The Calling of the Grave (14 page)

    Terry
took the coffee from me without thanks. 'Just a precaution. We're warning
everyone Monk might have a grudge against.'

    'And
you think that applies to me? I doubt he even remembers who I am.'

    'Let's
hope you're right. But I wouldn't like to predict what Monk's going to do now
he's escaped. You know as well as I do what he's capable of.'

    There
was no denying that. I'd examined one of his victims myself, seen first hand
the savage damage Monk had inflicted on a teenage girl. Even so, I still
couldn't see that I was in any danger.

    'We're
talking about something that happened eight years ago,' I said. 'It isn't as if
I had anything to do with Monk's conviction, only the search operation
afterwards. You can't seriously think he'll care about that?'

    'You
were still part of the police team, and Monk's not one to discriminate. Or
forgive. And you were there at the end, when everything went pear-shaped. You
can't have forgotten
that!

    I
hadn't. But I hadn't thought about it in a long time, either. 'Thanks for the
warning. I'll bear it in mind.'

    'You
should.' He took a careful sip from the mug before lowering it. 'You keep in
touch with any of the others?'

    It
seemed an innocuous enough question, but I knew Terry better than that. 'No.'

    'No?
I thought you might have worked with Wainwright on other cases.'

    'Not
after Monk.'

    'He retired
a while back. 'Terry blew on his coffee to cool it. 'How about Sophie Keller?
Ever see anything of her?'

    'No.
Why should I?'

    'Oh,
no reason.'

    I was
growing tired of this. 'Why don't you tell me why you really came here?'

    His
face had grown red, and I could feel my own had matched it as the old
antagonism flared.
Didn't take long, did it?

    'I
told you, it's just a precaution. We're notifying everyone—'

    'I'm
not an idiot, Terry. You could have phoned, or got someone else to phone. Why
come all the way to London to tell me yourself?'

    There
was nothing friendly in his manner any more. He fixed me with the cold-eyed
stare of a professional policeman. 'I had some other business to attend to in town.
I thought I'd stop by and give you the news myself. For old times' sake. My
mistake.'

    But I
wasn't going to be fobbed off that easily. 'If Monk's going to go after anyone
from back then, it's not going to be me, is it?'

    Terry's
face had darkened more than ever. 'I came here to warn you. Consider yourself
warned.' His chair scraped as he stood up. 'Thanks for the coffee. I'll see
myself out.'

    He
strode to the hallway, then seemed to change his mind. He stopped and turned.
His mouth was a bitter line as he glared at me.

    'I
thought you might have changed. I should have known better.'

    He
walked out without a backward glance. I stayed at the table, the past so close
I felt I could almost step into it.
Can you pick Alice up later?

    The
flat seemed subtly different somehow, less my own. But my hands were steady
enough as I collected the mugs. I hadn't touched my coffee but I no longer
wanted it. I poured it down the sink and watched the dregs swirl down the
drain. I didn't know why Terry had really come to see me, but the years hadn't
changed one thing.

    I
still didn't trust him.

    Monk's
escape was the main story on the lunchtime news. An audacious prison escape by
a notorious killer would have made headlines no matter who it was.

    When
it was Jerome Monk it was guaranteed.

    The
story was on the radio as I drove into the lab. I listened to the headlines,
then switched it off. There'd be nothing I didn't already know, and despite
Terry's warning Monk's escape didn't concern me. I was sorry he was free, and
sorry he'd hurt more people in the process. But Jerome Monk wasn't my problem.
Eight years was a long time, too long for him to care about me. Or me about
him.

    Still,
try as I might to pretend otherwise, I couldn't shrug off Terry's visit as
easily as that. I was long past apportioning blame for what had happened, but
seeing him again had dredged up painful memories, stirred up an emotional
sediment that refused to settle. I'd been looking forward to a leisurely
Sunday, and a rare day off. I was supposed to be meeting two colleagues and
their wives for lunch in Henley-on-Thames, something I'd been promising to do
for weeks. But Terry's reappearance had changed all that. Knowing I wouldn't be
very good company I'd called and made my excuses. I needed time by myself to
come to terms with what had happened, to pack my memories back in their box.

    I
needed to work.

    The
past blew around me like a cold wind as I pulled into the Forensic Sciences car
park. When I'd returned to London from Norfolk I'd been uneasy about returning
to my old department, wary of being swamped by past associations. But in the
end there hadn't been enough reason not to. I'd been based here for the past
three years, technically a part of the faculty but with freedom to concentrate
on police consultancy work. The university had offered me tenure, but so far
I'd been reluctant to take it. The present arrangement seemed to work, even if
there was still a temporary feel to it. I could live with that, though.
Experience had made me reluctant to put down roots.

    The
building was closed on Sundays, but I often came in to work. I had my own keys,
and I was used to being there alone. Still, I glanced around the empty car park
as I made my way to the entrance. There's always something slightly unsettling
about being alone in a normally busy public space. And while I might not be
worried about Monk coming after me, there were others whose grudges were more
tangible.

    I
still bore a scar on my stomach to warn me against complacency

    The
forensic anthropology department was in the basement of a former Victorian
hospital. It was accessed either by a cranky old lift that always seemed to
smell of disinfectant or by two flights of stairs. As usual I took the stairs.
The building was listed, and the stairwell still had the original tiles and
stone steps. My footsteps rang as I descended, their lonely echo emphasizing
the weekend quiet.

