‘He can’t be right, or the whole thing is nonsense.’
‘That was my first thought, ma’am.’
She eyed him warily. ‘But you’ve had a second one?’
‘I have.’
‘Go on, then.’
‘I’m now regarding it as a case of murder.’
‘That’s no surprise. The stab marks and the bloodstains.’
‘The pants could make it much more recent than we were led to believe. A twenty-first-century job.’
Georgina took a sharp breath and said nothing.
‘Waghorn says he can’t tell from the state of the bones how long it is since the victim died.’
‘It’s a skeleton, for God’s sake. It can’t be all that recent.’
‘Above ground, the soft flesh breaks down quite quickly. Even in our climate we could be talking about as little as two years. Hot air trapped in the loft.’
‘I need a paracetamol,’ she said, reaching for her handbag. ‘I’ve had a headache all morning and you’ve made it a whole lot worse.’ She dipped her hand in and came out with the packet of painkillers and the visiting card she’d been given by Sally Paris. She’d dismissed the card from her mind because she had no intention of following up the chance meeting of the evening before. She hoped Diamond hadn’t noticed.
‘The speed of decomposition came as a shock to me,’ he was saying.
‘Do you honestly believe this?’
‘I’m trying to keep an open mind. He’s arranging tests.’
‘At our expense, no doubt.’ Georgina took a bottle of water from her desk drawer and poured some into a cup. No one should see the ACC drinking from a bottle. She swallowed two tablets and washed them down.
‘The tests will tell us,’ Diamond said. ‘We need to know.’
‘But if they prove the bones are modern we have to explain why a modern man was wearing old-fashioned clothes.’
‘It’s a mystery.’
‘What’s happening with the clothes? Are they still up at the university?’
‘I’ve arranged for them to be collected.’
‘Good.’
‘We can run our own tests.’
‘Peter, you keep talking about tests.’
He could almost hear the calculator working in Georgina’s head. ‘We need answers.’
‘Surely if this is a modern crime there’s a more cost-effective way of dating it.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The Y-fronts. I can’t say I have much experience of men’s undergarments,’ she said. ‘Are they worn much these days?’
He’d rather be walking on red-hot coals than talking underwear to the assistant chief constable. ‘They may not be as popular as they once were, but they’ve never gone away. It’s the support.’
‘I’ll take your word for that. Will it help the case if we show them to the media?’
His eyes doubled in size. ‘Help the case? How?’
‘Somebody may see a picture in the paper and recognise them.’
‘With respect, ma’am, I don’t think this is a good idea. Everyone knows what Y-fronts look like.’
‘Not everyone,’ she said in a pious tone.
‘These are in poor condition,’ he said. ‘Holes and stains.’
‘I see.’ She thought about that for a while before saying, ‘What we do is show the press a similar pair.’
This was catastrophic. ‘You want me to appear at a press conference and hold up a pair of pants? Don’t you think I’ve suffered enough?’
She was indifferent to his pain. ‘What’s your problem, Peter?’
‘This whole damned case has been a gift to the gutter press from the start,’ he said. ‘They won’t treat it seriously.’
She raised her forefinger as if she’d seen the light. ‘Well, why don’t we get hold of one of those mannequins? I don’t mean a person. The fibreglass things they use in the underwear department in Jolly’s.’
She’d got this idea and she had to be dissuaded — fast.
Desperation was driving him now. ‘I suggest we offer them a press kit with some official photos.’
‘Will that be enough?’
‘Photos of the real pants. Much better.’
‘As you wish,’ she said. ‘Just get it done as soon as possible and make sure I get a copy.’
She wanted her own picture of the pants. Wisely he passed no comment.
John Wigfull, the civilian press officer, had been tasked with notifying everyone that a statement about the Twerton skeleton would be made at 5 p.m., reasonable timing for the morning papers and the late evening newscasts.
Diamond gave Leaman the job of putting together the press kit including photos.
‘Have we given up on Beau Nash?’ Leaman asked.
Diamond wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of saying, I told you so.
‘Not entirely.’
‘But you definitely want a picture of the actual Y-fronts in the press kit?’
A tight-lipped, ‘Yes.’
‘With respect—’
‘When anyone uses that phrase to me, John, I know they mean the opposite. Just get it done.’
‘No problem.’
Thanks to the paracetamol, Georgina’s headache was gone. Surely it hadn’t been a hangover? She preferred to think the stress of the past twenty-four hours was responsible. Dealing with Diamond on a daily basis was stressful enough and the added worry of leaving the car on a public road overnight had been too much. Thank goodness no one here at Bath Central knew what had happened.
She picked the visiting card from her desk and was about to bin it when she saw something that made her hesitate.
The name on the card was Lady Sally Paris.
Lady?
How easy it is to make assumptions. In her wildest dreams she wouldn’t have supposed the Good Samaritan of the night before had been a titled person. She’d introduced herself as Sally, which had sounded friendly and informal. But she had said something about the chauffeur having the night off. Georgina wasn’t used to mingling with the aristocracy, but now it had happened she was already having second thoughts about throwing away the card. People like that can be helpful contacts. Networking was the way to get on these days.
The embarrassment of last night needed to be put in a new context. Nobody of Lady Sally’s status in society was going to think a couple of G&Ts were grounds for dismissal from the police. Lords and ladies were knocking them back all the time. What had seemed a potential scandal a few hours ago was laughable now. After all, Georgina reflected, elevating herself to the level these people operated from, one had done the responsible thing and stopped driving. Any alcohol was out of one’s system by now.
One would take up Sally’s invitation and arrange to visit her at Charlcombe.
Shortly after 4 p.m. came a call from Dr. Waghorn.
‘Something new?’ Diamond said, trying not to sound too eager. He’d learned to play his cards cannily with this smart alec.
‘I think you’ll be interested. We discussed PMI tests on the skeleton in the hope of learning the time since his death.’
‘PMI?’
‘Postmortem interval. Well, here at the university we have the facilities to run one of the tests straight away. Did I say? I got it under way shortly after you left.’
‘The ultraviolet?’
‘Yes, but a word of caution here. UV isn’t much more than a crude indication of bone age. The test should be used in conjunction with the other tests I mentioned and they take longer.’
‘What did you find?’
‘If these had been old bones — say two hundred years — I would have expected them to show yellow. They fluoresced blue.’
He felt himself fluorescing bright pink. ‘Meaning they’re fresh?’
‘Relatively so. All I can say at this stage is that they are not more than a hundred years old. For your purposes, the age of the bones doesn’t match the style of clothes the subject was wearing.’