Eighteen

That afternoon, Patti Gardner was kneeling on the floor of the cellar at Laurieston House, carefully dusting away the earth from a skeleton with a brush. She paused to yawn: she and her team had been there until almost midnight the previous evening before calling it a day. She was wearing a white paper suit and a face mask, which stretched perilously as it was contorted by her wide-open mouth. She leaned even closer to the bones and examined them with a magnifying glass.

Tim Yates leant against the cold brick wall, watching her.

“Have you found something interesting?” he asked.

“That depends on what you mean by interesting. I can’t be sure – I’ll have to carry out some tests in the lab – but I’m beginning to think that these bones have been here for a very long time. And there are three skeletons, not one.”

Tom whistled.

“How long?”

“If I’m right, probably longer than living memory. A hundred years . . . maybe more than that.”

“So if it was murder, whoever did it would have died long ago?”

She sat up on her heels and shyly met Tim’s eye. Aside from those occasions on which they were jointly engrossed in their work, their relationship had been strained since their brief fling before Tim had met Katrin. Tim didn’t know whether Patti still carried a torch for him. Certainly she found the fact of their former liaison much more embarrassing than he did. As far as Tim himself was concerned, it was ancient history, water under the bridge. If there was anything to regret, it was simply that friendship between himself and Patti now seemed to be impossible. He still liked and respected her and found her evasive behaviour rather sad. He smiled encouragement now.

“As I said, I need to do some tests. But I think it’s likely that the skeletons have been here much longer than anyone currently living in this house. What happens when a crime’s so old that there’s no chance of finding the murderer alive? Would the police still decide to investigate it?”

“Speaking personally, I’d always want to know what had happened, but unless the crime was a famous one, or there were surviving influential relatives of the victims demanding explanations, it would be left to the discretion of the senior investigating officer and his superiors. In our case, that means Thornton. Preoccupied as he always is with making his budget stretch far enough, I doubt if he’d authorise investigation into a cold case crime if there were no prospect of a conviction.”

“A pity. Because that’s probably what’s going to happen. And, like you, I’d always hope to find the solution to a murder, no matter how old it is. Especially as there’s another fascinating factor to this case: one that I am quite certain about, without conducting more tests.”

“What’s that?”

“At least two of the three victims were female. And all were of African ethnic origin.”

Tim was incredulous.

“You’re absolutely sure?”

“Yes. The shape of their skulls leaves no room for doubt. I’d say they were all from the same part of Africa and possibly related to each other. Lab tests might give me the answer to both of those questions, too.”

“You mean that you can carry out tests to tell exactly where they came from?”

“Probably. Testing their teeth, in particular, should narrow down where they lived to quite a small geographical area. And DNA tests should be able to tell us whether they were related.”

“Isn’t it odd that several black women came here to their deaths a hundred years or so ago? There are very few black people living in the Fens even now. They must have been extremely conspicuous then. Perhaps we’ll be able to find some historical record of when and why they were here.”

“Perhaps. But they didn’t necessarily die in this cellar; they were just buried here. And if they lived in the Fens for some time before that, they could have been held captive. If so, it’s possible that no-one knew about them except the person or people holding them. I’m going to get the bones transferred to the lab as quickly as I can now,” she added. “I assume that you have no objection to that? And that you’d rather we kept to ourselves their likely age until we’re absolutely certain about it?”

“No objection, of course,” said Tim. “And yes – the further we get with exploring their identity before we have to consult Thornton about whether to proceed, the better. Though even Thornton might have to think twice before denying budget to investigate the deaths of three black women, however long ago they happened. He’ll be worried that some political lobbying group will take up their cause.”

“I suppose that he might get extra funding from such a group, or from the government, to help to pay for the investigation if he allows it?”

“He might,” Tim agreed. “I’ve no idea what his options might be. But you can bet that if there is any such money to get hold of, Thornton will know about it. It’s one of the areas in which he excels.”

“Said without a touch of irony!” laughed Patti, behaving naturally in Tim’s presence for once. Tim also laughed, but stopped suddenly and frowned.

“Something else occurs to me,” he said. “I should have thought of it before, given our reason for searching the cellar in the first place. Even in the nineteenth century, surely these women would have required passports?”

“That depends on where they were born. You’re the historian, not me. But it’s my understanding that there have been some black people living in this country since the Middle Ages. Mostly in ports, I believe, particularly in the South of England. And the numbers of ethnic Africans living in the UK obviously increased rapidly in the latter part of the twentieth century. But even if they come from a much earlier period, as I believe may be the case, you shouldn’t rule out the chance that they might have been British citizens.”

“I suppose not. I wonder . . .”

“What’s that?” Patti exclaimed suddenly. “Tim, could you hold the light a little closer to here, please?” She pointed with her brush.

Tim grabbed one of the electric lanterns that Patti had switched on to augment the dim electric lights in the cellar and held it close to her hand. She exchanged the brush for a tiny trowel, which she used gently to lever something free from its prison of bone. She held it up, gripping it with the thumb and forefinger of her latex-gloved hand.

“It’s a bead,” she said. “A large, green bead. Made of malachite, unless I’m much mistaken.”