Instant cake and frozen steak You better stop,
look around,
here it comes...

Ok, I don’t really. But I have got to the bottom of the bone in the concrete planter. If you don’t know what I’m talking about read the post beneath this one first. Then come back. Go on, go and do it. I’ll wait.

Right. Now you’re up to speed.

So, it turns out the bone I found in the planter, is indeed a human bone. A fibula. That’s one of the two bones between your knee and ankle, the smaller and weaker of the two (the other’s the tibia). And it’s quite long and straight. No really curvy bits. This is important.

I know this because the police got back in touch. In fact I’m sitting in a cell right now, typing this out on my phone (relax mum, I’m not - they let me use my laptop).

The police were very prompt, which I guess they have to be when someone calls and says they’ve found some human remains. A detective inspector at Shoreditch called to say that the bone was indeed human. They took it to the Homerton to get a doctor to look at it that night, and the doc said it was human. I like to imagine the doctor did this in a slightly embarrassed manner.

Then a professor at Durham university took a look at it. I assume over the internet, unless the prof happened to be in Hoxton having a night out. I like to imagine there was a twinge of embarrassment there too (over the bone rather than a night out in Hoxton … although thinking about it…).

Anyway, after anatomical consideration, said the DI, the medical experts concluded that the bone is around 50-60 years old. So it’s been naked since around the 1950s. And although it’s completely devoid of any material needed to work out who its owner was, or how old he or she was when they died, it’s very likely they were Asian, probably from Pakistan.

At this point I’m thinking, ‘Bloody hell, they’re good - no DNA and they can tell all that already? CSI Hackney kicks Gil Grissom’s ass!’ (Whaddya mean he’s been replaced with Ted Danson?). However, my illusions were soon to be shattered.

Turns out the block of flats I live in, which was bought for £4.12m in 2002 by a very rich man (the whole freaking block!), used to be owned by Queen Mary, university of London, which had merged with Barts in 1995. As part of that merger the building was used to house medical students (you can see where this is going now).

It turns out it was common practice for teaching hospitals to buy bones/skeletons in bulk from Asia to use in lessons. As part of the teaching, students would be allowed to take the bones home to study.

Not only that, but a favourite student practice was, and probably still is, to use bones like this one as planters because they’re long and straight (see, I told you that was important) to grow - as the DI said - “tomatoes and (dare I say it cannabis!)”.

So basically medical students get to take bones home and then use them as a free version of those little green canes you get in gardening centres to grow their sweetpea or sativa. This, no doubt, has been going on for years (doctors feel free to comment below), and why I hope there was at least a smirk of embarrassment when the professionals were asked to identify the bone.

They could tell based on the colouration that one end had been in the soil, and one exposed for the plant to climb (and obviously the fact it was found in what is effectively a window box). So, due to the bone’s condition, where it was found, the agreement of medical opinion, and the building’s prior occupants, the police are pretty sure that no crime has been committed.

They’ve also decided not to dig up the other planters in the building, or the garden, but instead will drop a little note through everyone’s door to let them know what’s happened and what to do if they find any bones (won’t I be the popular neighbour!).

In one way, I’m a little disappointed. I was hoping there was going to be some intriguing murder mystery involved, but on the other hand relieved that nothing grim has happened to anyone and their body parts aren’t spread around the neighbourhood. I’m still fascinated by whose bone this is, how it ended up halfway around the world, and what sort of life they lived (although I can imagine if their body has ended up in bits on a different continent). But I’m not sure I’ll get answers to any of those questions.

One thing I can say is that I know of a good window box if you’ve got anything you need buried…

Today was not a good day to take up gardening. And by gardening I mean putting some plants in the small concrete planter that is an integral part of the building I live in. And by not a good day I mean one during which I find human remains.

To be honest, I’m not sure what was more surprising. Me deciding to plant some flowers after eight years of looking at a neglected little planter every day, or finding the human bone buried at the bottom of it.

But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Today was a day off. An MWB. Working the hours I do (usually until around 1.30am) means that I work a four day (night) week, and one of the benefits of that is a reasonably regular rota. As part of that I get a mid-week break, or MWB as we like to call it at work. The MWB can be be great for getting things done; shopping when other people are at work, seeing exhibitions when fewer people are around, getting a whole cinema to yourself to watch a movie, or just slobbing around in your pants on the sofa.

Having hit the cinema yesterday (The Cabin in the Woods - if you know and love your horror films, go see it, it’s great), I had been planning to go to Tate Modern to see the Damien Hirst exhibition, but after watching the lunchtime news, trying to sort out some things for work, and doing some chores, I thought I’d left it a bit late. Instead, I pulled on a new pair of walking boots I’m breaking in, and decided to try to dodge the rain showers and go for a walk along the Regent’s canal.

After a while I came to Growing Concerns, which is on the Hertford Union canal, a short little stretch of waterway that connects the Regent’s canal with the Lee Navigation. On a spur of the moment decision, I had a little wander around and thought I really should do something to brighten up the dreary little planter in the communal area outside my flat.

Eight years after moving in.

I don’t know why. It just seemed like a good idea at the time (note to self: file things that seem like good ideas at the time alongside Ok, I’ll have one more drink before we go).

