Innocent Graves (6 page)

Rebecca rested her forehead against the cool glass and watched her breath mist up the window. She found herself doodling Patrick’s name with her fingernail and felt the need for him burn in her loins. She hated herself for feeling this way. Patrick was ten years younger than she was, a mere twenty-six, but he was so ardent, so passionate, always talking so excitedly about life and poetry and love. Though she needed him, she hated her need; though she determined every day to call it off, she desired nothing more than to lose herself completely in him.

Like the drinking, Patrick was an escape; she had enough self-knowledge to work that out, at any rate. An escape from the
poisoned atmosphere at St Mary’s, from what she and Daniel had become, and, as she admitted in her darkest moments, an escape from her own fears and suspicions.

Now this. It didn’t make sense, she tried to convince herself. Daniel couldn’t possibly be a murderer. Why would he want to murder someone as innocent as Deborah Harrison? Just because you feared a person might be guilty of one thing, did that mean he had to be guilty of something else, too?

As she watched the policemen in their capes and wellingtons poke through the long grass, she had to face the facts: Daniel had come home only
after
she had gone to see the angel; he had gone out
before
she thought she heard the scream; she hadn’t known where he was, and when he came back his shoes were muddy, with leaves and gravel stuck to their soles.

III

The mortuary was in the basement of Eastvale General Infirmary, an austere Victorian brick building with high draughty corridors and wards that Susan had always thought were guaranteed to make you ill if you weren’t already.

The white-tiled post-mortem room, though, had recently been modernized, as if, she thought, the dead somehow deserved a healthier environment than the living.

Chilled by the cooling unit rather than by the wind from outside, it had two shiny metal tables with guttered edges and a long lab bench along one wall, with glass-fronted cabinets for specimen jars. Susan had never dared ask about the two jars that looked as if they contained human brains.

Dr Glendenning’s assistants had already removed Deborah Harrison’s body from its plastic bag, and she lay, clothed as she had been in the graveyard, on one of the tables.

It was nine o’clock, and the radio was tuned to “Wake up to Wogan.” “Do we have to listen to that rubbish?” Banks asked.

“It’s
normal,
Banks,” said Glendenning. “That’s why we have it on. Millions of people in houses all around the country will be
listening to Wogan now. People who aren’t just about to cut open the body of a sixteen-year-old girl. I suppose you’d like some fancy classical concert on Radio 3, wouldn’t you? I can’t say that the thought of performing a post-mortem to Elgar’s
Enigma Variations
would do a hell of a lot for me.” Glendenning stuck a cigarette in the corner of his mouth and pulled on his surgical gloves.

Susan smiled. Banks looked at her and shrugged.

The girl on the slab wasn’t a human being, Susan kept telling herself. She was just a piece of dead meat, like at the butcher’s. She remembered June Walker, the butcher’s daughter, from school in Sheffield, and recalled the peculiar smell that always seemed to emanate from her. Odd, she hadn’t thought of June Walker in years.

The smell—stale and sharp, but sweet, too—was here, all right, but it was buried under layers of formaldehyde and cigarette smoke, for both Glendenning and Banks were smoking furiously. She didn’t blame them. She had once seen a film on television in which an American woman cop rubbed some Vick’s or something under her nose to mask the smell of a decomposing body. Susan didn’t dare do such a thing herself for fear the others would laugh at her. After all, this was Yorkshire, not America.

Still, as she watched Glendenning cut and probe at the girl’s clothing, then remove it for air-drying and storage, she almost wished she were a smoker. At least that smell was easier to wash away than the smell of death; that seemed to linger in her clothes and hair for days after.

Deborah’s panties lay in a plastic bag on the lab bench. They weren’t at all like the navy-blue knickers, the “passion-killers,” that Susan had worn at school, but expensive, silky and rather sexy black panties. Maybe such things were
de rigueur
for St Mary’s girls, Susan thought. Or had Deborah been hoping to impress someone? They still didn’t know if she’d had a boyfriend.

Her school blazer lay next to the panties in a separate bag, and beside that lay her satchel. Vic Manson, the fingerprints expert, had sent it back early that morning, saying he had found clear prints on one of the vodka bottles but only blurred partials on the smooth leather surface of the satchel. DI Stott had been through
Deborah’s blazer pockets and found only a purse with six pounds thirty-three pence in it, an old chewing-gum wrapper, her house keys, a cinema ticket stub and a half-eaten roll of Polo mints.

