Unnatural Selection (12 page)

Clapper nodded, puffing away. “That’s probably so.”

“Right. The pieces were probably put in plastic garbage bags or something similar and stuffed into a car, then driven to the beach, almost certainly at night, dumped out of the bags, and buried.”

“Why take them out of the bags? To make things harder for the police in the event they were ever to be discovered?”

“Yes. The smarter ones do that. For one thing, if they’re left sealed in garbage bags, it takes much longer for them to skeletonize. Clues remain. For another, finding human body parts in a plastic bag-even skeletonized ones-is a pretty good giveaway that dirty deeds have been done. Whereas the occasional bone fragment or two can be overlooked.”

“As this one was,” Clapper said. He pondered some more. “So there our man was, with a boot full of human remains, in a great hurry to be rid of them, and he takes the time to remove them from their bags-and wouldn’t that be a filthy, miserable job?-before burying them. Even in the middle of the night, on a quiet beach, I’d say that takes a cool customer. The road runs quite near the beach up there, don’t you see.”

“I’d say so too. But cool or not, he would be in a hurry, and he wouldn’t want to risk driving around with what he had in his trunk any more than he had to. So the chances are good that the rest of the body is buried nearby. Would you consider doing some exploratory digging at Halangy Beach?”

Clapper laughed. “If I had a staff, I would. But there’s only young Robb and myself-which in effect means only young Robb, because I wouldn’t be much of a hand with a shovel anymore.”

“I’d be glad to pitch in too. There are signs to look for when you’re hunting for-”

Clapper held up his hand. “I have a better idea, Professor. If you’re free for the next hour or two, there’s someone I’d like you to meet. I think he might be just the chap to help us.”

“I’m free, all right.” Whatever this was about, Clapper was taking it seriously, and Gideon was pleased. And Robb had certainly been right: the big, jovial, animated man he was looking at was barely recognizable as the sarcastic, burnt-out cop of yesterday.

Clapper stubbed out his cigarette and stood up, looking as near to positively enthusiastic as Gideon had seen him. “That’s fine. Fancy a short, bracing walk to the harbor, followed by a jaunt over the bounding main in a luxury yacht?

“Nothing I’d like better,” Gideon said.

“Excellent.” He was already shrugging into the tunic that he’d taken from a hanger behind the door. “Kyle,” he said pleasantly on the way out, “get hold of Trus Hicks on the blower and tell him we’ll be on his doorstep in half an hour, will you? Tell him what it’s about.” He picked up one of the hats-the soft, military kind, not a helmet. “And ring up the cox to let him know we’re on our way to the boat, there’s a good lad. Going to St. Agnes, ain’t we?”

Clapper’s “luxury yacht” turned out to be a garish yellow-and-green, twin-hulled metal boat that served both as police launch and water ambulance for the islands. The cox-the pilot-was waiting for them, and as soon as they were aboard he started it up. Gideon was surprised at the 747-like roar and power of the twin jet-thrust engines. Within seconds they were out of Hugh Town Harbor and scudding south across the famously wicked currents of St. Mary’s Sound, heading for the island of St. Agnes with the boat’s prow a foot in the air.

“Wow,” he exclaimed, hanging on to the railing for dear life.

“We’ll have you there in three and a half minutes,” the pilot shouted with pride, leaning forward as if to coax yet a little more speed from it. “At full-tilt, we can get to just about any of the off-islands in under nine minutes.”

The launch had a small enclosed cabin for patients needing treatment or prisoners needing restraining, to which Clapper and Gideon retreated, partly because it was quieter than the deck, and partly because the wind had a bite to it from the thready mist that was beginning to form low over the water, in line with Robb’s earlier prediction of fog. Once seated on the wooden benches that ran around its perimeter, Clapper asked: “Ever heard of Truscott Hicks?”

“I don’t think so.”

Clapper seemed moderately surprised. “Know anything about cadaver dogs?”

“Dogs that locate bodies? Not much. I’ve been on cases where they’ve been used, but they’ve already done their work by the time I get involved.”

“Well,” Clapper said comfortably, popping the lid of his cigarette box and dragging one out with his lips, “you’re about to learn everything you ever wanted to know about them.” He lit up and took a drag. “And then some.”

