The Garden Party (6 page)

‘About five years ago,' Yewdall continued, ‘he built a wall.'

‘Did he? Well, I'll take your word for it, sweetheart. I'll take your word for it.'

‘He never mentioned a shallow grave or some other form of hiding bodies . . . like under a pile of rubble?' Ainsclough glanced out of the window as an elderly man shuffled along the road. He thought the man seemed to be hurrying despite the shuffle.

‘You've found one?' Pearl Holst sat back in the chair she occupied and crossed her legs in what both officers thought was a manly gesture, with her right ankle resting on her left knee and with her right calf parallel to the floor. ‘So what's the big deal there? I mean, so what? They're all over London, darling . . . shallow graves . . . and iffy piles of rubble and up in Epping Forest, plenty of graves there.'

‘And Desmond knew about them?'

‘I'm not a grass, sweetheart, never was and I'm not changing now. Anyway, I think you'd better leave my drum, I've got a visit to make.' Pearl Holst's voice hardened.

‘Oh . . .' Yewdall stood, as did Ainsclough.

‘Yeah . . . I'm going to take a wander up to The Neptune. I'm going to slap the governor; he shouldn't have told you where my drum was . . . that was bang out of order.'

‘We'd have found you anyway and we told him that. All we needed to do was to call the local nick . . . which we did.'

‘Even so, I'm still going to deck him.' Pearl Holst stood. ‘He was out of order.'

‘He's bigger than you.'

‘That didn't help him last time and it won't help him this time. That guy . . . he can't stop running his north and south off. I won't worry about him pressing charges against yours truly; he knows better than to do that. It'll be the end of him and the end of The Neptune if he does. It's not a bad old boozer but there are other battle cruisers in the borough, so we'll be all right.'

Penny Yewdall drove the car slowly along Eynsford Road and then turned right at the end of the street towards the main thoroughfare of Green Lane and the route back to Central London. Ainsclough glanced out of the window of the passenger seat. ‘You didn't tell me he was a blagger.'

‘Who?'

‘Desmond Holst.'

‘I didn't know, not till you did . . . not till just now. I also didn't know that Desmond Holst was aka Ralph Payne . . . nor did I know that Pearl Holst has contacts who can dissuade people from pressing charges and who can torch pubs. That is more than having distant relatives in the travelling community; that is being part of villainy, proper London villainy.'

‘It is, isn't it?' Tom Ainsclough grinned. ‘You know, it's astonishing what someone who isn't a grass and never was can tell you . . . it was very informative . . . very public spirited of her.'

H
arry Vicary drove calmly and steadily out to the location following the clear directions contained in the note, which Frankie Brunnie had requested to be left for his urgent attention in Vicary's pigeonhole. Orchard Lane, Vicary discovered, was a short road with a surface of both concrete and tarmac which joined the much longer Monkham Lane at ninety degrees, thus creating a T-junction, and did so in an area of prestigious suburban housing set in and graced with rich foliage. Vicary slowed his car as he noticed the expected police activity and halted his car behind a marked police vehicle. He also noticed the other vehicles present at the scene: two vans from the Metropolitan Police dog branch, a black windowless mortuary van, a police minibus and two other cars, both unmarked yet both clearly part of the police presence. He got out of the car leaving his window wound down, thus allowing the interior of the car to ‘breathe' in the summer heat, and then he strolled with effortless authority across Monkham Lane to where a lone constable stood. The constable, dressed in a short-sleeved white shirt and serge trousers, gave a half salute as Vicary approached and then stood aside and said, ‘In the woods, sir,' indicating the area of woodland behind him. Vicary nodded his thanks and entered what he found to be the welcoming shade of the thick stand of trees. Once inside the treeline he immediately saw a blue-and-white police tape which cordoned off a small area of, he guessed, approximately ten feet by ten feet within the wood and, surprisingly, he thought, for a crime scene, quite close to Monkham Lane. The tall, black-bearded figure of DC Frankie Brunnie stood outside the cordoned off area, as did a number of white-shirted constables and two dogs, both resting, but both held on leashes by their handlers. Within the enclosed area, Vicary saw John Shaftoe kneeling on the ground, close to where a constable was slowly and carefully excavating a hole in the soil with a spade.

