out and checked the screen, but did not recognize the number.
âThis is All Hallows Crematorium,â a voice said. âSomeone was looking for information about a serÂvice here the other day?â
âThat was my Inspector, Tom Fleming,â Lucy said. âIâm DS Black. Who is this?â
âFrank Norris. Iâm in charge up here. I believe there was some suggestion that weâd not cremated a body.â
âNot quite,â Lucy said. âWeâve found a body in the river which we believed was to have been cremated. Stuart Carlisle.â
âYes. He was definitely done,â the man said. âIâve the paperwork here. Duffy, the undertakers, took the ashes back with them.â
âI know,â Lucy said. âWeâve seen them. But weâve also seen Mr. Carlisleâs corpse.â
âWell, we cremated whoever was brought up to us. We donât open the coffin to check whoâs inside, you know.â
âI understand,â Lucy said. âAnd youâre sure there was a body inside?â
âCertain,â Norris said. âThe ashes . . .â
âCould that not have been from the coffin?â
âWhat about the plates and pins?â Norris countered, a note of triumph in his voice.
âExcuse me?â
âThere were two metal plates and a few surgical pins removed from the remains,â Norris said. âWe cremate the body in stages. The first part removes soft tissue and that. We then crush the bones. Metal in the body can damage the crusher, so we have to remove it first by running a magnetic plate across the remains.â
âMetal in the body?â
âTooth fillings and that normally,â Norris said. âBut replacement joints and such things crop up, too. The Carlisle cremation produced a number of fillings, long surgical pins, and two metal plates.â
âWhere are they now?â
âHere,â Norris said. âWe recycle the metal. Unless the next of kin particularly want it. In this case, as the next of kin didnât even bother coming to the serÂvice, we thought it highly unlikely theyâd want the deceasedâs fillings. Or his surgical implants.â
âCan you bag those for me?â Lucy said. âSomeone will be up for it shortly.â
âWeâll be closing in an hour, so theyâd best be quick.â
Â
Chapter Eleven
I N THE END, the desk sergeant in the Strand Road contacted Belfast and asked a squad car to collect the implants and bring them down the road. A uniform from Derry would drive up and meet them halfway, at the bottom of the Glenshane Pass.
That arranged, Lucy and Fleming drove back through the city to Foyle Street. The old factory, facing the river, had proved to be a focal point for many of the homeless in the area for years. With its collapse, as Toner had said, their groupings had become more dispersed. Despite that, Tom Flemingâs work in the soup kitchens on the weekends meant that he had some ideas of the common hangouts.
Even as they drove down the Foyle Street, a girl in her twenties staggered out onto the roadway in front of them and picked her way across to the opposite pavement. The space between the pavement and the river beyond housed the Foyle Valley Railway Museum.
Though now only one train line ran into Derry, from Belfast via the Antrim Coast, at one stage, four different railway systems had connected the city to the rest of the North as well as neighboring Donegal. The museum, which had been built in the late eighties, was actually the recreation of an old railway station and platform, overlooking the river. A track ran from the museum for three miles, along the site of the original Great Northern Rail line which connected Derry and Strabane, running up the Donegal side of the river, then cutting over the Foyle just North of Strabane, across an island known as Islandmore. Lucy remembered, as a child, her