The Pure in Heart (31 page)

He shone his torch. The man was slumped
over the steering wheel and Chris had a struggle to raise and turn him. When he did so he looked into the flushed face of Alan Angus.

He made sure, checking and double-checking, pulses, heart, eyes.

Then he backed out.

‘He’s dead. Carbon monoxide poisoning. I can tell you who it is as well, only you’re not going to like it … Alan Angus.’

‘The boy’s father?’

‘Yes. He had a previous go –
slit his wrists in his room at the hospital … only someone happened to come by.’

‘Not this time.’

‘No, this time he knew where to go and he was doing his best not to be found.’

‘Poor bloody wife.’

‘And the other child. There’s a daughter.’

‘Makes you think … he couldn’t take it, could he, but she has to – twice over.’

‘It’s a bugger.’

Chris slithered down the track and almost fell on the
last section of the slope beside his car. The station would ring Simon. The body would go to the mortuary and after that Alan Angus would belong to the pathologist and the coroner. Chris’s own job was done. He had seen his fair share of suicides, certified plenty of such bodies, but it always upset him at a deeper level than almost anything in medical practice. It was the last desperate, hopeless
act of someone who at that moment was the loneliest in the world. As a doctor, he felt he had failed when the body was that of one of his own
patients. As a human being, any suicide distressed him.

He knew that the first reaction of many people close to the dead husband or wife, daughter or son was very often anger. Grief was complicated and muddied by it. He felt angry himself at Alan Angus,
for leaving his wife to cope alone with yet more agonising uncertainty and loss. But he knew the despair the neurosurgeon must have felt, the desperation at the disappearance of his son and the complete silence and blankness since.

[email protected]

Darling, I can’t stop thinking about you. I just wanted to tell you how much I love you. I read in the paper this morning
about the suicide of the missing boy’s father. It must be dreadful. I know how you feel your responsibilities. Try and take a break when you can. Someone came out of the blue to make an offer for the restaurant chain – such an offer I had to sit down. I may accept. Tired of being a single career girl.

Love to talk when you can. Ever, your Diana.

He was shaving when the phone rang. It was barely seven o’clock but he was sleeping badly at the moment and going into the station early was no hardship.

‘Guv.’

‘Morning, Nathan.’

‘They’ve found a body.’

‘What sort?’

‘Child’s.’

‘Oh Christ. OK, where?’

‘Gardale Ravine – in a shallow grave on the steep bank beside the river, just before it disappears underground.’

‘They were supposed
to have searched Gardale.’

‘Yeah, right. Only it’s rained quite a bit since then, lot of stuff been brought down – probably uncovered it.’

‘Who found it?’

‘Caller wouldn’t give his name. Said he’d been walking his dogs along there.’

‘OK, on my way. Tell forensics.’

‘I just did.’

It was raining now, a soft, steady rain that misted the windscreen. Lafferton was just getting on the move but
the traffic was still light.

Simon put his foot down as he headed out of town. He had already been called about Alan Angus. Now this. It might not be the boy. But if it did turn out to be David’s body in the ravine, Marilyn Angus had the worst day of her life ahead.

Gardale was a steep ravine. There was a narrow, vertiginous road down to it in one direction and another out of it at the other
end. In summer it was a fisherman’s paradise; trout swam in the unpolluted clear water of the river which appeared here and vanished again, only to reappear mysteriously further down, the stuff of local legend for generations. On sunlit summer afternoons Gardale held no fears, no sadness or mystery. It was dappled and peaceful. People picnicked beside the water and children shouted up and down the
ravine to hear the peculiar echoes.

Now, on a grey March morning of cold wind and rain, the ravine was difficult to get down to, shadowy and menacing. The sheer sides with their overhanging rocks and shallow caves closed in and the air was fetid. The space beside the track was littered with cars – the usual police clutter plus forensics. Simon got out of his own vehicle. Two men were clambering
into ghostly white suits. Another was pulling out a bag.

‘Morning, Simon.’

‘Jonathan.’

