Whispers of the Dead - Страница 37

There were more forensic agents busy up here. The house was in chaos, though it was hard to say how much was due to the search and what was the result of York’s personal habits. Clothes were strewn about, and boxes of junk and old magazines had been pulled out of cupboards. But the sink and breakfast bar were invisible beneath dirty dishes, and crusted cartons of takeaway food lay where York must have dropped them.

Several of the search team broke off what they were doing to watch as Gardner led me across the room. I recognized the bulky form of Jerry on his hands and knees on the floor, poring through the drawers of a battered sideboard. He raised a gloved hand in greeting.

‘Hi, doc.’ The jowls of his face wobbled round his mask as he energetically chewed gum. ‘Nice place, huh? And you should see his film collection. Porn paradise, all alphabetically listed. Guy really needs to get out more.’

Gardner had gone over to an alcove near the sink. ‘So long as it’s all still there when you’re done.’ There were chuckles, but I wasn’t sure if he was joking. ‘Through here.’

A walk-in cupboard was set in the alcove, its door wedged open. Its contents had been pulled out and lay spread around: boxes of chipped crockery, a plastic bucket with a split in its side, a broken vacuum cleaner. An agent knelt by a cardboard box of old photographic equipment: a worn SLR camera that had obviously seen better days, an old-fashioned flash unit and light meter, old photographic magazines, their pages faded and curling.

A yard or two away, isolated from the rest of the junk in a cleared space on the dusty linoleum, was a battered suitcase.

The lid was down but gaping, as though whatever was inside was too big for it to lie flat. Gardner looked down at it, making no attempt to approach too closely.

‘We found it in the cupboard. Once we saw what was inside we left it alone until someone could take a look at it.’

The suitcase seemed too small to contain a human being. At least not an adult, but I knew that didn’t mean anything. Years before I’d been called out to examine a grown man’s body that had been crammed into a hold all even smaller than this. The limbs had been folded back on themselves, the bones broken and compacted into a shape no living contortionist could hope to achieve.

I squatted down beside it. The brown leather was scuffed and worn, but without the mould or staining I’d have expected if the remains had decomposed inside. That fitted with what Jacobsen had said about them not being recent.

‘Can I take a look?’ I asked Gardner.

‘That’s why you’re here.’

Ignoring the acid in his voice I reached for the lid, conscious of everyone watching as I lifted it open.

The suitcase was full of bones. One glance was enough to confirm that they were human. There was what looked like an entire ribcage, against which a skull had been wedged, the mandible still connected so that it bore the hallmark grin. Looking at it, I wondered if Jacobsen’s words in the restaurant had been intentional: No skeletons in his closet that we could find.

They’d found one now.

The bones were the same tobacco colour as the walls, although I didn’t think cigarette smoke was responsible this time. They were clean, without any trace of soft tissue. I leaned closer and sniffed, but there was no real odour beyond the musty leather of the suitcase.

I picked up a rib that lay on the top. It was curved like a miniature bow. In one or two places I could see translucent flakes peeling away from the surface, like tiny fish scales.

‘Any word yet on York?’ I asked, as I examined it.

‘We’re still looking.’

‘You think he left of his own accord?’

‘If you mean was he abducted like Irving the answer’s no. Irving didn’t take his car or pack a suitcase before he disappeared,’ Gardner said tersely. ‘Now what can you tell me about these?’

I put the rib back down and took out the skull. The bones chimed together with almost musical notes as they shifted.

‘They’re female,’ I told him, turning the skull in my hand. ‘The bone structure’s too delicate for a man. And she didn’t die recently.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

‘OK,’ I agreed. ‘For a start she wasn’t murdered.’

It was as though I’d suggested the earth was flat. ‘What?’

‘This isn’t a murder victim,’ I repeated. ‘Look at how yellowed the bones are. This is old. Four or five decades at least. Perhaps more. You can see where it’s been coated with some kind of stabilizer that’s starting to flake off. I’m pretty certain it’s shellac, which hasn’t been used for years. And look at this…’

I showed him a small, neat hole drilled in the crown of the skull.

