Page 54 of Stolen Ones

‘On it,’ she said, returning to the screen.

Bryant glanced her way, and she nodded towards the door. They had a lot to do and not much time to do it.

Thirty-One

There was something instantly sobering about seeing the bones of a child laid out on a gurney.

Both she and Bryant took a moment to process the sight. They had visited this morgue hundreds of times over the years. They had witnessed bodies in every state of decomposition. They had observed tortured bodies and self-inflicted injuries. Most times they’d formed a vague storyline in their heads of the person’s family, their life, their likes and dislikes from just the tiniest of clues.

Here, there was nothing, which made the situation all the more poignant because there was no meat on the bones – literally.

In some ways, Kim wished the skeleton hadn’t been arranged quite so accurately. It showed just how small and defenceless this child had been.

‘Bryant,’ Kim said, regaining the attention of her colleague, who hadn’t yet looked away from the table.

‘We have the majority of the bones,’ Doctor A offered sombrely. ‘My team is still shifting for more tiny bones.’

Kim guessed the woman meant sifting but made no move to correct her.

‘Any development on gender?’ Kim asked.

Doctor A sighed heavily. ‘There are a number of macroscopic methods for determining the sex of infant and juvenile skeletal remains which have been developed, but current standards generally recommend that we don’t attempt them because the methods have a low level of reliability. Differences between male and female skeletons arrive from the interplay between genetics, hormonal variations, culture and environment. For individuals who have completed skeletal maturity, sex determination is considered to be reliable; however, skeletons can’t always be placed into two neat categories. The traits relevant for sex determination exist on a spectrum from very feminine to intermediate to very masculine.

‘Five categories are used in anthropological analysis: female, probable female, intermediate, probable male and male.’

‘Can we not tell from the skull?’ Kim asked, looking down at the tiny head.

Doctor A shook her head. ‘The bones are not yet fully formed; boys typically show a more prominent chin, an anteriorly wider dental arcade, a narrower and deeper sciatic notch than girls. The assessment of these traits is accurate in approximately seventy per cent of cases.

‘The most effective sex indicators do not begin to develop until adolescence, and some are not fully expressed until adulthood. Sex estimation in children remains problematic.’

Keats stepped forward. ‘There is DNA analysis which requires good DNA survival and is very time-consuming.’

‘What about peptide analysis?’ Bryant asked.

‘Who?’ Kim asked as all eyes in the room turned towards him.

‘I am impressed, Bryan,’ Doctor A said. Even Keats was smiling.

‘What? I like to keep up to date on stuff,’ he offered with a shrug.

‘I shall put our young victim back to bed while Doctor A explains,’ Keats said, covering over the bones.

Bryant opened the door for Keats to wheel the trolley back to storage before they both focused on her response.

‘Peptide analysis is a minimally destructive surface acid etching of tooth enamel and subsequent identification of sex chromosome. Tooth enamel is the hardest tissue in the human body and survives burial exceptionally well, even when the rest of the skeleton or DNA in the organic fraction has decayed.’

‘Sounds expensive,’ Kim noted.

‘Sounds like there’s a big but coming,’ Bryant observed.

‘It is prohibitively expensive and not yet in widespread use.’

Would Woody be prepared to commit thousands of pounds of their budget for one single state-of-the-art forensic test? She suspected not.

‘Okay, given what you do know at this stage, what would be your classification of the five you listed?’ Kim asked.

‘I would state probable female aged between seven and thirteen,’ she said as Keats re-entered the room.