The Altered Case Read Online Free PDF Page A

work for the mechanical digger and it was especially hard for the constable who dug the last few inches, and it will still all have to be thoroughly sieved and sifted, for any vital evidence it might contain.’
    ‘I can imagine how hard it must have been,’ Dr D’Acre murmured. ‘I do a little gardening. It looks to be very heavy, as you say.’
    ‘And they have to put it all back.’ Hennessey laughed softly. ‘I haven’t told the boys yet, but they will have to put it all back with spades, the digger having been returned as I said. I couldn’t justify the expense of keeping it here.’
    ‘So . . .’ Louise D’Acre said, ‘what is down there?’
    ‘At the moment, just two skeletons, ma’am,’ Hennessey replied. ‘They appear to be human and radar images indicated something, possibly more skeletons, beneath them, as if they were buried on top of each other.’
    ‘Layered?’
    ‘Yes.’ Hennessey held brief eye contact with Dr D’Acre. ‘That’s a better way of putting it, ma’am. So once we had exposed two skeletons we stopped digging and requested the attendance of a forensic pathologist.’
    ‘And you got me for your sins.’ Louise D’Acre inclined her head. ‘So hard luck you.’
    ‘I would hardly say that, ma’am,’ Hennessey replied diplomatically.
    ‘Well, it was Hobson’s choice in fact. Tom Pembroke is at an arson incident in Driffield and Clarissa Pugh is engrossed in a post-mortem. I was writing a report, so this incident fell to me.’ Louise D’Acre paused, and being out of earshot of any other police officer, she lowered her voice and added, ‘Look, George, I have to tell you that Clarissa’s p.m. is looking like a case of Sudden Death Syndrome.’
    ‘Oh . . .’ Hennessey felt as if he had sustained a blow to his stomach.
    ‘I am sorry, but I thought that I had better warn you, better coming from me than for you to read about it in the
Yorkshire Post
.’
    ‘Yes.’ Hennessey held another very brief period of eye contact with Louise D’Acre. ‘Thank you . . . I appreciate it. It’s very sensitive of you.’
    ‘Well.’ Louise D’Acre glanced around her, the vast blue sky, the flat, rich green landscape. ‘It’s just one of those conditions, one of those medical conditions that will remain a mystery until medical knowledge advances sufficiently to explain just what it is that causes a young person in perfect health to suddenly fall down dead in mid stride, as if the life force within them has been suddenly extracted by some unseen power.’
    ‘Yes,’ he sighed, ‘I have puzzled that many, many times.’
    ‘I am sure you have and I am sorry we do not have an answer for you, and from what I know, Clarissa’s case appears typical. Just twenty years old, and just too good to be true, non-smoker, non-drinker, active in his local scout group, churchgoing, bank employee with a promising future, and yesterday he was taking a stroll along the banks of the river after attending Holy Communion and he just collapsed. He was Condition Purple upon his arrival at York District Hospital. And his family . . . they’re still numb with shock.’
    ‘I attended Sunday School when I was a nipper,’ Hennessey said. ‘we had the most formidable teacher who told us that “Even if we are perfect, the Almighty can still and will punish us in some way. It is just the way of the world”. I know what he meant now.’
    ‘Yes . . . just the way of it,’ Louise D’Acre echoed. ‘It’s an unidentified medical condition, so it will remain a syndrome, until . . .’
    ‘Until . . .’ Hennessey repeated, ‘until . . .’
    ‘But anyway,’ Louise D’Acre said with finality, ‘we have our own job to do.’
    ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘you’re right; come on, I’ll show you.’
    Inside the inflatable tent both Hennessey and Dr D’Acre found the air very difficult to breathe and both gave thanks that it was the slightly cooler month of September and that they were there after a