‘Oh, yes. Surprisingly common, though normally it’s mummified bairns I see. When they die young and get shoved in a drawer or the back of an airing cupboard it’s the perfect conditions to ward off putrefaction. That’s all it is by the way, a denial of the usual order of decay.’
Valentine eyed the second corpse. The head was pressed into the shoulder at an unnatural angle. The black, leathery, skeletal features of the face looked very peaceful by contrast.
‘Can you tell me what went on here, Wrighty?’
The pathologist took a deep breath, like he was about to stick his head underwater. ‘I don’t know about that, but I can hazard a guess as to cause of death in both cases.’
‘Go on then.’
He moved towards the DI. ‘Let’s start with this lad. Incidentally, I don’t know if it’s any use to you, but when we undressed him we found his Y-fronts had been put on back to front. I thought that was unusual.’
Valentine looked at the shrunken figure; he noticed the dissection line down his chest and stomach, the crooked detour taken by the scalpel around the belly button. ‘It might be something, it might not.’
‘Well, they’ve both got the same PMI, I can confirm that.’
‘Speak English please.’
‘The post-mortem interval – the time of death – is about thirty-two years ago, so that takes us down to 1984.’
‘The police surgeon was about seven years out then. What about their ages?’
‘I was coming to that. This one is about eleven; the other one about a year younger.’
The door to the morgue opened and DS McCormack walked towards the men. ‘Sorry, sir, the school tie’s too soiled to make out. They’re going to sample test a section . . . Hello, Wrighty.’
The pathologist nodded and returned to the slab in front of him. ‘Look at the neck on the eleven-year-old – see how it’s contorted? That’s because something’s bitten into the neck. You can see the flesh has been torn in the manner of a garrotte. I had him down as asphyxia due to strangulation, but I couldn’t find the device used. Looks like a belt – a thick leather belt would cause deep cuts like that.’
‘So you think he was strangled?’
‘No, hold your horses, Bob, he was definitely strangled.’ Wrighty retrieved an X-ray slide from a table and held it to the light. ‘Look, there’s two broken cervical vertebrae – that seals it. He was strangled.’
Wrighty moved up the slab towards the other corpse. ‘This one’s hands and feet were cable-tied; he was restrained obviously.’
‘Was he strangled too?’ said Valentine.
‘Oh no. This boy was bludgeoned to death. Let me show you the rear of the scalp; it’s been split in two places, which made me think he’d been battered with something.’
‘We’ve no murder weapon. What should we be looking for?’
‘You’re the cop, Bob. But it’s been something blunt and heavy, a hammer maybe. If you look closer to the rear of the head there you’ll see it was driven with sufficient force to shatter the skull. The X-ray confirmed that – there’s fragments of bone separated from the occipital region. It would have been driven into the brain with the force from the blunt instrument and killed him instantly.’
Valentine watched Wrighty as he paused with his fingertips on the rim of the mortuary slab.
‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’ said the DI.
‘Isn’t that enough?’
‘You know me – always after more if I can get it.’
Wrighty shrugged. ‘I can tell you this, it might have been thirty-two years ago, but I’d do time for the bastard that did this.’
They looked at the corpses of the two boys but nobody spoke again. Wrighty’s last words seemed to sum up how everyone felt about the case. There was nothing to add, only the painful realisation of how two young boys had been brutally murdered. Even though the way they’d been found had indicated the worst, knowing the precise details of their demise somehow shared more of the pain around.
Valentine and McCormack headed back to the car, the DI offering to drive.
‘Go for it, here’s the keys,’ said McCormack.
Valentine took the keys and reached for the door handle. ‘Do you want to hear just the funniest thing, Sylvia? That headache I had has completely vanished now.’
12
June 1982
‘Out,’ shouts the man with a nose like a hawk.
It looks like we’re at some kind of parade ground. I can see a small coach house made of bricks with black bars on the windows. There’s a chimney pumping smoke out for all to see.
When I get to the steps of the bus I’m told to move myself and that I’m not here for the view. The bus driver laughs at that and says, ‘Far from it.’
I don’t know what he means, but I know it can’t be good. The ground’s brick too, or I think it is, till the man catches me looking at it and says get used to them cobbles and I’ll be keeping a sheen on them with my boots.