The pink of embarrassment flushed his ears. "Apparently that's post-modern irony." He raised his eyebrows sceptically. "It's not all it seems, though," he said, brightening as he fiddled with one of the books. A section of shelving swung open to reveal a plasma screen TV.

"Thank God for that," Karen said. "I was beginning to wonder. Not much like the old place, is it?"

"I think I've outgrown the boy racer style of living," Phil said.

"Time to settle down?"

He shrugged, not meeting her eyes. "Maybe." He pointed to a chair and dropped into the one opposite. "So how was Lawson?"

"A changed man. And not in a good way. I've been thinking about it, driving back. He was always a tough bastard, but right up until we found out what he'd really been up to, I felt his motives were the right ones, you know? But the stuff he told me today... I don't know. It almost felt as if he was taking his chance to get his own back."

"What do you mean? What did he tell you?"

Karen held a hand up. "I'll get to that in a minute. I just want to let off steam, I suppose. I felt like he said what he did out of malice. Because he knew it would damage the reputation of the force, not because he wants to help us solve what happened to Cat and Adam Grant."

As she spoke, Phil reached for his pack of cigarillos and lit up. He hardly smoked in her company these days, she realized. There were so few places it was permissible. The familiar bittersweet aroma filled Karen's nostrils, strangely comforting after the day she'd had. "Does it matter what his motives are?" he said. "As long as what he's telling us is true?"

"Maybe not. And as it turns out, he did have something very interesting to tell us. Something that sheds a whole new light on what happened the night Cat Grant died. Apparently it wasn't just the cops and the kidnappers who were armed that night. Our pillar of society, Sir Broderick Maclennan Grant, had a gun with him. And he used it."

Phil's mouth hung open, smoke leaking into the air. "Grant had a shooter? You're kidding. How come we're only hearing about this now?"

"Lawson says the cover-up came from on high. Grant was a victim, nobody would be served by charging him. Bad PR, all that shit. But I think that decision completely altered the outcome." Karen pulled a file folder from her bag. She took out the drawing of the crime scene made by the forensic team at the time and spread it out between them. She pointed out where everyone had been standing. "Got that?" she asked.

Phil nodded.

"So what happened?" Karen said.

"The light went out, our guy fired high and wide, then there was another shot from behind Cat. The shot that killed her."

Karen shook her head. "Not according to Lawson. What he's saying now is that Cat and her mother were wrestling with the bag of money. Cat managed to get the bag and started to turn. Then Grant drew his firearm and demanded to see Adam. The light went out, Grant fired. There was a second shot, from beyond Cat. Then PC Armstrong fired wide."

Phil frowned, digesting what she'd said. "OK," he said slowly. "I don't quite see how that changes things."

"The bullet that killed Cat hit her in the back and exited through her chest. Into the sand. They never found the bullet. The wound wasn't consistent with Armstrong's weapon, so, given that Grant's gun was never mentioned, there was only one possible public explanation. The kidnappers killed Cat. Which made it a murder hunt."

"Oh, fuck," Phil groaned. "And of course, that's what totally puts the kybosh on any possibility of getting Adam back. These guys know they're going down for life, no question now that Cat's dead. They've got a bag of money and the kid. No way are they going to put themselves up for another confrontation with Grant. They're going to melt away into the night. And Adam's just a liability now. He's worthless to them, alive or dead."

"Exactly. And we both know which side of the scales the weight comes down on. But there's more. The argument's always been that the nature of the wound plus the fact that Cat was shot in the back pointed inevitably to the kidnappers. But according to Lawson, Grant's gun could have inflicted the fatal wound. He says Cat had started to turn back towards the kidnappers when the light went out." She looked bleakly at Phil. "The chances are Grant killed his own daughter."

"And the cover-up cost him his grandson." Phil took a long drag on his cigarillo. "You going to talk to Brodie Grant about this?"

Karen sighed. "I don't see how I can avoid it."

"Maybe you should let the Macaroon deal with it?"

Karen laughed with genuine delight. "What a joy that would be. But we both know he'd throw himself off a tall building to dodge that bullet. No, I'm going to have to front him up myself. I'm just not sure of the best way to handle it. Maybe I'll wait till I see what the Italians have got for me. See if there's anything to sugar the pill." Before Phil could reply, Karen's phone rang. "Bloody thing," she muttered as she took it out. Then she read the screen and smiled. "Hello, River," she said. "How are you doing?"

