Death on Dartmoor Read online

  ‘We’ll keep on going,’ said Pargeter. His eyes gleamed. ‘Looks like we might well have a murder mystery on our hands, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s speed up a bit, shall we?’

  Dan watched the process unfold. Pargeter and Denning worked on the skeleton with tiny tweezers, and what he could have sworn were chopsticks, teasing out the smallest bones as they exposed the body to the air for the first time in years.

  He had little sense of time passing, stepping out of the cordoned area only to eat the pasty and drink his coffee. It was painstaking and delicate work. There was some skin still on the body, but much of it was skeleton, stained deep ochre by the peat.

  Laura Denning paused after an hour or so and pointed at another oddly squared-off shape on the torso.

  ‘Err… Dr Fox,’ she said, her light Edinburgh tones a contrast to his Glaswegian rumble. ‘I think… this is…’ She brushed away peaty soil.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Fox, on his knees once more. ‘It’s nothing more than I expected, my dear, thank you. I think if you look just here, Inspector,’ he said, ‘you will see a neck, without a head.’

  ‘Gangland killing?’ asked Neil Pargeter, peering into the hole.

  Dan shrugged. ‘Unlikely in Devon, but you never know. You can’t argue that it’s not murder, though. And, if I’m not mistaken, there’s too much skin tissue and bone left for this body to have been in the bog for a long time, isn’t there?’

  Pargeter nodded. ‘Yeah. You can get a better idea with radiocarbon dating at the lab, but,’ he looked at Fox for confirmation, ‘in my experience, bones and soft tissue wouldn’t last this well in acidic peat if they had been buried more than ten, maybe fifteen years ago.’

  Sally, who had been quiet and thoughtful during the afternoon, forced herself to look more closely at the body. ‘Whoever put him in here hasn’t exactly made it easy for us to identify him, have they?’ she said. ‘No clothes, obviously no fingerprints, no teeth…’

  Pargeter interrupted her. ‘These days we can find the tiniest fibres, or hair samples in the soil surrounding the burial site and get DNA from them. That’s why we’re so careful to get it all. You’d be surprised what murderers leave behind when they think they’ve cleaned up after themselves.’

  ‘Hmm. You have to admit, though,’ Sally added, ‘it takes a bit of planning to get rid of the head and hands. It’ll make our job harder.’

  Fox grunted. ‘Not much point in speculating, Sergeant Ellis, but you’re right; we’re looking at a recent burial.’ He looked out across the moor at the old woman walking her dog round the car park. ‘You should give that lady the bad news and let her get on home. The temperature will plummet once night falls.’

  Sally took the hint and got a PC to drive Miss Price home in the area car. The look of sheer disappointment on her face made Sally wince. She thanked Elspeth as roundly as she could without gushing. She was an old woman, not a stupid one.

  While she was at the car park she texted her mother to pick up the girls from the childminder, and Paul to say she’d be late. He’d love hearing about this when she got home, but a murder meant a whole raft of late nights, stress and relying on her mum more than she wanted to. Maybe it was time for mum to move in with her and Paul. On the other hand, how exciting was finding a body buried on Dartmoor?

  She watched Dan chatting away to Neil Pargeter as she walked back from the car park. He seemed to have recovered from the death of Ian Gould in April, and his relationship with Claire was a delight.

  She checked along the road and the open moor. No nosy parkers as yet. No walkers, even. They just needed another couple of hours to finish the job, and the body would be nice and secure before they had to tell the press anything. And then they had to decide how much to tell the public.

  6

  The afternoon faded into the palest blue. The diggers continued down through the soil, getting into the rhythm most efficient for removing everything from the burial site.

  Nathan Solomon, a technician from the archaeology department, arrived with a bus load of lighting and a noisy generator that put their teeth on edge. He set three arc lights up to illuminate the grave area and took his phone out, ready for a picture. Bill Larcombe nipped in and removed it from his grasp. ‘I’m the only one taking photos around here, laddie. Don’t want the investigation all over social media, do we?’ He handed the phone back with a glare.

  Solomon gave the sergeant a sullen stare, then shrugged and walked away, muttering to himself as he returned the phone to his pocket.

