慞oor Avril. Such a tragedy.?
Bad news travels fast, thinks Judy.
慖抦 so sorry,?she says. 慏o you feel up to answering a few questions??
Hugh ushers them into a small sitting room smelling strongly of furniture polish. 慣he cleaner抯 just been,?he says. 慣hat抯 why everything is so tidy.?
慦ho does your cleaning??asks Judy. Though she thinks she can guess.
慣ina Prentice,?says Hugh. 慡he抯 wonderful.?
慦as it Tina who told you about Avril??
慪es. She rang yesterday. She knew Avril and I were close.?
慔ow long have you known Avril??asks Judy.
慉bout three years,?says Hugh, picking imaginary fluff from the arm of the sofa. 慦hen she started working at the library. We had a lot in common. She抎 just been widowed. I lost my wife, Doris, ten years ago. We were both interested in gardening and local history.?
慪our garden is lovely,?says Tony.
慣hank you,?says Hugh. 慖t抯 a great comfort. I like watch璱ng the birds too.?
Judy gives Tony a look to warn him not to start talking about Uncle Wang Lei.
慦e抮e talking to everyone who knew Avril,?says Judy. 慣rying to get an idea of her state of mind. When did you last see her??
慖 think it must have been on Monday morning,?says Hugh, 慳fter the library. We went for a walk on the beach.?
慉nd how did she seem??
慔er usual self,?says Hugh. 慉vril was always cheerful, always put a brave face on things. Look.?He fetches a framed photograph from the mantelpiece. It shows Hugh and Avril laughing on a pier. Cromer, Judy thinks. Avril is wearing a blue and white striped dress. Hugh is debonair in a panama hat.
慡he thought that dress made her look fat,?says Hugh. 態ut I loved it. She looks bonny.?
He uses the Scottish word unselfconsciously. Emma was right; Hugh was sweet on Avril.
慖sotope analysis,?says Ruth, 慽s a particularly useful tool for archaeologists. Many different materials, such as bone, hair or organic residues, can serve as substrates for isotopic analysis. Teeth are particularly important. Can anyone tell me why??
She looks at the earnest faces of her students. On the screen behind her is a photograph of the Tombland skeleton, still lying in the middle of the Norwich roundabout, measuring rod beside it. She has decided to use this case as a way of teaching stable isotope analysis to the first years. After all, they were there when the body was discovered, that should make the information more relevant. Also, David is always moaning that the course doesn抰 have enough on the latest forensic techniques.
It抯 the bearded student, Joe McMahon, who answers. 態ecause once we get our adult teeth, they抮e there for life.?
慐xactly,?says Ruth. 態ones renew themselves, teeth don抰。 Isotope analysis of teeth gives us a good idea of where a person lived. In this case, our skeleton seems to have had a diet that was high in meat and dairy, which suggests that she was a fairly high-status individual.?
Eileen Gribbon puts up her hand. 慏oes that mean that she was buried in the churchyard and not in a plague pit??
Ruth sighs inwardly. She blames herself for first mentioning the P word but some of her students really seemed obsessed. She answers, patiently. 慣he location of the body, and the way it抯 laid out, does suggest a formal burial. We also found some fibres which could indicate the presence of a linen shroud. Wrapping the body in cloth would also limit the movement of the bones as the cadaver decomposed, which could account for the skeleton抯 well-preserved appearance.?
The deceased. The cadaver. The skeleton. As always, Ruth feels the inadequacy of words for the dead. But at least they know the sex. She clicks onto her next slide.
慦e抳e been able to extract DNA from the bones,?she says. 慤ntil quite recently, DNA extracted from skeletal remains often turned out to be from the parasites that fed on the soft flesh.?She looks at her students to check for signs of squeamishness, but they are all listening intently. 態ut then it was discovered that the petrous portion of the temporal bone,?she points, 慽s the best place to take samples for DNA testing. We did this with our skeleton and, as I suspected from the pelvic bones, she is female. What抯 more, we think that she had dark hair and blue eyes.?