Gillard let the man pass across the property sheet, and after giving a bogus email address and mobile number returned to the car.

Chapter Five

By the time Gillard got back to the crime scene, Dr David Delahaye was already there. Gillard saw his Tesla parked at the bottom of the lane, and spotted the balding dome of the Home Office forensic consultant as he was talking to a couple of others within the blue tape at the crime scene. Delahaye looked up as Gillard made his way through the increasingly muddy meadow that led to the water’s edge. He was standing with a tall wild-haired man in his sixties with a bushy beard and thick spectacles.

‘May I introduce Dr Clive Hancock, Surrey county archaeologist,’ Delahaye said.

Gillard touched elbows with them both. ‘I remember you, Clive, from the Forest Bridge clay pit killings. I was only a DC then.’

Hancock scratched his head. ‘That was a long time ago.’

‘If I remember rightly, it was 1996,’ Gillard said.

They continued chatting as Delahaye led them towards the bucket of the excavator, about chest high. ‘So what we seem to have is head and upper body here, mostly anyway, and parts of the lower limbs still in the hole over there.’ He pointed back towards the muddy pit by the river. ‘Now there’s been serious damage to the corpse, some of which was clearly caused by the current excavation. We’re missing the entire lower mandible and many upper teeth, plus two fingers on the left hand.’ He turned to Gillard and smiled. ‘I must say it’s absolutely delightful at my age to be able to get a close look at a body in situ without bending down.’

‘I’ll second that,’ said Hancock.

‘So is this a piece of history, or could we be looking at a modern crime?’ Gillard asked.

‘Or perhaps a historic crime,’ Hancock said.

Delahaye began. ‘First impressions are that we are seeing almost complete putrefaction. In these anaerobic conditions the flesh becomes adipocere, a kind of waxy soap-type substance. Not good news, because adipocere doesn’t hold DNA. Generally, we’d be talking about an absolute minimum of three months in exactly the right conditions to get to this stage. The aroma of cheese is quite indicative. However, it’s not all bad news. Modernity is indicated by the presence of an amalgam filling, and the fact he’s dressed in jeans and scraps of a shirt. From the plastic tatters it is possible he may have been buried in a bin bag.’

Hancock took up the story. ‘I agree with that. In any case, we are not talking about some ancient burial site, because the soil here along the water’s edge has already been disturbed as recently as the 1990s because of work by both the Environment Agency and the water company.’