"Never better." River's voice crackled and spat in her ear. "Listen, I think you need to get down here."

"What? Have you found something?"

"This is a crap connection, Karen. Better if you just come straight down."

"OK. Twenty minutes." She ended the call. "Get your slippers off, Sherlock. Bugger Brodie Grant. The good doctor has something for us."

Boscolata

Bel had to admit that Grazia knew how to create the perfect ambience for loosening tongues. As the sun slowly sank behind the distant hills and the lights of medieval hill towns scattered their dark slopes like handfuls of glitter, the inhabitants of Boscolata gorged on moist suckling pig accompanied by mounds of slow-roasted potatoes redolent with garlic and rosemary, and bowls of tomato salad pungent with basil and tarragon. Boscolata provided flagons of wine from their own vines, and Maurizio had added bottles of his home-made vin santo to the feast.

The knowledge that this unexpected celebration was in honour of Bel inclined them favourably towards her. She moved among them, chatting easily about all manner of things. But always, the conversation moved back to the puppeteers who had squatted Paolo Totti's villa. Gradually, she was able to conjure up a mental dossier of the people who had lived there. Rado and Sylvia, a Kosovan Serb and a Slovenian who had a gift for making puppets. Matthias, who had set up the company in the first place and now designed and built the sets. His woman, Ursula, responsible for organizing their schedule and greasing the wheels to make it possible. Maria and Peter from Austria, the principal puppeteers, and the three-year-old daughter they were determined to keep out of the formal school system. Dieter, a Swiss who was responsible for lighting and sound. Luka and Max, the second-string puppeteers who put up the posters, did most of the donkey work, and got to run their own show when a special presentation clashed with one of their regular pitches.

And then there were the visitors. Apparently, there had been plenty of those. Gabriel and his father hadn't stood out particularly, except that the father was clearly a friend of Matthias rather than a friend of the house. He kept himself to himself. Always polite but never actually open. Opinions varied as to his name. One thought it was David, another Daniel, a third Darren.

As the evening wore on, Bel began to wonder if there was any substance to her gut reaction to the photograph Renata had shown her. Everything else seemed so very insubstantial. Then, as she helped herself to a glass of vin santo and a handful of cantuccini, a teenage boy sidled up to her.

"You're the one who wants to know about BurEst, right?" he mumbled.

"That's right."

"And that lad, Gabe?"

"What do you know?" Bel said, moving closer to him, letting him feel they were in a conspiracy of two.

"He was there, the night they legged it."

"Gabriel, you mean?"

"That's right. I didn't say anything before, because I was supposed to be at school, only I wasn't, you know?"

Bel patted his arm. "Believe me, I know all about it. I didn't really get on with school either. Much more interesting things to be doing."

"Yeah, well. Anyway, I was in Siena, and I saw Matthias walking up from the station with Gabe. Matthias had been away for a couple of days. I didn't have anything better to do, so I followed them. They walked across town to the car park by the Porta Romana, and they came out in Matthias's van."

"Were they talking? Did they seem to be friendly?"

"They looked pretty fed up. They had their heads down, they weren't saying much. Not unfriendly, as such. Just like they were both pissed off about something."

"Did you see them again? Back here?"

The boy gave a jerky half-shrug. "I never saw them. But when I got back, Matthias's van was there. The others had gone off all the way to Grossetto to do a special performance. That's a good couple of hours' drive, so they'd gone by the time I got back. I just assumed Matthias and Gabe were in the villa." He gave a lairy grin. "Doing who knows what."

Judging by the blood on the floor, Bel thought, it wasn't anything like as much fun as this unimaginative young man was picturing. The real question was whose the blood was. Had BurEst fled because they'd come back to find their leader dead in a pool of his own blood? Or had they scattered because their leader had Gabriel's blood on his hands? "Thanks," she said, turning away and refilling a glass that had somehow become empty. She drifted away from the chattering crowd and walked along the fringe of the vineyard. Her informant had given her plenty to think about. Matthias had been gone for a few days. He came back with Gabriel. The two had been alone in the villa. By the middle of the following morning, the whole troupe had cleared out in a hurry, leaving the same posters once used by the Anarchist Covenant of Scotland and a large bloodstain on the floor.

You didn't have to be much of a detective to figure out that something had gone horribly wrong. But to whom? And maybe more important, why?

