Almost Love (35 page)

Chapter Forty-Six

Turning out of the office at the end of her day, Alex decided to visit the flat before she caught the bus back to Holbeach. Suddenly feeling very tired, she was debating whether she should, after all, walk straight to the bus station, when a white van drew up alongside her. The driver opened his window. He was a stocky man with a square, lined face. He was wearing a knitted woollen hat.

“Excuse me . . .” he said. He had a slight foreign accent.

Alex turned to face him. At the same instant, an unseen man grabbed both her arms and pinioned them behind her. Her first instinct was to scream, but her invisible assailant, who was very strong, swiftly moved his left hand to cover her mouth. He kneed her in the small of her back.

“Shut up,” he hissed in her ear. “Don’t make a fuss. I’ve got a knife.”

The van driver sat and watched. His expression was quizzical, detached.

Alex was dragged to the back of the van and bundled inside it. She was pushed face down on to a pile of plastic crates. Her wrists were tied behind her back. The smell of fish was offensive. There was a sharp sting in her leg. She collapsed into the darkness.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Tim and Juliet sat and waited in the lay-by until Guy’s Land Rover had rattled past them. If he noticed them, he did not betray it. Juliet saw that his face stared straight ahead. He was frowning slightly, rapt in thought; he was driving too fast for the road.

They sat motionless for a few minutes longer. Tim started the engine again and turned the car round to head back to Guy’s house. He parked alongside the hard standing. Guy’s Citroen was still there. They both got out of the BMW. Squatting on his haunches, Tim studied the ground underneath the Citroen and saw that Juliet’s sharp-eyed observation had been correct. The earth had been disturbed recently.

Tim stood up.

“Well done,” he said. “We need to get digging as soon as possible.”

“Won’t we need a search warrant?”

Tim considered for a few seconds.

“I’d say it was a borderline case for one. The standing is quite a long way from the house, so it would be hard for Maichment to claim that we’re invading the privacy of his home, but we will have to move the vehicle.”

“What if we don’t find anything and he complains to Superintendent Little?”

“That’s a risk I’m going to have to take. I don’t want him to come back here until we’ve finished.”

An hour later, the breakdown truck that Tim had requested arrived. At almost the same time, a police car pulled up alongside it. Two uniformed policemen got out and fetched picks and shovels from the boot. A dog handler’s van turned up a little later.

Tim was about to give them all instructions when his mobile rang. He saw at once that it was Katrin.

“Katrin, can I call you back? We’ve just . . .”

“Tim, listen to me, this is important. I’ve been translating those papers that Juliet sent. My Norwegian isn’t brilliant, but it’s good enough for me to be able to understand that in one of them Dr Berg was writing about genetic experiments.”

“What do you mean, ‘genetic experiments’? This was well before the discovery of DNA, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know, but that isn’t what the paper’s about. It’s about some experiments that took place in a children’s home. The children were mostly gypsy or Polish refugees who got separated from their families when they fled from Germany and the Netherlands. She carried out some intelligence tests on them and compared the results with the scores achieved by Norwegian children.”

“It sounds like another incarnation of the super-race theory that underpins Dame Claudia’s theories about the McRae stone. But you’re not suggesting that Elida Berg was another Mengele? I know that mind games can be as cruel as physical abuse, but normally they don’t endanger life. Is there any suggestion that she also conducted physical experiments on the children?”

“Not exactly, but . . .”

“But what?” Tim was conscious that he had raised his voice. “I’m sorry, Katrin. I don’t mean to sound aggressive: it’s just that this is really important.”

“It’s all right – I know that. No, there’s nothing in the paper – or in any of the papers that she wrote, as far as I can see – to suggest that she was involved in Mengele-like experiments. But I’ve done a little bit of additional research of my own. I’ve dug up some contemporary newspaper articles and I’ve also found an old cinema newsreel. The home for child refugees where she carried out the intelligence tests was burned down shortly after she finished her work there. She was suspected of arson, or at least of plotting with others to set fire to it, but the police were unable to find concrete proof and the case was dropped quite quickly. Nevertheless, that is why she disappeared. No-one has heard from her since then – the year was 1947 – although equally there is no evidence that she died at that time. She could have lived for many decades afterwards under an assumed name. She spoke several languages and could have found less high-profile academic work in another European country – as a teacher, say. At the end of the war and for several years afterwards there were so many homeless people trying to prove their identities that an intelligent woman like her would have had little difficulty in acquiring a new set of papers. She probably had influential friends who could help her, as well. It’s improbable that she’s still alive now, though not impossible. If she is, she would be about ten years older than Claudia McRae, which would make her 102 or 103.”