‘Thank you for coming, sir.' Frankie Brunnie turned to Vicary as Vicary approached him. ‘I thought that you would want to be here. I phoned the directions through as soon as I realized that there was something in this but you were out.'

‘Yes, I was left a note in my pigeonhole. Thank you.'

‘Sir . . . we're still finding bones, we are going very slowly.'

‘So I see.' Vicary observed the careful, gentle manner in which the constable scraped away the soil, layer by layer. ‘But bones . . . not bodies?'

‘No, sir, bones, as you see.' Brunnie pointed to the bones which had been placed in a neat pile in one corner of the cordoned off area, and which at that moment were being closely examined by John Shaftoe, who glanced at Vicary and gave him a brief smile of recognition. He then returned his attention to the bones.

‘We used dogs, as you see, sir, it being a wooded area; as you know, we can only use ground-penetrating radar in open spaces,' Brunnie explained.

‘Yes.' Vicary brushed a fly away from his face.

‘Dogs are preferable anyway if you ask me, sir. GPR images have to be interpreted, but a dog knows when he has picked up the scent of decaying flesh and they came up with the goods all right; two spaniels, as you see.' Brunnie nodded in the direction of the two springer spaniels. ‘Alsatians have their uses in crowd control situations and in bringing down felons but you can't beat a springer when it comes to scenting . . . gun dogs, you see. Please meet Charlie Chan and Sherlock.'

‘You're joking?' Vicary grinned.

‘No joke, sir. Charlie Chan is the one lying down.'

‘So . . .' Vicary looked at the pile of bones and then at the slowly deepening hole. ‘What do we have?'

‘Two adult males, according to Mr Shaftoe, sir,' Brunnie replied, ‘two skulls and about the right number of bones to make two skeletons. They've been chopped up, I mean well chopped up.'

‘Dismembered?'

‘Yes, sir,' Brunnie replied, ‘I dare say that that would be a better way of putting it. Mr Shaftoe is examining them at the moment.'

‘So I see.' Vicary glanced at the figure of John Shaftoe, casually dressed, kneeling on the floor of the woodland holding a long bone in each hand, and at that moment, Vicary thought, looking more like a man weeding his allotment than the Home Office Pathologist he actually was.

‘Excuse me, sir,' the constable who was digging the hole stood and addressed Brunnie. ‘I am certain that I have reached consolidated soil now; this soil hasn't been disturbed at all. I am coming across unbroken roots as well.'

‘Very good.' Brunnie, accompanied by Vicary, walked to the cordoned off area and, raising the tape, walked to the edge of the hole in which the constable stood. The hole was, Vicary guessed, about four feet deep.

The constable drew the tip of the blade of the spade across the soil at the bottom of the hole. ‘I've dug down about one foot deeper than the last piece of bone to be found, sir, and as I said, I am sure I am digging in undisturbed soil . . . totally consolidated. I am sure that nothing has been buried below this level.'

Brunnie glanced at Vicary who nodded. ‘Very well,' Brunnie addressed the constable, ‘thank you, that is a good job done. Get someone to help you and sift the soil as you refill the hole.'

‘Very good, sir.' The constable's reply was prompt and attentive. Brunnie turned to a Scene of Crime Officer who wore a high definition yellow waistcoat. ‘Can you photograph the hole, please? Perhaps you could use something to give the photograph scale?'

‘Yes, sir, I'll use the spade, if I may.' The SOCO stepped forward and took hold of the spade as it was handed to him by the constable who was levering himself out of the hole.

‘A hole with bones,' John Shaftoe grunted as he got to his feet and brushed soil from his trousers. He had rolled up the sleeves of his blue shirt and drew his forearm across his brow, sweeping away beads of sweat in the process. A white, wide-brimmed cricket hat sat upon the top of his head. ‘It is quite a clever way of doing it,' he panted. ‘You dig a hole, just a small hole . . . not as large as you would need for a body; place the bones neatly within said hole. You can place all the bones of the human body . . . an adult body that is . . . in the sort of cubic dimension of an old-fashioned television set, and two sets of bones both from adult humans could be placed in the sort of space that would be occupied by a small washing machine or a freezer . . . or in this case a hole of that size; less in fact because the constable dug down an extra foot or so, as he has just informed you, thorough man that he is.' Shaftoe took another deep breath and shook his head. ‘I am not as young as I used to be . . . but all the flesh has been removed, that is a necessity if you are going to conceal bones in such a small area.'