The duty pathologist, Jonathan Nimmo, was an unattractive, wire-thin man of six feet five or six, with a mouth full of small, pointed rat-like teeth.

‘I suppose this might be your boy.’

‘Hope not, afraid so.’

Nimmo finished pulling his boots on. ‘OK, let’s go.’

‘Hang on, I’ll change my own footgear. It’ll
be treacherous as hell down that slope. You ever tried it?’

‘Nope.’

‘Then I suggest I go first.’

‘I don’t need a nanny.’

‘Just a guide.’

Simon bent to lace his walking boots. They had a grip that would keep him upright on the face of a mountain.

The descent was slow and they took it with caution. Below, Simon saw the small area already taped off, and the figures of a couple of uniform.

‘All right?’

The pathologist grunted, trying to keep his balance and hang on to his bag.

The rain was falling softly and steadily, making the ground a mulch of leaves and mud on the tarmac surface. Simon did not look up, only at his feet, placing them carefully. But he had the picture of the whole ravine in his mind. If the grave was that of David Angus, how had he been brought down here,
by
whom, and how long ago? He tried not to imagine what the journey would have been like, if the child had been alive. If dead, how had he been killed and how long before he was brought here?

By the time they reached the bottom, others were coming down behind, more forensics, the photographer and Nathan Coates.

They crossed the river, which was swollen and moving fast, by the place where it disappeared
underground, and climbed the short slope to the taped-off area. Serrailler’s hair was soaked, his anorak running with water.

‘Guv.’

‘Morning.’

‘Over here.’

They ducked under the tape. A small area had been disturbed. Brush and stones had been pushed aside by the coursing rain.

‘Whoever phoned in more or less said where it was. Very accurate. We hardly had to search around. This had been partly
uncovered anyway.’

Simon stepped forward. Looked down. A trench about three feet deep had been scraped out of the earth and undergrowth.

‘There was still quite a bit of greenery and mulch covering it over. But it was loose. Easy to see.’

The ground had been cleared just enough to reveal the grave.

There was a body in an advanced stage of decomposition, bones revealed. It looked as if it had
been naked.

‘Looks as if it may have been here too long to be David Angus.’

‘What we thought, guv.’

‘All yours, Jonathan.’

The pathologist had his bag open, his white suit half on. There was a look of eagerness on his face, but the DCI had seen that plenty of times before. Pathologists were either world-weary and apparently bored out of their minds, or they licked their lips with anticipation
and the nastier the corpse the better they liked it.

Nathan Coates came up.

‘Guv? What we got?’ His squashed-in face was apprehensive.

‘I doubt if it’s him. Too far gone. Still, I also know what effect weather can have – he’ll tell us more in a minute.’

They both stood looking up. The ravine rose sheer on either side.

‘I ’ate this place, you know. Me dad brought us here once when we was kids,
frightened us to death. He said there was robbers and that hiding in them caves, great big giants with red hairy beards and sweaty armpits and wooden clubs. I never stopped believing him really, had bad dreams about it for years.’ He looked up at the scooped-out caves.

‘How old were you, for God’s sake?’

‘Four, five? Bloody terrifyin’. That was what he did, me dad … he thought it was a laff.’
Occasionally, Nathan’s cheerful front gave way to let slip just this sort of titbit about his childhood.

‘Simon.’

‘Coming.’

Please God, don’t let it be. Let this be … Well, what? Some other child’s body, hastily buried in the ravine?

‘What’ve we got?’

‘Child. Between eight and ten years old. Cause of death probably fracture to the skull. There’s quite a split at the back.’

God.

‘How long
has it been here?’

‘Hard to say. The body had been partially exposed, we’ve had a few frosts and then heavy rain … I’ll know when I’ve got it back to the mortuary.’

‘Could it be three weeks, maybe less?’

‘Unlikely.’

The pathologist looked up like an owl from out of the white hood with the strings drawn under his chin. He was standing in the shallow grave beside the body.

‘Anyway, however
long, it isn’t the body of your missing schoolboy.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because this is female. You got any of those unaccounted for?’

