‘Well, we can hardly take a civilian’s word for it, can we? Even one who almost has a degree in forensic anthropology.’ She pulled out a torch, sending its beam sweeping across the gardens to either side as we made our way towards the end of the road. Raising her voice over the howling wind. ‘We used to come here when I was a wee girl. Every Easter, Mum and Dad would take a cottage down by the beach and we’d play in the dunes and build sandcastles and chase other people’s dogs.’ She stepped over a small picket fence and scuffed her way through wind-whipped clumps of yellowing grass. ‘I remember Clachmara was really pretty, till the old part fell in the sea. Still, that’s climate change for you, isn’t it?’
She came to a halt at a line of chain-link fencing panels. Pursed her lips as she frowned at the gap between two of the segments — pulled tight against a padlocked chain — then down at herself, then back at the gap again. ‘Somehow, I don’t think this is going to work.’
‘A pregnant woman managed to squeeze through, remember?’
‘Not this bit, she didn’t. And besides, you’re in a rush to get back to catching your child-murdering naughty man, remember?’
For God’s sake...
‘Fine: give me the torch.’
I forced my way through to the other side, following the circle of white as it writhed through the long grass, leaving her in darkness.
‘Take photographs, we need evidence!’
Rain soaked through my trouser legs, making the cold wet fabric stick to my skin. Seeped through the shoulders of my jacket. Ran down my face and the back of my neck. ‘“Oh, it’ll be a quick job,” he said, “a simple hand-holding exercise,” he said, “in and out in a jiffy,” he said.’
And on I went, following the torchlight. Limping and stumbling through the tussocky remains of someone’s garden, grass dragging at my walking stick with pale wet tentacles. The house itself was reduced to a single gable end, the rest of it had been ripped away, leaving a jagged line of cliff face with the North Sea roaring beyond.
Jesus, this was bleak.
A gust of wind shoved me back a couple of paces. Punched another fistful of rain into my face.
Sod this for a game of police officers.
The torch’s beam slithered along the boundary between here and oblivion. Off to the left, the near-vertical cliff had given way: a thick spill of rock and earth that ran down into the battering black waves. That would be where the fishing boat had disappeared.
Poor sods.
Waves crashed against the ramp of fallen headland, tearing it away with foaming teeth.
Its upper slopes reached down from the garden opposite. The house sat about a dozen feet back from the edge: a detached bungalow in sagging greys and manky browns. They’d tacked a wooden garage on the side closest to the sea, its up-and-over door hanging squint.
I slid the light across the exposed slab of earth. Faint glimmers of white shone back at me. Yup, those definitely looked like bones.
First couple of snaps on my phone came out as nothing but wobbly blurs, its flash nowhere near strong enough to illuminate anything, even with the torch’s help. The video setting was slightly better, zoomed in full, footage jerking about as wind tore at my back.
Looked as if our heavily pregnant friend was right — what loomed out of the black soil was definitely human. A pair of empty eye sockets stared at me from a skull, tilted to one side, the jaw missing. Then another thumping from the North Sea sent a chunk of dark earth peeling off, taking the skull with it, tumbling and bouncing down into the crashing waves.
A small rumble sounded beneath me, and the garden I was standing in lost another foot of mud and grass.
Yeah, maybe not the best of ideas to hang about here any longer.
Hurry back to the fence line and through to the relative safety of the storm-battered road.
Mother peered out at me from her hood. ‘Well?’
‘One hundred percent human.’
Her shoulders dipped. ‘Sod. Why couldn’t it have been a tasteless hoax? Or a stupid misunderstanding? Maybe a buried pet, or something?’
‘Never mind, leave it a couple of hours and it’ll all have fallen into the sea anyway.’
‘I knew this one was a poisoned chalice soon as I saw it. But I couldn’t go home early when everyone else did, could I? Couldn’t leave it for the nightshift to deal with. No, I had to be all stoic and dedicated.’ She sagged. Huffed out a long sad breath. ‘Take it from me, Mr Henderson, never ever answer the office phone two minutes before your shift ends. It’s always a disaster.’ Deep breath. Then a nod. ‘Suppose we’d better get Scene Examination Branch down here. Pathologist, Procurator Fiscal, search teams...’
Wind howled through the chain-link, sending us lurching sideways until we leaned into it.
‘Good luck with that.’ I gave her the torch back. ‘Now, any chance we can get on with the reason I’m actually here, while there’s still some of me that’s not drenched?’
‘Sure you don’t want to hang around and help?’ Pointing the beam at the crappy green Fiat Panda parked outside the pregnant not-quite-qualified forensic anthropologist’s house. ‘I’ve got biscuits in the car.’
‘Still got a child-killer to catch.’ No one ever listened, did they?
‘Can’t blame a girl for trying.’ Mother swung the torch around, shining it across the street at the last house on this side of the fence, the one next door to where the body was buried. A semi-detached with sagging guttering and a lichen-acned roof. An old blue Renault rusting away by the kerb and a filthy caravan in the driveway. A light in the living room window. ‘Shall we?’
‘Still don’t see why you couldn’t have done this without me.’
‘Because Helen MacNeil won’t talk to me. And she won’t talk to John. And when I sent a uniform round to try, she came this close,’ holding up two fingers, millimetres apart, ‘to making him cry. Control says you and Helen have history, so maybe she’ll talk to you. What with your overabundance of charm and everything.’
Sarcastic sod.
Besides, the kind of history Helen MacNeil and I had wasn’t exactly the good kind.
I followed Mother over to the house. The caravan acted as a windbreak, groaning on its springs as the storm pushed and shoved into the other side.
She leaned on the bell for a second or five, then squatted down and levered the letterbox open. ‘Helen? Helen, it’s Flora, can you come to the door please?’
No reply.
She tried again. ‘Helen? Hello, can you hear me?’
‘Can we stop pussyfooting about?’ I whacked the head of my walking stick against the door, three times, nice and hard. Hauled in a deep breath. ‘HELEN MACNEIL, POLICE! OPEN UP OR I’M KICKING THIS BLOODY DOOR IN!’
A tut from Mother. ‘The epitome of diplomacy, as ever.’
Three more whacks. ‘I’M NOT KIDDING, HELEN, OPEN THIS DOOR OR IT’S—’
The door swung open and a middle-aged woman scowled out at us. ‘All right, all right.’ The years hadn’t been kind to Helen MacNeil, each one of them carved into her heart-shaped face in deep spidery wrinkles. She hadn’t lost any of her bulk, though: broad of shoulder and thick of bicep, wearing a black muscle shirt with a pentagram and goat’s head on it. Short cropped grey hair. A long sharp nose that had been broken two or three times since we’d last met.
Helen clearly didn’t like me staring. ‘What the hell are you looking at?’
Mother shuffled closer, trying on her big dimply smile. ‘I know you weren’t keen on talking to us before, Helen, but it’s really important we—’