The Calling of the Grave (5 page)

    
Carson.
Angela Carson, not Carter.
But I was too angry to speak: Wainwright was
shamelessly stealing credit for what I'd told him. Yet I couldn't object
without seeming petty. Pirie looked up from his position by the grave.

    'Hardly
enough to provide an ID, surely.'

    Wainwright
gave a self-deprecating shrug. 'Call it an educated guess. At the very least I
think it's worth seeing if this is the Williams girl first.'

    He
raised his eyebrows at Simms. The policeman looked energized as he slapped his
hand against his thigh. 'I agree. Dr Pirie, how soon will you be able to
confirm if it's Tina Williams?'

    'That
all depends on the condition of the remains once they're cleaned.' The
diminutive pathologist looked up at me. 'It'll be faster if Dr Hunter works
with me? I expect skeletal trauma is more his field than mine?'

    He
had an odd, sing-song cadence. I managed a nod, furious and stunned by what
Wainwright had done.

    'Whatever
you need.' Simms no longer seemed to be listening. 'The sooner we can announce
who this is the better. And if Monk buried one of his victims here it's
reasonable to assume the others aren't far away. Excellent work, Leonard, thank
you. Give my regards to Jean. If you're both free this weekend perhaps you'd
like to come over for Sunday lunch?'

    'We'll
look forward to it,' Wainwright said.

    Simms
turned to me as an afterthought. 'Anything you'd care to add, Dr Hunter?'

    I
looked at Wainwright. His expression was politely enquiring, but his eyes held
a predatory satisfaction.
OK, if that's the way you want it. . .

    'No.'

    'Then
I'll leave you to it,' Simms said. 'We'll be making an early start in the
morning.'

    I was
still fuming later that evening when I arrived at the pub I'd been booked into.
It was a few miles from Black Tor, a place called Oldwich I'd been told was
less than a twenty-minute drive away. Either the directions were overly
optimistic or I'd made a wrong turning somewhere, because it was three-quarters
of an hour before I saw the smattering of lights in the darkness ahead.

    
About
time.
It had been a long day and driving on the moor in the pitch blackness
wasn't my idea of fun. The memory of how I'd let Wainwright outmanoeuvre me
still burned. Given his reputation I should have known better. A misty drizzle
flecked the windscreen, refracting the glare from my headlights as I pulled
into the pub car park. A flaking sign hung outside, the words
The
Trencherman's Arms
faded almost to nothing.

    The
pub wasn't much to look at from the outside, a long, low building with peeling
whitewash and a sagging thatched roof. First impressions were borne out when I
pushed through the scuffed and creaking doors. An odour of stale beer
complemented the threadbare carpets and cheap horse brasses hanging on the
walls. The bar was empty, the fireplace unlit and cold. But I'd stayed in worse
places.

    Just.

    The
landlord was a sour-faced man in his fifties, painfully thin except for a
startling pot belly that looked as hard as a bowling ball. 'If you want food we
stop serving in twenty minutes,' he told me with poor grace, sliding a broken
key fob across the worn bar.

    The
room was about what I'd expected, none too clean but not bad enough to complain
about. The mattress squeaked when I set my bag on it, sagging under the weight.
I would have liked a shower, but I was hungry and the shared bathroom had only
a rust-stained bath.

    But
food and freshening up could wait. My mobile phone had a signal, which was a bonus.
I pulled the hard-backed chair next to the room's small radiator as I called
home.

    I
always tried to call at the same time, so that Alice could keep to something
like a routine. Kara worked three days a week at the hospital, but her hours
meant that she was able to pick our daughter up from school when I was away.
She was a radiologist, a fact that had been the source of many long discussions
between us when she'd become pregnant. We'd not planned on having children for
another few years, by which time I hoped to be getting enough police work to
supplement my university wage so Kara could stay at home and look after the
baby.

    Naturally,
things hadn't turned out quite as we'd planned. But neither of us regretted it.
Even though Kara didn't really need to work any more, I hadn't argued with her
decision to go back part- time when Alice started school. She enjoyed her job,
and the extra money didn't hurt. Besides, I could hardly object, given the
demands of my own career.

    'Perfect
timing,' Kara said when she picked up. 'There's a young lady here hoping you'd
call before she goes to bed.'

    I
smiled as she passed the phone over.

    'Daddy,
I did you a picture!'

    'That's
great! Is it another horse?'

    'No,
it's our house, except with yellow curtains because I liked them better. Mummy
says she does too.'

    I
felt some of my anger and frustration slough away as I listened to my
daughter's excited account. Eventually Kara sent her off to brush her teeth and
came back on the phone herself. I heard her settling down into the chair.

    'So
how did it go?' she asked.

    Being
outmanoeuvred by Wainwright no longer seemed so important. 'Oh . . . could have
been worse. Terry Connors is deputy SIO, so at least there's a familiar face.'

    'Terry?
Well, tell him to give my love to Deborah.' She didn't sound too pleased. 'Do
you know yet how long you'll be there?'

    'At
least another couple of days. I'll be at the mortuary tomorrow, but they're
going to start looking for more graves, so it depends on how that goes.'

    We
spoke for a while longer until it was time for Kara to put Alice to bed.
Wishing I was there to read her a story, I washed and changed before going down
to the bar. I'd forgotten the landlord's warning that they would be stopping
serving food, and the twenty-minute curfew was almost up. He looked pointedly
at his watch as I ordered, mouth set in a disapproving line.

