Bone Dancer Read online

  Bone Dancer

  Shall we dance?

  Anna-marie Morgan

  Copyright © 2018 by Anna-marie Morgan

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover by SelfPubBookCovers/mmrainey

  For my family, with love

  Contents

  1. White Lady

  2. Forever Grave

  3. Nicole Benoit

  4. Connections

  5. Freinds Reunited

  6. Trouble and Strife

  7. Lightning strikes

  8. No let up

  9. The pathologist

  10. Pressure

  11. Katie Denham

  12. Common Denominator

  13. Desire

  14. Fibres

  15. A mother’s love

  16. Dundee University

  17. Suspect DNA

  18. The eyes have it

  19. Confrontation

  20. Girl in the hole

  21. Fathers

  22. You win, You lose

  23. Life or Death

  24. Disaster

  25. Time

  Afterword

  Also by Anna-marie Morgan

  1

  White Lady

  The car rounded the corner at speed. Thumping over cat's eyes. Swerving hard, to avoid the hedge. The driver squinted, his double vision the result of too many pints at the local.

  As a light mist swirled in the headlights, the ambient temperature dropped. The White Lady. A shiver ran the length of his spine.

  A van materialised in the gloom. Centre of the Road. Slamming his foot on the brake, he swung to the left.

  In a hail of screeching and debris, he ploughed into the undergrowth. “Learn to drive you...”

  The offender had gone.

  Wheels spun as he threw the gearstick into reverse and hammered on the accelerator. He was going nowhere. The engine, eaten by foliage. Windscreen wipers bashed the branches in vain.

  “Damned idiot!” Turning off the ignition, he pushed the door open with a tremulous hand and stumbled onto the tarmac, feeling inside his jacket pocket for his mobile.

  After several goes at punching in the correct number, he slurred into the handset. “Deb?”

  “Mike, where are you? It's way past midnight.”

  “Had a few with the lads.” He staggered to where his bonnet had been swallowed by greenery. “I need you. I’ve had an accident.”

  He told her where he was, apologising umpteen times, before ambling further along the lane. He decided it best, given his current condition, to report the incident the following day. Sober. Loss of licence meant loss of livelihood. He couldn't risk that.

  He wandered until he found metal gates, at the entrance to a field. Sat against them, he phoned his wife again.

  “I’m by a... a... Agh! Agh!”

  “What? What is it? Mike?”

  Yvonne rubbed her eyes, blinking at the clock. Just gone one. She had slept for only an hour and forty-nine minutes. Murder was no respecter of downtime.

  She swung her legs out of bed, keeping the phone to her ear. “Where?”

  “Just outside Abermule.” The DCI yawned.

  “I'll be there.”

  “Emergency vehicles are en route and should arrive any minute. I will join you as soon as I can.”

  “Right. See you then.” She made a mental list of requirements, padding across the wooden floorboards to grab clothes. Nerve-tingling goosebumps prickled her skin.

  Half an hour later, she arrived at the myriad lights, bouncing around the hedgerows, surrounded by ambulances, police cars and tape. She left her Renault in a lay-by, out of the way, and approached the outer cordon.

  Two paramedics in yellow and green jumpsuits passed by, shoulders hunched.

  The male shook his head. “Someone’s idea of a joke.”

  "Sorry?" Yvonne frowned.

  “It's a prop from a medical school. A skeleton, threaded together and dressed in rags.”

  “Oh.” She suppressed a smile.

  His female colleague tutted as they headed to their ambulance.

  The DI pursed her lips and approached the plastic suits, talking amongst themselves. She recognised pathologist Roger Hanson. He was scratching his beard, his brow furrowed.

  Someone grabbed her arm.

  She swung into the DCI’s chest. “Chris.” Her heart thumped, her mind on edge.

  “Yvonne.”

  She cleared her throat. “Could be a prank...”

  "So I'm told." He nodded towards a disappearing ambulance and rubbed his eyes. "You should get back to bed. I'll wait until the pathologist confirms it’s all a joke. They booked the bloke who phoned it in. His truck is in the hedge. Drunk as a lord. Station bed-and-breakfast for him."

  “I’ll stay, if that’s okay.” She pointed to where the pathologist kneeled, torch in mouth, gloved hands examining something in front of him. “He’s not done, yet.”

  She understood why the witness had called them. The effigy sat against the field gate, knees raised. Matted hair placed on the skull. The jaw hung open as though screaming. Clothed in a ragged top and dark skirt, it was a macabre sight. A handbag dangled from the left shoulder, the arm draped over it.

  “Body's been there for a while,” she quoted, looking sideways at Llewellyn and grinning.

  “Hilarious.” He grimaced. “Such a waste of resources. We don't even have an arrestable offence.”

  “There's no law against dressing up scientific exhibits and leaving them to scare your friends.”

  “In the small hours, there should be.” Llewellyn groaned. “This better not be a thing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Remember last year? The best dressed scarecrow competition?”

  “Ah, yes, I remember. Gave several people frights in the night.”

