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side looking at the skeletons, as a grim-faced SOCO took photographs. ‘I think we’ll find that it is a family.’
    ‘A family, ma’am?’ Webster queried.
    ‘I think so,’ Dr D’Acre replied softly. ‘I will be able to determine that for certain once we examine the DNA results . . . but we have five adults, as you see, two with fully knitted skulls, one male and one female, the remaining three are all female with partially knitted skulls. So, father, mother and their three teenage daughters . . . skulls do not fully knit until about the age of twenty-five years. They were a short family in terms of stature, save one who, as you see, was noticeably taller than her sisters and parents.’
    It was Sunday, 15.37 hours.

TWO
    Monday, 06.05 hours – 15.41 hours
    in which an unpleasant tale unfolds, an identity is confirmed and the gentle reader is introduced to Carmen Pharoah.
    V irginia Farrent lay awake. Her husband snored loudly beside her. Through the window of her bedroom she pondered the dark outline of the tree canopy against the lighter outline of the sky. She heard an owl hoot and then the second hoot from an answering owl. She could only recall the formidable and terrifying Sister Mary, whose bulk towered over her, the black and white of her habit and huge metal crucifix which dangled from around her neck, ‘Your sins, child, will always seek you out’, ‘If you push a rock it will roll back on top of you’, ‘If you dig a hole you will fall into it’ . . . ‘There is no escape, no escape at all.’
    A hole . . . in the ground.
    A hole . . . in the ground.
    The first sliver of dawn appeared in the sky. She glanced at the clock beside her bed: 06.05. She felt a terrible, very terrible dawn was breaking.
    Louise D’Acre stood thoughtfully in the post-mortem laboratory of the York District Hospital and looked carefully at the five skeletons which lay in a row, each on a stainless steel table. Taking her time she studied each skeleton carefully with her practised eye. A metal bench, also like the tables of stainless steel, ran the full length of one of the walls of the laboratory, beneath which were drawers, also of metal, containing surgical instruments, a plentiful supply of starched towels and other items necessary to the conducting of a post-mortem examination. The room was brightly illuminated by a series of filament bulbs set in the ceiling and concealed from direct view by transparent Perspex sheeting so as to soften the glare and to protect living human eyes from epileptic fit-inducing shimmer. The room had no natural source of light. Also attached to the ceiling were microphones on the end of long anglepoise arms, one above each table. The aluminium and the stainless steel in the room gleamed brightly under the filament bulbs; the scent of formaldehyde was heavy and mingled with the odour of strong disinfectant which had been used to clean the industrial grade linoleum which covered the floor. Eric Filey, of short and rotund appearance, and who, unusual for one of his calling, managed to approach his work with good humour and appropriate joyfulness, was also at that moment in a subdued mood as he stood close to the bench. At the opposite side of the laboratory to the stainless steel bench was Carmen Pharoah, who remained motionless with her eyes downcast as if in reverence to the presence of the forensic pathologist, and also in reverence to the five, as yet, nameless victims.
    ‘I think we all feel the same.’ Louise D’Acre spoke quietly. ‘One victim is bad enough, all come here before their time, but five, all found in the same hole in the corner of a wheat field . . . I think that reaches us all.’
    ‘Yes, indeed, ma’am,’ Carmen Pharoah replied, equally quietly.
    ‘I expected Mr Hennessey.’ Dr D’Acre turned to Carmen Pharoah.
    ‘He did in fact intend to observe for the police, ma’am, but asked me to stand in for him instead. He and Sergeant Yellich have inquiries to