East Wemyss

Summer in Scotland, Karen thought bitterly as she scrambled down the path to the Thane's Cave. Still daylight at nine o'clock, a thin drizzle soaking her, and the midges biting like there was no tomorrow. She could see them in a cloud round Phil's head as she followed him down to the beach. She was sure they were worse now than when she was a kid. Bloody global warming. The wee beasties got more vicious and the weather got worse.

As the path levelled out, she could see a couple of River's students huddled under an overhang, enjoying a fly fag. Maybe if she stood upwind, their smoke would see the midges off. Beyond them, River herself was pacing, phone to her ear, head down, long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail that stuck through the back of her baseball cap. What chilled Karen more than the rain was the gleam of the white paper overall River was wearing. The anthropologist turned, caught sight of them, and brought her call to an abrupt end. "Just telling Ewan not to expect me home for a few days," she said ruefully.

"So what have you got?" Karen asked, urgency stripping courtesy to the bone.

"Come on in and I'll show you."

They followed her into the cave, the working lights creating an abstract pattern of darkness and light that took a moment to adjust to. The clearing crew had stopped work and were sitting around eating sandwiches and drinking cans of soft drinks. Karen and Phil were magnets for their interest, and their eyes never left the cops.

River led the way to where the rock fall had blocked the passage leading back into the rock. Almost all of the boulders and small stones had been shifted, leaving a narrow opening. She played a powerful flashlight over the remaining rubble, showing that the actual fall was only about four feet deep. "We were surprised to find how shallow this fall was. We would have expected it to go back twenty feet or more. That made me suspicious right from the word go."

"What do you mean?" Phil asked.

"I'm not a geologist. But as I understand it from my colleagues in earth sciences, it takes a lot of pressure for a natural cave-in to happen. When they were mining underground around here, it produced a lot of stress in the rocks above, so you would get big fractures and falls. It's that scale of geological pressure that causes roof falls in old caves like this. They've been here for eight thousand years. They don't just collapse for no reason at all. But when they do go, it's like pulling the keystone out of a bridge. And you get a big fall." As she spoke, River kept moving the flashlight beam around, showing that the roof was surprisingly sound on either side of the fall. "On the other hand, if you know what you're doing, a small explosive charge will create a controlled fall that affects only a relatively small area." She raised her eyebrows at Karen. "The kind of thing that's done down mines all the time."

"You're saying this fall was created deliberately?" Karen said.

"You'd need an expert to give you a definitive yes or no, but based on what little I do know, I would say it looks that way to me." She swung round and shone the flashlight at a section of the cave wall about five feet above the ground. There was a roughly conical hole in the rock, black streaks staining the red sandstone. "That looks like a shot hole to me," River said.

"Shit," Karen said. "What now?"

"Well, when I saw this, I thought we needed to step very carefully once we'd cleared a path through. So I put on the J-suit and went through by myself. There's maybe three metres of passageway, then it opens out into quite a big chamber. Maybe five metres by four metres." River sighed. "It's going to be a bastard to process."

"And there's a reason to process it?" Phil asked.

"Oh yes. There's a reason." She shone the flashlight at their feet. "You can see the floor's just packed earth. Just inside the chamber, on the left, the earth is loose. It had been tramped down, but I could see it was different in texture from the rest of the floor. I set up some lights and a camera and started moving soil." River's voice had become cool and distant. "I didn't have to go far. About six inches down, I found a skull. I haven't moved it. I wanted you to see it in situ before we do anything further." She waved them back from the fall. "You'll need suits," she said, turning to the students. "Jackie, could you bring me over suits and bootees for DI Pirie and DS Parhatka?"

As they suited up, River ran through their options. It boiled down to either letting the students work on under River's close supervision or bringing in the force's own CSI team. "It's your decision," River said. "All I would say is that we're not only the budget option, we're the recently trained specialist option. I don't know what your level of expertise is in archaeology and anthropology, but I'm betting a small force like Fife is not going to have a team of leading-edge specialists on the payroll."

Karen gave her the look that reduced her DCs to childhood. "We've not had a case like this while I've been serving. Anything out of the usual run of things, we use outside experts all the time. The main issue is making sure the evidence will hold up in court. I know you're a qualified expert witness, but your students are not. I'm going to have to run this past the Macaroon, but I think we should continue with your crew. There have to be two video cameras running at all times, though, and you have to be on site whenever they're working." She fastened her suit, glad that Jackie had given her one big enough to accommodate her generous proportions. CSIs weren't always so considerate. She thought they sometimes did it on purpose, to make her feel uncomfortable in what they regarded as their domain. "Let's have a look at it, then."

