Simeon's Bride (5 page)

‘Oh, yes?’ McKenna sounded sour. ‘And what have you found?’

‘No heart disease, no liver disease, no kidney disease.’

‘That’s very interesting,’ McKenna commented. ‘We know she was healthy until somebody decided to string her up. Should aid the identification process no end.’

‘God, McKenna, you’re a sarcastic bugger! I gave you the bad news first,’ Eifion Roberts snapped. ‘I actually called to say the woman had had at least one, and possibly more than one, pregnancy.’

‘Are you sure?’ McKenna asked. ‘How could you possibly tell from the state she was in?’

‘You don’t listen, do you? I reconstituted the organs. You may not know the uterus is the last one to decompose, because it’s made as tough as old boots … came up almost as good as new…. So good, in fact, it set me thinking of a way to provide donor organs.’

‘Donor organs?’

Eifion Roberts’ throaty laugh rumbled in McKenna’s ear. ‘Hundreds of graveyards choc-a-bloc with bodies, and their innards all going to waste.’

Dewi, too, returned empty-handed, and long before dusk.

‘I told you to stay there until dark, Dewi Prys,’ McKenna said. ‘Why are you back so early? Have you found the buckle?’

‘No, sir,’ Dewi muttered. ‘I don’t reckon anyone’d be able to find anything down there.’

‘Why not?’

Dewi looked at Jack, who stood feeding sheet after sheet of paper into the fax machine, then back to McKenna. ‘Well, sir, I mean, we don’t even know what this buckle looks like, do we?’

‘So?’

‘So, it makes things a bit difficult….’ Dewi paused. ‘And,’ he added, ‘the whole place got really trampled about on Saturday, sir. If the buckle was around in the first place, it’s probably under a load of mud by now….’

McKenna looked at the mud and grass-stains streaking Dewi’s jeans. ‘How did you get so dirty?’ he asked.

‘Because it’s filthy dirty down there, sir,’ Dewi said. ‘You haven’t seen it, have you? All mud and dead leaves and God knows what.’

Looking up from the fax machine, Jack said, ‘Did you fall in the river, Prys?’

‘No, sir,’ Dewi said.

‘Get lost then, did you?’ Jack asked.

‘Sort of,’ Dewi admitted. His face flushed. ‘Some stupid bugger’s moved all that tape we left at the weekend, haven’t they?’

‘There’s your answer, then,’ Jack said to McKenna. ‘He’s back early
because he was scared of getting lost in the woods. And I don’t blame him, either.’

Bored and irritable, convinced the woman in the woods and her death would remain forever a mystery, Jack spent Wednesday morning dealing with the paperwork accumulated since Saturday. Frowning over duty rosters for the coming month, he listened to Dewi Prys, at his most efficient, say over the telephone to Trefor Prosser, ‘If you wish to be less than co-operative to an important investigation, sir, we can always obtain a court order to retain the ledgers. We have that power, sir, under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. Of course, it also gives us the power to obtain any other documents which might be relevant…. What other documents, sir? Well, we wouldn’t know that ’til we had them, would we, sir?’

Returning from the canteen after lunch, Jack met a man walking along the corridor towards McKenna’s office, a man of medium build and nondescript appearance, a grey sort of man, almost a ghost of a man.

‘Can I help you?’

Grey eyes flicked over Jack’s face, and away. ‘No, thank you.’ He continued on his way, reached McKenna’s room, opened the door and walked in without knocking. The door closed quietly behind him.

Jack hesitated, then followed.

McKenna stood by the window, his face striped with shadows from the Venetian blind. The grey man sat on an upright chair in front of the desk. ‘Who are you?’ he asked Jack.

‘This is Inspector Turtle,’ McKenna said. Turning to Jack, he added, ‘This gentleman is from Special Branch, Jack. It appears our enquiries in Ireland have caused a little anxiety. Special Branch feel we might be treading on their toes.’

The grey man smiled. A most unwholesome smile, Jack thought. Like the wicked old woman in Hansel and Gretel. ‘I said nothing about treading on toes, Mr McKenna. Do you have connections in Ireland, by the way? In the Republic?’

McKenna sat down. ‘Why?’

‘Why did you send details of this dead woman to the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Garda in Dublin?’

‘Because,’ McKenna said, with a warning glance at Jack, ‘she doesn’t appear to be reported missing in Britain. Quite feasible she’s Irish.’

