But I hadn’t known then that I’d have to work with him.
Wainwright heaved himself to his feet, knees cracking arthritically. He was around sixty, a giant of a man with mud-stained overalls stretched taut over his big frame. In the white latex gloves his meaty fingers resembled overstuffed sausages as he pushed off his mask, revealing craggy features that might charitably have been called patrician.
He gave me a neutral smile. ‘Dr Hunter. I’m sure it’ll be a pleasure working with you.’
He spoke with the rumbling baritone of a natural orator. I managed a smile of my own. ‘Same here.’
‘A group of walkers found the grave late yesterday afternoon,’ Simms said, looking down at the object emerging from the soil. ‘Shallow, as you can see. We’ve probed and there appears to be a layer of granite no more than two feet below the surface. Not a good place to bury a body, but fortunately the killer didn’t know that.’
I knelt down to examine the gelid dark soil from which the hand protruded. ‘The peat’s going to make things interesting.’
Wainwright gave a cautious nod, but said nothing. As an archaeologist he’d be even more familiar than me with the problems presented by peat graves.
‘It looks as if rain washed off the top layer of soil from the hand, then animals finished unearthing it,’ Simms continued. ‘The walkers found the hand sticking out of the ground. Unfortunately, they weren’t certain what it was at first, so they dug away some of the soil to make sure.’
‘Lord protect us from amateurs,’ Wainwright intoned. It might have been coincidence that he was looking at me.
I knelt down on one of the metal stepping plates to examine the hand. It was exposed from the carpal bones of the wrist. Most of the soft tissue had been gnawed away, and the first two fingers, which would have been uppermost, were completely missing. That much was only to be expected – larger scavengers like foxes, and even bigger birds like crows or gulls, would have been more than capable of detaching them.
But what interested me was that, beneath the teeth marks left in the bone, the broken surfaces of the phalanges looked smooth.
‘Did any of the walkers tread on the hand, or damage it while they were digging?’ I asked.
‘They claim not.’ Simms’ face was expressionless as he looked at me. ‘Why?’
‘Probably nothing. Just that the fingers are broken. Snapped cleanly by the look of things, so it wasn’t done by an animal.’
‘Yes, I had noticed,’ Wainwright drawled.
‘You think that’s significant?’ Simms asked.
Wainwright didn’t give me a chance to answer. ‘Too soon to say. Unless Dr Hunter has any theories . . . ?’
I wasn’t about to be drawn. ‘Not yet. Have you found anything else?’ The area inside the tent would have already been picked clean for evidence by SOCOs.
‘Only two small bones on the surface that we think are a rabbit’s. Certainly not human, but you’re welcome to take a look.’ Simms was looking at his watch. ‘Now, if there’s nothing else, I have a press conference. Professor Wainwright will brief you on anything you need to know. You’ll be working under his direct supervision.’
Wainwright was watching me with an expression of mild interest. While the pathologist would have final say over the remains, as a forensic archaeologist responsibility for the excavation would naturally fall to him. I didn’t have a problem with that, at least in theory. But I knew of cases where interred bodies had been damaged by inept or over-enthusiastic excavations, and my job wasn’t made any easier when a skull had been shattered by a pickaxe or a spade.
And I’d no intention of being treated like Wainwright’s assistant.
‘That’s fine, as far as the excavation goes,’ I said. ‘Obviously, I’d expect to be consulted on anything that might affect the remains themselves.’
There was a silence inside the tent. Simms studied me coldly. ‘Leonard and I have known each other for a long time, Dr Hunter. We’ve worked on numerous inquiries together in the past. Very successfully, I might add.’
‘I wasn’t—’
‘You came highly recommended, but I want team players. I have a very personal stake in this investigation, and I won’t tolerate any disruptions. From anyone. Do I make myself clear?’
I was aware of Wainwright watching, and felt sure that Simms had been primed by the archaeologist. I felt myself bristle at his attitude, but I’d worked with enough difficult SIOs to know better than to argue. I kept my own face as studiedly neutral as his.
‘Of course.’
‘Good. Because I’m sure I needn’t tell you how important this is. Jerome Monk may be behind bars, but as far as I’m concerned my job isn’t finished until his victims have been found and returned to their families. If – if – this is one of them, then I need to know it.’ Simms stared at me for a moment longer until he was satisfied he’d made his point. ‘Now, if we’re done I’ll leave you gentlemen to your work.’
He brushed out through the tent flaps. Neither Wainwright nor I spoke for a moment. The archaeologist cleared his throat theatrically.
‘Well, Dr Hunter, shall we make a start?’
Time seemed suspended under the glare of the floodlights. The dark peat was reluctant to relinquish its hold on the body, clinging wetly to the flesh that gradually emerged from below the surface. Progress was slow. With graves dug in most types of soil, the grave shape or ‘cut’ is usually easily defined. The in fill soil that’s been removed and then replaced is looser and less compact than the undisturbed earth around it, making it relatively easy to identify the edges of the hole. With peat the demarcation is less obvious. It soaks up water like a sponge, so it tends not to break up like other soils. The grave cut can still be found, but it requires more care and skill.
Wainwright had both.
His sheer physical presence dominated the enclosed space within the gently billowing blue walls. I’d half expected to be delegated to the sidelines, but he’d been unexpectedly happy for me to help with the excavation. Once my pride had stopped stinging, I was forced to appreciate just how good the forensic archaeologist was. The big hands were surprisingly deft as they carefully scraped away the moist peat to expose the buried remains, the thick fingers as precise as any surgeon’s. We worked side by side, kneeling on the metal stepping plates laid out beside the grave, and as the body gradually emerged from the dark earth I found myself revising my earlier impressions of the man.
We’d been working in silence for a while when he used his trowel to scoop up two halves of an earthworm severed by a spade. ‘Remarkable things, aren’t they? Allolobophora. Simple organism, no brain and barely any nervous system to speak of. A myth that they grow back when you chop ‘em in half of course. Just goes to show you shouldn’t believe everything you’re told.’
He tossed the worm into the heather and set down the trowel, wincing as his knees cracked loudly. ‘This doesn’t get any easier with age. But then what does? Still, you’re too young to know about that. London man, aren’t you?’
‘Based there, yes. You?’
‘Oh, I’m a local. Torbay. Driving distance, thank God, so I don’t have to be put up in whatever fleapit the police have found. Don’t envy you that.’ He rubbed his lower back. ‘So how’re you finding Dartmoor so far?’