River handed them each a flashlight. "I haven't taped off an approach route," she said, strapping on a head lamp. "Just stay as far to the left as you can."

They followed her bobbing light into the darkness. Karen gave a last look over her shoulder, but it was hard to see anything beyond Phil's silhouette. The quality of the air changed as they passed the remains of the rock fall, the saltiness replaced by a faint mustiness tinged with the acid of old bird and bat droppings. A dull glow ahead of them indicated the spotlight on the video camera that was still running.

River stopped as the walls fell back and broadened out into the chamber. Her flashlight augmented the camera light, revealing a small area of the earthen floor where the soil had been scraped back to create a shallow depression. Gleaming dull against the reddish brown earth was the unmistakable outline of a human skull.

"You were right," Phil said softly.

"You have no idea how much that pisses me off," Karen said heavily, taking in all the details. She turned away, gathering her thoughts. "Poor bastard, whoever you are."

Tuesday, 3rd July 2007; Glenrothes

Karen pulled into her parking space at headquarters and turned off the engine. She sat for a long moment, watching the rain reclaim her windscreen. This was not going to be the easiest morning of her career. She had a body, but technically it was the wrong body. She had to stop the Macaroon going off at half-cock and assuming this was one of Catriona Maclennan Grant's kidnappers. And to do that, she would have to admit she'd been working on something he didn't know about. Phil had been right. She shouldn't have indulged her desire for hands-on policing. It was small consolation that she'd made more headway in the case of Mick Prentice than the woolly suits would have done. Getting out of this without a formal reprimand would be a result.

Sighing, she grabbed her files and ran through the driving rain. She pushed the door open, head down, heading straight for the lifts. But Dave Cruickshank's voice made her break stride. "DI Pirie," he called. "There's a lady here to see you."

Karen turned as Jenny Prentice rose hesitantly from a chair in the reception area. She'd obviously made an effort. Her grey hair was neatly braided, and her outfit was clearly the one she kept for best. The dark red wool coat would normally have been insanely warm for July, but not this year. "Mrs. Prentice," Karen said, hoping the sinking of her heart wasn't as obvious on the outside.

"I need to speak to you," Jenny said. "It'll not take long," she added, seeing Karen glance at the wall clock.

"Good. Because I've not got long," Karen said. There was a small interview room off the foyer, and she led the way there. She dumped her folders on a chair in one corner, then sat opposite Jenny across a small table. She wasn't in the mood for coaxing. "I take it you've come to answer the questions I tried to ask you yesterday?"

"No," Jenny said, as mulish as Karen herself could be. "I've come to tell you to call it off."

"Call what off?"

"This so-called missing person hunt for Mick." Her eyes locked defiantly with Karen's. "He's not missing. I know where he is."

It was the last thing Karen had expected to hear. "What do you mean, you know where he is?"

Jenny shrugged. "I don't know how else to put it. I've known for years where he was. And that he wanted nothing more to do with us."

"So why keep it a secret? Why am I only hearing this now? Don't you understand the concept of wasting police time?" Karen knew she was almost shouting, but she didn't care.

"I didn't want to upset Misha. How would you feel if somebody told you your father wanted nothing to do with you? I wanted to spare her."

Karen stared at her uncertainly. Jenny's voice and expression held conviction. But Karen couldn't afford to take her at face value. "What about Luke? Surely you want to do everything you can to save him? Doesn't Misha have the right to ask for his help?"

Jenny looked at her with contempt. "You think I haven't already asked him? I begged him. I sent him photos of wee Luke to try and change his mind. But he just said the boy was nothing to do with him." She looked away. "I think he's got a new family now. We don't matter to him. Men seem to manage that better than women."

"I'm going to need to talk to him," Karen said.

Jenny shook her head. "No way."

"Look, Mrs. Prentice," Karen said through mounting irritation, "a man has been reported missing. You say he's not but I have only your word for that. I need to confirm what you're telling me. I wouldn't be doing my job right if I didn't."

"And what happens then?" Jenny gripped the edge of the table. "What do you say when Misha asks you how the investigation's going? Do you lie to her? Is that part of your job? Do you lie to her and hope she never finds out the truth from some other polis somewhere down the line? Or do you tell the truth and let Mick break her heart all over again?"

