‘Passenger seat,’ said Dryden, thinking about it. ‘What about the bones from Peyton’s tomb? Tell us anything?’
‘A woman. Pathologist says death occurred less than thirty years ago, but at the moment we can’t say how old she was when she died. Teeth aren’t great but that could just be poor dental care. The lot was wrapped up in a piece of carpet, pretty much rotten but design and threads point to 1950s. Cause of death is conjecture at this point, and possibly all points in the future too. There’s not a lot left to examine. But we can get some DNA from the bones. And there are two chips to consecutive ribs on the left side, a sharp metal object had been thrust between them causing small fractures in both.’
‘A knife wound?’
‘Yeah. Or an accident. Could have been inflicted long before death of course, that’s the problem. We need to talk to the vicar and to Peyton, find out if there were any later burials from the Peyton family. If not we’ve got another puzzle on our hands.’
Shaw rang off while Dryden checked the clock: he had half an hour to write up the story on Jude’s Ferry for the front page.
But an image hung before him – those metal fillings catching the floodlight on Thieves Bridge. A woman’s bones? Magda Hollingsworth perhaps? But hardly a suicide in that case – unless it was a very tidy suicide. Murder? Had someone decided Magda knew more than she should – and that she’d written it all down in her diary? He glugged some coffee, focusing instead on the blinking cursor of the computer screen, and attacked the keyboard…
EXCLUSIVE
By Philip Dryden
Detectives were yesterday (Thursday) interviewing a 41-year-old man in connection with the discovery of the so-called ‘Skeleton Man’ found hanging in a cellar in the abandoned village of Jude’s Ferry.
‘We are hoping this man may be able to give us information which will help us identify the victim quickly, and even give us a lead to the identity of his killer, or killers,’ said a detective helping to lead the inquiry.
Mr Jason Imber, a TV scriptwriter from Upwell, will be questioned by detectives from the inquiry team now based in the village of Jude’s Ferry, which was evacuated in 1990 to make way for military exercises.
Mr Imber was rescued from the River Ouse two days after the Skeleton Man’s remains were revealed in a cellar in the village following a live artillery firing exercise involving Ely TA soldiers.
He was taken to the Oliver Zangwill Centre at Ely’s Princess of Wales Hospital where he is being treated for amnesia under police protection. A hospital spokesman said his memory was slowly returning.
Mrs Elizabeth Imber identified her husband after the police released pictures taken at the unit to the media. She travelled to Ely yesterday to visit her husband but was not available for comment.
Mr Imber lost fingers from his right hand during his ordeal and it is believed he may have become entangled with a boat propeller after falling from Cuckoo Bridge, north of the city.
Mr Imber was a teacher at Whittlesea High School before becoming a TV scriptwriter.
Meanwhile police are keen to talk to Matthew Smith, a former builder and decorator who was involved in a violent argument in Jude’s Ferry on the night before the final evacuation.
‘Mr Smith was seen leaving the village pub that last evening and we are very keen to contact him so that we can eliminate him from our inquiries,’ said the detective.
Police have released a picture of his brother – Mark – in the hope that he still bears a strong likeness to his twin. It is understood the brothers were involved in an argument over setting up a new business. It is possible that Matthew Smith is now known by a different name.
Detectives based at King’s Lynn are working on the hypothesis that the victim, a man aged 20–35, was murdered by a lynch mob in the final days before the village’s evacuation in 1990.
A thorough examination of the cellar in which the Skeleton Man was found has revealed another bizarre twist – an empty grave, dug and refilled.
‘Perhaps it was designed for the victim,’ said the detective, who declined to be named. ‘But instead it was neatly filled in. It is a bizarre development in a difficult case.’
Forensic scientists are examining a cigarette butt found in the refilled grave. It is of a common Spanish brand, another example of which was found in the cellar itself. Samples have been sent for DNA analysis.
Several other items found at the scene, including a twist of fibreglass and some ornamental gravel, are being examined further.
Police are working on the initial premise that the victim is a former resident of Jude’s Ferry. They are trying to contact men of the right age to eliminate them from their inquiries.
Any reader who might be able to help them should ring Freephone 0700 800 600.
Dryden pressed his fists into his eye sockets and thought about the rope tightening around the Skeleton Man’s neck. He tried to imagine the years passing, the body rotting in its undisturbed tomb. Why had the cellar lain undiscovered for those years?
‘Flanders May,’ he said out loud, remembering the ‘perfectionist’ Major Broderick had said oversaw the survey of the village in the months after the evacuation. He Googled the name and found two references, the first to the regimental history and his role in mapping several British military installations in India in the months before independence, and the second to the Royal Society of Cartographers. Colonel Flanders May DSO had been president in 2003 and an e-mail address was provided. Dryden jotted down two questions and sent the message, betting himself he’d never get an answer.
He picked up a photocopy of the picture of Mark Smith that DI Shaw had released. They were not, apparently, identical twins but there was enough in the face to help prompt an ID: the narrow skull, the heavy jaw which seemed to throw the whole off balance, the weak fleshy nose. Dryden reread his story and filed it.
Then he added an extra paragraph:
Police have said that their inquiries at the scene will be completed by Saturday morning. The range will reopen for live firing on Sunday. All roads into the range area are already closed to traffic. A maroon will sound at 9.30am and 9.55am from the firing range HQ at Whittlesea Lane End. Artillery will begin live shelling at 10.00am. A combined forces exercise will follow involving units from the TA and US forces based at nearby RAF Lakenheath. Live ammunition and artillery will be used.
25
Humph and Dryden headed north through a curtain of St Swithun’s rain towards Jason Imber’s home at Upwell. The village was deserted except for a murder of crows tearing at the squashed flesh of a large rat in a gutter. The house lay along a drove by the church behind an ugly high wall and a protective ring of pines. At the gate an expensive, polished intercom panel appeared to work, but there was no answer.
‘Scriptwriting pays then,’ said Dryden, flopping back into the passenger seat after briefly inspecting the gates. ‘There’s a car in the drive that looks like a Porsche.’
‘What else do we know?’ asked Humph, a single yawn threatening to suck all the air out of the cab’s damp interior.
‘Well – back in 1990 he was twenty-four. He lived at Orchard House – which sounds posh I guess. That’s it. His wife’s called Elizabeth, there’re no kids. He says he remembers nothing. He’s got four fingers missing from his right hand.’
Humph nodded, looking at his watch. ‘I gotta give blood,’ he said, giving the large ham that was his upper arm a pre-emptive massage.
The cabbie was proud of his charitable donation of red corpuscles, a selfless act only partly inspired by the free chocolate biscuits.
Dryden took some pictures at the gate and chatted to the shopkeeper at the post office. Imber was known locally, gave to charity, walked a dog, but in the phrase dreaded by all reporters otherwise ‘kept himself to himself ’. His wife, it was thought, was in publishing and worked in London, travelling up at weekends.