‘Oh, come now, Mr McKenna!’ the grey man sneered. ‘You can do better than that! You know as well as I do this killing has all the hallmarks of an execution. Death by hanging, in a remote spot, and the hands strapped up behind her back? Don’t tell me you hadn’t made the connection.’

‘Then why didn’t your mates say as much to Inspector Tuttle yesterday?’ McKenna asked. ‘He went all the way to Caernarfon to talk to you.’

‘Don’t play games, McKenna. You know the score, and you damn well know the procedure! You get told what you need to know, and nothing more.’

‘Quite,’ McKenna agreed. ‘I therefore presumed there was nothing to know.’

‘You,’ the grey man insisted, ‘have absolutely no right to contact police in Ireland. Thought you were being clever, did you? Thought you’d stir up the shit for us, did you?’

‘I didn’t think anything at all, as a matter of fact.’ McKenna was smiling slightly. ‘All we have done,’ he continued, ‘is to treat this as we would any other suspicious death. And of course, unlike you, we have not indulged in any paranoid over-reaction. As a matter of interest,’ he added, lighting a cigarette, ‘how did you know we made enquiries in Ireland?’

‘Mind your own business!’

‘Oh.’ McKenna looked bored. ‘I suppose one of your stooges over there rang up in a panic. Pity they’ve nothing better to do.’

The grey man stood, leaning his fists on the desk. ‘You obviously haven’t yet learned your place, McKenna. Rogue bloody coppers we can all do without. Particularly Irish ones!’

McKenna opened the door, and stood aside for the man to pass through. ‘You know where the chief constable spends most of his time,’ he said. ‘I’m sure your boss will be getting together with him soon enough. They’ll be able to have a nice little chat about it, won’t they?’

‘I don’t know how you keep your temper!’ Jack exploded as soon as the man was out of earshot. ‘I thought the Gestapo’d been outlawed years ago.’

‘He’s just a playground bully.’

‘What’s he called?’

‘I believe he’s called Jones.’ McKenna smiled, although Jack noticed a tremble in the hand holding McKenna’s cigarette. ‘They’re all called Jones. They all look the same as well, so nobody can identify them.’

‘His sort gives the security services a bad name,’ Jack said. ‘God knows where they dig ’em up.’

‘D’you know, Jack,’ McKenna sighed, ‘I wish that bloody John Beti’d minded his own business! But for him, the woman could’ve stayed happily swinging from that tree until she turned to dust, and nobody any the wiser.’

Walking down to the canteen for coffee, Jack thought about the man from Special Branch, and about the dividing line, at times almost non-existent, between those who made evil, and those whose job it was to fight the wickedness. He was in the canteen queue, standing behind a pretty policewoman with the scent of fresh air on her uniform and in her hair, before he realized McKenna had quite deliberately provoked Special Branch with the Irish enquiries.

Dr Roberts looked with some pleasure at the foot and lower leg extruding from the right side of the drainage trench. ‘Well preserved, Michael,’ he said. ‘Most interesting. No doubt because of the acid nature of the soil.’

‘Well, you might be able to reconstitute some organs for donor use, then, mightn’t you?’ McKenna snapped. ‘Save a bit of grave robbing, won’t it? Especially if nobody owns up to this body either!’

The doctor regarded McKenna, a little smile lingering around his mouth. ‘D’you know, Michael, people say Jack has a sharp tongue at times,’ he observed. ‘Could strip paint with yours, you could.’

McKenna stalked off. ‘Oh, get on with it! Dig it up, or whatever you
intend to do, and tell me when you’ve finished.’ He stopped, then walked back. ‘And its hands had better not be bound. I’ve had enough of executions to last me a long time.’

He disappeared into the cottage, while Jack stood by the trench, watching as the pathologist instructed Dewi, another officer, and two of the forensic team, on ways and means of disinterring the body without causing further damage.

The work was made easier for them by the same factor which frustrated Wil. Peaty, crumbly soil trickled away from the trench side, exposing the other foot, then more of each leg. Patiently and carefully, the soil was brushed away, pushed into heaps well away from the body. Bits of fabric came with it, shreds of some thick cotton, bereft of any colour. Jack stood with Dr Roberts, watching and waiting.

‘What’s wrong with your boss these days?’ Roberts asked. ‘He’s always been one to speak his mind, but he’s really on a short fuse at the moment. Give himself a heart attack if he’s not careful. Trouble with that flighty wife of his, is it?’

‘Denise? Flighty?’ Jack asked. ‘Plain bored, more likely.’