    'Another
two minutes and you'd be too late,' he snapped.

    'Lucky
I was in time, then.'

    Tight-lipped,
he went off to get my order. There were other people in the bar now, more than
a few of them police officers or connected with the investigation in some way,
I guessed. There was only one free table, so I took my drink over to it. A
solitary young woman sat at the next table, absently forking up food as she
read from an open folder next to her plate. She didn't look up when I sat down.

    The
landlord came over with cutlery. 'You can't sit here, this table's reserved.'

    'It
doesn't say it's reserved.'

    'It
doesn't have to,' he said with petty triumph. 'You'll have to move.'

    I
couldn't be bothered to argue. I looked around for somewhere else to sit, but
the only space nearby was at the young woman's table.

    'Do
you mind—' I began, but the landlord pre-empted me by slapping the cutlery
down.

    'You'll
have to share,' he declared before stalking off. The young woman looked from
him to me in surprise.

    I
gave an embarrassed smile. 'Service and charm. This place has it all.'

    'Wait
till you try the food.' She closed the folder, looking irritated.

    'I
can find somewhere else if it's a problem,' I offered.

    For a
second I could see she was tempted, but then she thought better of it. She
waved a hand at the chair.

    'No,
it's fine. I've finished anyway.' She set down her fork and pushed away her
plate.

    She
was attractive in an unobtrusive way. She wore old jeans and a loose sweater,
her thick auburn hair pulled casually back with a plain band. She struck me as
someone who didn't worry too much about how she looked, but didn't have to.
Kara was the same. She could throw on anything and still look good.

    I
glanced at the folder she'd been reading. Even upside down I'd recognized what looked
like a police report. 'Are you here on the investigation?' I asked.

    She
pointedly picked up the folder and tucked it into her bag. 'Are you a
reporter?'

    There
was frost in her voice. 'Me? God, no,' I said, surprised. 'Sorry, my name's
David Hunter, I'm a forensic anthropologist. Part of Simms' team.'

    She
relaxed, giving me a self-conscious smile. 'You'll have to excuse me. I get a
little paranoid when anyone starts quizzing me about work. And yes, I am on the
investigation.' She held out her hand. 'Sophie Keller.'

    Her
grip was firm, her hand strong and dry. She was clearly used to negotiating her
way through the traditionally male police environment.

    'So
what do you do, Sophie? Or is that being nosy again?'

    She
smiled. She had a good smile. 'I'm a BIA. That's Behavioural Investigative
Advisor.' 'Right.'

    There
was a pause. She laughed. 'It's all right, I'm not sure what a forensic
anthropologist does either.'

    'Is a
BIA like a profiler?' I asked, reminding myself to be diplomatic. That wasn't a
field I had much faith in.

    'There's
a psychological aspect, yes, but it's a little broader than that. I advise on
offenders' characteristics and motivations, but I also look at strategies for
interviewing suspects, assess crime scenes, things like that.'

    'How
come I didn't see you at the grave today?'

    'Sore
point. I didn't hear about it until this afternoon, so I'll have to make do
with photographs. Not ideal, but that wasn't really why I was brought in.'
'Oh?'

    She
hesitated. 'Well, I don't suppose it's a secret. They asked me here because if
this is one of Monk's victims the others might be buried nearby. They want me
to advise on the most likely places the graves could be. That's sort of a
speciality of mine, finding where things are hidden. Especially bodies.'

    'How
do you do that?' I was intrigued. There had been a number of technological
advances to help locate buried bodies in recent years: everything from aerial
photography to geophysics and thermal imaging. But grave location was still a
hit and miss affair, especially on a place like Dartmoor. And I wasn't sure how
a behavioural specialist could help anyway.

    'Oh,
there are ways,' she said, vaguely. 'Anyway, now you know what a BIA does. Your
turn.'

    I gave
her a potted outline of what my work involved, breaking off when the landlord
arrived with the food. He set the plate down in front of me hard enough to slop
the gravy on to the table. At least I hoped it was gravy: the greasy brown
liquid could have been anything.

    Sophie
and I considered the mess of over-boiled vegetables and grey meat. 'So you
decided against the smoked salmon and fois gras,' she said after a moment.

    'It's
the perks that make the work worthwhile,' I said, trying to spear a disintegrating
carrot on my fork. 'So where are you from?'

    'Bristol,
but I live in London these days. I used to come on holidays around here when I
was a girl, though, so I know Dartmoor quite well. I love the openness. I'd
like to move out here some day, but with work . . . Well, you know how it is.
Perhaps if I ever get tired of being a BIA.'

    'I'm
reserving judgement on Dartmoor, but I know Bristol a little. It's nice country
round there. My wife's from Bath.'

    'Oh,
right.'

    We
smiled at each other, knowing that parameters had been drawn. Now we'd
established I was married we could relax without worrying about putting out any
wrong signals.

    Sophie
was good company, sharp and funny. She talked about her home and her plans for
the future; I told her about Kara and Alice. We both spoke about our work,
although the subject of the current investigation was avoided. It was an
ongoing case, and neither of us was about to give away too much to a virtual
stranger.

    But
when I looked across the room and saw Terry and Roper heading towards me I knew
that was about to change. Terry looked startled when he saw the two of us at
the table. His expression became guarded as they approached.