Where the Dead Lie by Harris C. S

Author:Harris, C. S. [Harris, C. S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Historical, Crime
ISBN: 9780698167902
Amazon: B01IAUG7CG
Goodreads: 30363074
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2017-04-04T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 32

Sebastian stood with his arms crossed at his chest, one shoulder propped against the warehouse’s rough brick wall as he watched Paul Gibson carefully scrape dirt from the bones slowly emerging from the soft earth of the grave.

“How long do you think it’s been here?” Sebastian asked.

“Hard to say.” Gibson grimaced as he shifted his position in a way that threw his peg leg out to one side. “You bury a body four feet deep, and it can take two or three years to reduce to a skeleton. But at twelve inches like this? There can be nothing left except bones after six months.”

“So he could have been killed in early spring?”

“Probably. Although I don’t think this was a ‘he.’”

“You can tell?”

“Not with absolute certainty. But the indications are we’re looking at what’s left of a young girl. Somewhere between fourteen and sixteen.”

“It’s probably Mary Cartwright,” said Sebastian, and felt something tear deep inside him.

Gibson gently lifted the skull free from the earth and turned it in his hands. “She was buried facedown.”

“I guess whoever buried her didn’t want to look at her face.” He gazed off across the rubbish-strewn field to where Mott Gowan, the parish constable, was supervising a party of volunteers clearing weeds from every suspicious-looking mound and hollow. And he knew a rising tide of frustration and helplessness laced with raw, potent fury. “How the blazes will we ever identify any of them when all that’s left is bones?”

Gibson set the skull aside and reached again for his trowel. “We can’t.”

• • •

They found the grave of Rory Inchbald next, buried just six inches beneath the earthen floor of the warehouse.

“Bloody hell,” said Sebastian, staring down at the one-legged soldier’s pale, dirt-covered face. “He didn’t know anything. Why kill him?”

Mott Gowan swiped one forearm across his face. “Maybe somebody thought he saw more’n he did that night. Or maybe he wasn’t tellin’ us everything he knew.”

“Bloody hell,” said Sebastian again and turned away.

• • •

By the time Sir Henry Lovejoy arrived at the shot factory after his morning court sessions, they had uncovered three more skeletons.

The day was clear but blustery and unseasonably cold, and the little magistrate huddled deep into his greatcoat as he stared down at one of the half-uncovered skeletons. “Five graves?”

“So far,” said Sebastian. “One body, four skeletons. Gibson says all were probably buried sometime in the last two or three years.”

Lovejoy swung his head to stare at Sebastian. “How can he know that?”

Gibson knew these things because he buried cadaver parts in his own yard and then studied the effects of the passage of time on flesh and bone. But Sebastian could hardly tell the magistrate that. He chewed on the inside of his cheek. “From his experiences in the war, I suppose.”

Lovejoy gave him a hard, steady look. “Yes; I suppose.”

Together they watched Constable Gowan supervise the loading of a box of bones onto a waiting cart. Sebastian said, “Any luck yet discovering who owns this place?”

“We’re making progress. Seems the factory used to belong to a woman named Margery Deighton, who inherited it from an uncle.

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