The pilot’s estimate of three and a half minutes was on the money, but there was a twenty-minute holdup during which the launch was forced to putt back and forth offshore while the short, narrow stone quay was occupied by two farm tractors with flatbeds unloading the day’s deliveries-everything from milk and bread to a sofa (not new) and a television set (likewise)-from the daily supply ferry. When the unloading was finished, the tractors had chugged off in a dusty haze, and the ferry had backed out and departed, they pulled up alongside the quay and the pilot threw a rope over a nearby stanchion.

“We won’t be long, Ron,” Clapper said, climbing out onto stone steps worn concave by four hundred years of friendly visitors and unfriendly invaders. “Time enough for a pint at the Turk’s Head, if you don’t dawdle.”

The pilot nodded soberly. “I shall take your sage advice, Sergeant.”

The tide was at its highest, with a thin sheet of water sloshing over the uneven old stonework, so they had to watch their step. Gideon was again struck with Clapper’s stately man-on-the-moon walk. In an odd, elephantine way, he was extremely graceful, totally in balance. Maybe it was the low center of gravity that hippy, pear-shaped form gave him. At the foot of the quay, where they stepped onto the land of the one-square-mile island itself, there were a few metal signs tacked onto an unpainted shed. All except one were for family-run guest houses and bed-and-breakfast places (there were no hotels on St. Agnes, Clapper said); the other was an advertisement for where they were going:

Bed-and-Biscuit Canine Boarding Establishment

Lowertown Farm Road

Tel 422380

Minimum Stay One Week

Proprietor Mr. Truscott Hicks

“Truscott Hicks,” Clapper explained as they began walking up the path from the quay, “knows more about dogs than any man I’ve ever met. He was a famous dog trainer in the seventies. Wrote a few books, had his own show on the telly, gave courses all over the world, and so on. Well, about the time he got tired of that, his son-a copper up in Barnstaple at the time-told him about how they were starting to use dogs to detect firearms, explosives, drugs, and so on. Trus took an interest, took some courses on the Continent and on your side of the Pond, and made himself into a first-rate expert. First paid canine consultant of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, founding member of the Canine Forensics Association, and so forth and so on.”

They were passing the Turk’s Head Pub that he’d mentioned to their pilot (Turk’s Head being a common name for pubs, deriving either from a type of seafarer’s knot or, with more grim connotations, from the Crusades, depending on whom you asked) and a couple of men, sitting at an outdoor table over their pints, waved.

“See who’s here, Alf. What brings you to our fair part of the world, Constable Sergeant? A bank robbery? A triple murder? An anarchist plot to blow up the parsonage?”

“Just out and about enjoying the fresh air, lads,” Clapper said pleasantly. “Lovely day, innit?”

At the Turk’s Head they turned left off the road onto a footpath that skirted the low bluffs above the beach. “Shorter this way,” the sergeant said. “Now where was I? Well, I myself first met Trus, oh, about five years ago. I called him in on a case when I was…” He faltered. “Well, you see, this was-”

“When you were a detective chief inspector in Plymouth?” He was getting along well with Clapper, and he thought this might clear the air even more.

Clapper tucked in his chin but didn’t break stride. “Someone’s been talking out of school,” he muttered. “PC Robb, would that be?”

“He’s proud of you, and proud to be working with you, Sergeant. And I understand why. You’ve had a hell of a career.”

“And did he tell you why I’m spending the remainder of this illustrious career as a sergeant in the most remote outpost of England?”

“He implied there’d been, uh, differences with administration.”

Clapper laughed, not disagreeably. “I’d say that describes it.”

Gideon responded in kind with one or two humorous accounts of his own struggles with administration in the groves of academe, and by the time they arrived at another modest “Bed-and-Biscuit Canine Boarding Establishment” sign at the head of a curving lane, they had slipped without noticing into first names.

The lane curved down toward the water and ended at the front steps of a green-roofed, white farmhouse on a gorse-and heather-covered bluff, below which was a small, white beach strewn with driftwood and edged by grassy dunes. The small sign on the front door said, “Please ring and enter. Be sure to close door behind you.”