‘Well, happen you don’t know her so well.’ Dr Roberts chewed his lower lip. ‘Flighty and frivolous, our Denise. Takes after her mother in that way. Not right for McKenna at all. Too shallow. He needs a woman with a bit of bite to her.’ He paused. ‘A woman with fire in her belly, like him. There’s the heat of a lot of passions in that man, Jack.’

‘Well, it doesn’t give off much warmth for others most of the time,’ Jack commented.

Eifion Roberts stared. ‘It won’t, will it, with only Denise for company,’ he said. ‘It’ll just burn up McKenna to a cinder. I reckon it’s the end of the road for those two.’ The pathologist peered over the side of the trench. ‘Best thing, too, if you want my opinion. That marriage was doomed from the start. Denise only married him because he was a good catch, so she could climb up the social ladder on his back.’

‘McKenna’s not exactly socially prominent,’ Jack said.

‘That’s the trouble, isn’t it? Denise thought she’d be getting something she wanted, and now things aren’t going her way, she wants out. You mark my words, Jack,’ the doctor went on, walking forward to look properly over the lip of the trench, ‘within six months or so, our Denise’ll have found herself somebody more to her liking. Golf-club type, with a fancy house and big posh car. I’ll put money on it.’

‘1793. I’m answering your question, McKenna. She’s been here since 1793, or thereabouts.’ Dr Roberts knelt by the body, looking up.

‘How can you possibly know that?’ McKenna demanded. ‘If you can’t tell us how many months the other one’s been hanging around, how can you possibly say how many years this one’s been here?’

Dr Roberts stood up, brushing soil from the knees of his trousers. He climbed out of the trench, assisted by Jack. ‘It’s Rebekah, listed on official documents as “Wife of Simeon the Jew”. Close your mouth, Michael!’ he said. ‘You’ll swallow a fly if you’re not careful, then you’ll be like that old lady who had to swallow a spider to catch the fly.’ He surveyed McKenna speculatively. ‘Be interesting doing an autopsy on you after you’d swallowed the horse, wouldn’t it?’

Jack giggled. McKenna glared at him and the doctor. ‘Are you having a bit of fun at my expense?’ he demanded.

‘No, I’m not. Straight up, this is, in your criminal parlance.’ Dr Roberts removed his surgical gloves. ‘After you’d told me that yarn the other day, I went to look in the archives in Caernarfon. It’s all there, word for word as you heard it. This is your Rebekah, final resting place finally found. It actually says “Resting place unknown” in the records. What a thing, eh? They’ll be able to fill in the gaps and draw a line under that story now. She’ll have to have a proper funeral, of course. Wonder who’ll arrange that?’ he asked. ‘Wouldn’t be quite right just to throw her into an unmarked grave and toss quicklime on her, would it? She’s a bit of history.’

‘Will you be cutting her up?’ Jack asked.

‘Oh, most certainly.’ Dr Roberts surveyed the body. ‘Very interesting it’ll be, as well. I’ve never had occasion to autopsy an executed criminal before. They’d abolished the death penalty before I started practising, you know. Be able to see how efficient they were in those days, won’t I?’ he added, sneaking a look at McKenna.

‘I think you’ve got something wrong with you, I really do,’ McKenna told him. ‘You treat these poor devils like specimens or something!’

‘Well, this one at least is a bit academic, so to speak, isn’t she?’

‘Are you really sure it’s Rebekah, Dr Roberts?’ Jack asked.

‘Look for yourselves,’ he invited. ‘Come on, McKenna, there’s no need to be squeamish. She won’t bite.’

‘Not all of us share your ghoulish interest in corpses,’ McKenna snapped. ‘How can you be so sure it’s this Rebekah?’

‘She’s virtually mummified,’ the pathologist said. ‘Comes from being in ground like this. If she’d been put anywhere else, she’d be nothing but dust by now.’ He turned to the four men waiting silently in the trench. ‘Let’s move her, shall we? And make sure you put all those bits of fabric in with her. I want those.’

Jack and the pathologist walked together to the parked cars and the mortuary van, McKenna in front, but close enough to hear the pathologist’s conversation. ‘D’you know, Jack, after the riots at Strangeways Prison, they had to dig up the burial ground for the new extensions,’ he was saying. ‘Took nearly forty bodies out of there, and gave them a proper Christian burial.’

‘Who were they?’ Jack wanted to know.

‘About fifty years’ worth of executions, if not more. I’ve got some details on it at home, if you’d care to have a read. Who they were, why they were topped, when….’