  Campbell Fox, his face white with tiredness, finally declared that they had the body. The almost-complete skeleton lay exposed. Bill Larcombe took a final set of photographs.

  ‘Male or female?’ asked Sally.

  ‘Impossible to tell,’ answered Fox. ‘Could be male, I’ll know more tomorrow.’

  Pargeter stood up and stretched his aching back. ‘That’s done,’ he said. ‘We’ll now have to look for the heads and hands, I guess.’

  Dan shook his head. ‘No, that’s a specialist search team job. They could be anywhere. We’ll arrange that.’

  Fox said, ‘Let’s get the body home, Doctor Pargeter.’ He gestured to the two men standing outside their van in the car park. ‘Come over,’ he yelled. ‘We’re ready for ye!’

  They brought a stretcher and opened a body bag on it. Neil Pargeter and Laura Denning loaded the body into it by hand, in order to preserve the flesh where it clung to the bones, before strapping it in place for the bumpy journey back to the car park.

  * * *

  Nathan Solomon had to hang around until the end, desperate to take the lighting down and go home. He was cold and not in the mood for having his right to take photos ruined by police. ‘Fascist bloody state,’ he said, kicking a pebble and idly twisting one of the arc lights right down into the bottom of the grave. He had to admire the neat cutting of the peat and the striations in the soil he could pick out faintly under the focused beam. Then he saw something else. ‘Whoa!’ he shouted, waving his arms at the departing team. ‘Come back! Neil, Laura! I think you’ve missed something…’

  Neil Pargeter dropped the box of trowels, cursed, and ran back to the grave. ‘What?’ he asked. ‘This had better not be you messing about, Nat,’ he said.

  ‘There,’ Solomon cried, ‘at the bottom of the grave, on the right. Can you see it? The layers in the soil are wrong on that side of the cut, too. There’s more disturbed earth.’ He looked up at Neil Pargeter, ready to defend himself if Neil shouted at him. ‘I reckon there’s another one in there.’

  Pargeter whistled under his breath. ‘No, you’re right, Nat,’ he said. ‘Sorry for snapping at you. There’s more. We bloody well missed it. Right over in the corner. Hey, everyone!’ he yelled. ‘Come back, bring the stuff back. There’s something else buried here.’

  He mapped out another rectangle and began the second excavation.

  Fox looked completely exhausted, thought Dan. In fact, they were all looking tired. He checked his watch, gone seven and they had only just reached the bones on this second body. He looked over at Sally, who shivered in the cool evening air and crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Hey, take my car and go home. I’ll stay until we’re finished.’

  ‘No, don’t worry, I’ll be fine,’ she replied.

  Dan shook his head. ‘Go home, sergeant. Go to your family. The kids will be in bed before you get back, otherwise. But for Christ’s sake don’t hurt my motor.’ He passed her the key. ‘Pick me up in the morning about seven-thirty. Alright?’

  She smiled. ‘This is why you’re my favourite,’ she said. ‘There may be brownies tomorrow…’ Sally stumbled back over the darkening hummocks.

  Dan yelled after her, ‘Get my shoes out of the boot, Sally!’ She waved back at him.

  It took until after eight o’clock for the second body to be excavated. Photographs taken, they got Solomon to shine the arc light on it.

  ‘Humph,’ said Fox, heaving his bulk to lean over the body. ‘No
hands or head, same as the other one. A wee thing, this one. Could be a female by the size of her. Or a child.’

  They loaded the second body into another body bag, adding several bones separately which had been dislodged when the first body was dug up. ‘Careful, there,’ said Fox. He glanced at Dan. ‘I think we can call it a day, Inspector.’

  ‘Great,’ said Dan. ‘We have a team on duty overnight, so it will be secure until tomorrow, when we’ll think about heads and hands.’

  Neil Pargeter stood in the grave with his hands stuffed into his protective suit pockets. He sucked at his teeth. ‘Well, I know we have no idea where the heads and hands are, but would the murderer go to the trouble of cutting them off and then leave them nearby so they could be found?’ He shook his head. ‘Can’t see it myself.’

  Fox rubbed his eyes, and scratched at his beard. ‘Aye, put the barriers round the holes so no-one falls in, then we’ll away home.’ He walked without his usual bluster across to the car park and clambered into his old Jaguar.

