Dead People by Ewart Hutton Page A

almost as if he had been fitted with a receptor that picked up on my anguish. ‘Glyn . . .’ he announced loudly, striding over to me with his hand out, ‘. . . Glyn Capaldi, it’s been a long time. How are you doing?’ He could have stayed where he was to acknowledge me. By coming across he was making a statement, reminding the others of the height that I had dropped from, unmasking the leper.
    ‘I’m fine, Kevin,’ I said, shaking his hand unenthusiastically.
    ‘It looks painful,’ he commented, drawing everyone’s attention to the fresh dressing on the side of my head that we had all been trying to ignore.
    He left me and worked the field, shaking hands all round, and ended up back beside Jack Galbraith. In the old days, I remembered, he would have looked smug, now it looked like he had been taking lessons in benign authority.
    Jack Galbraith gave us the overview on the two bodies. No identification was as yet possible on the skeletal victim. Following my tentative identification they were now waiting for DNA confirmation that the recent body was Evie Salmon. Apart from the red shoes there were no remains or traces of clothing in either of the graves, so it had to be surmised that they both had been naked when they had been interred. Also, so far, there were no indications as to the cause of death in either case.
    Galbraith held a silence for a moment, reeling in our attention. ‘These people were killed unlawfully. There are a lot of theories that will fit, so let me give you mine, before Kevin sends you to sleep with the forensic evidence.’ We chuckled on cue. He held up two fingers. ‘Two bodies. We are working on the possibility that there are more up there. But, at the moment, there is no pattern, there is no clear and shining path pointing the way ahead. So my hunch is that this is a dumping ground, and that these people were killed at a far remove. Someone tell me what’s wrong with that?’ he asked, looking straight at me.
    I obliged. ‘If the young woman is Evie Salmon, she was local. She also disappeared over two years ago.’
    ‘Correct, Evie is the spoiler. But forget the emotive word “disappeared” and stick with the facts. She left home two years ago. She never disappeared, she has existed somewhere. Statistically that somewhere is probably a city. And that is probably where our man found his other victim.’
    ‘It’s too coincidental, though, sir,’ I protested, ‘to think that Evie met her killer in a city, and he just happens to use her particular back yard as a burial ground.’
    Jack Galbraith beamed. I was unintentionally playing his foil. ‘It’s not coincidence, it’s our connection. Our killer has an association with Dinas. Which is how he and Evie came into conjunction. That’s our starting point. Evie met our man. Now, was this man from Dinas, or visiting Dinas?’ He paused and gave us his goshawk stare. ‘Someone ask me something pertinent?’
    Kevin Fletcher complied. ‘Why the time lag?’
    Jack Galbraith nodded. It was the question he wanted, which made me wonder if they were working a double act. ‘Six to eight years. We may have to rethink this if we find anything more on the hill. But let’s stick with that timeline. It’s a big gap between psychotic urges. So maybe he’d been able to sublimate them on less-extreme outlets. Then Evie comes along. Still no outburst. They manage nearly two years together. Then something flips. He regresses. But what’s worrying is that there is now a new element of showmanship. As far as we can tell the first body’s burial was meant to be permanent. Evie was there to be dug up and put on display. He even left her shoes on for us.’
    ‘Is he changing, sir?’ one of the DCs asked.
    He shook his head. ‘I don’t know, I can’t answer that yet. But, people, if he has rediscovered the taste, we had better get to him before he starts indulging again.’
    An audible emotional whir ran through the room.
    ‘Should we be