Whispers of the Dead - Страница 2

But it didn’t matter how many there might be: in most people’s minds the research facility in Tennessee was still the Body Farm. It was in Knoxville, part of the University of Tennessee’s Forensic Anthropology Center, and I’d been lucky enough to train there early in my career. But it had been years since my last visit. Too long, as Tom Lieberman, its director and my old teacher, had told me.

As I sat in the departure lounge at Heathrow, watching the slow and silent dance of aircraft through the plate glass window, I wondered what it would be like going back. During the months of painful recovery after I came out of hospital—and the even more painful aftermath—the promise of the month-long trip had been something to work towards, a badly needed fresh start.

Now I was actually on my way, for the first time I wondered if I hadn’t invested too much hope in it.

There was a two-hour stopover in Chicago before I caught my connecting flight, and the tail end of a storm was still grumbling as the plane landed in Knoxville. But it quickly cleared, and by the time I’d collected my baggage the sun was starting to break through. I breathed deeply as I left the airport terminal to collect my hire car, enjoying the unfamiliar humidity in the air. The roads steamed, giving off the peppery tang of wet tarmac. Against the slowly receding blue-black of the thunderheads, the rainfall gave the greens of the lush countryside around the highway an almost dazzling vibrancy.

I’d felt my spirits lift as I neared the city. This is going to work.

Now, barely a week later, I was no longer so sure. I followed the trail as it skirted a clearing in which stood a tall wooden tripod that resembled a bare tepee frame. A body lay on a platform beneath it, waiting to be hoisted and weighed. Leaving the trail—and remembering Alana’s warning—I crossed the clearing to where several rectangular pads of concrete were set into the soil, starkly geometric in the woodland setting. Human remains were entombed in them, part of an experiment to see how effective ground-penetrating radar was in body location.

A tall, gangly figure in chinos and a floppy bush hat knelt a few yards away, scowling as he examined a gauge on a length of pipe protruding from the ground.

‘How’s it going?’ I asked.

He didn’t look up, peering through his wire-framed glasses as he gently nudged the gauge with a finger. ‘You’d think it’d be easy to catch a smell this strong, wouldn’t you?’ he said by way of answer.

The flattened vowels betrayed his East Coast roots rather than the curling southern drawl of Tennessee. For as long as I’d known him, Tom Lieberman had been searching for his own Holy Grail, analysing the gases produced by decomposition molecule by molecule to identify the odour of decay. Anyone who’d ever had a mouse die under their floorboards could testify it existed, and it continued to exist long after human senses failed to detect it. Dogs could be trained to sniff out a cadaver years after it had been buried. Tom theorized that it should be possible to develop a sensor that would do much the same thing, making body location and recovery immeasurably easier. But, as with anything else, theory and practice were two very different things.

With a grunt that could have been either frustration or satisfaction he stood up. ‘OK, I’m done,’ he said, wincing as his knee joints cracked.

‘I’m heading over to the cafeteria for some lunch. Are you coming?’

He gave a wistful smile as he packed away his equipment. ‘Not today. Mary’s packed sandwiches. Chicken and beansprouts, or something else disgustingly healthy. And before I forget, you’re invited over for dinner this weekend. She seems to have got it into her head that you need a proper meal.’ He pulled a face. ‘You she wants to feed up; me, I just get rabbit food. Where’s the justice in that?’

I smiled. Tom’s wife was a great cook, and he knew it. ‘Tell her I’d love to come. Do you want a hand with your gear?’ I offered, as he hoisted his canvas bag on to his shoulder.

‘No, it’s OK.’

I knew he didn’t want me to exert myself. But even though we walked slowly back to the gate I could see that the effort left him breathless. When I’d first met Tom he’d already been well into his fifties, happy to give encouragement to a fledgling British forensic anthropologist. That was longer ago than I cared to remember, and the intervening years had left their mark. We expect people to remain as we remember them, but of course they never do. Still, I’d been shocked at how changed Tom was when I saw him again.

