A Cold Coffin. Gwendoline Butler

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      Thursday, on to Friday. Not Christmas yet, maybe never.

      Phoebe Astley said to the chief of forensics, Dr Hazzard, that yes, she often thought that the Chief Commander had precognition.

      It was late evening, two days since she had passed on Coffin’s request. She had done her bit, but she thought forensics had been slow.

      ‘You took your time.’

      ‘I had a lot on hand. If you remember there was a bad fire in a supermarket – several bodies could not be identified. All comes our way. Also, I had a moral obligation to let the archaeologist have a brief look to draw, map and photograph before anything was touched.’

      But the forensics expert on what might now be called late-night duty, Dr George Hazzard, had delivered a tentative judgement. Dr Hazzard and Phoebe met professionally with some regularity. There had been a short but intense relationship between them when Phoebe first came to the Second City, the memory of which still hung over them like a cloud. A thundery one.

      Almost put me off men for life, she thought. Almost. The question was still open, she was working on it. She did not count the Chief Commander as a man. He was sui generis, himself, unique. And just as well, possibly, as the possessor of precognitive powers.

      Or the Chief Commander might just be a good guesser.

      Without inspecting it closely, he had guessed that the ‘different’ skull was not as old as the others.

      ‘Not by a long way,’ said Dr Hazzard. ‘I can’t give a precise date. We’ll need the pathologists and the medical chaps to help there.’

      He was staring down at the skull, which had been carefully abstracted, under the watchful eye of one of the junior archaeologists, who took photographs and drew diagrams, leaving the other skulls in situ. The water was slowly draining away. And yes, Coffin had been right, there was a touch of blood on it, caught in a crack in the bone and therefore not washed away.

      ‘Medical?’ Phoebe was surprised. ‘How new is it?’

      Dr Hazzard smiled and shrugged. He liked to see his police colleagues taken aback.

      Phoebe sought for words. ‘Not contemporary?’

      He shrugged again. ‘It’s an interesting question. Age and provenance. Where did it come from, and how? I like that sort of a problem.’

      ‘It’s not a game.’

      ‘Who said it was?’

      ‘You know what I mean: if the skull is beyond a certain age, then there’s no case to worry CID.’ She looked hopefully, then speculatively, at Hazzard who appeared to be thinking. Provoking bugger, she thought.

      After a quiet second, taking a deep breath, he said: ‘I think CID might have a case.’

      ‘What was the age of the owner of this skull? It is a baby’s skull, I suppose.’

      ‘Oh yes, I think so. But we will have to get the medical pathologist in on this to help us date and age the skull.’

      ‘So how long has it been in the water?’

      ‘Possibly not so very long. I am still guessing a bit.’

      ‘Yes, I can see that.’ And enjoying it. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t call the skull “it”. A person once. A baby person. Maybe not so long ago either.’

      She looked at Hazzard, a nice man at heart, even if the heart had to be excavated. ‘Couldn’t you make a guess?’

      ‘I could guess . . . don’t hold me to it.’

      ‘Out with it. Let me have it.’

      ‘The skull might be recent,’ Hazzard said carefully. ‘Contemporary, possibly. Tests will show.’

      ‘How contemporary?’

      Hazzard was silent.

      ‘Where did the hair and flesh go? The child had hair and flesh.’

      Hazzard remained silent. Then he said hesitantly, ‘It could have been . . . treated.’

      We’ll have to talk about this, thought Phoebe. Meanwhile, a cold shiver ran through her.

      ‘So what was the age of this dead child?’ She was determined to get more of an answer than she had done so far.

      Hazzard put his head on one side. ‘Not my sphere. You’ll have to ask a paediatrician or some such.’

      He kept saying that; she was getting tetchy.

      ‘Guess.’

      ‘Very young,’ he allowed. ‘Weeks only.’

      ‘Infanticide then.’ Phoebe said heavily.

      ‘We don’t know that. The child may have died naturally. Even been born dead.’

      ‘So the child was as young as that?’

      ‘Just could be. You’ll have to get an expert in that field to be sure. Which I am not.’

      ‘Took a long time to shell that out of you,’ said Phoebe. ‘Put it in writing, will you?’ she added vindictively. She knew he hated writing reports. Well, who didn’t, but it was part of the job. She took a certain pleasure in handing this one out. ‘I will let the Chief Commander know. It won’t be a surprise to him, he must have suspected it.’

      ‘Clever fellow.’

      He is that, thought Phoebe. ‘I don’t know what sort of enquiry will be started.’ Coffin wouldn’t leave it there.

      Whose baby’s head was it? Why was it there in the pit with the Neanderthal babies? And what had been done to the skull?

      He would ask all those questions and want answers.

      Likewise, where was the body?

      She was so deep in these thoughts as she walked Dr Hazzard to his car that she failed to notice his troubled, thoughtful face.

      He had noticed something about the infant head.

      Next day, in his own office, with the rain beating on the windows, Coffin received the news in silence.

      Phoebe had come to see him herself, making a late-afternoon appointment and keeping scrupulously to the minute.

      ‘Hazzard thinks the head may have been boiled.’ She saw his look of comprehension. ‘Or stewed, to get rid of the flesh and the hair and create a skull. There is a little hair left.’

      ‘Oh God.’

      There was something pathetic and terrible enough about infanticide without this extra horror.

      He had had plenty to think about as he had studied the papers in the files on his desk, took the various СКАЧАТЬ