“Katrin, thank you. I’m not sure what the exact significance is, but I’m sure it’s an important breakthrough.”

“There’s one other thing.”

“Yes?”

“She had a close relationship with a young girl, who may have been her daughter, or an adopted daughter. The girl was a toddler at the time of Elida’s disappearance. The newspaper articles don’t say much about her, but I’ve tracked her records as far as I can. I’m not absolutely certain of this, but I think that she’s the same person who appears in accounts of digs that were carried out by Claudia McRae in the 1950s.”

“What makes you suspect that?”

“It’s the name. The girl’s name was Abigail. It was an unusual name to choose for a girl of any nationality at that time, but almost unheard of in Norway. The newspaper account refers to her as Abigail Berg. The name of the young woman who took part in the 1950s digs was also Abigail.”

“Was her second name Berg?”

“No. It was ..”

“Let me guess: McRae?”

“No, Tim, you’re jumping the gun, as usual. It was Maichment. Abigail Maichment.”

“Should the break-down truck tow the car off the standing now, sir?” asked Juliet. “It will be getting dark soon.”

“What? Oh, yes, please. I’m sorry to have kept everyone waiting. And, Juliet, thank you for sending those papers to Katrin. It’s helped her to unearth some fascinating stuff – I’m not sure what it all means yet, but we can talk about it later. Let’s get on with this now.”

The break-down truck driver had fixed a large hook attached to a rigid bar under the tow-bar of the old Citroen. He was a short, stout man and he stumped across to Tim and Juliet with a rolling swagger.

“Any chance of getting into the vehicle to release the hand-brake?” he asked. “It’s been left in first gear, as well. There’ll be no give in the wheels if I just tow it as it is. Could cause some damage.”

“We don’t have the keys, and there’s no time to get them,” said Tim. “See what you can do with it like that. If there’s any damage, it’ll be my responsibility. I don’t want to break into it unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Whatever you say.” The man shrugged and climbed back into his truck. He started edging it forward. At first the car didn’t budge; it just rocked from side to side a little. The truck-driver increased the revs, but it continued to resist, whilst the truck’s wheels failed to get a purchase. He climbed out of his cab again and headed for the small knot of policemen who were watching.

“D’you think you guys could give it a push from the front when I give the word? Just to get it moving.” Tim watched, amused: here was a citizen not to be fazed by blue uniforms. The policemen sprang into action and lined up in front of the bonnet, probably feeling sheepish at not having themselves thought to offer help.

“Cheers!” the driver shouted, giving them the thumbs-up. He got back into his cab and wound down the window. He yelled across to Tim and Juliet.

“I’d get out of the way if I was you. I might not be able to control a sudden move forward. I wouldn’t want to squash you!”

It was Tim’s turn to look discomfited. He and Juliet stepped back several yards.

The truck driver increased the revs gradually while the policemen pushed. As he had predicted, after a few moments the truck gave a sudden lurch, tugging the car with it. The three policemen struggled not to fall flat on their faces. They grinned, dusting off their hands.

“D’you want me, gov’nor, or can I go?”

“I’d be grateful if you’d stay,” Tim said. “We shouldn’t take too long. We’re going to dig here to see if we can find something that may have been buried. If there’s nothing there we’d like you to move the car back to where it was again – as near as you can, anyway.”

The man shook his head.

“Not sure about that,” he said. “I’ll do me best, though. I’ll have to charge for the time, like, if I stay.”

“Of course.”

Tim inspected the area that the car had occupied. The earth looked newly turned over. It was packed down at the edges, where the car wheels had stood, but soft in the middle. It was bare of weeds or grass.

The policemen fetched shovels and started digging at once. The soil yielded easily; soon they had dug down to a depth of several feet. Tim was beginning to fear that he and Juliet had initiated a wild goose chase when one of the officers paused and stood up straight. He had been standing in the hole that they’d made, trying to clear away the loose earth that had fallen in from the sides. He was wearing heavy-duty rubber gloves so that he could scoop out the debris with his hands. The others peered down at him.

“There’s something here!” he said. “I’m not sure what it is. It feels like some old sacking.”

