Chapter 45
When Wesley left Gerry’s office, he walked over to Rachel’s desk. She seemed to be concentrating on her computer screen, but the distant look in her eyes told him her mind was on something else. When he came into her peripheral vision, she looked up and gave him a weak smile.
‘I heard you’ve let Jim Baker go.’ There was a hint of reproach in her words.
Wesley sat down on the other side of her desk and steepled his fingers. ‘That’s right. But the boss says we can bring him back if necessary.’
‘Unless he does a runner.’
Rachel’s fears echoed his own, but he didn’t comment. ‘He gave us some new information.’
‘What did he say?’
As Wesley outlined the conversation, he could tell from Rachel’s expression that her initial scepticism was fading.
‘Now that we have a proper name for our man, we can start tracing him. He must be in official records somewhere. I’ll get the team on it,’ she said with fresh enthusiasm.
He strolled back to Gerry’s office, surprised to find the DCI looking cheerful.
‘A report’s just come in from forensics,’ Gerry said as he rose from his seat, stretching and placing his hand in the small of his back.
It was clearly still bothering him. ‘Fingerprints found in Sue Potter’s kitchen match those found on that knife Neil discovered at St Julian’s.
’ He paused. ‘And the matching prints at Sue Potter’s are a lot newer.
That’s the good news. The bad is that they’re not on record.
And they’re not a match for any of our suspects, including Jim Baker. ’
‘But I bet they’re a match for Jon Gadson.’ All the leads they’d followed had come to nothing, and there was no sign of Gadson, the person they really needed to speak to. Wesley’s mother had always told him that the darkest hour came before dawn. He only hoped she was right.
‘There’s one person we haven’t spoken to, and that’s Tina Gadson.’
Trish had been charged with tracing Tina, but so far she had nothing to report.
There was no record of Tina returning to the UK, and tracking her down if she was living abroad, oblivious to the drama unfolding in her native land, might prove tricky.
But Trish was soldiering on. Of course there was always the possibility that the woman was dead, but so far there was no proof of that either.
As Wesley was pondering the problem, his phone rang. It was Neil, and he sounded frantic.
‘Wes. You’ve got to come over. We’ve found human remains.’ From the tone of his voice, Wesley guessed that he hadn’t just stumbled upon another medieval skeleton near the ruined chapel. This was something far more worrying.
Neil was gabbling. ‘They’re wrapped in a bin bag.’
‘Slow down. Where did you find them?’
‘I asked someone to run a metal detector over a clearing near the spring we haven’t examined yet. He got a strong signal, and when we dug down, we came across some black plastic and investigated further. Then a hand fell out and I called you.’
‘A hand?’
‘Almost rotted to the bone, but definitely human.’
Wesley looked round. Gerry was on the phone and everyone in the CID office, including Rachel, looked busy. ‘I’ll be right over.’
But Neil hadn’t finished. ‘It’s a woman.
The signal we got came from some jewellery: a wedding ring and a diamond engagement ring.
Probably worth a bit. And a modern watch.
Gold. I haven’t touched it, of course, but we might be lucky and find an inscription on the back.
We’ve fenced off the site and I’ve sent Helen back to the house. I thought she was going to be sick.’
‘See you in half an hour.’