Death on the Pont Noir - By Adrian Magson Page 0,31
the cab,’ he said. ‘Apart from this.’ He opened his hand to reveal a thin circular metal disc. Although burnt black, it had clearly withstood the worst of the heat and showed a portrait on one side, and a date.
‘It’s an English penny.’ Rocco took it from him and turned it over. Sure enough, the figure of Britannia showed on one side, with the royal profile just visible on the opposite face.
‘War relic?’ suggested Desmoulins. It wasn’t uncommon to find English coins in the fields around here, lost during both wars as soldiers passed through on their way to and from the front … or back towards Dunkirk in May and June 1940.
‘Not unless the war happened within the last two years and nobody told us,’ replied Rocco. He held it up for them to see.
The coin was dated 1961.
Ten minutes later, Rizzotti stood up from where he had been examining the rear of the truck. ‘Lucas.’ He looked shocked, and was pointing at the ground between the truck’s rear wheels.
Rocco joined him. All he could see was more ash, some remnants of oil, and a few remnants of unburnt wood beneath the scorched heavy metal of the truck’s axle assembly.
Then Rizzotti used a stick to move the ash, gently flicking it to one side. It revealed a grey-white object, stick-like but clearly not wooden.
Rocco felt his gut tighten. He’d seen this kind of thing before. ‘Is that what I think it is?’
Rizzotti nodded. ‘A thigh bone. At a guess, male, not young, and quite long.’ He poked around a little more and uncovered more bones and, to one side, a fragment of cloth which had somehow escaped the worst of the flames. Attached to it was a single metal coat button. ‘The fire in the truck bed must have been fierce,’ Rizzotti continued. ‘They were probably carrying a fuel can or some liquid which acted as an accelerant.’
‘Or lots of dry wood.’ Rocco stepped round the ruined truck to where a tangle of branches lay in a heap, the sides scorched and blackened, but not burnt through. He squatted and looked closer at the ground beneath the truck. ‘Would the truck bed produce this much ash?’ From what he could recall, Renault trucks weren’t that big, built more for utilitarian use, not style or comfort.
‘Possibly not.’ Rizzotti had walked back to the car to get his camera, and was setting it up to take pictures. He studied the branches, then looked around at the sides of the quarry walls. The quarry had long been abandoned, allowing a thick spread of bushes and trees to proliferate. Some older trunks showed evidence of having been cut some time ago, no doubt for fence posts, while others had fallen down from the quarry rim of their own accord, no doubt due to wind damage, and lay rotting on the quarry floor. ‘I see what you mean,’ he concluded. ‘This is brushwood and dry tinder.’ He pointed at the branches Rocco had noticed. ‘It looks like they piled them under and on top of the bed of the truck – perhaps covering this poor unfortunate – then set fire to it. It would have acted like a Viking funeral pyre.’ He grimaced and began clicking away with the camera. Then he paused and looked at Rocco, who hadn’t answered. ‘You okay?’
But Rocco was barely listening. He was staring at the button retrieved from the ashes and reflecting on how often these investigations hinged on chance discoveries. If he hadn’t gone to see Father Maurice, he wouldn’t have known anything more about the button he’d found on the side of the road, or that it had come from a tramp’s jacket. Yet now its twin was staring up at him.
A child’s birthday coat button, clearly embossed with the number 5.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘We need to find the DS,’ said Rocco. He was more convinced than ever that he was now leading a murder hunt. It might have been an accident to begin with, whatever had happened out on that stretch of road. Pantoufle might have wandered into the path of the truck, befuddled perhaps by cold or drink or hunger. But covering up the death and burning the body changed everything.
They were back in the office, putting their thoughts together. Rizzotti was compiling detailed notes on the burnt truck and the body, prior to requesting some scientific confirmation, while Rocco and Desmoulins went over the facts they had amassed so far.