“Let me see,” said Tim. There was not room enough for them both in the hole, so the uniformed officer clambered out. Disregarding the effect on his suit, Tim jumped in. He knelt and brushed away at the sacking with his bare hand. He uncovered quite a large expanse, enough to see that it was part of a piece of oiled sackcloth of the kind sometimes used to wrap tools. It appeared to be in good condition. He thought that he could also detect an unpleasant smell rising from the dug ground, though the whole garden was wet and dank, so it could just have been part of a more pervasive odour.

“I think we need the SOCOs here now,” he said. “If we dig any deeper ourselves we may destroy some valuable evidence. Juliet, can you get them here as soon as possible?”

Juliet Armstrong took out her mobile. Tim returned to the breakdown truck driver.

“I don’t think we’ll need you again today,” he said. “Thank you for waiting so patiently. We won’t keep you any longer.”

The man surveyed the knot of people standing around the hole with ill-concealed curiosity.

“I can stay if you like,” he said.

“Thank you, but that really won’t be necessary,” said Tim.

Patti Gardner and Jo, her assistant, arrived less than half an hour later. As they donned their white suits and laid out the range of small tools like surgical instruments, Tim reflected that their work had a lot in common with that of archaeologists. It was ironical that they were now about to use archaeological-type techniques to dig up what he’d wager would prove to be the body of an archaeologist.

Patti and Jo scraped and dusted. Darkness was beginning to fall and the policemen were now taking it in turns to shine their torches into the hole. One of them approached Tim. He was flapping his crossed arms over his chest.

“It’s blooming cold out here,” he said. “I could do with a cuppa.”

“What do you suggest? That we break into the house and help ourselves?”

“We could use some help now,” Patti called across. Tim and Juliet hurried over to her, followed by the policeman.

By widening and lengthening the hole they had exposed a large area of the sackcloth material.

“There are several thicknesses of this, apparently in good condition,” said Patti. “My guess is that it hasn’t been here long – a few weeks at most. There’s obviously something wrapped up in it. We don’t know what it is, but it’s something quite heavy. I want you to help by digging underneath it so that we can use ropes to haul the whole lot out.”

It took another hour to accomplish this task. Darkness had fallen; the temperatures were dropping further. They were all chilled to the bone and tired. Nevertheless, the atmosphere was charged with a kind of macabre excitement. Tim himself almost hoped that Claudia McRae’s remains would be found here. It would get Thornton off his back, for one thing; the case would turn into an open-and-shut one, for another, since Guy Maichment would hardly be able to assert his innocence. Establishing his motive would be a bit of a conundrum, though.

They had passed the ropes under the mass of sackcloth and were levering it out of the hole. The smell was getting stronger. Tim could no longer blame his imagination – everyone was suffering from the stench. Juliet was holding her gloved hands over her nose. Tim improvised with a paper napkin that he found in his coat pocket.

They laid the damp and noisome package on the mud track. Patti and Jo were wearing masks. Jo had spares which she passed around. One of the policemen held his hurricane lamp aloft so that it cast an arc of light over their spoils.

The sackcloth did not appear to be tied or fastened. It had been wrapped around what it concealed several times and folded over at both ends. Patti knelt beside it, then sat back on her haunches to consider.

“If this contains a decomposing body, we are likely to damage it considerably by rolling it over several times in order to remove it and preserve the sackcloth intact. Although I’m reluctant to damage any kind of evidence, I therefore think that I’m just going to cut it so that we can see what’s there.” She looked at Tim for approval. He nodded.

Patti produced a large pair of shears and made an incision in the centre of the mass. She slit it upwards to the end furthest from her. She repeated the process by cutting two further layers of cloth. Jo helped her to fold back the flaps that she had created. She was kneeling closer to the stuff than Patti at this point. She shone her torch into the aperture.

“Christ!” she said, falling back against one of the policemen’s legs. He bent to hold her steady.

“What is it?” asked Tim.

“I’m sorry,” said Jo. “It takes a lot to shock me. But I think you need to look for yourself.”

Patti silently passed across latex gloves and Tim eased them on. He took the shears from her and clipped the cloth back further. They were all expecting his action to reveal a body; they were not disappointed. However, the corpse now lolling partially exposed from its sackcloth shroud was not that of an elderly woman. It was unmistakably male: the remains of a man who had been lying dead for at least a week, perhaps several weeks, but no longer; a man who had been all but decapitated.