"It's not my job to make those judgements. I'm supposed to find out the truth and then it's out of my hands. You need to tell me where Mick is, Mrs. Prentice." Karen knew she was hard to resist when she brought the full force of her personality to bear. But this defiant little woman was giving as good as she got.

"All I'm telling you is that you're wasting your time looking for a missing person that isn't missing. Call it off, Inspector. Just call it off."

Something about Jenny Prentice was striking a bum note. Karen couldn't identify what it was, but until she could, she wasn't giving an inch. She stood up and pointedly stepped away to pick up her folders. "I don't believe you. And anyway, you're too late, Jenny," she said, turning back to face her. "We've found a body."

She'd read about the colour draining from people's faces, but she'd never seen it before. "That can't be right." Jenny's voice was a whisper.

"It's right enough, Jenny. And the place we found it-thanks to you, we know it's a place where Mick used to hang about." Karen opened the door. "We'll be in touch." She waited pointedly while Jenny came to herself and shuffled out the door, a woman utterly reduced by words. For once, Karen had little sympathy. Whatever Jenny Prentice's motives for that little performance, Karen was certain now that a performance was what it had been. Jenny had no more idea of where Mick Prentice was than Karen herself.

All she had to do now was figure out why it was so important to Jenny that the police give up the hunt. Another encounter, another puzzle. They seemed to be walking hand in hand these days. Some weeks, you couldn't buy a straight answer.

"But that's fantastic news, Inspector." It wasn't often that Karen Pirie's reports brought Simon Lees satisfaction, far less delight. But he couldn't hide the fact that he was doubly pleased at what she had to tell him today. Not only had they uncovered a body that would progress a case dormant for over twenty years, but they'd also achieved it on a shoestring budget.

Then a horrible thought occurred to him. "It is an adult skeleton?" he said, apprehension tightening his chest.

"Yes, sir."

Why was she looking so miserable about it? She'd acted on a hunch and it had come good. In her shoes, he'd be like a dog with two tails. Well, actually, that was pretty much how he felt anyway. This was his operation ultimately; its results reflected credit on him as much as on his officers. For once, she'd brought him sunshine instead of shit. "Well done," he said briskly, pushing his chair back. "I think we should go straight over to Rotheswell and break the good news to Sir Broderick." Her pudding face ran through a series of different expressions, ending in what looked very like consternation. "What's wrong? You haven't told him already?"

"No, I haven't," she said slowly. "And that's because I'm really not convinced this has anything to do with Adam Grant's disappearance."

He understood the words, but it made no sense. She'd organized this whole operation on the basis that the cave fall had been discovered after the ransom disaster. She'd implied that one of the kidnappers could be lying underneath the rubble. He would never have authorized it otherwise. But now she seemed to be suggesting this body had nothing to do with the case she was supposed to be investigating. It was Alice-through-the-looking-glass stuff. "I don't understand," he said plaintively. "You told me you thought there might be a boat. Implied there might be a body. And you find a body. But instead of celebrating being right, you're telling

me it's the wrong body."

"I couldn't have put it better myself," she said, daring to smile.

"But why?" He could hear himself almost howling, and he cleared his throat noisily. "Why?" he repeated, an octave lower.

She twisted in her seat and crossed her legs. "It's a bit difficult to explain."

"I don't care. Start somewhere. Preferably the beginning." Lees couldn't stop his hands clenching and unclenching. He wished he still had the stress ball his kids had given him one Christmas, the stress ball he'd thrown away because he was far too much in control to need something like that.

"We had a very unusual case come in the other day," she began. She sounded hesitant, a version of herself he'd never seen before. If this wasn't so infuriating, he'd almost have been able to enjoy that. "A man reported missing by his daughter."

"That's hardly unusual," he snapped.

"It is when the disappearance happened in 1984. At the height of the miners' strike," Karen shot straight back, all hesitancy gone. "I took a wee look at it, and discovered there were a couple of people who had good reason for wanting this guy out of the way. Both of them worked in the mining industry. Both of them knew about shot-firing rock. Neither of them would have been too hard-pressed to get their hands on explosives. And like I tried to explain to you before, sir, everybody round here knows about the caves." She paused momentarily and glared at him. It was a look that bordered on insubordination. "I knew you would never sanction digging out the rock fall on account of one striking miner on the missing list."