He hadn’t formally announced when he was stepping down as director of the Forensic Anthropology Center, but everyone knew it was likely to be before the end of the year. The local newspaper had run a feature on him two weeks earlier that had read more like a testimonial than an interview. He still looked like the basketball player he’d once been, but encroaching age had lent a gauntness to his already lean frame. There was a hollowness to his cheeks that, with the receding hairline, gave him an air that was both ascetic and worryingly frail.

But the twinkle in his eyes remained unchanged, as did his humour and a faith in human nature that was undimmed despite a career spent trawling through its darker side. And you’re not exactly unscathed yourself, I reflected, remembering the ugly striation of flesh under my shirt.

Tom’s station wagon was in the car park adjacent to the facility. We paused at the gate, pulling off the protective gloves and overshoes we’d been wearing before going out. With the barrier pulled shut behind us, there was nothing to suggest what lay on the other side. The trees behind the fence looked mundane and innocuous as they rustled in the warm breeze, bare branches shading green with new life.

Once we were in the car park I took my mobile from my pocket and switched it back on. Although there were no rules against it, I felt uncomfortable disturbing the peace and quiet inside the facility with phone calls. Not that I was expecting any. The people who might have contacted me knew I was out of the country, and the person I most wanted to talk to wouldn’t be calling.

I put the phone away as Tom opened the boot and slid his bag into the back. He pretended not to be breathing heavily, while I pretended not to notice.

‘Give you a lift to the cafeteria?’ he offered.

‘No thanks, I’ll walk. I need the exercise.’

‘Admirable discipline. You put me to shame.’ He broke off as his phone rang. He took it out and glanced at the display. ‘Sorry, got to take this.’

Leaving him to answer it, I headed across the car park. Although the facility was on the University of Tennessee Medical Center campus, it was completely independent of it. Tucked away on the wooded outskirts, it inhabited a different world. The modern buildings and park-like green spaces of the busy hospital were bustling with patients, students and medical staff. A nurse was laughing with a young man in jeans on a bench; a mother was scolding a crying child, while a businessman held an animated discussion on a mobile phone. When I’d first come here I’d found the contrast between the hushed decay behind the gates and the bustling normality outside them hard to take. Now I barely noticed it.

We can grow used to almost anything, given time.

I trotted up a flight of steps and set off along the path that led to the cafeteria, noting with satisfaction that I was breathing barely harder than usual. I’d not gone far when I heard footsteps hurrying behind me.

‘David, wait up!’

I turned. A man about my own age and height was hurrying along the path. Paul Avery was one of the center’s rising stars, already widely tipped as Tom’s natural successor. A specialist in human skeletal biology, his knowledge was encyclopaedic, and the big hands and blunt fingers were as adept as any surgeon’s.

‘You going for lunch?’ he asked, falling into step beside me. His curly hair was almost blue-black, and a shadow of stubble already darkened his chin. ‘Mind if I join you?’

‘Not at all. How’s Sam?’

‘She’s good. Meeting Mary this morning to cruise around some of the baby stores. I’m expecting the credit card to take a serious hit.’

I smiled. I hadn’t known Paul until this trip, but both he and his pregnant wife Sam had gone out of their way to make me welcome. She was nearly at full term with their first child, and while Paul did his best to appear blasé about it, Sam made no attempt to hide her excitement.

‘Glad I saw you,’ he went on. ‘One of my PhD students has gotten engaged, so a few of us are going downtown tonight to celebrate. It’ll be pretty relaxed, just dinner and a few drinks. Why don’t you come along?’

I hesitated. I appreciated the offer, but the thought of going out with a group of strangers didn’t appeal.

‘Sam’ll be going, and Alana, so you’ll know some people there,’ Paul added, seeing my reluctance. ‘C’mon, it’ll be fun.’

I couldn’t think of a reason to say no. ‘Well… OK, then. Thanks.’

‘Great. I’ll pick you up at your hotel at eight.’

A car horn honked from the road nearby. We looked back to see Tom’s station wagon pulling up to the kerb. Winding down the window he beckoned us over.

‘I just got a call from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. They’ve found a body in a mountain cabin out near Gatlinburg. Sounds interesting. If you’re not busy, Paul, I thought you might want to come out with me and take a look?’

Paul shook his head. ‘Sorry, I’m tied up all afternoon. Can’t one of your graduate students help out?’