So, after buying some geraniums, fuschia, lavender and a few others of which I can’t remember the names (hey, it’s taken me eight years to take an interest, do you really think I’m going to know what they’re called? Anyway, they’re in the photo below) and a bag of compost I decided to head for home. A short trek through Victoria park and the wilds of Hackney (it’s really not wild) and I was home.

A bit of lollygagging later and I go outside to landscape my new garden (out of tiny acorns and all that). First I need to dig out the crispy, autumnal-looking little plant that has resembled a bonsai-version of a rusted holly bush for the past five or six years.

Its leaves remind me of an oak leaf, but they’re much thicker, jaggy, and completely dead. Once it, and the remains of a couple of other plants are out, there’s just a lot of leaves and cigarette butts left. I guess the old neighbours must have smoked out here from time to time and the planter made a useful ashtray.

It’s at this point I realise I own exactly zero gardening tools. No trowel, or little fork thingy. Not even a really big spoon. But, I do have an empty soup can from lunch, which is almost a spade, so with it, and my hands, I start to dig out some of the old soil, which is very dry and crumbly.

I should say at this point that the planter is probably about 18 inches deep. There’s a lot of soil in here, and I’m going to have to ditch some of it to get my nice new compost in. So, I’m happily scooping away, when a long, off-white bone emerges from the loam.

That’s a bit of a strange thing to find, I think, but quickly convince myself that this rather flat, long piece of bone (about, in fact, as long as your arm from the elbow to wrist) is probably just a bit of cow or lamb. I throw it in a bag with the removed soil, and keep going with the task at hand.

To be honest I was a little distracted as fairly soon after that I find a set of keys for the flat next door and the communal hallway we share (I’m wondering if I’d have found treasure had I kept going). This doesn’t surprise me that much. The keys, not the treasure.

I can understand the neighbours leaving a set of keys buried in the flower bed as there were three of them and one was always forgetting his keys and banging on the door at 4am to get in (I say were only in the context of they’ve moved out, rather than they are no more. As far as I’m aware there still are three of them, they just don’t live next door to me at the moment!).

The other thought that crossed my mind was that since the fire in their flat last November, there have been builders in working on refurbishing it over the last couple of weeks. Either scenario could have led to the buried set of keys which weren’t as deep as the bone, but were to the opposite end of the planter.

Anyway, I plough on. Plant my new perennials, annuals and herb. Water liberally, and then take the rubbish down to the bins. Look at all my hard work (while it’s still there).

A couple of hours later and I’m doggedly thinking about that bone. What if it wasn’t an animal bone? But it’s been there for years, nobody has dug that planter up for ages. What if it’s part of a missing person? Who buries a bone on the second floor of a 1930s council block? There are at least three other planters, there could be bones in each of them. This could be just like the Duke of Norfolk’s nephew, Anthony Noel-Kelly, who buried bodies after making casts of them for art. God knows, Hackney has enough artists, and this could be the poor artist’s equivalent. Needless to say, as a fan of the horror genre, I work through these scenarios, and many others in a matter of seconds. Then I watch the rest of the Chelsea v Barcelona game.

But I keep coming back to the bone. Should I call the police? I’m reluctant. It’s silly, it’s just an animal bone, and I’ll be wasting everyone’s time. And I’ve got form on this.

A few years ago, on the 1 November, I was walking past one of Hackney’s many four or five storey council blocks that have large grassy areas surrounding them. Across the grass I spotted a huge crow, or perhaps a small raven, picking at what looked like a ribcage. I swear. It was a ribcage of some description, and small enough to be that of a child, which really sent a chill right through me. I wasn’t about to go over and investigate, but instead went home and called the police. It really did freak me out. They listened, took the details, and I never heard from them again.

I would have called to follow it up, curious if indeed some horror had befallen a poor child, or at least to hear them tell me it was an animal carcass. I would have, but then I realised what day it was. 1 November. The day after Hallowe’en. I’d probably sent a couple of officers off on some ridiculous errand to look at some daft toy skeleton. So needless to say, I was a little reluctant to bring the police right to my own doorstep this time on some whim of my overactive imagination.

And yet … like a tell-tale heart, my conscience wouldn’t stop gnawing on this bone. I decide my embarrassment is less important than what might or might not be something more serious or sinister. I call the police and within about 30 minutes two officers are at my door. I take them down to the bins at the back of my block, explain what happened, and after donning some blue forensic gloves, one of them fishes the bag with the bone out. A quick swirl of his hand through the bag filled with soil and he produces the bone. We all look at it. I sense that I’m probably creating an awful lot of work for a few people right now.

They’re joined by two more officers. We’re now all looking at this bone, wondering what happens next. They decide they’ll take it to the Homerton, get a specialist to look at it, and the doctor will probably tell us it’s an animal bone, they say. Happens all the time with allotments apparently. I apologise for dragging them out, explain I wasn’t sure what to do, but that thought it was probably for the best to let them know. With that I go back to my flat. Oh, well, at least it’s done with. And at this point I’m sure it is just an animal bone, and that’s the last I’ll hear of it.

Except it’s not. I get a call around 1am from an officer who needs to come and take a statement. Turns out the hospital think it is a human bone. So, I’ve now given a statement, explaining what happened. I’m waiting to see if CSI Hackney arrive to dig up my newly planted flowers in the morning, and I’m intrigued as to what happens next. Whose bone is this? Where did it come from? How old is it? And why did I take up gardening?