The Altered Case (6 page)

‘Yes, courtesy of the good old envy of the world National Health Service, and were never to my taste.' Dr D'Acre folded her arms. ‘I understand from Mr Hennessey that there is witness evidence which indicates a burial of about thirty years previous but forensically and pathologically speaking, I cannot find anything which would indicate a time of death so precisely.'

‘Understood, ma'am,' Carmen Pharoah replied.

Dr D'Acre unfolded her arms. ‘But . . . let's press on and see what we can find. No injuries seem to have been sustained by the skeleton. There is no evidence of a blunt or sharp force trauma. So, for an explanation of cause of death we are looking at drowning, or suffocation, or asphyxiation or poisoning . . . something of that nature but we also cannot rule out death by thirst or starvation . . . slower and very painful but just as effective.'

‘Indeed, ma'am,' Carmen Pharoah said. ‘Three days, I believe?'

‘Yes, the rule of threes; three weeks without food, three days without water, three minutes without oxygen to cause death and just one minute without air to cause brain death. You know, if you want to murder someone and avoid being charged with murder you simply deprive them of oxygen for sixty seconds. The heart still beats but the victim is left in a permanent vegetative state . . . as good as dead.'

‘Yes, ma'am.'

‘But an awful lot more difficult to carry off than people imagine. You have to get the timing just right. Too long and you are looking at life in prison, and you've also got to incapacitate the person in question, which is not at all easy, not without evidence of same. I mean to say that I can't declare the victims to have had a massive stroke when there are ligature marks on their wrists and ankles.' Dr D'Acre smiled. ‘It ain't so easy to get away with.'

‘Of course, ma'am.' Carmen Pharoah returned the smile but did so briefly. ‘Better not to commit the crime in the first place.'

‘Which would always be my advice.' Dr D'Acre returned her attention to the male skeleton. ‘I will send marrow samples to the forensic laboratory. I can obtain that very easily from the long bones. They will retain diatoms if the victim was drowned.'

‘Diatoms?' Carmen Pharoah queried.

‘More microscopic beasties,' Dr D'Acre explained. ‘They live in water; a drowning victim inhales them into their lungs from whence they migrate to the marrow in the long bones, there to remain.'

‘I see, ma'am. Diatoms,' Carmen Pharoah said. ‘Diatoms.'

‘The marrow,' Dr D'Acre continued, ‘will also retain traces of heavy poisons of the likes of arsenic and others of that family, such as strychnine, but frankly murdering someone with arsenic went out with hansom cabs and gas street lighting and it is now practically impossible to obtain.' Dr D'Acre paused. ‘So let us do what we can because we must come up with goods of some sort. Let us therefore turn to the issue of identification which is always useful for the police investigation.'

‘Yes, ma'am.' Carmen Pharoah grinned. ‘Always very useful.'

‘Well, the shape of the skull of the male skeleton indicates that he is of North Western European racial extraction, as I think I commented at the scene of the excavation. An Asian male is not impossible, although Asian skulls tend to be more finely made than the European skull which tends to be broader and more thickly set. As I have already noted, the teeth are intact and show dental work having been undertaken, so dental records may help you but don't hold out too much hope there,' Dr D'Acre added. ‘Dentists, you see, are obliged by law to keep all the records of their patients for eleven years only. So any dental records in respect of this gentleman and his family might no longer be available. It depends upon the dentist.'

‘Eleven years,' Carmen Pharoah echoed for want of a response, ‘noted, ma'am.'

Dr D'Acre turned to Eric Filey. ‘Can you hand me the tape measure, please, Eric?'

Filey turned to the stainless steel bench, opened a drawer and extracted a yellow retractable metal tape measure, walked the short distance to where Dr D'Acre stood and gently handed it to her.

‘If we could turn him, please, Eric?' Dr D'Acre slipped the tape measure into the pocket of her white laboratory coat, moved to the end of the table and took the skull of the skeleton in her hands, whilst Filey silently went to the other end of the stainless steel table and took very careful hold of the ankles. Then with an ease and a sense of care which reached Carmen Pharoah, Dr D'Acre and Eric Filey, with a clearly well-rehearsed manoeuvre, rotated the skeleton through 180 degrees and carefully laid it face down upon the polished metal table. Dr D'Acre took the tape measure from her pocket and extended it, laying it the length of the skeleton from skull to heel. ‘There are,' she said, smiling at Carmen Pharoah, ‘certain rules which we can observe if we are dealing with bits of a human body to estimate height. The spine, length of, is the same length as hip to ankle, approximately speaking, and if the person was of normal proportion. The femur is one third of the height, also approximately, but here we have the whole skeleton, so no need to estimate.'

