Page 4 of The Forgotten
“Yes, I called them just before we left for Dunwich. It wasn’t a very long conversation.”
“What did they say?” Gabe asked as he eased off the gas. Traffic was building up as they got closer to London proper.
“Not much, which is exactly how I know they are upset. Normally, they would ask a million questions and savor every detail, but they both got quiet and then said they had to go; they were meeting someone for lunch. Mum said she was happy for me, which, in essence, means that she’s not happy for herself.”
“They are just feeling a bit insecure. They’ve had you all to themselves for thirty years, and now your biological mother is apart of your life, and they can’t help wondering if your feelings toward them might change.”
Quinn threw Gabe a look of pure incredulity. “You seriously think that I will love my parents less because I finally met Sylvia?”
“I don’t think that, but they might. They feel threatened, especially since she’s an unknown quantity. Give them time. They’ll come round.”
“I hope so,” Quinn mumbled as she tried to picture a meeting between her mother and Sylvia Wyatt. The two women were so different. Quinn hadn’t thought of it before, but now that she imagined both her mothers in the same room, an unbidden thought popped into her head:Sylvia is not the type of woman you trust with your husband.
FOUR
Quinn’s heels clicked on the linoleum floor as she walked down the corridor toward the mortuary. The strong smell of disinfectant was still there, but this time it didn’t hit Quinn as hard, possibly because she was prepared for it. A young Asian woman caught up with her, smiling in recognition. Quinn had met her last time, when she worked on the case of Elise de Lesseps. Sarita Dhawan was Dr. Scott’s assistant and a very competent pathologist in her own right.
“Dr. Allenby, nice to see you again. Dr. Scott is expecting you,” Sarita said. “He performed most of the tests himself this time, since these remains are older and more fragile, but he allowed me to assist,” she added, clearly displeased at not being allowed to perform the tests on her own.
“I can’t wait to hear what you two have discovered,” Quinn replied, hoping to mollify Dr. Dhawan’s professional pride.
Dr. Scott rose from his seat behind a computer and came to greet Quinn. “Quinn, lovely to see you. We really must stop meeting over decaying bones and have a cup of coffee one day.”
“I’d love that,” Quinn said, and meant it. She genuinely liked Dr. Scott and would enjoy chatting with him about something other than death. Colin Scott looked trendy as ever with his sandy hair pulled into an artistic bun. Not many men could pull off a man-bun, but Dr. Scott was one of them, his chiseled bone structure accentuated by the lack of hair around his face to distract from its perfect symmetry. His blue eyes sparkled with excitement as he offered Quinn a pair of latex gloves and invited her to walk over to the twin slabs where the skeletons were laid out,illuminated by harsh, fluorescent lights. Sarita Dhawan hung back, waiting to be included, but Dr. Scott took no notice of her. Quinn tried to suppress a smile as she suddenly realized that Sarita Dhawan had a bit of a crush on her boss and was desperate for his attention, which, at this moment, was completely focused on the remains.
“Dr. Dhawan and I have performed a series of tests, including carbon-14 dating, a CT scan, and DNA sequencing. The results of the DNA sequencing take some time, but here’s what I can share with you right now. What we have here are the skeletal remains of a prepubescent boy, aged somewhere between ten and thirteen, who died approximately seven hundred and fifty years ago, which would bring his date of death to somewhere in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century.”
“I thought he’d be younger,” Quinn interjected, surprised that the boy might have been as old as thirteen.
“He was small for his age,” Dr. Scott explained. “And people of that time were generally shorter and slighter due to lack of proper nutrition and less-than-varied diet.”
“Please, go on,” Quinn invited, eager to hear what the doctor had discovered.
“I performed the CT scan before cleaning the bones in the hope that we might find something which is not obvious to the naked eye and might have been washed off during the cleaning, but nothing save a few stray fibers was revealed. If you take a look here,” Dr. Scott said, pointing to a jagged crack in the frontal bone, “you’ll see a crack. This is the cause of death—blunt force trauma, which probably resulted in a subdural hematoma. The child had several broken bones, but they appear to have been old injuries that had healed or were in the process of healing. Eitherour lad was accident-prone, or someone hurt him intentionally and on a regular basis. Given the time period, I’d go with the latter.”
Dr. Scott patted Quinn on the shoulder as she blanched at the thought of the child being regularly beaten. “I’m sorry if this is upsetting,” he said, his look of amusement alerting Quinn to the fact that the remains on the slab were nothing more than a puzzle to him, not what was left of a human being.
“And the fibers?” Quinn asked, eager to move away from the subject of child abuse.
“I believe that the fibers come from a burial shroud. The fabric had been coarse and undyed, consistent with the type of cloth that might be used in a burial. I think that the child was buried naked, which would explain a complete lack of any other fibers or objects.”
“Is that all you can tell me?” Quinn asked, surprised by the lack of information.
Dr. Scott smiled apologetically. “Unfortunately, we were unable to find any hair follicles or bits of nail which might have yielded his DNA. Sarita extracted two teeth, which she ground to a powder and will use for a DNA reconstruction, but that takes months, I’m afraid.”
“I see. And what can you tell me about the second set of remains?” Quinn asked as she moved toward the adjoining slab where the adult skeleton was laid out.
“This skelly belongs to a woman who was in her mid-twenties to early thirties. She was in reasonably good health when she died and had given birth to at least one child, likely more. The cause of death is also blunt force trauma, but she was hit right here,” Dr. Scott said, pointing to the temporal bone.
“Can you tell what they were assaulted with?” Quinn asked.
“I can’t say for certain, but I think it might have been something that had smooth edges. Possibly an axe or a cudgel. As it happens, death might have been accidental, given that blunt force trauma is more common than you imagine. It could have been the result of a fall or being kicked in the head by a mule or some such creature. Given that both were buried face down, I’d say that you’re probably right and they’d been interfered with. I suppose we’ll never know for sure.”
Quinn pulled out the plastic bag and showed Dr. Scott the cross. “I found this beneath the woman’s body. Can you tell anything just by at looking it?”
“Let’s have a look.” Dr. Scott carefully took the piece of metal from the bag and placed it on the mechanical stage of a microscope. “I’m amazed that it hasn’t crumbled into dust, having been in the ground for nearly eight hundred years,” he muttered as he studied the object, adjusting the magnification to get a better look.
“I think it might have gotten caught in the folds of the shroud, but then the fabric would have rotted away after a few years anyway,” Quinn said, realizing it wasn’t a reasonable scientific explanation.
