“So you’re saying he’s how old?”

“In my business it doesn’t pay to go out on a limb, but I’ll say between twelve and fifteen. Allow a couple of years either way as a fair margin of error. The databases we get these figures from aren’t always complete, and sometimes they’re out of date.”

“Anything else?”

“The teeth. Of course, you’ll have to bring in the odontologist to examine the roots and check the levels of fluoride, if there is any—it wasn’t introduced in toothpaste here until 1959—but I can tell you three things right now. First off, there are no deciduous teeth left—that’s baby teeth—and the second molar has erupted. That means he’s aged around twelve, again give or take a couple of years, and I’d hazard a guess, given the other evidence, that he’s older rather than younger.”

“And the third thing?”

“A bit less scientific, I’m afraid, but judging by the general state of his teeth and the look of all these metal fillings in the posterior teeth, I’d guess vintage-school dentist.”

“How long ago was he buried there?”

“Impossible to say. There’s no remaining soft tissue or ligaments, the bones are discolored, and there’s some flaking, so I’d say more than a decade or two, but beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess until I’ve done more rigorous tests.”

“Any sign of cause of death?”

“Not yet. I need to get the bones cleaned up. Sometimes you can’t see knife marks, for example, because of the encrusted dirt.”

“What about that hole in the skull?”

Dr. Cooper ran her finger around the jagged hole. “Must have occurred during excavation. It’s definitely postmortem.”

“How can you tell?”

“If it had happened before death, there’d be signs of healing. This is a clean break.”

“But what if it was the cause of death?”

Dr. Cooper sighed as if she were talking to a dense undergraduate. Michelle noticed David Roberts grin, and he blushed when he saw her watching him. “If that were the case,” the doctor went on, “you’d expect a very different shape. Fresh bones break in a different way from old bones. And look at that.” She pointed to the hole. “What do you see?”

Michelle peered closely. “The edges,” she said. “They’re not the same color as the surrounding bone.”

“Very good. That means it’s a recent break. If it had happened around the time of death, you’d expect the edges to have stained the same color as the rest of the skull, wouldn’t you?”

“I suppose so,” said Michelle. “Simple, isn’t it?”

“If you know what you’re looking for. There’s a fractured humerus, too, right arm, but that’s healed, so I’d say it happened while he was alive. And do you see this?” She pointed to the left arm. “It’s slightly longer than his right arm, which may indicate left-handedness. Of course, it could be due to the fracture, but I doubt it. There are differences in the scapulae that also support my hypothesis.”

Michelle made some notes, then turned back to Dr. Cooper. “We know he was most likely buried where he was found,” she said, “because the remains were about three or four feet underground, but is there any way of knowing whether he died there or was moved there later?”