Read Online Dead Man's Footsteps by Peter James - Free Book Online

five hundred of the world’s top, toughest and mostly male detectives in party mode. Always, she gave back as good as she got, and she made eyeballs pop out by dressing her five-feet eleven-inch leggy frame in her usual eccentric, sexy way.
    ‘You asked me about her age last night, Roy,’ the forensic archaeologist said, interrupting his thoughts.
    ‘Yes?’ Instantly, he was fully focused as he stared at the skull.
    Pointing at the jaw, she said, ‘The presence of the wisdom teeth tells us she is over seventeen. There is evidence of some dental work, white fillings – which tend to have been more common during the past two decades, and more expensive. Could be she went to a private dentist, which might narrow it down. And there’s a cap on one maxillary incisor.’ She pointed to a top-left tooth.
    Grace’s nerves began jangling. Sandy had chipped a front left tooth on one of their first dates, biting into a fragment of bone in a steak tartare, and had later had it capped.
    ‘What else?’ he asked.
    ‘I would say from the general condition and colouring that the teeth indicate her age to be consistent with my estimated range yesterday – somewhere between twenty-fiveand forty.’ She looked at Frazer Theobald, who gave her a deadpan nod, as if he was sympathetic to her findings but not necessarily in wholehearted agreement.
    Then she pointed at the arm. ‘The long bone grows in three parts – two epiphyses and the shaft. The process by which they join together is called epiphyseal fusion and it is usually complete by the mid-thirties. This is not quite complete yet.’ She pointed at the collar bone. ‘The same applies with the clavicle – you can see the fusion line on the medial clavicle. It fuses at around thirty. I should be able to give you a more accurate estimate when we get to the PM room.’
    ‘So she was about thirty, you are fairly sure?’ Grace said.
    ‘Yes. And my hunch is not much more than that. Could even be younger.’
    Roy remained silent. Sandy was two years younger than him. She had disappeared on his thirtieth birthday, when she was just twenty-eight. The same hair. A capped tooth.
    ‘Are you OK, Roy?’ Joan Major asked him suddenly.
    At first, lost in thought, he heard her voice only as a distant, disembodied echo.
    ‘Roy? Are you OK?’
    He snapped his focus back to her. ‘Yes, yes. Fine, thanks.’
    ‘You look as if you’ve just seen a ghost.’

15
11 SEPTEMBER 2001
    Ronnie hurried down West Broadway, crossing Murray Street, Park Place, then Barclay Street. The World Trade Center was right in front of him now, on the far side of Vesey Street, the two silver monoliths rising sheer into the sky. The smells from the fire were much stronger and sheets of curled, burning paper were floating in the air, while debris tumbled down and smashed to the ground.
    Through the dense black smoke he could see crimson, as if the tower was bleeding. Then flashes of bright orange. Flames. Jesus , he thought, feeling a terrible dark fear in his gut. This cannot be happening .
    People were staggering out of the entrance, looking dazed, staring upwards, men in sharp shirts and ties without jackets, some on their mobiles. For a second he watched an attractive young brunette in a power suit stumbling along with only one shoe on. She suddenly clamped her hands to her head, looking pained, as if a falling object had just struck her, and he saw a trickle of blood run down her cheek.
    He hesitated. It didn’t look safe to go any further. But he needed that meeting, needed it so desperately badly. Just have to chance it , he thought. Run like hell . He coughed, the smoke pricking his throat, and stepped off the sidewalk. The kerb was higher than he realized and, asthe wheels of his case bumped down, the handle twisted in his hand and his briefcase fell off.
    Shit! Don’t do this to me .
    Then, just as he ducked down and grabbed the handle of his briefcase, he heard the scream of a jet aircraft.
    He