The Calling of the Grave Read Free Page A

grip on the dog's harness. But I was uncomfortably aware of the German
shepherd's unblinking stare as I went past them and into the tent.
        After
the open space of the moor it seemed cramped and crowded inside, a confusion of
overalled figures. The diffused light from the blue walls had an ethereal
quality. The atmosphere was moist and clammy, with a mustiness disconcertingly
evocative of camping. Beneath it was another odour, of freshly turned soil and
something far less benign.
        The
grave was in the centre.
        Portable
floodlights had been set up around it, steaming slightly in the damp air. Metal
stepping plates had been put down around a rectangle of dark peat, framed by a
grid of string. Someone I took to be a SOCO knelt over it, a big man who held
his gloved hands poised in the air like a surgeon interrupted in theatre. In
front of him, a muddy object was poking through the peaty soil. At first glance
it could have been anything - a stone, a knotted root - until you looked more
closely.
        Thrusting
out of the wet earth, its bones visible through rags of flesh, was a
decomposing hand.
        'I'm
afraid you've missed the pathologist, but he'll be coming back when the body's
ready to be removed,' Simms said, pulling my attention from the grave. 'Dr
Hunter, this is Professor Wainwright, the forensic archaeologist who's going to
be supervising the excavation. You may have heard of him.'
        For
the first time I took stock of the figure kneeling by the graveside. Wainwright? I felt my stomach sink.
        I'd heard
of him, all right. A Cambridge don turned police consultant, Leonard Wainwright
was one of the highest-profile forensic experts in the country, a
larger-than-life figure whose name lent instant credibility to an
investigation. But behind the donnish public image Wainwright had a reputation
for being ruthless with anyone he considered a rival. He was an outspoken
critic of what he dubbed 'fashionable forensics', which amounted to pretty much
any discipline that wasn't his own. Much of his ire had been focused on
forensic anthropology, an upstart field that in some respects overlapped with
his own. Only the previous year he'd published a paper in a scientific journal
ridiculing the idea that decomposition could be a reliable indicator of time
since death. 'Total Rot?' the title had crowed. I'd read it with amusement
rather than annoyance.
        But I
hadn't known then that I'd have to work with him.
        Wainwright
heaved himself to his feet, knees cracking arthritically. He was around sixty,
a giant of a man with mud-stained overalls stretched taut over his big frame.
In the white latex gloves his meaty fingers resembled overstuffed sausages as
he pushed off his mask, revealing craggy features that might charitably have
been called patrician.
        He
gave me a neutral smile. 'Dr Hunter. I'm sure it'll be a pleasure working with
you.'
        He
spoke with the rumbling baritone of a natural orator. I managed a smile of my
own. 'Same here.'
        'A
group of walkers found the grave late yesterday afternoon,' Simms said, looking
down at the object emerging from the soil. 'Shallow, as you can see. We've
probed and there appears to be a layer of granite no more than two feet below
the surface. Not a good place to bury a body, but fortunately the killer didn't
know that.'
        I
knelt down to examine the gelid dark soil from which the hand protruded. 'The
peat's going to make things interesting.'
        Wainwright
gave a cautious nod, but said nothing. As an archaeologist he'd be even more
familiar than me with the problems presented by peat graves.
        'It
looks as if rain washed off the top layer of soil from the hand, then animals
finished unearthing it,' Simms continued. 'The walkers found the hand sticking
out of the ground. Unfortunately, they weren't certain what it was at first, so
they dug away some of the soil to make sure.'
        'Lord
protect us