Dr. Cooper laughed. “I said I’d try. Hilary’s all over the place. And I mean all over. Including the United States, and Eastern Europe. He’s very well known. He even spent some time with the forensic teams in Bosnia and Kosovo.”

“You were there, too, weren’t you?”

Dr. Cooper gave a little shudder. “Yes. Kosovo.”

“Any idea when the coroner can release the bones for burial?”

“He can release them now as far as I’m concerned. I’d specify burial rather than cremation, though, just in case we need to exhume.”

“I think that’s what they have in mind. And some sort of memorial service. It’s just that I know the Marshalls are anxious for some sense of closure. I’ll give them a ring and say it’s okay to go ahead and make arrangements.”

“Funny thing, that, isn’t it?” said Dr. Cooper. “Closure. As if burying someone’s remains or sending a criminal to jail actually marks the end of the pain.”

“It’s very human, though, don’t you think?” said Michelle, for whom closure had simply refused to come, despite all the trappings. “We need ritual, symbols, ceremonies.”

“I suppose we do. What about this, though?” She pointed to the rib on the lab bench. “It could even end up being evidence in court.”

“Well,” said Michelle, “I don’t suppose the Marshalls will mind if they know Graham’s being buried with a rib missing, will they? Especially if it might help lead us to his killer. I’ll get their permission, anyway.”

“Fine,” said Dr. Cooper. “I’ll talk to the coroner this afternoon and try to track Hilary down in the meantime.”

“Thanks,” said Michelle. She looked again at the bones on the table, laid out in some sort of semblance of a human skeleton, and then glanced back at the single rib on the bench. Strange, she thought. It didn’t matter – they were only old bones – but she couldn’t help but feel this odd and deep sense of significance, and the words “Adam’s rib” came to mind. Stupid, she told herself. Nobody’s going to create a woman out of Graham Marshall’s rib; with a bit of luck, Dr. Hilary Wendell is going to tell us something about the knife that killed him.

A few dark clouds had blown in on a strong wind from the north, and it looked as if rain was about to spoil yet another fine summer’s day when Banks drove out in his own car to the crime scene late that afternoon, listening to Luke Armitage’s “Songs from a Black Room.”

There were only five short songs on the tape, and lyrically they were not sophisticated, about what you’d expect for a fifteen-year-old with a penchant for reading poetry he couldn’t understand. There were no settings of Rimbaud or Baudelaire here, only pure, unadulterated adolescent angst: “Everybody hates me, but I don’t care. / I’m safe in my black room, and the fools are out there.” But at least they were Luke’s own songs. When Banks was fourteen, he had got together with Graham, Paul and Steve to form a rudimentary rock band, and all they had managed were rough cover versions of Beatles and Stones songs. Not one of them had had the urge or the talent to write original material.

Luke’s music was raw and anguished, as if he were reaching, straining to find the right voice, his own voice. He backed himself on electric guitar, occasionally using special effects, such as fuzz and wah-wah, but mostly sticking to the simple chord progressions Banks remembered from his own stumbling attempts at guitar. The remarkable thing was how much Luke’s voice resembled his father’s. He had Neil Byrd’s broad range, though his voice hadn’t deepened enough to handle the lowest notes yet, and he also had his father’s timbre, wistful but bored, and even a little angry, edgy.

Only one song stood out, a quiet ballad with a melody Banks vaguely recognized, perhaps an adaptation of an old folk tune. The last piece on the tape, it was a love song of sorts, or a fifteen-year-old’s version of salvation:

He shut me out but you took me in.

He’s in the dark but you’re a bird on the wing.

I couldn’t hold you but you chose to stay.

Why do you care? Please don’t go away.

Was it about his mother, Robin? Or was it the girl Josie had seen him with in the Swainsdale Centre? Along with Winsome Jackman and Kevin Templeton, Annie was out showing the artist’s impression around the most likely places. Maybe one of them would get lucky.

The SOCOs were still at Hallam Tarn, the road still taped off, and a local TV van, along with a gaggle of reporters, barely kept their distance. As he pulled up by the side of the road, Banks even noticed a couple of middle-aged ladies in walking gear; sightseers, no doubt. Stefan Nowak was in charge, looking suave even in his protective clothing.

“Stefan,” Banks greeted him. “How’s it going?”

“We’re trying to get everything done before the rain comes,” Stefan said. “We’ve found nothing else in the water so far, but the frogmen are still looking.”

Banks looked around. Christ, but it was wild and lonely up there, an open landscape, hardly a tree in sight, with miles of rolling moorland, a mix of yellow gorse, sandy-colored tufts of grass and black patches where fires had raged earlier that summer. The heather wouldn’t bloom for another month or two, but the dark multi-branched stems spread tough and wiry all around, clinging close to the ground. The view was spectacular, even more dramatic under the lowering sky. Over in the west, Banks could see as far as the long flat bulk of the three peaks: Ingleborough, Whernside and Pen-y-ghent.

“Anything interesting?” he asked.

“Maybe,” said Stefan. “We tried to pin down the exact point on the wall where the body had been dropped over, and it matches the spot where these stones stick out here like steps. Makes climbing easy. Good footholds.”

“I see. It would have taken a bit of strength, though, wouldn’t it?”

“Oh, I don’t know. He might have been a big lad for his age, but he was still only a kid, and pretty skinny.”

“Could one person have done it?”

“Certainly. Anyway, we’ve been looking for scuff marks. It’s also possible that the killer scratched himself climbing up.”

“You’ve found blood on the wall?”

“Minute traces. But hold your horses, Alan. We don’t even know if it’s human blood yet.”

Banks watched the SOCOs taking the wall apart stone by stone and packing it in the back of a van. He wondered what Gristhorpe would think of such destruction. Gristhorpe was building a drystone wall at the back of his house as a hobby. It went nowhere and fenced in nothing. Some of these walls had been standing for centuries without any sort of cement holding them together, but they were far more than mere random piles of rocks. Gristhorpe knew all about the techniques and the patience it took to find just the right stone to fit with the others, and here the men were demolishing it. Still, if it could lead them to Luke’s killer, Banks thought, that was worth a drystone wall or two. He knew Gristhorpe would agree.

“Any chance of footprints?”

Stefan shook his head. “If there was any sort of impression in the grass or the dust, you can be sure it’s gone now. Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Do I ever? Tire tracks?”

“Again, too many, and it’s not a good road surface. But we’re looking. We’ve got a botanist coming up from York, too. There may be some unique plant life by the roadside, especially with it being close to a body of water. You never know. If you find someone with a bit of purple-speckled ragwort sticking to the bottom of his shoe, it just might be your man.”

“Wonderful.” Banks walked back to his car.

“Chief Inspector?” It was one of the reporters, a local man Banks recognized.

“What do you want?” he asked. “We’ve just told you lot all we know at the press conference.”