can be very expensive, can’t they?’
She looked up at him. ‘They can, and the choice of material does affect how long the remains remain intact. That’s an awful phrase – please don’t write it down near my name.’
She’d noticed the detective sergeant had taken out a small black notebook. Waters said, ‘Maple wood – one of the more expensive choices?’
‘Yes, especially if it’s solid rather than veneer on a softwood. This is looking sound, so I’m sure it’s solid wood.’
Greene was looking at him too, perhaps waiting for an explanation, but Waters had that vague look the rest of the team at Central knew well by now. He stared into the grave and eventually wrote in the notebook.