After one of his assistants had taken photographs, Glendenning examined the face, noting the pinpoint haemorrhages in the whites of the eyes, eyelids and skin of the cheeks. Then he examined the weal on the neck.

“As I said last night,” he began, “it looks like a clear case of asphyxia by ligature strangulation. Look here.”

Banks and Susan bent over the body. Susan tried not to look into the eyes. Glendenning’s probe indicated the discoloured weal around the front of the throat. “Whoever did this was pretty strong,” he said. “You can see how deeply the strap bit into the flesh. And I’d say our chappie was a good few inches taller than his victim. And she was tall for her age. Five foot six.” He turned to Susan. “That’s almost 168 centimetres, to the younger generation. See how the wound is deeper at the bottom, the way it would be if you were pulling a leather strap upwards?” He moved away and demonstrated on one of the assistants. “See?” Banks and Susan nodded.

“Are you sure the satchel strap was the weapon?” Banks asked.

Glendenning nodded. He picked it up and held it out. “You can see traces of blood on the edge here, where it broke the skin. We’re having it typed, of course, but I’d put money on this being your weapon.”

Next, he set about removing the plastic bags that covered the hands. Gently—almost, Susan thought, like a manicurist—he held up each hand and peered at the fingernails. Deborah’s nails had been quite long, Susan noticed, not the bitten-to-the-quick mess hers had been when she was at school.

When Glendenning got to the middle finger of her right hand, he murmured to himself, then took a shiny instrument from the tray and ran it under the top of the nail, calling to one of his assistants for a glassine envelope.

“What is it?” Banks asked. “Did she put up a fight?”

“Looks like she got at least one good scratch in. With a bit of luck we’ll be able to get DNA from this.”

Passing quickly over the chest and stomach, Glendenning next picked up a probe and turned his attention to the pubic region. Susan looked away; she didn’t want to witness this indignity, and she didn’t care what anyone said or thought of her.

But she couldn’t shut out the sound of Glendenning’s voice.

“Hmm. Interesting,” he said. “No obvious signs of sexual inter ference. No bruising. No lacerations. Let’s have a look behind.”

He flipped the body over; it slapped against the table like meat on a butcher’s block. Susan heard her heart beating fast and loud during the silence that followed.

“No. Nothing,” Glendenning announced at last. “At least nothing obvious. I’m waiting for the test results on the swabs but I’d bet you a pound to a penny they’ll turn up nothing.”

Susan turned back to face the two of them. “So she wasn’t raped?” she asked.

“Doesn’t look like it,” Glendenning answered. “Of course, we won’t know for sure until we’ve had a good look around inside. And in order to do that …” He picked up a large scalpel.

Glendenning bent over the body and started to make the Y incision from shoulders to pubes. He detoured around the tough tissue of the navel with a practised flick of the wrist.

“Right,” said Banks, turning to Susan. “We’d better go.”

Glendenning looked up from the gaping incision and raised his eyebrows. “Not staying for the rest of the show?”

“No time. We don’t want to be late for school.”

Glendenning looked at the corpse and shook his head. “Can’t say I blame you. Some days I wish I’d stayed in bed.”

As they left Glendenning to sort through the inner organs of Deborah Harrison, Susan had never felt quite so grateful to Banks in her life. Next time they were in the Queen’s Arms, she vowed she would buy him a pint. But she wouldn’t tell him why.

THREE

I

St Mary’s School wasn’t exactly Castle Howard, but it certainly looked impressive enough to be used as a location in a BBC classic drama.

Banks and Susan turned through the high, wrought-iron gates and drove along a winding driveway; sycamores flanked both sides, laying down a carpet of rust and gold leaves; double-winged seeds spun down like helicopter blades in the drizzle.

Through the trees, they first glimpsed the imposing grey stone building, with its central cupola, high windows and columns flanking the front entrance. Statues stood on the tops of the columns, against a frieze, and double stairs curled out at the front like lobster claws.

