“I see.” Ryan did see, quite clearly, how it probably happened. Colin had thought himself on the verge of an archaeological discovery, perhaps a trove of old Roman coins, and had burrowed into the wall in his haste to uncover them. Instead, to his chagrin, he had made a different kind of discovery altogether.
“You never had any inkling that there might be something hidden there, until you happened to notice the silver?”
Colin shuddered.
“No, I had no idea. It was a shock.”
To say the least, Ryan thought. They came to stand a little way from the entrance to the Visitor Centre and through the fencing they could see the ruined fort.
“I bet you know all about the history of this place,” Colin said suddenly.
“What makes you say that?”
Colin shrugged.
“Your girlfriend. She’s a historian, isn’t she?”
Ryan took another long look at Colin Hart.
“I didn’t mean – that is – you were on the news, around Christmas. All about that stuff up on Holy Island. I recognise your face.”
“Good memory.”
Ryan opened his mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by some wild arm gestures from Phillips, who appeared to have been cornered by Professor Freeman. Shelving the thought for now, he instructed a PC to continue taking a statement from Colin Hart.
Once Colin was safely ensconced inside a police car, he took an extra minute to rifle through the man’s rucksack, rules and regulations be damned. His eye passed over a small rectangular post card, which bore a date stamp but no message.
The process of removing human remains from the wall cavity was long and tedious, but necessary if there was to be a successful prosecution in the future. Somewhat retrospectively, Ryan approved the resources, which included a forensic archaeological team who painstakingly exhumed the body from its resting place, layer by layer. At the same time, the police entomologist – Doctor Ambrose, a portly man who spent most of his waking hours in his cosy office at the Faculty of Biological Sciences in Newcastle – examined the bones and surrounding area for insect paraphernalia. As hour after slow hour passed, Ryan watched him shuffle around the excavation site like a mole, his myopic eyes benefiting from the help of extra-strength magnifying goggles.
Ryan remembered spending an unsettling morning in the close confines of Doctor Ambrose’s office, surrounded by the pickled remains of insects in jars and decomposing rats in plastic tubs. First editions of Faune des Tombeaux and La Faune des Cadavres took pride of place on the shelf beside his desk and lurid photographs of the process of decay were framed here and there.
Weird.
He may have been an oddball, but Ambrose could help to date a body to within a two-year period, and to within days or even hours for more recent cadavers. That made him a very useful person to know.
Standing a few feet away from where Ryan and Phillips perched atop the hill overlooking Sycamore Gap, Professor Freeman guarded her nest like a mother hen. She clucked around, watching the team of archaeologists do their work, supervising the movement of every stone, the displacement of every pebble. In an act of supreme diplomacy and in deference to his superior officer’s wishes, Ryan had decided to include her in the process, as an executive consultant.
Hours later, when his staff had done all they could for the day, Ryan and Phillips made their way to the next, distinctly less picturesque stop on their tour of Northumberland. The mortuary at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle was a triumph of clinical organisation. Banks of metal drawers lined the walls of the large, whitewashed space and trolleys stood in perfect rows; some were occupied, others were vacant. Ryan nodded a greeting to a couple of morticians he recognised and skirted past the trolleys, heading for the far corner of the room. He shivered slightly, partly thanks to the specialist cooling system, which pumped icy cold air into the rooms to offset the furnaces. Through a side door, Ryan and Phillips found themselves entering a series of ante-rooms, each set up for specialist autopsies or clinical evaluations. The lemony stench of formalin mixed with formaldehyde followed them as they headed to the door marked ‘Dr Jeffrey Pinter’.
The Senior Police Pathologist was an experienced man in his early-fifties. He was tall, shoulder-to-shoulder with Ryan who stood a couple of inches over six feet, but bonier, judging by the white lab coat which hung limply from his shoulders. For all that he bore a vague resemblance to the Grim Reaper, a fact greatly enhanced by the morbidity of his workplace, Pinter was a cheerful man. He looked up from his desk with a broad smile when they slipped inside his office.
“Ryan, Phillips,” he rose and extended a hand. “Good to see you both.”