The Altered Case Read Online Free PDF Page A

‘Hardly mass, ma’am, that is a bit of an overstatement. I’ll tell you the story of how we came to be notified of it but the upshot is that we had to wait until this morning before we could get the G.P.R. down here.’
    â€˜G.P.R.?’ Dr D’Acre asked.
    â€˜Ground Penetrating Radar.’
    â€˜Ah . . .’
    â€˜Well,’ he continued, ‘when it arrived . . . it had to be brought down from our headquarters at Northallerton . . .’
    â€˜I see.’
    â€˜We had good information and we were able to concentrate on a small search area, and pretty well as soon as the operators turned the thing on they picked up an image of something down there, but exactly what, they couldn’t say.’
    â€˜I see,’ Dr D’Acre said again.
    â€˜So we brought in a mechanical digger, now returned, to get down as close as we could without damaging whatever it was that the G.P.R. had seen. We had to assume that they were human remains until we knew otherwise.’
    â€˜Of course.’ Dr D’Acre brushed a persistent fly from her face and reflected how fortunate it was that the recent rain had kept the insect activity to a minimum.
    â€˜For the last foot or so,’ Hennessey continued, ‘we used manpower, good old mark one manpower, just one constable with a spade scraping the soil away, keeping the bottom of the pit as near horizontal as he could. He did a very good job of it.’
    â€˜Yes, I see the spoil.’ Dr D’Acre glanced at the mound of soil beside the tent. ‘It is very rich-looking soil.’
    â€˜It seems so,’ Hennessey agreed. ‘It’s very wet and heavy; it was hard 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.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜So . . .’ Louise D’Acre said, ‘what is down there?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜Layered?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜And you got me for your sins.’ Louise D’Acre inclined her head. ‘So hard luck you.’
    â€˜I would hardly say that, ma’am,’ Hennessey replied diplomatically.
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜Oh . . .’ Hennessey felt as if he had sustained a blow to his stomach.
    â€˜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
.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜Well.’ Louise D’Acre