ALNWICK POLICE STATION was situated in the market town of the same name. The office offered as a temporary incident room was far from perfect. When the DCI complained she was given two choices: take it or sling your hook.
Most of the Murder Investigation Team had arrived and set to work, fixing up the communications, getting the room ready for a new enquiry. Kate didn’t require an archaeologist in the historical sense, but she did need the expertise of a forensic anthropologist to oversee the excavation and determine how long her victim had been in the ground. Before she’d left the crime scene, she’d made it known that she wanted to be present when the body was moved. In the meantime, she’d asked Detective Constable Lisa Carmichael to ring round and see what accommodation was available for her team.
At the height of summer, finding somewhere to stay would have posed a problem. But at this time of the year there would almost certainly be plenty of spare beds. The rest of the squad were already on the phone advising loved ones they wouldn’t be home. There had been no dissent. Even DS Robson – the only detective with a young child at home – agreed to stay local until the enquiry got underway, joking that he’d get a better sleep sharing with a snoring colleague than being prodded by his two-year-old son in the middle of the night.
Various suggestions were thrown in the hat: Hog’s Head, White Swan, Queens Head, hotels conveniently located, not far from the town’s police station. The incident team voted on it, deciding that a B & B might be more practical. As well as offering peace and quiet, it would be less likely to attract the weirdos and groupies who inevitably hung around murder detectives, stifling their ability to do their jobs.
Sitting down at a computer, Lisa Carmichael slipped her warrant card into a slot. She looked different with her hair cut short. It suited her features perfectly, framing her stunning green eyes. Picking up the landline, she dialled out and identified herself. After a very brief conversation, she rang off abruptly, a worried expression on her face.
‘Problem?’ Daniels asked.
Lisa looked up, frowning. ‘Maybe.’
‘No rooms?’
‘Yeah, plenty.’
‘But?’
‘Word’s out already . . .’ Carmichael glanced at the phone. ‘That hotelier was rather curious about the bones we found. As well as owning a hotel, he’s a volunteer archaeologist involved in a local research project. He claims there was a dig going on inside and outside of Bamburgh Castle last year. There’s more planned for this summer too. Channel 4’s Time Team filmed there, he said.’
‘Our victim was dressed in modern material, Lisa. Not that there’s much left of it. The bones aren’t old, not in the archaeological sense. But I will need to talk to whoever’s running the project to establish where and when they were digging. Maybe they can throw some light on how and why a section of dunes suddenly broke off like that. Action it, will you?’
Carmichael nodded.
‘Your hotelier too,’ Daniels added.
Lisa’s fingers were already tapping away on the keyboard. In addition to being a lightning-fast typist, she had considerable know-how when it came to the Internet. Not long ago, she’d received a commendation for her work after proving conclusively that a serial killer the team were investigating had used the World Wide Web to track and target his victims. Her tenacity had been instrumental in apprehending Jonathan Forster, though not before he’d confronted Kate in a chilling encounter that could so easily have proved fatal. The events of that night still haunted her in the small hours when she couldn’t sleep. Though the case was considered by many to represent Northumbria MIT’s finest hour, in Kate’s opinion it was the biggest failure of her career to date. Forster had killed seven times before being stopped.
‘Boss?’ Lisa Carmichael pointed at her computer.
The screen was now open at the website of the Bamburgh Research Project. On the left-hand side of the home page was a menu bar. She clicked on Get in Touch. The names and email addresses of the project’s directors and administrators appeared instantly, along with relevant phone numbers.
She looked at her boss. ‘I’ll copy these and send them to your BlackBerry.’
Just then, said BlackBerry rang.
It was Home Office pathologist, Tim Stanton.
‘Hi, Tim . . .’ The DCI tried to sound more upbeat than she felt after a heavy workload the previous week, half-spent preparing a murder file, the other giving evidence in a trial that had lasted a couple of months. Covering the speaker, she thanked Carmichael and moved away, talking into the phone. ‘You done already?’
‘There wasn’t much to do . . .’ Stanton broke off as someone spoke to him. Clearly he was still at the scene. Wind distortion on the line prevented Kate from hearing what was being said. Then he was back: ‘Sorry to keep you . . . permission to move is granted. There’s nothing more to be done here until we get her to the morgue. Not an easy task for you guys, due to the physical geography of the area.’
Daniels couldn’t agree more.
If the skeleton had been found in concrete it would have been possible to remove it in one solid slab, but with shifting sands, a worsening weather picture, and the risk of further slippage, time was of the essence. She rang off, telling her team that she was heading back to the crime scene to witness the excavation.