The conference room was packed already with radio, television and press. The DCI walked in briskly, his stance telling them he was on the attack not on the defensive. He looked in control and confident, Nathan thought, taking his own seat, and he knew he was not.

‘Thanks, everyone. OK … we need your help. This morning the body of a child was found in Gardale Ravine. It was in a grave,
covered in undergrowth and leaves. The body is of a female child aged approximately eight to ten years. Cause of death was a fractured skull, possible other injuries. We can’t release any other information because we don’t have any. Dental records, if any, are being checked of course … the body was naked, no trace of clothes so far. The whole ravine has been cordoned off and we are searching. At
this stage there is nothing to link the finding of this body with the disappearance of the nine-year-old schoolboy David Angus but nor is there any evidence to the contrary. We have no leads yet as to the whereabouts of David.

‘We want public involvement here. Not many people go down into Gardale Ravine at this time of year as you know, so anyone seen parking a car in the area … any vehicle …
people walk on the moor at all times of year, so any sighting by walkers in the area above the ravine of someone with a child of this age, will be of significance. We have no reports of any missing child of this age in this area. We’re liaising with other forces but there’s nothing yet.

‘OK, any questions?’

The room erupted, as Simon had known that it would. Why hadn’t David Angus been found?
One more missing child – when would there be another? What efforts were …? Would anyone from outside the force …? What about a review …? Would the DCI comment on the suicide of …?

He answered quickly and without ducking or trying to conceal his own frustration at the lack of progress in finding David Angus or the distress in finding the body of another child this morning. The press liked Serrailler,
Nathan Coates thought. They knew bull when it was given to them, they were experts at probing out the weak spot, and hostility was always bubbling below the surface in a case like this. The media could turn on the force very quickly, especially if it sensed the public would be behind such a move, but they were still on side. They trusted what they were told, they appreciated being called in
early and spoken to honestly.

The questions dried up and the room emptied.

The story was local headlines within half an hour, the national radio bulletins half an hour after that.

While the phone calls began to come in – ‘Nutters and publicity seekers first’, as Nathan had it – and they were sifted by the telephone teams, Simon went out to Bevham and the mortuary. He wanted to know whatever
more there was to know about the child’s body and he wanted to get out of the station. When he had got in from Gardale there had been another two emails on his screen from Diana. Last night there had been a message on his answerphone. He was angry. He also hated kicking about the station. After he had been to Bevham he wanted to go back to the ravine, and he also knew he had to go to Marilyn Angus.

Jonathan Nimmo was already at work. The child’s body lay on the slab, pathetically small and little but skin and bone.

‘Morning, Simon. You caught the killer?’

‘She was killed?’

‘Well, she didn’t die in her bed. No, she died from a blow to the back of the head … see?’

Simon bent down.

Nimmo pointed. ‘See … there? And here …’

‘What hit her?’

‘Actually, I’m inclined to think nothing in the
sense you mean, I think she fell backwards, possibly from a height, though not a great height, and cracked her skull on a hard surface.’

‘Oh.’

‘Oh indeed.’

‘So we might or might not be looking for a killer.’

‘She could have been pushed, she could have slipped and fallen … impossible to say.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Fractured arm … and elbow … she probably fell awkwardly. I would say it was behind
her, beneath her. Otherwise, no. Normal.’

‘Was she sexually molested?’

‘Hard to tell. Not with any violence. I’d need to have had her earlier. We’ve taken swabs but there won’t be anything.’

‘If she died accidentally …’

‘What was she doing in an earth grave in Gardale Ravine. Quite.’

Nimmo was lifting the bones of the child’s fingers one by one very gently, examining each, and setting it
down again. His expression was intent and concentrated.

‘Well, we have no reports of a girl of this age missing in our area.’

‘Been brought in from outside then.’

‘Maybe. It would be someone who knew where he was. Gardale is on the maps but otherwise it isn’t a well-known spot to people out of the district.’

‘Oh, I don’t know – in summer plenty of people go down there.’