“Go see the police. What else? Do you mind if I take this with me?”
She turned her head to the side to avoid looking at it, like a baby resisting its mashed carrot. “Take it. Please.”
As he was putting it back in the sack, she said, “Ask for Sergeant Clapper; he’s in charge. The police station is on Upper Garrison Lane, on the way back toward the castle. You can’t miss it.”
SIX
He could and did, walking the two-block length of Upper Garrison Lane twice before he realized that the modest two-story house, tucked into the elbow of an uphill curve in the street and half-hidden behind lush shrubbery and a low stone wall, was what he was looking for. No sign out front, no parking area, not a police car in sight. But behind a rolling bank of pink and white narcissus, slightly below the level of the street and overhung by a shabby, glassed-in balcony, he finally spotted a nondescript storefront window that might have been the entrance to a dry cleaner’s or a hearing aid center. But a closer look showed POLICE in stick-on letters on the window, and an inconspicuous gray plaque on the stuccoed wall beside it:
Devon and Cornwall Constabulary
Isles of Scilly Police Station
This station is open between 0900 hours and 1000 hours daily where possible.
He smiled. It must be nice to live someplace where reports of criminality could be dealt with in an hour a day (where possible). Once he opened the door and walked in, however, except for the absence of a reception area, he found himself in a small-town version of any big-city police station he’d ever been in: a short corridor lined with a couple of glassed-in cubicles, mismatched office furniture, too-bright neon ceiling lights, desks cluttered with papers and files, and walls cluttered with plastic-sheeted, grease-pencil calendars and charts, scrawled notes, and public information posters, including an unlikely one advertising “Substantial Rewards for Information Leading to the Prosecution of Terrorists.” On a bureau near the door were two old-fashioned bucket helmets and two of the newer checkered police hats that always made Gideon think of taxi drivers.
The cubicle to the left, despite its desk and chair, seemed to be a storage space, copy center, and coffee room. In the one on the right a smiling, clean-cut, red-haired young man in dark blue uniform trousers and a short-sleeved, open-throated white shirt with blue epaulets sat working at a computer, apparently untroubled by an in-basket that was spilling over with forms and memos.
“I’m Police Constable Robb,” he said cheerfully, swiveling his chair to face the newcomer. “How may I be of service?”
“My name’s Gideon Oliver, Constable. I’m an anthropologist. I was just looking over some bones at the museum, and one of them in particular caught my attention. A tourist brought it into the museum in January. It was buried on the beach near Halangy Point. Her dog dug it up.”
“And we’re speaking of a human bone here, sir?” Polite attention, but no real interest. As Madeleine had said, the odd human bone turning up now and then wasn’t that unusual.
“Definitely, yes, but the main thing is that I think there’s a good chance that it came from someone who’s been dismembered. My guess is that it’s something that happened within the last ten years, probably in the last five, so I thought I’d better bring it in. I’m supposed to ask for Sergeant Clapper.”
A stray bone might be nothing to get excited about, but violent crimes, let alone dismemberments, were not common fare on St. Mary’s. Robb’s mouth hung open for a moment before he replied. “I think Sergeant Clapper is very much the man for that, sir.”
He picked up his telephone and explained. “Shall I send him in, sir?”
Gideon heard the rumbled answer come through the door at the end of the corridor, delivered with a won’t-they-ever-leave-me-in-peace sigh. “No, I’ll come there.”
Sergeant Clapper was a broad, heavy man of fifty-five or so in civilian clothes-black corduroy trousers and a white shirt folded back over thick, hairy wrists-with a sad, dull-brown slick of hair pulled across his scalp, a heavy red drinker’s face, and tired, seen-everything, don’t-even- think -of-putting-anything-over-on-me eyes. He stuck out a blunt-fingered, big-knuckled hand that looked as hard as a shovel but turned out to be about as emphatic as something dragged out of a pond in late August.
“I’m Sergeant Clapper.”
“Gideon Oliver.”
“What’s all this about a dismemberment?”
“Well, I have it here.” He looked for someplace on Robb’s desk on which to put it, and with a sweep of both hands Robb cleared a space. File folders and their contents flopped to the floor.
“Kyle, your desk is a damned disgrace,” Clapper muttered.
Robb seemed undisturbed. “Sorry, Sarge.”
Gideon opened the bag and put the tibial fragment on the old-fashioned blotter that was now visible on the desktop. When, he wondered, had he last seen a desk blotter, let alone one that was actually stained with ink? The three men stood looking down at the bone. Robb seemed eager to comment but waited for his chief.
“That’s it?” Clapper said. “That’s your dismemberment?” He made a small dismissive gesture with his hand. Gideon noticed that the fingernails were chewed to scraps and the thick fingers were deeply tobacco-stained, down almost to the first joint.
“Well, it’s an indication, a possible indication, of a dismemberment.”
“Ah, so it’s a possible indication, is it?”
Gideon was beginning to get irritated. “Sergeant-”
“American, are you?”
“That’s right, I’m here just for the week, for the consortium at Star Castle.”
“Oh, yes? One of the participants?”
“Well, no, my wife is a Fellow. I’m just here to… I’m just along.”
Clapper’s lips parted to show a set of big brown teeth. “ Are you now? Well, well.”
Now Gideon was irritated. What the hell was that supposed to mean?
“I’m also a professional anthropologist,” he said hotly. “I do quite a lot of forensic work. I assure you, I know what I’m talking about.”
“No offense, Mr. Oliver.”
“ Doctor Oliver,” Gideon said. “Or professor, if you prefer.”
Now he was not only annoyed with Clapper, but with himself for letting the guy get under his skin. And ashamed of himself as well for acting like a stuffed shirt. This was not going as planned.
He summoned up what he hoped was convincingly friendly smile. “Well, let me show you what I have,” he said mildly, “and you can take it from there.”
“Chairs, Kyle,” Clapper ordered from the side of his mouth.
Robb was obviously used to being treated like this. Docilely, he cleared off a couple of fabric-seated metal chairs and set them in front of the desk. When the three men sat, Clapper put an ankle-booted foot against the desk front and shoved himself back a few feet. He was putting some space between himself and them to show that he wasn’t committing himself to anything yet. This was between his constable and his visitor; he was merely observing.
So be it. Gideon addressed himself directly to Robb while Clapper, looking preoccupied, thumbed open the lid of a red-and-white pack of Gold Bond cigarettes and lit up.
“What this is-” Gideon began.
The telephone on Robb’s desk chirped. He picked it up, listened, and covered the mouthpiece. “It’s for you, Sarge: Exeter. Policy and Performance Unit, Chief Inspector Cory. What should I tell him?’
“Tell him to sod off, the vile bugger,” Clapper growled.
“Sarge, this is the third time in the last two-”
“Tell him to sod off.”
Robb removed his hand from the mouthpiece. “Chief Inspector? Sergeant Clapper is in conference with village officials at the moment. May I have him call you back? Yes, I know he did. No, I’ll see he does this time. Yes, of course he will. Thank you, Chief Inspector.”