His manner grated, but he was only saying what I’d thought myself. ‘It’s possible.’
‘Ah, a palpable hit! I’d say probable myself, but still. Which leaves the question of which one of Monk’s unfortunate paramours this might be. One of the Bennett twins or the Williams girl?’
‘The clothes might tell us that.’
‘True, but this is more your province than mine. And I suspect you already have an inkling.’ He chuckled. ‘Don’t worry, you’re not on the witness stand. Humour me.’
He was a hard man to refuse. ‘I’d only be guessing at this stage, but . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, the Bennett sisters were both quite tall.’ I’d learned that from my hurried research after Simms had called: Zoe and Lindsey had the willowy grace of catwalk models. ‘Whoever this is, she’s more petite. It’s hard to get an accurate impression of height with the body curled like this, but you can get enough of an idea of the femur’s length to make a pretty good guess. I don’t think whoever this was could have been more than five foot three or four at the most.’
Even when it was fully cleaned of soft tissue, which wasn’t the case here, the thigh bone was only a rough indicator of stature. But I’d developed a reasonable eye for such things, and even with the remains contorted and caked in mud I was reasonably sure they wouldn’t have been tall enough to be one of the Bennett sisters.
Wainwright’s forehead creased as he stared down at the uppermost leg. ‘Blast. Should have seen that myself.’
‘It’s just a guess. And as you say, it’s more my area than yours.’
He shot me a look that held none of the joviality of a moment ago. Then his eyes crinkled. He gave a booming laugh.
‘Yes, you’re quite right. So, the odds are that this is Tina Williams. Good.’ He clapped his hands together before I could say anything. ‘Anyway, first things first. Let’s finish digging her out, shall we?’
Picking up his trowel he set back to work, leaving me with the obscure feeling that the conversation had somehow been my idea.
We didn’t speak much after that, but we made good progress. The only interruptions came when a SOCO arrived to sift through the peat from the grave. Except for a few more rabbit bones, though, it held little of interest.
It was dark outside the tent by the time the body was ready to be removed. It lay at the bottom of the muddy pit, filthy and pathetic. Simms had returned as we were finishing, accompanied by the pathologist, who he introduced as Dr Pirie.
Pirie cut an odd figure. He couldn’t have been much more than five feet tall, so that his pristine overalls looked too big for his small frame. The face looking at me from beneath the hood was so fine-boned it could have belonged to a child, except that the skin was lined and wrinkled, and the eyes behind the gold half-moon spectacles were old and knowing.
‘Good evening, gentlemen. Making progress?’ His voice was precise and waspish as he came to the graveside. Next to Wainwright’s towering bulk the pathologist looked smaller than ever, a chihuahua to the archaeologist’s Great Dane. But there was no mistaking the authority he brought with him.
Wainwright stood back to give him room. Reluctantly, I thought. ‘Nearly done. I was about to hand over to the SOCOs to finish off.’
‘Good.’ The small mouth pursed as he crouched beside the shallow hole. ‘Oh yes, very nice . . .’
I wasn’t sure if he was referring to the excavation or the remains themselves. Pathologists were renowned for being an eccentric breed: Pirie was apparently no exception.
‘The victim’s female, probably in her late teens or early twenties, judging by her clothes.’ Wainwright had lowered his face mask now he’d moved away from the grave. His mouth quirked in amusement. ‘Dr Hunter thought she might be a transsexual but I think we can discount that.’
I looked at him in surprise. Simms gave a dismissive sniff.
‘Quite.’
‘You can see her injuries for yourself,’ Wainwright boomed, all business now. ‘Probably caused by either a clubbing weapon or someone with prodigious strength.’
‘A little early to say, I think?’ Pirie commented from beside the grave.
‘Yes, of course. That’s for the post-mortem to decide,’ Wainwright corrected himself smoothly. ‘As for how long it’s been here, if I was pushed I’d say less than two years.’
‘You’re sure?’ Simms asked sharply.
Wainwright spread his hands. ‘It’s only a guess at this stage, but given the peat conditions and the level of decomp I’m fairly confident.’
I stared at him, unable to believe I’d heard right. Simms nodded in satisfaction. ‘So this could be one of Monk’s victims, then?’
‘Oh, I’d say that was a distinct possibility. In fact if I had to hazard another guess I’d say this filly could well be the Williams girl. The femur’s far too short to belong to anyone as tall as the Bennett twins, but if memory serves she was, oh, five three, five four? That’d be about right. And the injuries certainly point to Monk after what he did to Angela Carter.’
Carson. Angela Carson, not Carter. But I was too angry to speak: Wainwright was shamelessly stealing credit for what I’d told him. Yet I couldn’t object without seeming petty. Pirie looked up from his position by the grave.
‘Hardly enough to provide an ID, surely.’
Wainwright gave a self-deprecating shrug. ‘Call it an educated guess. At the very least I think it’s worth seeing if this is the Williams girl first.’
He raised his eyebrows at Simms. The policeman looked energized as he slapped his hand against his thigh. ‘I agree. Dr Pirie, how soon will you be able to confirm if it’s Tina Williams?’
‘That all depends on the condition of the remains once they’re cleaned.’ The diminutive pathologist looked up at me. ‘It’ll be faster if Dr Hunter works with me? I expect skeletal trauma is more his field than mine?’
He had an odd, sing-song cadence. I managed a nod, furious and stunned by what Wainwright had done.
‘Whatever you need.’ Simms no longer seemed to be listening. ‘The sooner we can announce who this is the better. And if Monk buried one of his victims here it’s reasonable to assume the others aren’t far away. Excellent work, Leonard, thank you. Give my regards to Jean. If you’re both free this weekend perhaps you’d like to come over for Sunday lunch?’
‘We’ll look forward to it,’ Wainwright said.
Simms turned to me as an afterthought. ‘Anything you’d care to add, Dr Hunter?’
I looked at Wainwright. His expression was politely enquiring, but his eyes held a predatory satisfaction. OK, if that’s the way you want it . . .
‘No.’
‘Then I’ll leave you to it,’ Simms said. ‘We’ll be making an early start in the morning.’
3
I was still fuming later that evening when I arrived at the pub I’d been booked into. It was a few miles from Black Tor, a place called Oldwich I’d been told was less than a twenty-minute drive away. Either the directions were overly optimistic or I’d made a wrong turning somewhere, because it was three-quarters of an hour before I saw the smattering of lights in the darkness ahead.