They did as instructed, finding themselves in a small foyer at the foot of a half-flight of stairs, and bringing instantly down on themselves a pandemonium of frenzied barking, yapping, and yipping-moderated by a single wise, resonant whooof -that seemed to come from every corner of the house. There followed the patter of many feet on wood flooring, and a pack of eight or ten small dogs-terriers, pugs, toy spaniels-threw themselves in what seemed like pure, noisy, gleeful ecstasy against the baby gate at the top of the stairs, barking away. A second later a huge Great Dane padded up behind them-the whoofer-and towered over them, adding his own deep voice to the chorus.

From down the hall came a soft, neutral voice: “Quiet.” Nothing authoritative or threatening, not really a command at all, just a courteous request, but the barking stopped the way a switched-off radio stops. “Sit.” And with an audible thump, as abruptly as if their back legs had been swept out from under them, every one of them went down on its haunches (the Dane accidentally sat on a Yorkie, which caused a brief commotion) and stayed there, heads smartly turned to the left, from whence the voice had come, as if posed for a cute doggie calendar photo.

A moment later, a mild-looking man of seventy appeared behind the dogs, preceded by the sweet, cloying odor of pipe tobacco from the ancient briar that was held loosely between his teeth. Gideon’s immediate impression was that he was looking at someone who was about as contented as a human being could get. With his gray, thinning hair, his polished-apple cheeks, his schoolish spectacles, and his not-so-expertly hand-knitted vest, in the neck of which the knot of a plain blue tie was visible, he might have been a retired Oxford don. From the way he smiled down at his charges, it couldn’t have been more clear that he was living his sunset years exactly as he wished to, surrounded by the companions of his choice.

He plucked the pipe from his mouth and smiled kindly down at them. “Mike Clapper! Sergeant Mike, the very man, as I live and sneeze. Come all this way just to cheer up his poor old mate, struck down by the cruel and remorseless hand of age.”

“Come on business, Trus,” Clapper said briskly.

Hicks rubbed his hands together. “Well, then!”

“Not that there’s any money in it for you, you understand.”

“The story of my life,” Hicks said with a sigh. “And this young fellow must be the renowned Professor Oliver, whose monograph on exhuming skeletal remains has been my bible on the subject for many years.”

“Thank you,” said a flattered Gideon. “Actually, it was more Walter Birkby’s monograph than mine. I was the junior author on that one.”

“Modest too. Very becoming. Come in, gentlemen.”

He unclicked the baby gate-the dogs stirred, but didn’t dash for the opening-and let the two of them in, and men and dogs followed him in a line down a hallway to a comfortable but undistinguished linoleum-floored living room with a matched set of 1960’s-style department store furniture. Hicks sat Gideon and Clapper on the sofa and, without asking, went to get them tea, while the dogs, each apparently with its preferred place, clambered into the seats or onto the arms of the chairs. Some curled themselves like cats over the chair backs. The Great Dane laid himself down, Sphinxlike, in front of the fireplace.

When Hicks had returned with the tea things on a tray and had squeezed himself into an armchair between three look-alike black spaniels, two of which clambered into his lap, Clapper briefly laid out the facts.

“One of those little cove beaches up north, eh?” Hicks said. “Those would be, what, a hundred, a hundred-and-fifty yards wide?”

“Something like that,” Clapper said. “No wider, anyway. Want to have a go?”

Hicks dug the bit of his pipe against his cheek. “Well, sand isn’t the easiest medium in the world, you know. It’s too porous, you see, too many ways for the scent to escape. You get a huge scent pool, and the dog has to work extremely hard to pinpoint. And then, of course, sand is notorious for shifting, so there’s the added problem of… mm…” The pipe bit went back in his mouth. Absently, he stroked the ears of one of the spaniels on his lap.

“You don’t think it can be done?” Clapper asked, his disappointment showing. Gideon imagined his own was showing too.

Out came the pipe. “Body’s been there a good five years, you say?”

“Probably less,” Gideon said. “More than one, though.”

Hicks pondered. “Well, that might be stretching things a bit, but yes, why not? We can certainly have a look-see. The dog will enjoy a run on the beach, in any case. What say we do it tomorrow morning?”

Gideon and Clapper readily agreed.

“Good-o.” Hicks thrust the pipe back into his mouth and got to his feet, spilling dogs onto the floor. “These you see are all guests and house pets. My old working dogs prefer living outside. Come and meet them.”