  Dan waited until all the lighting had been dismantled, and the night shift had settled themselves into the car park. Two PCs in an area car waited for him, assuming they would have to give him a lift home. ‘Err…’ he said to Neil Pargeter. ‘Any chance you could drop me in Exeter on your way back?’

  Pargeter grinned. ‘No problem. In fact, I don’t know about you, but I could do with a pint and a curry. I’m starving.’

  Dan grinned. ‘You are speaking my language, Doctor Pargeter. Excellent idea. Let me help you with that.’ He picked up one side of the generator and helped Pargeter carry it back to the minibus, waving the PCs off home with Paul Ellis’s wellington boots safe in the back of their car.

  * * *

  Dan placed his phone carefully in his jacket pocket and took his finger out of his ear. ‘I think she’s gone to bed,’ he shouted to Pargeter, who nodded at him and took another gulp of his pint. ‘I hope I didn’t wake her up. That would be bad.’ He shook his head sadly, ‘very bad.’ The band started their last number. The audience, not huge, but respectable for a Monday, got to their feet for a final fling.

  Dan finished his pint. He needed to go home. He was very glad he’d not got the car. ‘I’m going, now,’ he yelled over a soul funk version of James Brown’s ‘Doing it to Death’. He grinned at Neil. ‘Appropriate for me, this one!’

  Neil got up too, and followed Dan out of the pub. Sidwell Street was still relatively busy with people going home, but on a Monday night, the rest of the city was quiet.

  ‘It’s been a great night, Neil,’ Dan said, leaning against a spindly tree.

  Neil nodded. ‘Yeah, I like a bit of seventies music and SoulMondays has been going for a while now.’

  ‘But I’m sure it was The Horse and Dray when I was growing up, not The Sorry Head.’

  ‘Things change, Dan, things change.’ Neil clapped him on the arm. ‘You alright getting home, mate?’

  Dan nodded. ‘Yes, I am alright. I think.’ He pushed away from the tree, a colt trying for its first walk. ‘See? A walk will do me good. Sober me up. I’ll call you tomorrow once Foxy lets me know about the post-mortem.’ He set off in an uncertain fashion down Sidwell Street. ‘Night,’ he called over his shoulder. He limped on a feet pushed well beyond endurance, but anaesthetised nicely by the beer.

  Pargeter waved and set off in the other direction towards his flat on Pennsylvania Road. He’d really enjoyed himself too. They seemed to have a lot in common, him and the DI.

  7

  Dan stood under the shower for a long time. Mostly he wanted to make sure the smell of beer and pub was entirely gone. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been out with a friend and listened to some live music. Months ago, he decided, when he had still lived in London and thought he always would, with Sarah, in their nice flat in Clapham. He scrubbed at his hair to get the shampoo out and blew soapy water out of his mouth. Things do indeed change. Funny how, in less than a year, he had made a proper life for himself back home in Exeter, and met Claire, and made a friend. At least, he hoped that Neil would become a friend. And solved a murder, he thought, and broken up a paedophile gang. Abruptly, he stopped the self-congratulation. And caused a fellow officer to die, and worse… He turned the shower jet to cold and squirmed while it shocked him into the day.

  Claire had been on at him to eat more fruit and veg, so he added blueberries to his cereal. He smiled at his new Gaggia coffee machine, and patted it as it prepared him a morning cappuccino. In the end, a month of living like some sort of monk in an empty cell had lost its appeal, and he’d gone into John Lewis and bought, he felt, most of the shop, with a loan that would take him five years to pay back. Now, to add to his racing cycle, he had a table and chairs, kitchen equipment, cool gadgets, a sofa and a coffee table to match his lone armchair. He had a wardrobe and a proper computer station in the bedroom. Life was pretty good.

  Dan drank his coffee and spooned down the cereal as he checked his emails. He sent an apologetic text to Claire for the drunken phone call and received a smiley face in return. He had no idea if that was good or bad.

  At just after half seven, Sally rang. ‘I’m in the car park. Come down.’

  ‘I’ll be with you in a sec.’

  ‘Err… Listen. Hope you won’t mind, it’s only the front bumper. Just a small dent.’

  He was out of the door, down the stairs and standing in front of the car before he thought to end the call.

