Is that a joke, Inspector?’
‘Make an estimate, then. We won’t hold you to it.’
‘On that understanding …’ Mrs van Doon gave an apologetic shrug. ‘A year or so? I assume you’ll be getting the forensic anthropologist in to examine the remains. Dr Jamieson might be able to give you a better estimate.’
‘At first glance, the body looks pretty well preserved to me,’ said Hitchens.
‘Oh, you’re looking at the hand. Well, the hand isn’t too badly decomposed, that’s true. But it had been well covered up and protected from the air – at least, before some individual stuck the edge of a spade through the plastic sheeting. There are some old rips in the covering at the head end, though. So the condition of that area of the body is a bit different.’
‘At the head end? That sounds like bad news. What are our chances of an ID going to be?’
Mrs van Doon shrugged in her scene suit, rustling faintly. ‘It’s too early to say. But I can tell you the victim has lost quite a bit of flesh on the left side. Down to the bone in places. I’ll know more when I can get her back to the mortuary. That might take a bit of time, though.’
‘Why?’
‘We need to be careful digging her out. Some of the skin is sloughing off, and the less of her we lose at this stage, the better. Wouldn’t you agree?’
‘It is a “her”, though,’ said Fry. ‘You did say “her”.’
‘Yes, I’m pretty sure of that, Sergeant,’ said the pathologist, her boots squelching as she squatted to peer into the hole. ‘Unless you’ve got a cross-dresser with a penchant for tights and blue skirts on your missing persons list.’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘I’ll pass the remains into Dr Jamieson’s care when he arrives. We can consult later, when she’s safely in the lab.’
‘Thank you, Doctor.’
As they re-crossed the plank bridge, Hitchens cast an eye over the farm buildings.
‘What do we know about the occupants?’
‘Apparently, the farm was owned by two elderly brothers,’ said Murfin, producing a notebook and demonstrating that he’d actually been doing some work while everyone else was standing around gassing. ‘One of them died quite recently, and the other is in a care home in Edendale.’
‘Was owned?’
‘Well, the place has been bought for development – hence the presence of all these builders in their hard hats. Development, or conversion. I’m not quite clear what they’re telling me.’
‘So who’s the present owner?’
‘A Mr Goodwin. He’s a lawyer, lives in Manchester. Mr Goodwin is the man employing the builders. I’ve got his contact details from the site foreman. But that seems to be all the bloke knows.’
‘Get on the phone, Gavin, and find out everything you can about the previous owners,’ said Fry. ‘We need names, dates, relationships. We need to know who else was in the household. Dig out anything that’s on record about them. Get some help, if you need it.’
‘If?’ said Murfin. ‘If?’
‘The body has been here for a year at least, according to the pathologist.’
‘That puts the victim in situ before Mr Goodwin took ownership, then. The sale went through only three months ago, I gather. The farm has been empty for about nine months, after the surviving owner went into care.’
Fry looked at their surroundings in more detail, the farm buildings beyond the stretch of mud and the track and the parked vehicles.
‘Does that explain the state of the place? How could it get like this in nine months?’
Ben Cooper would probably tell her that all this was evidence of the evolution of the farm over the centuries, as its owners adapted to new ways of working, changed the use of their buildings from cattle to sheep, from hay storage to machinery shed. Or whatever. To Fry, it looked like dereliction and chaos, pure and simple. Not an ounce of design or planning had gone into the farm, not even in the newer buildings.
Of course, farmers were a law unto themselves in so many ways. They were even allowed to create these shanty towns, reminiscent of the slums of some Third World country where there was no running water or drainage, and rubbish was dumped in the streets. In Rio de Janeiro, you might expect it. But not in Middle England.
‘What a place,’ she said, unable to avoid voicing her feelings for once.
‘The builders have hardly started on the house or outbuildings yet,’ said Murfin. ‘The foreman tells me they’ve been doing some work on the foundations and building an approach road. Then they have to tackle some of the exterior walls where they’re unsound. And of course there’s the roof. Not much point in trying to do any work on the interior until you’ve sorted out the roof, is there?’
‘What is it going to be when they’ve finished?’ asked Fry.
‘The foreman says a gentleman’s residence. Office suite, swimming pool, guest annexe.’
‘They’ve got a hell of a job on.’
Unrepaired splits in the iron guttering had allowed rainwater to run down the walls, dragging long grey stains across the stone. Wires sagged from the telegraph pole. Two black crows swayed on the wire in the wind, flicking their wings to keep their balance.
Fry noticed a large shed behind the house. A very large shed indeed, with a convex roof. Wheel tracks led from one end of the shed towards the stretch of ground where the body had been found. Old tracks that had been made when the ground was soft, but whose ruts had hardened and survived until the recent rain. That was the sort of building where anything could go on, out of sight of the public. Out of earshot, out of mind.
The rain was getting heavier. That could be a problem.
But then Fry corrected herself. There were never any problems, only challenges. No obstacles that couldn’t be overcome.
At least the FOAs had been right on the ball, getting that body tent over the makeshift grave as soon as they saw the conditions. By now, this rain could have washed away the evidence if they hadn’t acted quickly. Lucky they’d had one in the boot of their car. In these circumstances, there was an evens chance that they would have had to sit and wait for one to arrive.
According to their advertising, these tents were supposed to go up in ten seconds, but she bet it had taken a good bit longer than that. The peg-down eyelets looked none too secure in the soft ground, and the guy ropes were slippery with mud.
‘Duckboards,’ someone was saying into a radio. ‘We need duckboards here. Lots of duckboards.’
Fry turned back to Murfin again. ‘So where’s this builder who found the body?’
‘Waiting in the van over there. Ward is his name – Jamie Ward, aged twenty. I’d hardly call him your typical builder,