‘That’s where some sort of fixing used to be, so it could be hung up. Chances are this came from some lab or belonged to a medical student. Nowadays plastic models are used rather than actual skeletons, but you still come across real ones occasionally.’

‘It’s a medical skeleton?’ Gardner glared down at it. ‘What the hell is it doing here?’

I set the skull back in the suitcase. ‘York said his father founded Steeple Hill back in the fifties. Perhaps it belonged to him. It’s certainly old enough.’

‘Goddammit.’ He blew out his cheeks. ‘I’d still like Paul Avery to take a look.’

‘Whatever you like.’

I don’t think Gardner even realized the implied slight. With a last disgusted look at the suitcase, he headed for the stairs. Closing the suitcase lid, I followed him.

‘Bye, doc,’ Jerry said, jaw still working. ‘Another wasted trip, huh?’

As I passed the sideboard, I paused to look at the clutter of framed family photographs, a visual history of York’s life. They were a mix of posed portraits and holiday snaps, the once bright summer colours washed out and faded. York was the subject of most: a grinning boy in shorts on a boat, an uncomfortable-looking teenager. An older, amiable-looking woman who looked like his mother was with him in most of them. Sometimes they were joined by a tall, tanned man with a businessman’s smile who I took to be York’s father. He wasn’t in many, so I guessed he’d taken most of the photographs himself.

But the later shots were exclusively of York’s mother, a progressively stooped and shrunken copy of her younger self. The most recent one showed her posing by a lake with a younger version of her son, frail and grey but still smiling.

There were no more after that.

I caught up with Gardner at the bottom of the stairs. So far he’d made no mention of the phone call Tom had received the night before. I wasn’t sure if that was because he didn’t think it was relevant, or if he just didn’t want to acknowledge that I might have done something useful. But I wasn’t going to leave without raising it.

‘Did Jacobsen tell you about the phone booth?’ I asked as we went along the hallway.

‘She told me. We’re looking into it.’

‘What about Tom? If the call was meant to lure him outside he might still be in danger.’

‘I appreciate you pointing that out,’ he said, coldly sarcastic. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

I’d had enough. It was late and I was tired. I stopped in the hallway. ‘Look, I don’t know what your problem is, but you asked me to come out here. Would it kill you to at least be civil?’

Gardner turned and faced me, his face darkening. ‘I asked you out here because I didn’t have a hell of a lot of choice. Tom brought you into this investigation, not me. And excuse me if my manners aren’t to your liking, but in case you haven’t noticed I’m trying to catch a serial killer!’

‘Well, it isn’t me!’ I flared back.

We glared at each other. We were by the front door, and through it I could see that the agents outside had stopped to stare. After a moment Gardner drew in a deep breath and looked down at the floor. He seemed to unclench himself with a visible effort.

‘For your information, I arranged extra security for Tom straight away,’ he said, in a tightly controlled voice. ‘Purely as a precaution. Even if you’re right about the phone call, I doubt that whoever made it is going to try anything while Tom’s in a hospital bed. But I’m not about to take the chance.’

It wasn’t exactly an apology, but I could live with that. The main thing was that Tom was safe.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘You’re welcome.’ I couldn’t decide if he was being facetious or not. ‘Now, if that’s all, Dr Hunter, I’ll see you’re taken back to your hotel’.

I started to go out, but I’d not even reached the front steps when someone called Gardner from inside the house.

‘Sir? You should take a look at this.’

A forensic agent, overalls grubby with oil and dirt, had emerged from a door further down the hallway. Gardner glanced at me, and I knew what was going through his mind.

‘Don’t go just yet.’

He set off down the hallway and through the door. I hesitated, then went after him. I wasn’t going to stand there like a schoolboy outside the headmaster’s office until Gardner decided if he needed me or not.

The door was an internal entrance to the garage. The air smelled of oil and damp. A bare lightbulb burned overhead, its weak glow supplemented by the harsher glare of floodlights. It was as cluttered in here as in the rest of the house, sagging cardboard boxes, mildewed camping gear and rusting garden equipment crowding round the bare area of concrete where York’s car had stood.