LITMIR.BIZ

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nodded. Well cut, expensive and made for her, that was the way to get good clothes, she thought. Anyway, after a certain age. She knew this splendid tailor for women (you had to have one who understood the female figure, or they got the legs and bottom wrong) and as a bonus there was a little shop nearby where you could buy a thick, rich, violet essence. Rose too, if you preferred rose, which she hardly ever did herself.

      ‘I like it. If you’d told me before, I would have taken you out to show it off.’ He put out his hand to her. There had been times in the not so distant past when their relationship had been troubled. Two hard-working, ambitious people, both pushing careers forward, sometimes left love aside.

      There was a pause. ‘The duck can wait. Won’t spoil,’ said Stella softly.

      Then Phoebe’s voice, deeper and huskier than usual, floated out of the telephone.

      ‘Sir?’ And into the silence, ‘Sir? Phoebe Astley here. You called?’

      Behind they could hear a female voice proclaiming it was a wrong number and not to answer.

      ‘Is she still living with that girl who used to run a dress shop and then took a job in the theatre wardrobe?’ Stella allowed herself this query, although she knew the answer was no.

      ‘Oh, it’s none of our business,’ said Coffin irritably, in an aside.

      ‘Can you hear a cat crying?’ asked Stella.

      ‘No,’ said Coffin briefly. ‘Phoebe? The Chief Commander here.’

      As if I didn’t know, thought Phoebe swiftly. And CC too, not just, ‘Coffin here.’ It’s serious then. But it always was, one way and another, with him.

      The voices in the background on both sides died away.

      ‘I want you to get the forensics team down to the skulls under water. Also a photographer and SOCO.’

      ‘But I thought,’ began Phoebe . . . She could almost hear

      Coffin saying, ‘Don’t think, just do as I say.’ ‘I thought the archaeologists wanted to be first,’ she persevered.

      ‘The forensics first, please, Phoebe. I think there may have been a crime.’

      The conversation was over, as Phoebe recognized.

      ‘No sex,’ she said, turning towards her companion. ‘No sex till morning.’ And possibly not even then. ‘Crime first.’

2

      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

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