Read Dead And Buried (Cooper and Fry) for Free Online

fires have been moving this way prettyfast, as you can see. The prevailing wind is moving to the east.’
    There was no mistaking the path of the fire. A huge tract of charred heather and bracken had been left in its wake as the flames advanced across a wide front. It looked as though an invading army had passed through, leaving nothing but scorched earth behind them.
    ‘Well I can check the pub on my way back,’ said Cooper. ‘I pass fairly close to it.’
    There was a disturbance among the firefighters and rangers further up the hill. Someone called down and waved a hand in an urgent gesture.
    ‘What’s going on now?’ asked Cooper.
    ‘Oh Lord. It looks like they’ve found something else.’
    ‘More archaeological remains?’
    ‘Chief,’ shouted one of the firemen, ‘you might want to take a look at this.’
    Out of curiosity, Cooper followed the watch manager up the hill through the remains of the burnt heather to where the firefighters had gathered. And within minutes he’d forgotten all about the break-in at the Light House.
    A couple of hours later, the scene of the find on Oxlow Moor had been taped off, but only by driving plastic stakes into the burned peat around it. The taping seemed a bit unnecessary in view of the nature of the surroundings, but at least procedure was being followed. E Division’s crime-scene manager Wayne Abbott was present, which indicated the seriousness with which someone had responded to the finds. Cooper had been joined by Carol Villiers, dispatched from West Street on his call.
    ‘What have we got, then?’ he asked.
    Abbott had been crouching in his white scene suit, butstood up and greeted Cooper. The knees of the paper suit were stained with brown from the churned-up peat.
    ‘The main item is a small rucksack,’ he said. ‘Nylon manufacture mostly, so it’s survived being buried. I couldn’t say how long it’s been here, but a few years certainly.’
    ‘You’re saying “buried”. It wasn’t just dropped and lost?’
    ‘No way. It was dug into the peat and covered over. It was only a few inches down, but a layer of peat and then the heather or whatever growing on top of it would have concealed it pretty well. In fact, by the shape of it and the position it was lying in, I’d say it had been deliberately flattened, possibly by somebody jumping up and down on it.’
    ‘They were hoping it wouldn’t be found, then?’
    ‘Not for a long while. In fact they might have been hoping it would rot down eventually, but, like I say, it’s nylon.’
    ‘Non-biodegradable.’
    ‘Yes.’ Abbott lifted off a fragment of charred bracken that had fallen into the hole. ‘If we’re really lucky, we might get a partial footwear impression,’ he said. ‘That looks like a boot print to me, near the shoulder strap there. Out here, the soles of anyone’s boots would be covered in muddy peat, just like ours. You couldn’t stamp on a clean surface like this without leaving a mark.’
    ‘Could the rucksack have been damaged in some way?’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Is there a hole torn in the bottom? Are the shoulder straps intact? I’m thinking that someone might have decided it was too badly damaged to be useful any more, and they couldn’t be bothered taking it home with them, or even carrying it off the moor to dispose of.’
    Abbott narrowed his eyes as he looked into the hole. ‘I understand what you’re getting at. It looks perfectly sound to me, but we won’t know for certain until we get it back and examine it properly.’
    Cooperstraightened up. ‘There’s more than the rucksack, though. It isn’t just some hiker who decided to dump a bit of old kit in the heather.’
    ‘No, certainly not. There are other items coming to light. We have a couple of anoraks – quite expensive garments from the labels, and stains on them that could be blood at first glance. We’ll need to confirm that. There’s a mobile phone. Dead as a dodo, of course. And look at