  * * *

  ‘Your face,’ Sally laughed when he stood in front of the car, hands on his hips and stared at the intact bumper. ‘A picture! I’ve never seen anyone get down a set of stairs at that speed. Feet must be feeling better…’ She smirked as she got out of the driver’s seat and moved around the bonnet to the passenger side. ‘Got you,’ she said.

  Dan nodded. ‘Okay. Yeah, you got me, sergeant. But watch it. Revenge is a dish best served cold, and when you least expect it…’ He drew a hand across his throat.

  Sally nodded happily. ‘Do your worst, I’ll be ready for you.’

  He started the Audi and reversed out of the car park. ‘Major incident room available?’

  ‘As far as I know. Team One moved out of there yesterday while we were up on Dartmoor, and Bill and Ben will start moving us in this morning.’ She flipped open her iPad and surveyed a list of names. ‘It’s pretty much the same team as we had before – we lost a few to team One when the armed robbery took place, but I’ll get them back.’

  ‘I bet Lizzie Singh is enjoying her transfer into CID?’

  ‘She certainly is, especially as her promotion to DC puts her on the same level as Sam Knowles and he can’t be superior to her anymore.’

  ‘Did you put in the request to send Adam Foster off for a bit of training elsewhere?’

  ‘Yeah, he’ll do some community policing at Tiverton for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Good. He needs to start treating this like a job, not an adventure. He’s watched too many American cop shows, that lad. And it’s not as if he’s fresh out of training, is it?’

  ‘True, he’s almost the same age as Lizzie, and he’s done his time on the beat, but some people are just… Tigger.’

  Dan snorted. ‘Right.’

  Sally blinked and stared off through the window. ‘We’re a good team, though, aren’t we, boss?’

  ‘Certainly are. We’ll knock Foster into shape, no worries. There might not be much to go on with the Bog Bodies, though. It’ll be a challenge for us. Exciting, eh?’

  ‘Yeah, interesting, and less likely to get us killed than the last case, I hope,’ she replied.

  The major incident room at Exeter Road Police Station was a five-metre square box, with a row of windows looking out onto the main road and walls dimpled with the residue of countless Blu-tacked bits of paper. Eight chairs surrounded a scratched rectangular wooden table that Dan reckoned was older than his dad. Four desks were pushed against one wall and a grubby corner of the Formica shelving unit that ran
along the other wall had been given over to a kettle and a sink.

  Dan collected his hoard of felt-tipped pens and board-cleaner from the locked drawer in his office. He smiled; in the American cop dramas he enjoyed, the locked drawer inevitably contained a gun and a bottle of whisky. His drawer had pens, a packet of decent coffee, deodorant and a clean shirt. He wiped down the whiteboard and placed the pens in the trough that ran along the bottom. He checked the clock. It was almost eight. Time to brief Detective Chief Superintendent Oliver before the team arrived.

  Stella, Oliver’s PA, motioned him in to DCS Oliver’s office. Oliver was on the phone to the local TV station. Dan shrugged and sat on one of the chairs in front of her desk. The press had been bound to find out. He wondered if it had been the little old lady or that technician bloke from the university who’d told them.

  Oliver put the phone down and smiled up at Dan. ‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘That was the BBC. They want to talk about the ‘bodies in the bog’ on TV news tonight. I have a feeling the nationals are going to want in on this as well, so I’ll prepare the press statement while you kick off the investigation, DI Hellier.’ She waited while he dug out his notebook. ‘So, what do we know so far?’

  * * *

  Sally Ellis organised Team Two to get the electronics working and brought in two more desks from the main office. She set the flowerpot men up in the corner furthest from the door. She wanted scenes of crime and evidence as far away from the rest of the room as possible, just for security.

  As the university archaeologists had excavated the bodies, they would work in the hospital pathology lab under Doctor Fox. She liked that. Fox was quick and conscientious, and Neil Pargeter seemed like a good bloke. And they could avoid the crime lab, who suffered from delusions of their own importance. Her contemplation was interrupted by the arrival of Detective Constables Singh and Knowles, both carrying laptops and boxes. ‘Good,’ Sally said. ‘Set yourselves up over here on these two desks.’ She shoved the desks together and the constables plugged in their computers.