The Skeleton Road by Val McDermid Read Free Book Online Page A

But never way off centre like this.’
    Karen nodded, stuffing popcorn in her mouth. ‘Mmm. Thought as much.’
    ‘Plus there’s no sign of a bullet. But that doesn’t necessarily mean someone removed it. There are signs of rodent and bird activity on the bones and around the body.’
    ‘So a squirrel or a magpie could have carried off a bullet and dropped it elsewhere?’
    ‘Easily. As far as ID is concerned, I’d say he was somewhere between forty and fifty when he was killed. His dental work is interesting. There’s a couple of crowns, pretty expensive gold and porcelain work, probably done in the two or three years before he died. And probably in this country. But there’s other stuff, older stuff. I’ve seen work like that in bodies from the west end of the old Eastern bloc. Ukraine, Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, that neck of the woods.’
    ‘So you think he’d come from there but he was living here?’
    ‘Looks that way. Unless he was some sort of deep undercover agent. That’s not the sort of place you’d choose to have your teeth fixed if you had a choice. Not back then.’
    ‘Back when?’
    River considered, swirling the wine in her glass. ‘I’d say he’s been dead between five and ten years. It’s hard to be precise, there’s too many variables. His clothing has decomposed, which means natural fabrics. We did find a few fibres under his body. I’d say he was probably wearing cotton underwear, cotton chinos rather than jeans – no rivets – and a shirt that was a mix of cotton and linen. Woollen socks and what looks like some kind of grippy climbing shoe. Most of the material has rotted or been scavenged by rodents or birds for nesting, but the rubber trim and soles are pretty much intact. There are a few bits of wool still between the sole and the bones of the foot.’
    ‘The shoes make sense. We’ve got a witness who says there are mad bastards who free-climb the outside of buildings like the John Drummond. That offers an explanation of how he got up there without having to come through the building and reach the skylight without a ladder. Because there’s no sign of a ladder anywhere.’
    River took another handful of popcorn. ‘People never cease to amaze me. Why would you want to climb up a building when there’s a perfectly good staircase inside? I get the point of going up a mountain. The challenge, the relationship to nature. The views, for God’s sake. But buildings? That’s just weird.’
    ‘Aye, well, I don’t care how weird it is if it gives me a way in to this case. Because what you’re telling me’s painfully short on detail. No clothes colours, no style, nothing we can compare with descriptions of what a misper might have been wearing…’ Karen sighed.
    ‘Sorry. I can’t even tell you what colour his socks were. But I’m sure there’ll be other things about him that’ll stand more chance of matching one of your missing persons.’ River pulled out her mobile and summoned a gallery of photographs. ‘Look.’ Karen hitched her chair round till she could share the screen. ‘This must have been in his back pocket.’ The phone showed a dark red card with a magnetic strip, the size of a credit card. ‘Do you recognise it?’
    ‘Should I?’
    ‘I don’t know. It looks like a hotel-room key to me, but there’s no printing on it to suggest where it came from.’
    Karen shook her head. ‘There’s hundreds of hotels and guest houses in the city. Maybe forensics can get some detail off the magnetic strip. But before I let them loose on it, I’ll see if the fingerprint bureau can get anything off it. Was that the only ID on him?’
    ‘That’s it. From where it was positioned, I’d guess it was in a back pocket. Whoever killed him probably took his wallet and anything else he was carrying that might identify him. I’m guessing once they had that, they stopped searching.’
    ‘You have to have a pretty strong stomach to search a corpse. I’ll just have to hope