  Roger shouted to his team. "Bring the boards out." To the approaching officers, he barked, "You’ll need scrubs."

  The DI’s face sobered. “What have you found?”

  “Somebody cleaned the bones. But, they’ve been in the soil. Look...” He held up the figure’s torn blouse, shining his torch into the rib cage. “One of the spinal vertebrae had a crossbow missile attached to it using one millimetre gauge wire, the same used to articulate the skeleton.”

  The detectives finished suiting up and knelt on the metal risers, peering into the cavity.

  “Damage to ribs and spine are consistent with being shot with that bolt. We must treat this as a murder scene. We’ll get everything photographed and back to the lab. I suspect the victim is female.”

  The DI closed her mouth. A pale mist swirled at her feet. She placed her shaking hands deep in her pockets.

  2

  Forever Grave

  A week later, the autopsy was complete. The pathologist agreed to brief Yvonne and Dewi prior to releasing his report, as yet unfinished.

  “You’ve got two of us, today.” Roger Hanson held an arm towards his companion, a man ten years his junior. “This is Wyn Sealander, a forensic anthropologist. Teaches in Dundee. He’s helping us make sense of the remains.”

  Yvonne offered a latex-covered hand.

  Sealander took it, flicking mousey-blonde hair from his eyes.

  The DI estimated him to be six foot tall, handsome and early-to-mid thirties. She smiled. “Pleased to meet you, Mr Sealander. That’s an unusual name, are your family from Germany?”

  “Yes.” He smiled. “My father moved here from Bremen."

  “You live in Dundee?”
/>   “I flit between Dundee and here.” Wyn rubbed his chin with the back of his glove. “I have a bachelor pad in Powys.” His gaze met hers. Its intensity surprised her. She got a good glimpse of those vivid-blue irises, rimmed with dark grey. Long eyelashes lent him a sensitive air. He was striking.

  Their attention returned to the trolley and Yvonne examined the remains, imagining the girl’s face, long and narrow, with a rounded jaw.

  As though reading her thoughts, Wyn touched the skull’s forehead. “I’ll be completing the facial reconstruction to help you identify her.”

  Hanson waved a gloved hand. "She was tall. Five-foot-nine." He cleared his throat. "It's difficult to say exactly when she died. If we get a name, we’ll know the date she was last seen, which will help narrow the timeframe. Her age was between eighteen and twenty-two years and she had never given birth. A shot to the heart is what killed her. The angle of penetration, suggests the missile tore her aorta."

  “She bled to death?” Yvonne asked, her eyes still on the bones.

  “Yes, she most likely died from internal bleeding and resultant cardiac failure. We extracted DNA from the bones and compared it to samples from the red hair. Enough alleles matched to be conclusive. In other words, the hair left on top of the skull was hers.”

  “What about dental records?” Yvonne asked.

  “We’ve searched extensively, but haven’t found a match. Sorry. That’s where Wyn comes in, with his facial reconstruction. We’re following up with spectroscopy on the bone mineral content, to know where she came from. It’s possible she’s a foreign national.”

  Dewi was making notes of his own. “Let me get this straight, the killer buried her and then exhumed the body ages afterwards?”

  "That’s the way it reads.” Hanson pointed to the broken vertebra which had stopped the bolt from exiting the victim's back. "The perp boiled the bones, getting rid of the remaining flesh. But the porous bone, and inside the vertebrae, show traces of dirt and mineral deposits which resisted cleaning."

  Yvonne leaned closer. “So, he kills her, buries her and then goes to the trouble to dig her up, wash her, and put her on display. He connects the bones with wire using a fine drill bit, and helps us by showing how he dispatched her.”

  “That's how it looks. I wonder what a clinical psychologist would make of that?”

  She thought of Tasha. "Fascinating... Do you think the clothes were hers?"

  “We believe so. The perpetrator washed them, but they had rotted in the soil, along with the body.”

  “Wow.” She pursed her lips. “This is a whole different ball game.”

  “Sure is.” Hanson reached behind him, pulling out a roll of metal wire. “Supplied by most DIY shops and ironmongers. I’ve sent samples to specialist labs for testing, to see if we can get a batch number and date.”

  “That’s good work. Thank you, Roger.”

  “No problem, Yvonne. You just have to name the lass and find her murderer.”

  “Sounds easy.” Yvonne’s gaze moved to the window. “It never is.”

  Dewi sprinted down the corridor towards her.

  Yvonne held out a hand. “Hey, what’s the hurry?”

  He paused to catch breath. “Just had West Mercia on the phone. They think they've found the grave, ma’am.”

  “Grave?”

  “That’s right, ma’am. They think it belongs to our mystery woman. It contained scraps of clothing which appear to match the rags we found on her. Samples are with the lab for confirmation. Early microscopy suggests the fibres are the same.”

  “Where is it?”

  "Long Mynd. It’s parkland, owned by the National Trust. A designated area of natural beauty, in the Shropshire Hills. Someone dug up her up and left the hole open for park staff or the public to find. There's a mound of excavated soil next to the opening."

