Author: Simon Beckett
Category: Thriller
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‘All right, Julian, I’m sure Dr Hunter doesn’t need it spelling out,’ Clarke told him irritably.
I didn’t. And now I understood the reason for her bad mood. The difference in shoe size might not be definitive, but bones didn’t lie. A break forms a callus where the two surfaces fuse together. That could remain for years, and if the bone healed in the wrong position the old break would be clearly visible on X-rays. So if this foot was from the remains recovered from the Barrows it could mean only one thing.
This wasn’t Leo Villiers’ body.
‘Did the post-mortem turn up anything?’ I asked, forgetting for the moment my embarrassment over missing it.
‘No smoking gun, if that’s what you mean. Except for the one that blew off the back of his skull, obviously.’ Frears seemed to have recovered his sense of humour. ‘No evidence of foam in the airways or lungs to suggest drowning, but I think we can safely assume he was dead when he hit the water anyway. The entry wound was contact or near as damn it. There’s searing from powder burns on what’s left of the jaw, and the wounds show the pellets were very tightly bunched. None of them remained in the body, and at that range there’d be no difference in spread, so I can’t say if it was birdshot or buckshot.’
‘But the barrel wasn’t actually inside the mouth?’ I asked.
The pathologist’s smile was cool. ‘No, it wasn’t. There’d be less of the skull left intact if it were, as I’m sure you’re aware.’
I was: if the shotgun had been behind the teeth when it was fired, the explosive expansion of hot gases would have virtually blown the cranium apart.
‘Is that relevant?’ Clarke asked.
‘That depends,’ Frears said. ‘I believe Dr Hunter is entertaining doubts about the wound being self-inflicted. A question of reach, isn’t that right, Dr Hunter?’
‘He’d have to reverse the gun and still reach the trigger,’ I explained to Clarke. ‘If the barrel was pressed against the outside of his mouth it would’ve meant he’d have to stretch further than if it was inside.’
‘We’re waiting to get the barrel length from the gunsmith,’ she said impatiently. ‘The missing shotgun’s a bespoke Mowbry, so they’ll have his arm measurements as well.’
‘What about the trajectory?’ I asked. It was even more apparent now how flat that was. The exit wound was in the lower part of the cranium rather than the crown, which suggested the shotgun had been held horizontally in front of the face. Not with its stock propped on the floor and its barrel pointing upward.
‘All that shows is that the gun was extended out in front of him,’ Frears countered. ‘It suggests he was standing rather than kneeling or sitting when the gun was fired.’
‘Or else someone else shot him,’ I said.
Suicide was only a workable theory as long as we thought the body was Leo Villiers, a disgraced and depressed suspect in a murder investigation. If this wasn’t him then we were looking at something else entirely.
‘I said the wound could be self-inflicted, not that it was,’ Frears said, his annoyance showing. ‘It’s inconclusive, as I made clear in my post-mortem report. Which you’d know if you’d been here.’
‘All right, let’s move on,’ Clarke said impatiently. ‘What else have we got?’
‘What about the piece of metal lodged at the back of the mouth?’ I asked Frears. ‘You said there were no pellets left in the body, so what was that?’
‘Ah, yes.’ He glanced at Clarke, who gave a nod. Going to the bench, he picked up an evidence bag and brought it over. ‘Know what it is?’
I’d not been convinced at the time that it was a piece of shot, and now I could see it wasn’t. Inside the bag was a small steel ball, about five millimetres in diameter and slightly deformed on one side. No, not deformed, I saw, holding it up to the light. Something had been broken off it.
‘It’s a stainless-steel tongue stud,’ I said, handing it back. I’d done some work with body piercings before, analysing how steel rings, bars and studs moved in buried bodies as the soft tissue decomposed.
Frears looked disappointed. ‘Technically, a “tongue barbell”. Part of one, at least,’ he added. ‘The rest of it must have been blown out with the pellets. Not the sort of thing one would normally imagine an aspiring politician like Leo Villiers to sport, is it?’
‘For all we know he could have decided to turn punk before he shot himself,’ Clarke said, exasperated. ‘We don’t even know for sure the stud was in the tongue. It could have got wedged in the mouth along with other debris while the body was in the water.’
‘That’s highly unlikely,’ Frears began, but Clarke was having none of it.
‘I don’t care whether it’s unlikely or not, I need to know for certain. And I mean absolutely certain. I’ve got Sir Stephen Villiers already convinced that this is his son and pushing for official confirmation. If I’m going to tell him otherwise I better be bloody right this time.’
