Summoning the Dead (DI Bob Valentine #3)(6)

‘The super’s here.’

‘What’s she playing at now?’

McCormack straightened herself, leaned back from the flapping tent. ‘You know Dino, boss.’ The remark was supposed to be sufficiently vague as to attest to the CS’s niggling manner.

‘She’ll be playing the hands-on card. I can’t stand it when she’s like that – everything takes twice as long to get done.’

‘And logic goes out the window.’

‘You noticed that too?’

‘I noticed that she tends to focus on the end rather than the means.’

‘You’re being too polite. What you mean to say is she wants results without graft, wants her crime stats to be the top consideration. Well, it doesn’t work like that, Sylvia.’

‘No need to preach to the choir, boss.’

DI Valentine removed his hands from his coat pockets and turned to face the tent. He prised the Velcro fastening free and forced his way through the new opening. DS McAlister was the first to acknowledge the officers.

‘Hello, boss,’ said Ally, breaking off his gaze to direct a nod in McCormack’s direction. He handed the officers two boxes, one with latex gloves protruding from the top and the other blue shoe covers. They mechanically snapped out the contents and put them in place.

‘What have you got for us, Ally?’ said Valentine.

Before the DS had a chance to answer, the chief super opened into a yell. ‘Bob, over here!’

Valentine exchanged glances with McAlister, who was already raising his eyebrows towards the tent’s roof.

As he approached the CS, Valentine took in the scene. It was cramped in the tent; even with only two more officers arriving the place was now being negotiated in shuffles and halted steps. Two SOCOs, dressed head to toe in white, were peering over the edge of an excavation hole in the ground. There appeared to be a large object inside but it was too dark beneath the canvas to see clearly what it might be. The closer he got to the hole, the stronger the stench became. It was an unusual smell, not like the decaying flesh he associated with crime scenes – far mustier, almost spicy; one his late mother would have called fusty.

‘Well, what’s the story with the Thin Man?’ said CS Martin.

Valentine was a little taken aback by the query, until it registered who was making it. ‘Case closed as far as I’m concerned.’

‘Oh, shit . . . natural causes?’

The DI wasn’t sure how to take Martin’s remark. Was she seriously disappointed that another human being hadn’t met their end in a suspicious manner? Because the alternative was that she was favouring murder.

‘Cancer – he was riddled with it.’

‘Can we ID him now?’

‘No. We haven’t a clue who he is. He’s not from the British Isles if the clothes and reports of his accent are anything to go by. I wouldn’t expect a result there either. He clearly didn’t want to be found; must have had his reasons.’

‘Yes, well, we have our reasons for wanting to identify him.’

Valentine knew just what those reasons were, as far as the chief super was concerned. She wanted to see her force on the television again; she wanted the plaudits for solving the case that had attracted the public’s attention in such an unprecedented way. It was capitalising on the publicity the case had generated in the most obvious manner.

‘You know as well as I do that some cases are simply not solvable.’

‘We have enough cold cases piled up in that basement to sink a battleship, Bob.’

‘One more unsolved mystery won’t make any difference then. Look, can we move on? If you want the proof that crime never sleeps . . .’ He waved a hand in the direction of the ground.

CS Martin inwardly fumed. ‘It’s the body of a minor.’

‘We’re in Cumnock, be careful with your pronunciation.’

‘Not that type of miner – though this one did come out the ground.’

Valentine scanned the scene quickly. ‘I take it the doc has been and gone in his usual hyper-efficient manner?’

‘To be fair to him, he didn’t have to do much more than glance inside the oil drum.’

Valentine crouched down towards the hole. He could see the rim of the steel barrel protruding above the earth; long scraping streaks, like teeth marks, had exposed the metal. A steel lid that had obviously once been attached lay at the foot of the drum. Valentine eyed the excavator tracks that sat either side of the hole and assessed that a protruding arm from the digger outside had caused the damage.

As he got closer to the hole, he leaned on the rim of the drum and peered inside.

‘Here,’ said CS Martin. ‘You’ll need this.’ She handed him a thin pen torch.

Valentine shone the torch’s beam into the barrel and flinched. A screaming pain entered the base of his skull and nausea washed over him. He thought he might vomit, but he steadied his grip on the rim of the drum and continued.

In the light’s beam he could see two small hands, bony and black, like they were covered in leather. The hands were cable-tied and rested on the crown of a small head, too small to be a man’s. The figure looked to be in prayer.

Valentine spoke: ‘Ally, was that the fiscal depute I saw out there?’

‘Yes, boss. He was a bit, how can I put it? Shaken up, even for Colin Scott.’