‘And that is what has happened here, Mr Shaftoe?'

‘Yes, as you see, no flesh or muscle or any form of sinew remain. I'll get the bones back to the Royal London as soon as I can. There will be no pronouncements without prior examin-ation under proper clinical conditions, but I can tell you that all the bones show evidence of having been exposed to fire.'

‘They've been burnt?'

Shaftoe inclined his head to one side and then the other. ‘I can't say for sure. I have seen similar scorching on bones in archaeological sites where the ancients practised cannibalism . . . or the remnants of animal bones round a camp fire. The scorching is probably the indication of attempts to burn the flesh so as to separate it from the bone rather than an attempt to burn the bones themselves as a means of destroying them.'

‘I see.' Vicary nodded. ‘Understood.'

‘I can also tell you that that could not have been done here.'

‘No?' Vicary queried.

‘No . . . well . . . just look around you, the proximity to a very busy road and houses; leafy, well-set Ilford.'

‘I see what you mean.' Vicary glanced around him.

‘Space and time,' Shaftoe remarked. ‘Both space and time would be needed to reduce a corpse into a pile of bones; you'd need quite a bonfire to burn the flesh away, then you would separate the bones and possibly boil the remaining flesh away, one or two bones at a time. This is not medical thinking, you see, Mr Vicary, this is just honest to goodness logic.'

‘Appreciate that, sir.'

‘It would take a week from beginning to end, I would think.' Shaftoe took off his wide-brimmed white cricketer's hat and revealed a bald head. He wiped his brow once again and replaced his hat.

‘You think?'

‘Yes, I would think so. A massive fire which would give off the unmistakable smell of burning flesh, then isolating each bone and boiling it to remove the last remnants of muscle and sinew . . . where there is no danger of being disturbed . . . a few days' work there, I shouldn't wonder.'

‘I see your point, sir.' Vicary glanced towards the road and nearby houses. ‘It would not – it could not have been done here.'

‘As to when.' Shaftoe shrugged. ‘That will always be inconclusive.'

‘We have information which suggests they have been here in excess of five years.'

‘Oh?'

‘Yes . . . it was a note in a wall which alerted us to the presence. The wall was built, or rebuilt rather, five years ago. It was in the form of a rough sketch map.'

‘Very good,' Shaftoe murmured. ‘Good enough, it got us here . . . it did its job.'

Besides Shaftoe, Vicary and Brunnie, two officers shovelled small amounts of soil into a sieve which was held by a third officer, whereupon it was gently shaken over the hole.

Shaftoe broke the brief silence. ‘I do wonder why on earth they went to the trouble of burying them. I mean, if the felons had gone to all this trouble to separate flesh from bone, they clearly wanted their two victims to disappear.'

‘That seems a reasonable assumption,' Vicary replied.

‘So why then bury them in a shallow grave in woodland adjacent to a busy road and densely populated area? Seems to work against their apparent intention of permanent disappearance. If they had reduced the bodies to bones then it would be a simple matter to put the bones in one or two cardboard boxes and drop them off Richmond Bridge one dark, rainy night. Let the Old Father swallow them. But to go to the trouble of burying them in a wood, you'd have the devil of a job cutting through the root plate. I mean, any infantryman will tell you that you can't dig-in in a wood.'

‘Because of the roots?' Vicary asked.

‘Yes,' Shaftoe replied. ‘This hole was much, much harder to dig than would have been a similar-sized hole dug in a field.'

Vicary turned to the constable who had excavated the hole. ‘Did you encounter roots, constable?'

‘Yes, sir, a few.' The constable held the sieve quite still as he answered Vicary. ‘But it was all new growth. Any old roots had become mixed with the bones and had decayed.'

‘You have a point, Mr Shaftoe. Why not just dump them in the river?'

‘And why here?' Shaftoe added. ‘Folk hereabouts would have called you blokes if they heard digging in the wood at night . . . and it would have been dug at night or over one or two nights because pedestrians or dog walkers would have heard it during the day, or even come across the man or men digging it. It's a puzzle, but one for you, not one for me.'