‘Is there anything else in his medical records?’ I asked. Lundy had told me they still hadn’t been allowed access the day before, but they’d obviously seen the X-ray of the broken foot. If Sir Stephen Villiers had finally released his son’s records they might contain something else to help with identification.
Clarke blew out an irritated breath. ‘We don’t know. Sir Stephen only agreed to let us look at the X-ray and even that was like getting blood from a stone. We’ll need a court order for the full records, and if this isn’t his son’s body I’m not sure we’d have grounds for one anyway.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ I said. ‘What’s going to be in them that’s more important than helping identify his son?’
‘I’ve no idea, but whatever it is, it isn’t going to help us now. Sir Stephen’s made it clear he’s going to fight tooth and nail to stop them being released.’
‘Then you’ll have to wait for the DNA results.’ Frears shrugged. ‘Sorry, but there’s not much more I can do.’
That was met by silence. I turned back to consider the foot, thinking something through. Clarke must have noticed.
‘Dr Hunter?’
I thought for a moment longer. ‘I’m assuming you’ve taken DNA samples from the foot as well as the body?’
She turned to Frears. The pathologist looked irritated. ‘Of course, but we won’t get any test results back for another few days. I rather think DCI Clarke would like something sooner than that.’
There were new DNA testing systems being developed that claimed to produce a profile from samples in a matter of hours. That would revolutionize the job of identification, but until they became more widely available we’d have to rely on the old, slower method of analysis.
Or something even less high-tech.
‘There’s always the Cinderella test,’ I said.
Clarke just stared at me. Frears frowned. ‘I don’t follow.’
I looked down at the blunt protuberances of the tibia and fibula.
‘Do you have any cling film?’
It took a while for the cling film to materialize. It wasn’t the sort of thing there was normally much use for in a mortuary, even one as modern and well equipped as this. In the end Frears dispatched a young APT – an anatomical pathology technologist whose job was to assist at post-mortems – to find a roll from somewhere.
‘I don’t care if you have steal it from the hospital canteen, just find one and get it back here, will you?’ Frears instructed.
We’d gone into the briefing room while we waited. Soon afterwards Frears had excused himself to attend to some unconnected query, but by then Lundy had arrived. He’d finished overseeing the removal of the barbed wire from the creek, and cups of tea from a vending machine steamed on the table in front of us as he briefed his SIO.
‘The end of it was stuck in a lump of concrete. An old fence-post, by the look of it,’ he told her.
‘Could it have been just dumped there?’ Clarke asked.
‘It could, although it begs the question of who’d take it all that way. There aren�
��t any fences nearby, and there’re a lot more convenient places for fly-tipping.’
‘So you think someone used it to deliberately weigh down the body?’
I’d been wondering about that myself, ever since Lundy’s comment about the remains being surprisingly well trussed to say they’d supposedly drifted onto the wire. The DI absently stroked his moustache with a thumb and forefinger.
‘I don’t think we should rule it out,’ he said at last. ‘Look at where it was. The creek’s partially dammed by a sandbank there, so it never fully drains. And it’s not far from the road. Someone could have taken the body there in a car and carried it from the bridge. Tangle it up in the barbed wire to weigh it down, so even if it was found it’d look like it got caught up by accident. And a place like that, you could reasonably hope it’d stay hidden for years. Pure fluke we found it when we did.’
Fluke and bad luck for Trask’s young daughter. Clarke pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. I could almost see her headache. ‘Dr Hunter, you said it’d probably been in the water for several months?’
‘Going on its condition and what I could see, yes.’
‘So it can’t be Leo Villiers?’
‘I don’t see how it can be,’ I said. Villiers had been missing for six weeks at most, and the advanced state of decay of the remains from the barbed wire told me they’d been in the water much longer than that.
A knock on the door announced the APT’s return. Frears re-joined us as we filed back to the examination room.
‘I take it this isn’t routine procedure?’ Lundy commented, pulling on a pair of surgical gloves. They made his thick fingers look like blue sausages.
‘Not really. It wouldn’t hold up in court, but it should give us a pretty good indication of whether the foot’s from this body or not.’
Lundy stared down at the naked remains. ‘If it’s a match that’s really going to put the cat among the pigeons.’
He was right, but there was nothing I could do about that. The APT, a young Asian woman called Lan, handed me the cling film.
‘I could only get a twelve-metre roll. Will that be enough?’
‘That’ll be plenty,’ I told her.
Forensic science was becoming increasingly sophisticated, with technology steadily overtaking the more hands-on approach I’d been trained in. The old plaster of Paris used to make casts had been replaced by silicon-based alternatives, more efficient and less likely to damage the bone. And scanners were now being developed that would eventually make even that obsolete, allowing a perfect replica of any bone to be created on a 3D printer.
