for the boundary wall. A snap-on lid concealed the contents, something pale and indistinct pushing up against one side, promising nightmares for weeks to come.
‘According to the ID disc the dog’s name is Florence,’ Layton said. ‘Don’t know if she is named after the place or the character from the Magic Roundabout. Whatever, I’d say the animal was buried a good few years ago. The crate was probably only buried within the last few months.’
‘The lid?’ Savage asked.
‘The builders removed the top of the box. I put it back so the photographer could take some pictures. Andrew?’
Nesbit reached down, long fingers inside his nitrile gloves feeling around the edge of the lid, clicking the plastic back, lifting it off.
Savage gasped at the tangle of flesh and bones inside, the tiny hands clutching at a red house-brick, the torso curled round in the box, foetal-like. The child’s skull had plenty of skin left on, hair twisted in long, curly strands, teeth bared in a mocking grin. The flesh on the limbs and body hung loose, looking stiff and like starched clothing or light brown paper. The child was naked, but there was a bundle of rags up one end of the box. That fact alone spoke volumes to Savage. It was unlikely this was a terrible accident, somebody trying to cover up an RTC for instance; not when the infant had been stripped. She considered the skin again, which was the colour and consistency of filo pastry. The corpse reminded her of mummies she had seen in a museum and she said as much.
‘Desiccated,’ Nesbit said. ‘The body was kept somewhere hot and dry after death and that caused the effect you are looking at.’
‘So how long?’
‘Very difficult to know at this stage. Maybe we will find some entomology or something else organic to help us establish the time of death. All I can tell you for sure is that she was buried here a good while later.’
‘She?’ Nesbit’s confirmation of the gender chilled Savage; not that ‘he’ would have been any less horrific. It was the fact an identity was now beginning to take form, a life created from the sad heap of skin and bone. Something solid to mourn over. Something solid to try and seek justice for. If possible.
‘The hair looks like a girl’s, and then there’s that,’ Nesbit pointed down to one side of the plastic box next to the rags. A patch of pink flashed out, vivid and incongruous alongside the bone and flesh. ‘It’s a trainer. I didn’t want to disturb anything too much, but I managed to note the size. Twelve. Children’s that is.’
Twelve. Which would mean the child would be half that: five, six or seven. Savage peered down again at the body in its makeshift plastic coffin. Once the girl would have snuggled up to her mummy or daddy, perhaps clutched a teddy to her for comfort as she fell to dreaming. Now she only had a brick to cuddle.
‘We’ll move the box and all to Derriford,’ Nesbit said, standing and nodding to the two mortuary technicians who had come round the corner of the house. ‘It will save disturbing her. Better that way.’
‘Yes, better,’ Savage said, wondering how anything could be much worse.
When Savage went back round to the front of the house, she found Calter doing her best to intervene in an argument between one of the builders and a young man in a smart suit.
‘Mr Evershed, ma’am,’ Calter said, and then nodded to a little way down the road, where a heavily-pregnant woman was leaning against a big BMW with a high-end paint job and a massive spoiler on the rear. ‘And his wife.’
Evershed couldn’t have been more than early twenties. He had close-cropped dark hair and a brash suit with lapels which were too wide. His wrist bore a chunky watch, gold like his cufflinks. He gave little more than a flick of the head to acknowledge Savage as Calter introduced her.
Calter explained that Mr and Mrs Evershed were the owners of number seventy-five. They had bought the property only a month ago with the intention of renovating, but hadn’t yet moved in.
‘Waiting until the sprog is born,’ Evershed said, turning to Savage now. ‘Once that’s out the way I’ll be free to deal with this. We’ll do the place up, add fifty K to the value, sell it on and move up. Easy money.’
‘So you were getting some work done before you moved in?’ Savage asked.
‘That’s just the point.’ Evershed raised an accusing finger at the builder. Bared his teeth like a dog. ‘I don’t know what the hell these cowboys are doing here. I never asked them to do any work. First thing I know about it is when I get a call from our new next-door neighbour saying there’s a police car parked out front. As far as I am concerned these idiots are bloody trespassing on private property and you should arrest them for criminal damage.’
‘And?’ Savage turned to the builder, a man in his fifties, weary, as if he’d seen it all.
‘Don’t blame me.’ The man held one hand up and then reached into the breast pocket of his donkey jacket, pulled out a little spiral-bound notepad and showed the booklet to Savage. ‘Job’s down on my worksheet. Number seventy-five Lester Close. Pull up old patio slabs and remove soil and rubble. Dig holes for footings and lay concrete in preparation for new conservatory. Boss fixed us up with it Friday. Short notice, like, but he said it was an urgent job. We had to be in and out by the end of today.’
‘Well you’ve got the wrong address, haven’t you?’ Evershed said, jabbing his finger again. ‘So I suggest you call your boss and tell him he’s cocked up. Then you can go round the back and clear up whatever mess you’ve made.’
‘That won’t be possible, I’m afraid,’ Savage said. ‘Not for a day or two at least. The whole of this property is now a crime scene.’
‘What? You’re joking, right?’
‘Sorry, no.’ Savage closed her eyes for a second and wondered how to explain about the little girl. She decided something approaching the truth was best. ‘We’ve found the body of a child beneath the patio.’
Evershed’s wife had walked up from the car and now she reached out for her husband, grasping for his arm with one hand, the other moving to her swollen belly.
‘Nightmare,’ Evershed said, shaking his head and wondering aloud about the resale value of the place.
Ten minutes later he was still talking figures as he ducked into his car. His wife stood on the other side of the vehicle for a moment, looking first at the house, then Savage, and then staring far into the distance at something beyond the rooftops at the end of the street. She got in, the door clunking shut with a noise which had a finality about it, Savage thinking about endings in her own life too.
Mount Edgcumbe, Plymouth. Monday 14th January. 11.30 a.m.
‘Ready to say goodbye to Martin Kemp then?’ DS Darius Riley said, leaning against the railings and gazing across the river Tamar. Drake’s Island and Plymouth Sound lay to the right, the Torpoint chain ferries and the dockyards to the left. Just behind the two men, a black flag with a white cross hung limply from a flagpole next to the Edgcumbe Arms. The flag was there to remind anyone, should they need reminding, that they were standing