"So you lied?" Lees pounced. He wasn't taking this cavalier rebelliousness any longer.

"No, I didn't lie," she said calmly. "I was just a bit creative with the truth. That cave fall really was discovered after Catriona Maclennan Grant died. And the chopper couldn't find the boat the kidnappers escaped in. What I gave you was a reasonable hypothesis. But on the balance of probabilities, I'm saying this is more likely to be the body of Mick Prentice than some unknown kidnapper."

Lees could feel the blood pumping in his head. "Unbelievable."

"Actually, sir, I think you'd have to say we got a result. I mean, it's not like we spent all this money for nothing. At least we've got a body to show for it. OK, it maybe gives us more questions than answers. But you know, sir, we talk about it being our job to speak for the dead, to get justice for people who can't get it for themselves. If you look at it like that, this is an opportunity to serve."

Lees felt something snap inside his head. "An opportunity? What planet are you on? It's a bloody nightmare. You're supposed to be focusing all your resources on finding who killed Catriona Grant and what happened to her son, not farting around on some missing persons case from 1984. What am I supposed to say to Sir Broderick? 'We'll get round to your family once Inspector Pirie can be bothered.' You think you're a law unto yourself," he raged. "You just drive a coach and horses through protocol. You follow your hunches as if they were based on something more than a woman's intuition. You... you..."

"Careful, sir. You're bordering on sexism there," Karen said sweetly, her eyes wide with assumed innocence. "Men have intuition too. Only, you call it logic. Look on the bright side. If it is Mick Prentice, we've already put together a lot of information about what was going on around the time of his disappearance. We've got a head start on that murder inquiry. And it's not like we're ignoring the Grant case. I'm working closely with the Italian police, but these things take time. Of course, if I was to go out to Italy, it might speed things up... ?"

"You're going nowhere. Once this is all over you may not even be-" The phone rang across the end of his threat. He grabbed it. "I thought I said no calls, Emma?... Yes, I know who Dr. Wilde is..." He sighed harshly. "Fine. Send her in." He replaced the phone carefully and glared at Karen. "We will be revisiting this. But Dr. Wilde is here. Let's see what she has to say."

The woman who walked in was not what he'd expected. For a start, she looked like an adolescent still waiting for her growth spurt. Barely five feet tall, she was lean as a whippet. Dark hair pulled back from a face dominated by large grey eyes and a wide mouth accentuated the comparison. She wore construction boots, jeans, and a denim shirt faded almost white in places under a battered waxed waterproof jacket. Lees had never seen anyone who looked less like an academic. She held out a slim hand, saying, "You must be Simon Lees. It's a pleasure to meet you."

He looked at her hand, imagining the places it had been and the things it had touched. Trying not to shudder, he gripped her cool fingers briefly and gestured towards the other visitor's chair. "Thank you for your help," he said, attempting to put his anger at Karen back in its box for now.

"My pleasure," River said, sounding as if she meant it. "It's a great opportunity for me to work a live case with my students. They get a lot of lab experience, but you can't compare that to the real thing. And they've done a terrific job."

"So it seems. Now, am I to assume you are here because you have something to report?" He knew he sounded stiff as one of her cadavers, but it was the only way he could keep himself under control. River exchanged a quick unreadable look with Karen, and he felt his temper rising again. "Or do you need access to more facilities? Is that it?"

"No. We have access to what we need. I just wanted to bring DI Pirie up to speed, and when DS Parhatka told me she was in a meeting with you, I thought I'd grab the chance to meet you. I hope I haven't interrupted anything?" River leaned forward, giving him the full benefit of a smile that reminded him of Julia Roberts'. It was hard to maintain anger in the teeth of a smile like that.

"Not at all," he said, feeling calmer by the second. "It's always good to put a face to the name."

"Even when it's such a stupid name," River said ruefully. "Hippy parents, before you ask. Now, you'll want to know what I've learned so far." She took out her pocket organizer and hit a couple of keys. "We worked late into the night to clear the skeleton and remove it from the shallow grave." She turned to Karen. "I've given Phil a copy of the video." Back to her organizer. "I did a preliminary examination early this morning and I can give you some information. Our skeleton is a male. He's over twenty and less than forty. There is some hair, but it's hard to tell what colour it was originally. It's taken up stain from the soil. He's had some dental work, so once you narrow down the possibilities we can follow up on that. And we'll be able to get DNA."

"When was he buried?" Lees asked.