    Once
through the doors at the bottom, though, I was back in the twenty-first
century. There were several labs, all of them modern and well equipped. My
office was attached to one at the far end of the corridor. Not large, but big
enough for my purposes. I unlocked it and flicked on the lights. There were no
windows down here, and I paused in the doorway as the bright overhead
fluorescents stuttered to life.

    It
was cool inside, the heating system turned down over the weekend. But I was
used to that. My office was utilitarian, most of the space taken up by the old
steel filing cabinets and desk. Switching on the computer, I left it to start
up and pulled on my white lab coat which hung behind the door. Then I went out
into the lab.

    The
grislier aspects of my work - carefully cutting away the decaying soft tissue
from a cadaver, or degreasing human bones in detergent - were normally done at
a mortuary. Most of the remains that came here had already been through that
process, or were so long dead that time and decomposition had reduced them to
dry bones anyway.

    The
case I was currently working on was one of the former. Stripped of its flesh
and neatly set out on the aluminium examination table was the partial skeleton
of a man in his thirties. At least, that was my best guess. His gender had been
relatively easy to determine because of the shape of the pelvis and large size
of the bones. I'd estimated his age from the condition of his vertebrae and the
amount of wear evident on the pubic symphysis - the part of the pelvic girdle
where the two pubic bones meet.

    But
while the skeleton normally provides other indicators to help confirm age and
sex, as well as identification, that didn't apply in this instance. The
advanced state of decomposition had suggested that, whoever this was, he'd died
at least two years ago, but I'd been unable to be more precise than that. And I
couldn't even begin to offer a probable cause of death. In fact the only thing
I could state with any real confidence was that he'd been murdered.

    I'd
yet to come across a suicide or accidental death where the arms, legs and head
had been severed.

    The
man's torso had been found by a builder, dumped inside the well of a derelict
farmhouse in Surrey. Neither the well nor the rest of the property had yielded
the missing body parts, and without any teeth to compare against dental records,
or any notable characteristics on the remaining bones, identifying the victim
would be a difficult task.

    Still,
I hoped to at least establish how he'd been dismembered. There was none of the trauma
that would indicate an axe or cleaver had been used, which pointed to it being
a knife or saw. Any blade would leave distinctive marks on the bone, and from
the cleanness of the ones I'd seen so far this was likely to be some sort of
power tool. My money was on a circular saw, but I'd need to examine each
surface under a microscope to be sure. It was dull, methodical work, but
identifying what cutting tool had been used might be the first step on the long
road to catching the killer.

    Stranger
things had happened.

    I set
up the first slide and tried to concentrate on what I was supposed to be doing.
But I stared at the magnified section of bone in the viewfinder without really
seeing it.
Clean cut, no sign of splintering . . .
Something scratched
away at my subconscious, an irritating connection I couldn't quite unearth. I
straightened, feeling it on the verge of surfacing, but then a final chime from
my office as the computer started up distracted me.

    Whatever
I'd been trying to remember vanished. I sighed and gave in to the inevitable.
OK, just get it out of the way. Then you can forget about it and do some work.
Going into my office I went online to a news website. I'd expected Monk's
escape to be the lead story. It was. I just hadn't realized what a shock it
would be seeing that face again.

    Jerome
Monk's photograph stared from the screen like a still from a horror film. The
sickening indentation in his forehead still made you queasy just to look at it,
and the eyes . . .

    His
eyes were still dead.

    I
scrolled down the screen to the photographs of his four victims. The images
looked dated, their subjects frozen in time. The Bennett sisters would be . . .
what? Twenty-six or twenty-seven now, and Tina Williams twenty-eight or nine. Angela
Carson, the oldest, would be about thirty-five. Old enough to be married, to
have children of their own. Instead, their lives had been cut brutally short.

    And
now their killer was free.

    I
rubbed my eyes, the taste of failure as bitter now as it had been all that time
ago. Again, I had the feeling that there was something I needed to remember. It
wasn't so strong as before, just a niggling presence at the back of my mind. I
started to scroll back to re-read the story and jumped as the phone on my desk
rang.

    The
picture on the screen doubled in size as I accidentally clicked on the zoom.
Swearing under my breath, I grabbed for the phone. 'Hello?'

    There
was a slight pause on the other end. 'Is that David? David Hunter?'

    It
was a woman's voice, strong and slightly husky, though now with an edge of
uncertainty. There was something familiar about it.

    'Yes.
Who's this?'

    'Sophie
Keller?' she said, and another part of the past clicked into place. 'We worked
together a few years ago. On the Jerome Monk case?'

    She
phrased it as a question, as though unsure I'd know who she was. She needn't
have worried: it was only a few hours since Terry Connors had asked if I'd
heard from her.

    'Sure,
of course.' I made an effort to gather myself. 'Sorry, it's just weird timing.
I was just reading about Monk.'

    'You've
heard that he's escaped?'

    'Yes,
I have.'

    I
wasn't sure whether to mention Terry, so I didn't. The two of them had never got
on. There was an embarrassed pause. 'I got your office number from the
university website, but I only called to leave a message. I didn't think you'd
be there on a Sunday. I hope you don't mind.'