Not In The Flesh Read Online Free Page A

the body found on Grimble's land had once, between ten and twelve years before when it was still alive, been a man. Whoever had killed him had wrapped his body in some kind of purple cloth before burying him. What he had died of she couldn't tell and warned him with a frown that it was possible she might never be able to tell. It was policy now to have two pathologists conduct the autopsy, and Dr. Mavrikian had also been present. Scanning the report, Wexford saw that he also had little faith in ever finding the cause of death. The only clue to that cause was a crack in one of the dead man's ribs.

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    He had gathered his team together to give them a rundown on the thin facts as he knew them, but he left the demonstration on the much-magnified computer screen to DS Hannah Goldsmith. He was no good with computers and now never would be. The picture that had come up was a plan of the area, comprising Old Grimble's Field, the land and house on the western side of it, the house facing, and the two houses on its southern side. Hannah made the arrow move on to the spot where the body had been found and then, with mysterious skill in Wexford's eyes, to each dwelling in the vicinity and the two cottages on the Kingsmarkham Road.
       “The people who live at Oak Lodge are a married couple called Hunter and next door to them at Marshmead, James Pickford and his wife, Brenda, on the ground floor and in the upper flat, their son Jonathan and his girlfriend, Louise Axall. The older couple, Oliver and Audrey Hunter, have been there since the house was built about forty years ago. They are very old, keep themselves to themselves, and have a resident carer. As you may know, Flagford is locally known as ‘the geriatric ward.' The place opposite, Flagford Hall, belongs to a man called Borodin, like the composer.”
       Blank looks and silence met this disclosure, most of them being aficionados of Coldplay or Mariah Carey. Only DS Vine, the Bellini and Donizetti fan, nodded knowingly. Hannah shifted the cursor to a point across the Kingsmarkham Road, the diamond on her hand no one had seen before blazing as it caught the light. “He's a weekender, lives in London, and in any case, hasn't owned Flagford Hall for more than eight years.” The arrow moved again, flitting from plot to plot. “Two of the cottages are also occupied only at weekends, the other one by an old lady of ninety. With the exception of the house next door to Grimble's.”
       As the arrow moved to the large Victorian villa and the diamond flashed once more, the voice of DC Coleman, deep and resonant, sounded, “You know who lives there, guv? That author—what's he called?”
       “Thank you, Damon,” Wexford said in a tone that implied anything but gratitude. “Oddly enough, I do know. I've read his books—or one of them. Owen Tredown is what he's called. The other members of the household are his wife, Maeve, and a woman called Claudia Ricardo. Tredown's lived there for twenty years at least. Those are the neighbors and all of them need to be visited today. You, Damon, can concentrate your efforts on our records of missing persons.”
       “They go back only eight years,” Burden said.
       Wexford had forgotten. Vaguely he remembered that before they became fully computerized—went on broadband, was that the expression?—they hadn't the space for storing the reams of paper records. It was different now.
       “Well, check eight years back,” he said, his voice sounding lame.
       There was nothing, in fact, to be ashamed of in keeping a list of local disappearances for so short a period. It was standard practice before the National Missing Persons Bureau was established. Though it covered a relatively short space of time, it would be a long list, Wexford knew. People went missing at an alarming rate, nationwide something like five hundred every day, locally one a day—or was it one every hour? And not all of them by any means were sought by the