‘Yes, ma'am.' Carmen Pharoah stood back against the wall of the laboratory.

‘So . . . so . . . not a tall man . . . quite short in fact.' Dr D'Acre read the measurement of the tape. ‘We have a measurement of five feet two inches, or one hundred and fifty-seven centimetres tall, when he reached adulthood. He was not the sort of bloke to attract admiring glances from females as he walked along the pavement.'

‘Not a tall old geezer then, ma'am,' Carmen Pharoah offered.

‘Nope.' Louise D'Acre grinned. ‘You know I like the word “geezer”. We don't ever seem to hear it up North. It is a London expression, I believe?'

‘Yes, ma'am.' Carmen Pharoah returned the grin. ‘I believe it is.'

‘Where are you from? In London, I mean, Miss Pharoah.'

‘Leytonstone, ma'am,' Carmen Pharoah replied in answer to Dr D'Acre's unexpected question, ‘in the East End.'

‘Ah . . . can't say I know it. Can't say I know London at all well, in fact. Anyway, to continue.' Dr D'Acre returned her attention to the skeleton. ‘So, a small but all in proportion old geezer . . . How old when he died is the next step. I will extract a tooth, cut it in half, and that will provide us with evidence of his age at time of death plus or minus one year. It is really a very accurate recording we achieve using that method. I will do so for all five skeletons.' She paused. ‘But once again I repeat that I am not going to be of much help when it comes to determining the cause of death, unless we find diatoms in the marrow of the long bones. However, even finding diatoms will not be absolute proof of drowning
per se
, it will only prove the inhalation of water was peri-mortem, but not certain to be the cause of death.' She paused again. ‘Sorry, I ramble.' Dr D'Acre drummed her fingertips on the rim of the table. ‘You know what puzzles me . . . what foxes me, is the complete absence of anything which is not biodegradable; apart from the gold filling, there are no zip fasteners, no bra hooks, no belt buckles, no wooden toggles or plastic buttons, et cetera, and with a burial of just thirty years earlier you would expect such items to be found with the skeleton as any clothing decayed around the bones . . . shoes also . . . There should be a trace of remnants of their footwear. So there is only one inescapable conclusion . . .'

‘They were naked when they were buried, ma'am?' Carmen Pharoah suggested.

‘Yes,' Dr D'Acre replied. ‘Unless a sifting of the soil removed from atop the skeletons reveals such items as I have mentioned, then that is the inescapable conclusion, so yes, naked when buried, all five victims. You know I have the distinct impression that a very unpleasant tale is beginning to unfold here, a very unpleasant story indeed.'

‘Seems so, ma'am,' Carmen Pharoah replied as she too surveyed the five skeletons. ‘It does certainly seem so.'

‘Well, let's crack on, let's look at the other skeletons.' Dr D'Acre spoke with forced good humour as she added, ‘We have our daily crust to earn.'

In the event, the other remaining four skeletons did not reveal anything new. None of them exhibited any sign of trauma; all had dentistry which was both British and contemporary. Four of the five skeletons were short of stature but were in proportion, none having abnormally short legs or abnormally long spines. One of the five skeletons would have been a significantly taller person when alive than the other four persons. The male would have been five feet two inches tall or one hundred and fifty-seven centimetres tall. The three shorter females would have been about five feet or one hundred and fifty-four centimetres tall. The fourth female, on the other hand, would have been a lofty five feet eight inches or one hundred and seventy-two centimetres tall. Dr D'Acre stroked the back of her hand under her chin in a seemingly absent-minded gesture. ‘You know, these people, these goodly folk will have been noticed to be missing. A missing family . . . there will definitely be a missing person report filed somewhere in the country in respect of those five people.'

‘Yes, ma'am,' Carmen Pharoah replied.

‘The older female skeleton had given birth; pelvic scarring is evident, so at least two breech deliveries, being the minimum required to cause such scarring, which fits in neatly with the impression that these five persons were a family. And again, I repeat, no injuries are noted. Can you see anything, Eric?'