  “Wow. I’m impressed they linked it to our victim so fast.”

  “The power of databases.” He smiled.

  “Are they still working up there?”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “Mm. So, our perp not only displayed the body, he also exposed where he buried her.

  “Yeah.”

  “What killer does that?”

  “Ours, apparently.”

  “Okay. Let’s find out what we’ve got.”

  Wind raced across the moor, stinging her face like a slap. Yvonne repositioned her scarf to better protect her neck, imagining a young woman frightened and alone. Alone, except for her killer.

  The scenery was stark in places. Stretched between Bishop’s Castle, Church Stretton and across the rocky Stiperstones. The land appeared scarred and scraped. Hills and mountains pierced the sky. A ruggedness, which challenged you to conquer it. The killer knew this place well. She shuddered, as the hackles rose on her neck.

  Reading her thoughts, Dewi completed a three-hundred-and-sixty degree turn, as though memorising every crag. “Do you think he killed her here? Brought her for a picnic, intending to take her life?”

  Yvonne pursed her lips. "Down there," she pointed towards Carding Mill valley, a popular tourist site, ”I’d have said no way. Too many people. But up here? Yes."

  They walked the winding track to where police tape circled the burial site. Two SOCO personnel chatted near parked vehicles.

  "They're busy," The DI frowned, as she and her DS continued up the path.

  A guy in a shirt, tie, and a long mac came towards them. “Are you the officers from Dyfed-Powys?” He slowed and placed his hands in his trouser pockets. His eyes were as dark as his mid-length hair.

  She smiled. “We are. I’m Yvonne Giles and this is Dewi Hughes.”

  “Nice to meet you.” He nodded. “DS Will Tozer. I believe we’ve got missing pieces to your puzzle.”

  “You have. Can we see?”

  “Sure. Follow me.” He left the way he had come.

  The DI jogged, to keep up, glad of her sensible shoes.

  Several crows descended, attracted by the activity and smell. Yvonne stared into the neat hole. “Did he leave a marker?”

  “A grave stone, you mean?” DS Tozer scratched his cheek, stooping to sit on his heels.

  “Yes, so he would remember where he buried her.”

  “Not that we found. But, look around you. The views. The Stiperstones. It wouldn’t be hard to find this spot again. He might have taken photographs or made drawings.”

  “I’ll go explore.” Dewi set off towards the parked cars.

  Yvonne approached the hole, resting on her heels next to Tozer. “Was anything else in the grave, besides tattered clothing?”

  “No. Whoever took the body, left just enough material for us to match it to your victim. We’ve confirmed that a body was here, and that it decayed here. We haven’t been able to match DNA. The stuff we isolated was too degraded.”

  “The clothing should be enough confirmation. But, I don’t get it.” Yvonne turned. “I mean, look at this place. This is a forever grave. Somewhere you’d bury someone if you didn’t want them found. Why dig them up and display them at all? You commit the perfect murder, then years later broadcast it to the world.”

  “Seems like we’re dealing with a narcissist. He made her hard to find, and we didn’t find her. So now he’s given us a little help.”

  Yvonne shook her head. “I don’t know… I wonder if he killed her up here?”

  “Unless we find a matching crossbow bolt, we may never know.”

  “Did you find footprints?” She levelled her gaze at him.

  “SOCO made found a few. Can’t guarantee they are from our guy, though. Ramblers come through here on a semi-regular basis. The numbers will increase as we head towards summer. But we’ll give you what we develop and you can compare them to any you found near your deposition site.”

  “That would be helpful.” She rubbed her chin. “What if it wasn’t the killer?”

  “Sorry?”

  “What if someone else wanted to expose the crime?”
>
  “Well, you said yourself, this is a place you could bury someone without anyone ever discovering them. If someone other than the killer exhumed her, they must have known she’d been murdered and who the perpetrator was. Either way, we should be able to trace the murderer.”

  She nodded. “I’d better find my DS.”

  “Okay. If you need me again, I’ll be over at the vehicles.”

  “Thanks.” She gave him a smile, before heading after Dewi.

  The room was silent as Yvonne began the morning briefing.

  "We haven't found dental records to match those of our Jane Doe." Her eyes passed along the rows of plain and uniformed officers, taking in their worried faces and stiff shoulders. "There are other options available and, soon, there'll be a facial reconstruction. That, and the clothes, should stir memories in friends and family. We need maximum public engagement with this enquiry."

  She pointed to the photographs on the board. “Our Jane Doe was underground for three years. We have the grave site. What we don’t know is who the killer is, and why he exhumed her, leaving her on display forty miles from where he buried her. Lots of unknowns, but we are not without leads. West Mercia are doing door-to-door enquires, in Bishop’s Castle and Church Stretton, and scouring their mis per lists.”

  She scrawled salient points on the board. "As soon as we have a face, there'll be a national appeal for information." Following the briefing, she phoned Hanson to make an appointment with his intriguing anthropologist.