Kombothekra shrugged. ‘Whatever his name is, his body’s buried somewhere nearby, and our men are going to find it any second now. Mark Bretherick killed all three Olivas, and he also killed Geraldine and Lucy.’
Simon wished Proust were here to give Kombothekra the slating he deserved. ‘What the fuck? I know we can’t avoid charging him, but… Do you really think he’s a killer? I thought you liked him.’
‘Why?’ Kombothekra snapped. ‘Because I was polite to him?’
‘I think he’s a killer,’ Cook chipped in. ‘Four bodies have turned up on his property in less than a fortnight.’ Neither Simon nor Kombothekra bothered to reply. Simon was thinking about the shock and fury on Bretherick’s face as he was helped into the police car that would by now have delivered him to the custody suite at the nick. Kombothekra stared at his feet, mumbled something Simon couldn’t decipher. ‘Anyway, have I said anything about the adult skeleton being a woman’s?’ The pathologist returned to his area of expertise, reminded the other two men that they needed his input.
‘You haven’t said anything, period.’ Simon glared at him.
Kombothekra looked up. ‘You’re saying the adult skeleton is a man’s? Then it’s Amy’s father.’
‘No. Actually, it is a woman.’ The revelation got no response. Tim Cook looked embarrassed, then disappointed. ‘It’s easy to identify an adult female pelvic structure. But a young child…’
‘How young?’ asked Simon.
‘My guess would be four or five.’
Kombothekra nodded. ‘Amy Oliva was five when she left St Swithun’s school, supposedly to move to Spain.’
‘Get me dental records,’ said Cook. ‘Don’t give the bodies names until we’re sure.’
‘He’s right,’ said Simon.
‘How long dead?’ Kombothekra demanded, his usual charm and tact having deserted him.
‘I can’t say for sure at this stage. Somewhere between twelve and twenty-four months would be my guess,’ said Cook. ‘There are remnants of tendons and ligaments, but not many.’
‘How did they die?’
Cook made a face. ‘Sorry. If we had more soft tissue, I might be able to tell you, but all we’ve got’s bones and teeth. Unless the murder weapon made some sort of mark on a bone… I’ll have a good look when I get them on the table, but don’t bank on finding a cause of death.’
Kombothekra pushed the pathologist out of the way and headed for the house.
‘Is he always like that?’ Cook asked.
‘Never.’ Simon wanted to speak to Jonathan Hey, but felt he couldn’t walk off so soon after Kombothekra had, leave Cook stranded. When he’d visited Hey in Cambridge, the professor had as good as asked him if he was sure Mark Bretherick hadn’t killed Geraldine and Lucy. What exactly had he said? Something about husbands being more likely to murder wives who don’t work, who have no status outside the home.
Encarna Oliva, from what Simon had picked up second-hand via Kombothekra and Sellers, had been a banker at Leyland Carver. In professional and commercial terms, status didn’t come much higher than that. She must have earned a small fortune. Her body had been found in Mark Bretherick’s garden, but he wasn’t her husband.
It was all wrong. They were finding out more, but Simon had no sense of a coherent shape emerging.
Cook said, ‘I’d better get back to it. Why do we do it? Why aren’t we postmen or milkmen?’
‘I worked for the post office for two weeks once, at Christmas, ’ Simon told him. ‘They sacked me.’
As Cook wandered reluctantly back to the bones, Simon pulled out his phone and his notebook. There was time, he told himself, before Kombothekra came back from wherever he’d disappeared to. Jonathan Hey didn’t answer his office telephone, so Simon rang his mobile. Hey answered after the third ring.
‘It’s Simon Waterhouse.’
‘Simon.’ Hey sounded pleased to hear from him. ‘Are you in Cambridge again?’
‘No. I’m at Mark Bretherick’s house in Spilling.’
‘Right. Of course. Why would you be in Cambridge?’
‘We’ve found two more bodies on the property-an adult woman and a child.’
‘What? Are you sure?’ Hey tutted. ‘Sorry, that’s an idiotic question. What I mean is, you’re saying two more people have died at the Bretherick house since Geraldine Bretherick and her daughter?’
‘No, these bodies have been here at least a year,’ Simon told him. ‘This is highly confidential, by the way.’
‘Of course.’
‘No, really. I shouldn’t be telling you any of it.’
‘So why are you?’ asked Hey. ‘Sorry, I’m not being rude, I just-’
‘I want to know what you think. My sergeant, when we dug up the bodies, said “Family annihilation mark two”, and I just wondered-’
‘Dug up?’ Hey’s voice was squeaky with incredulity.
‘Yeah. They were buried in the garden. Under a smooth, green lawn-not quite so smooth any more.’
‘That’s terrible. What a horrible thing to find. Are you okay?’
‘Obviously they didn’t die naturally. No clothing on the bones, so either they were murdered naked or stripped postmortem. ’
‘Simon, I’m not a cop.’ Hey sounded apologetic. ‘This is way off my territory.’
‘Is it?’ This was the part that held the most interest for Simon. ‘Nothing’s been confirmed, but we think the remains we’ve found might be a classmate of Lucy Bretherick’s and her mother.’ He spelled it out. ‘Another mother and daughter, killed in the same place-or at least bodies found in almost the same place…’
‘Geraldine and Lucy Bretherick’s bodies were found in two bathtubs, weren’t they?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So they were also nude.’
It was a good point. Simon wasn’t sure what it meant, but it was another connection between the first pair of bodies and the second.
‘I suppose there’s no reason to think the poor souls you’ve found today were also killed in the bath and then… Simon, I can’t quite believe I’m taking part in this conversation. What help can I possibly be to you now?’
‘What do you mean “now”?’
‘Well, now that familicide’s ruled out.’
‘Is it, though? That’s why I rang you.’
‘I never thought it likely, from what I’d read and from what Keith told me, that Geraldine Bretherick had killed herself and her daughter. Now that you’ve discovered the bodies of another woman and child, I’d say it’s virtually certain the Bretherick deaths weren’t a familicide committed by Geraldine Bretherick.’
‘So, what, then? What do you think happened?’
‘I’ve absolutely no idea. Surely… well, isn’t it likely that the same person killed all four victims?’
‘I think so. Yes.’
‘You said a classmate of Lucy Bretherick’s; was it a boy or a girl?’
‘We think a girl, but it’s to be confirmed.’
‘Well, if it does turn out to be a girl, that would make it ninety per cent certain that your killer’s a man.’
‘Why?’ asked Simon.
‘Because he’s going round killing women and girls. Mothers and daughters.’
‘Couldn’t a woman be doing that?’
Hey let out a hollow laugh. ‘Like the perpetrators of familicide, serial murderers are almost always men.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘What?’ Hey sounded worried.
‘Serial. It’s a word we avoid if at all possible.’ Simon closed his eyes. Kombothekra was expecting to find the body of Amy Oliva’s father; now Jonathan Hey was suggesting that they might at any moment uncover the remains of another mother and daughter. Simon wasn’t sure his mind could accommodate that possibility.
‘Also… I mean, would a woman be able, physically, to dig up enough earth to bury two bodies?’ asked Hey.
‘A strong one might,’ said Simon. ‘If you’re right, though, and one man is responsible for all four deaths, what if that one man is Mark Bretherick? Then the murder of Geraldine and Lucy could still be viewed as a familicide.’ Hearing himself say this convinced Simon it had to be wrong. He believed, increasingly, in Mark Bretherick’s innocence.