‘No, ma'am,' Eric Filey replied quickly, ‘and I have been looking.'

‘A second pair of eyes is always useful and you don't need to be an MD to be able to identify a hairline fracture in the bone or bones of a skeleton,' Dr D'Acre explained, ‘and Eric has been useful before.'

‘Yes, ma'am.' Carmen Pharoah smiled approvingly at Eric Filey who shifted uncomfortably at the compliment and approval.

‘So,' Dr D'Acre continued, ‘all these five people died without damage to their bones, which is how the great majority of us meet our end if you would care to think about it.'

‘I suppose so, ma'am,' Carmen Pharoah replied. ‘I confess I have never thought about it like that before.'

‘Well, death by old age or serious illness takes most of us in the Western world anyway. But five wholly intact and undamaged skeletons is . . . is . . . what would you call it, Eric?'

‘Unusual, ma'am.' Eric Filey beamed in response to his opinion being sought. ‘I'd say it is unusual.'

‘I would say so too, unusual in the extreme.' Dr D'Acre leaned on the table upon which lay the skeleton of the oldest female, the skeleton assumed to be that of the wife and mother. ‘None of the other female skeletons show signs of having given birth, though they are quite old enough to have done so. Late teenagers I would say, probably early twenties. My findings will be spartan and wholly inconclusive, though we must wait for the DNA and diatom test results, as I said.'

‘Yes, ma'am,' Carmen Pharoah replied. ‘I will inform Mr Hennessey.'

‘Yes, please do . . . please do . . . but we are looking at death by poisoning, suffocation, exsanguination, but that is unlikely because it's too messy, forty pints of blood will leave quite a trace . . . or drowning or asphyxiation . . . and possibly thirst or even starvation. Definitely some form of death which did not involve trauma.'

‘They were not large,' Carmen Pharoah said, ‘apart from one. I mean it would not have taken a great deal of strength to overpower them, tie them up and then leave them in a garage where there is a car with its engine running, something like that.'

‘Yes, that's the sort of death we . . . you should be looking for and, yes, their lack of stature might indeed have been a factor which worked against them.'

‘It was quite a deep hole,' Carmen Pharoah observed, ‘or so I am led to believe.'

‘It was,' Dr D'Acre replied, ‘it was a deep grave in heavy soil, believed to have been buried in the September of the year. It gets light at about five thirty a.m. these days and dark at nine thirty p.m., approximately. I can't see a grave being dug during the hours of daylight unless some form of subterfuge was employed.'

‘Nor can I, ma'am.'

‘Mind you,' Dr D'Acre continued, ‘here I encroach on your territory.'

‘Mr Hennessey won't mind, ma'am,' Carmen Pharoah replied, ‘he won't mind at all, not the Mr Hennessey I know.'

‘Nor the one I know; he is a very open-minded police officer,' Dr D'Acre said, ‘not at all jealous of his remit. Mr Hennessey's response would be “encroach all you like, all help gratefully received”.' She paused and then added, ‘Hardly remote.'

‘Ma'am?' Carmen Pharoah queried. ‘Remote, ma'am?'

‘The field, the scene of the burial. You haven't been there but I can tell you that it is hardly remote. It is a rural location, that I grant you, but the rooftops of the nearest village are easily visible from the field to one side of a wooded area. The hole must have been dug and the victims brought to the graveside already deceased, and already naked, and conveyed in the sort of vehicle which is capable of driving over a field without getting bogged down.'

‘A tractor and a trailer,' Carmen Pharoah suggested.

‘That sort of thing. My heavens!' Dr D'Acre gasped then fell silent as she put one hand up to her mouth.

‘Ma'am?' Carmen Pharoah stepped forward as did Eric Filey. ‘Are you all right, ma'am?'

‘Yes . . . yes, I am all right . . . I am all right.' Dr D'Acre raised her right hand and pointed to the larger of the female skeletons. ‘In myself I am all right but I am wrong, very wrong.'

‘Wrong, ma'am?' Carmen Pharoah asked.

‘Yes, wrong, how wrong I am. You know,' Dr D'Acre said quietly, ‘after twenty years of cutting corpses and examining skeletons you develop an eye for detail. You see, all human skulls look the same at first glance and often remain to look the same to the untrained eye, but in fact they have minute differences that are accentuated by the overlaying of layers of flesh and muscle, which explains why human faces look so different from each other.'