St Mary’s School for Girls, Banks had read, was founded in 1823 on forty acres of woodland by the River Swain. The main building, completed in 1773, had been intended as a country house but had never been lived in. Rumour had it that Lord Satterthwait, for whom the house had been built, lost much of his fortune in an ill-advised business venture abroad, along with the money of a number of other county luminaries, and was forced to flee the area in disgrace for America.

The grounds were quiet this morning, but a group of girls in maroon blazers saw Banks pull up and started whispering among themselves. The car was unmarked, but Banks and Susan were strangers, and by now everyone must know that Deborah Harrison had been murdered.

Banks asked one of the girls where they might find the head, and she directed him through the front door, right down to the back of
the building, then along the last corridor to the right. Inside, the place was all high, ornate ceilings and dark, polished wainscoting. Susan’s footsteps echoed as they walked. It was certainly a far cry from the institutional gloom of Eastvale Comprehensive, or from Banks’s old redbrick school in Peterborough, for that matter.

They walked along the narrow corridor, noting the gilt-framed paintings of past heads on the walls. Most of them were men. When they reached the door marked “Dr JS Green: Principal,” Banks knocked sharply.

Expecting to be asked into an anteroom and vetted by a secretary first, Banks was surprised when he and Susan found themselves in the head’s office. Like the rest of the building, it had a high ceiling with elaborate cornices, but there its ancient character ended.

The wainscoting, if there had been any, had been removed and the walls were papered in an attractive Laura Ashley print. A shaded electric light hung from the old chandelier fixture, and several gun-metal filing cabinets stood against the wall. The bay window dominated the room, its window seat scattered with cushions that matched the wallpaper. The view through the trees to the river, Banks noticed, was magnificent, even on a drizzly November morning. Across the river was St Mary’s Park, with its pond, trees, benches and children’s playground.

“What do you think?” Dr Green asked, after they had introduced themselves and shaken hands.

“Pardon?” said Banks.

She took their raincoats and hung them on a rack in the corner. “I couldn’t help but notice that you were ‘casing the joint’ as they say,” she said.

“Hardly,” said Banks. “That’s what the bad guys do.”

She blushed slightly. “Oh, dear. My gaffe. I suppose criminal parlance is not my forte.”

Banks smiled. “Just as well. Anyway, it’s very nice.”

The tall, elegant Dr Julia Green looked every bit as Laura Ashley as her walls. The skirt and waistcoat she wore over her white blouse were made of heavy cloth; earth colours dominated, browns and greens, mixed with the odd flash of muted pink or yellow, like wildflowers poking their way through the undergrowth.

Her ash-blonde hair lay neatly piled and curled on her head, with only one or two loose strands. She had a narrow face, high cheekbones and a small nose. There was also a remote, unattainable quality about her that intrigued Banks. She might be one of the pale and distant beauties, but there was no mistaking the sharp glint of intelligence in her apple-green eyes. Right now, they also looked red from crying.

“This is a terrible business,” she said. “Though I suppose you have to deal with it all the time.”

“Not often,” said Banks. “And you never get used to it.” “Please, sit down.”

Banks and Susan sat in the two chairs opposite the small, solid desk. Susan took her notebook out.

“I don’t know how I can help you,” Dr Green went on, “but I’ll do my best.”

“Maybe you could start by telling us what kind of a girl Deborah was.”

She rested her hands on the desk, tapered fingers laced together. “I can’t tell you very much,” she said. “Deborah is … was … a day-girl. Do you know how the system works?”

“I don’t know much about public schools at all.”

“
Independent
school,” she corrected him. “Public school sounds so Victorian, don’t you think? Well, you see, we have a mix of day-girls and boarders. The actual balance changes slightly from year to year, but at the moment, we have 65 day-pupils and 286 boarding. When I say that Deborah was a day-girl I don’t describe her status in any way, just note the simple fact that she came and went each day, so one didn’t develop any special relationship with her.”

“Relationship?”

“Yes. Well, when you live in such close proximity to the pupils, you’re bound to get to know more about them, aren’t you?”

“In what way?”

“In any number of ways. Whether it be the crisis of Elizabeth’s first period, Meredith’s parents’ divorce or Barbara’s estrangement from her mother. These things can’t help but come out from time to time with the boarding pupils.”