Murder Club - Mark Pearson [30]
‘Nice.’
‘Back in the fourteenth century. The plague, I meant, not the church.’
‘I kind of gathered that, Danny,’ said Sally. ‘I’m a detective. I’m supposed to notice details like that.’
‘Yeah, sorry.’
‘They’re knocking the building down?’
‘They are. Dangerous subsidence. Can’t really fix it without clearing the area. So they are going to do that and build a block of apartments.’
Sally looked over at the cemetery. ‘Nice view.’
Danny shrugged. ‘They’re going to plant trees around.’
‘What’s the trench for?’ asked Kate Walker. ‘If they’re demolishing the building.’
‘They’re putting in some power cables. Heavyduty. They’re not knocking it down in one go. Just taking it apart bit by bit. Some very valuable architectural salvage there.’
The trench had been dug in the ground, leading from the side of one of the flying buttresses of the building and heading for the road. Outside the trench stood the other uniformed officer and a couple of builders, judging by their outfits. Two spades lay on the ground beside them. They didn’t seem too bothered by what they had discovered. One was eating a sandwich and the other was having a mug of tea. A thermos flask was propped up by an open canvas bag alongside their discarded spades.
‘It’s probably just an animal bone. A family dog buried here years ago?’
‘A pet buried on hallowed ground. Doesn’t sound likely,’ said Kate as she stepped into her forensic bodysuit and pulled the zip up and the hood over her rich, dark hair.
Danny Vine jerked his thumb back at the vicarage. ‘I was thinking the vicar’s pet maybe. Who knows, back in the last century sometime. It certainly looks old.’
‘Is this hallowed ground anyway?’ asked Sally. ‘It’s not the cemetery, quite a way from the church.’
Kate shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Not my area. Ask Jack, if you see him. Used to be a choirboy, you know.’
Sally laughed. ‘Now that I do find hard to believe.’
Danny gestured at the trench again. ‘You think it’s an old bone?’
Kate nodded with a wry smile. ‘Why don’t I find out,’ she said, as she snapped on a pair of latex gloves. She swung her evidence kit over her shoulder and used the short, three-step ladder that had been put up to climb into the trench.
The workman watched disinterestedly as she made her way along the frozen mud of the trench towards them to where they had stopped digging. Both men were in their forties with wide shoulders and short grey hair. They were dressed in black trousers with silvered reflective cloth around the lower part of them, and thick donkey-jackets. They looked like brothers.
‘You stopped as soon as you discovered it?’ she asked them.
The taller of the two stepped forward. ‘Well, it’s a cemetery, isn’t it?’ he said belligerently, as if Kate had made some kind of accusation. He was Irish but his accent had none of the charm or, sometimes, softness of Jack Delaney’s.
Kate looked around. ‘Not this part of the grounds it isn’t.’
The man shrugged. ‘Anyway. Standard procedure.’
‘You dig up a lot of bones?’
‘It happens. Usually animal.’
The other man stepped forward, his accent the same. ‘We’re told to stop with the dig, you see, if bones come up.’
‘Good job too. Let’s see what you’ve found, then.’
Kate bent down and, using a fine-haired brush, swept a light falling of snow away from the exposed bone. It was about three inches long, seemingly brown with age, and pitted. The earth around it was hard with the cold and she brought out a stiffer-haired brush and slowly started to clear the soil.
‘How long do you think it’s been there?’ asked Sally Cartwright.
‘It’s not recent,’ Kate replied. ‘I can tell you that much. Could be years, could be decades. Could of course have been moved and planted here at any time.’
‘Why?’
Kate looked up at her. ‘I have absolutely no idea, Sally. You should know as well as I do that people do things for all kinds of reasons.’
‘True.’
‘Let’s see what we’ve got first.’
‘Is it human bone?’
‘Not sure yet.’
Kate brushed some more of the mud away and then gestured to Sally: ‘There’s a camera in my bag, get