RIDDLE OF BODY IN LAKELAND BOG
The body of a man found in a peat bog in the Lake District may be hundreds of years old, police said yesterday.
At first, it was thought the remains might have lain undiscovered for thousands of years, like Stone Age corpses recovered from similar sites.
But initial forensic examination indicates that the body is far more recent. Detective Chief Inspector Ewan Rigston said, ‘We believe the body has been in the ground for a very long time, perhaps hundreds of years. But we don’t think it’s anything like as old as some of the remains unearthed in other places.
‘We will know more after the forensic specialists have done their work.’
When asked how the man had died, DCI Rigston said it was too early to tell.
The body was discovered by a local shepherd searching for a lost sheep. Police believe the heavy summer rain had eroded banking within the ancient peat deposits at Carts Moss near the village of Fellhead.
Paul Lister, 37, of Coniston Cottages, Fellhead, spoke last night of his gruesome discovery. ‘I was following my dog over Carts Moss, looking for a stray lamb. I slipped on the wet grass and fell down into one of the channels between the peat hags.
‘My hand slipped on something and I looked down. At first, I couldn’t figure out what I was looking at. I thought it was a cow hide or something. Then I realised it had a human face.
‘I couldn’t believe it. It was like something out of a horror movie.’
While he was waiting for the police to arrive, Mr Lister had the chance to look more closely at his grim find. ‘He had black hair, and it looked like he had black tattoos on his arms and his body. But I don’t know if that was just the effect of being in the peat for so long.’
Forensic anthropologist Dr River Wilde from the University of Northern England has been called in to work with local scientific experts in a bid to unlock the mystery of the body in the bog. DCI Rigston said, ‘Until Dr Wilde has completed her investigations, there is nothing more we can say.’
Jane almost choked on her sandwich. ‘Look at that, Harry,’ she said when she had recovered herself. She pointed to the penultimate paragraph.
Before Harry could respond, a hand landed on each of their shoulders. A shaved head insinuated itself between theirs. ‘What’s so fascinating?’ a familiar voice asked.
Jane swivelled round to kiss Dan Seabourne’s smooth cheek. ‘Dan! What a lovely surprise. Harry didn’t say you were coming.’
‘Harry didn’t know,’ Harry said, a trace of acid in his tone.
‘My three o’clock cancelled on me, so I thought I’d sneak away and pick you up,’ Dan said, ruffling his lover’s hair.
‘Checking up on Harry and the new Italian chef, more like,’ Jane teased. ‘I knew we’d never get rid of you once you’d seen Giaco in his chef’s whites.’
Dan pretended to clutch his heart in shock. ‘So insightful,’ he sighed. Then he reached round her and grabbed a stool. ‘Jane, I haven’t seen you in a week. Are you hiding from me?’
Jane groaned. ‘It’s the book. I’m supposed to have it finished by the end of the year and right now I think the only way I’m going to manage it is if Mephistopheles walks through the door with an offer I can’t refuse. When I signed the contract, I thought it would be a piece of piss to turn my thesis into a book.’ She snorted derisively. ‘How wrong can one woman be?’
‘Maybe you should get out of town for a while, get your head down and get it finished,’ Dan said. ‘I could cover your teaching for you.’
Jane grinned. She and Dan were both sailors in the same boat; post-doctoral researchers, scrabbling for any teaching that might lead to the elusive grail of a permanent lecturing job, desperate to make an impression on their professor and to make ends meet. They should have been rivals, but a friendship dating back to undergraduate days forestalled that. ‘And pick up my wages too? Nice try, Dan,’ she teased, digging him in the ribs with her elbow. ‘You have no scruples, you know that? You should be getting off your arse and writing a book of your own.’
Dan spread his hands, feigning innocence. ‘Hey, I’m just trying to help here. You could benefit from less distraction, right?’
Harry pulled the paper towards him. ‘From the looks of this, Fellhead’s got distractions of its own.’ He pointed to the article, passing it over to Dan. ‘Death stalks the fells.’
Harry and Jane carried on eating while Dan read the piece. ‘Well, at least you wouldn’t have to worry about a mad axeman on the loose,’ he said. ‘If this is a murder victim, his killer will have been in the ground almost as long.’
‘Never mind murder,’ Jane said, pointing to the penultimate paragraph. ‘I’m more interested in his tattoos.’
‘His tattoos?’ Dan asked.
‘Black tattoos. What does that say to you?’
Dan shrugged. ‘Apart from David Beckham, nothing at all.’
‘Eighteenth century, sailors, South Sea islands. Lots of them got native tattoos when they went there. Like Fletcher Christian.’
Dan grinned. ‘Your favourite rural legend.’
‘What are you two on about?’ Harry asked.
‘What do you know about the mutiny on the Bounty?’ Jane said.
Harry shrugged. ‘Mel Gibson. Very cute in those tight trousers.’
Jane groaned. ‘Good to see you were paying attention.’
‘Hey, I’m only joking. I’m not just a bimbo, Jane,’ Harry protested. ‘I remember the bit where Mel stages the mutiny and casts the evil Captain Bligh adrift in an open boat then sets sail for Tahiti.’
‘Very good, Harry. Except it wasn’t actually Mel Gibson, it was Fletcher Christian who led the mutiny. And what I’m interested in isn’t the mutiny as such, it’s the aftermath. After Bligh made his epic voyage to safety and finally got back to London, the navy was alerted to look out for the mutineers and to bring them back to London for court martial. Years later, a group of them were found on Tahiti and shipped back. But the fate of Fletcher and the other hard-core mutineers remained a mystery for a long time. They actually ended up on Pitcairn Island with some of the native women and men and settled down there.’
Harry nodded. ‘Pitcairn…They had that child sex scandal a couple of years ago, didn’t they?’
‘Right. Featuring direct descendants of some of the mutineers. But that wasn’t the first trouble in Paradise,’ Jane said. ‘Basically, there weren’t enough women to go round. The official version is that the mutineers had a falling-out with the natives and there was a massacre. Supposedly Fletcher Christian was the first white man killed. End of story.’
‘But…? I mean, there has to be a but, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t be getting excited about some dead body with a bunch of black tatts,’ Harry said.
‘This is Jane’s fantasy bit,’ Dan chipped in.
Jane looked faintly uncomfortable. ‘There’s always been a rumour in the Lake District that Fletcher Christian didn’t die on Pitcairn. That the massacre was just a cover-up. Somehow he managed to flee the island and make his way back to England, where he lived out the rest of his days hidden from justice by his family and friends. It was a pretty risky enterprise for everyone concerned. If Fletcher had been betrayed or discovered, he would definitely have been hanged for leading the mutiny. And so would anyone who had knowingly had contact with him without handing him over to the authorities.’
Harry’s expression