But we didn’t have a scanner or 3D printer, and even if we had, both that and casts required the bones to be properly cleaned. That would take time, and Clarke wanted a quick answer. So I’d make do with less sophisticated resources.
In this case, a roll of cheap cling film and a steady hand.
The APT hovered behind Clarke, Frears and Lundy, clearly curious as to what I was going to do. The group of them watched in silence as I tore off a length of the transparent plastic, carefully smoothing it over the exposed surface of the ankle bone.
‘Somewhat unconventional, I have to say. Hope you didn’t try anything like this on the Jerome Monk inquiry last year.’ Frears looked amused at my surprise. ‘Knew I’d heard your name before. Turned into quite the debacle, as I recall. Hardly your fault, of course, but not the sort of career move you’d want to repeat.’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ I said without looking up. What had happened on Dartmoor was a matter of public record, and I didn’t need reminding. I glanced at Clarke, but the DCI wasn’t paying any attention. She’d have known all about my history before hiring me, and was clearly more concerned with what I was doing now.
‘Are you sure about this?’ she asked sceptically. ‘There won’t be any cross-contamination?’
‘There shouldn’t be,’ I told her, spreading the cling film over the rest of the foot and making sure there were no wrinkles. The transparent plastic would minimize any risk, and DNA samples had already been taken from both the foot and the body. If any more were needed, they could be extracted from deep inside bones well away from the exposed surfaces.
But I didn’t think cross-contamination was going to be an issue anyway. The wrapped foot resembled an off-cut of meat from a butcher’s counter as I set it aside and turned to the body. Stripping off my dirty gloves and replacing them with a fresh pair, I tore another section of cling film off the roll and smoothed it over the ends of the right leg’s tibia and fibula, making sure it fitted smoothly on to the surfaces of the exposed bones.
I stood back and considered my handiwork for a moment, then picked up the cling-film-wrapped foot again.
‘OK, let’s see what we’ve got.’
Without a cushioning layer of cartilage, the ankle joint was never going to fit together as snugly as it had in life. Yet even though the cling film was a poor substitute, the foot and lower leg came together like old friends. I gently rotated the foot, exploring the full range of movement, but there wasn’t really any doubt. Not even twins would have identical joint surfaces. Subtle differences would develop over time, variations caused by wear and tear. Yet there were no ill-fitting bumps of bone here to disrupt the smooth motion. The fit was near perfect.
I set the foot back down. There was silence before Clarke spoke.
‘Shit.’
Everyone there understood the seriousness of what had just happened. If this wasn’t Leo Villiers’ foot, then it couldn’t be his body either. Which potentially meant there were now two unknown male bodies to identify, neither of them his. And Emma Derby’s remains were still out there somewhere, waiting to be found.
‘Well, I think it’s safe to say this undermines the suicide theory somewhat,’ Frears said. The pathologist’s blue eyes twinkled. ‘Still, looking on the bright side, we don’t have far to look for a suspect.’
16
I CAUGHT A taxi back to Willets Point. Lundy told me he could arrange for me to be given a lift but I preferred to make my own way. One thing I hadn’t thought through was having to give the taxi driver directions. He was a young man, and grew increasingly unhappy as civilization gave way to the Gordian knot of waterways that carved their way through the flat marshland.
‘You sure you know where we’re going, mate? There’s nothing out here,’ he said nervously, as the single lane road doubled back on itself before passing over a small, hump-backed bridge.
I hoped I did. I recognized some parts, but this was a different route from the one I’d taken from London, and I’d not been paying much attention when the police officers had driven me earlier. The light was failing now besides, and with the creeks and channels swollen with the returning tide the landscape looked completely different.
In the end I decided it would be easier for me to make my own way for the last half-mile or so and told the driver I’d walk. His mood improved even more after a healthy tip. He gave me a cheery wave as he turned the cab around awkwardly in the cramped lane before disappearing back the way we came. I stood for a moment as the sound of the car’s engine faded, listening to the gentle lapping of the waters in the marsh, then set off along the empty road.
Clarke had asked me to stay at the mortuary after I’d established that the detached foot belonged to the remains from the Barrows.
‘If this isn’t Leo Villiers then I want to know who the hell it is,’ she’d said before she and Lundy left. ‘Age, ancestry, anything to help us narrow down the ID or time-since-death. Can you help with that, Dr Hunter?’
‘I’ll do what I can,’ I told her, and turned to Frears. ‘Did you find any blowfly pupae or casings trapped in the clothes?’
‘No, but if it’s been in water I wouldn’t expect any.’
Neither would I, but that was the point. Blowflies are incredibly persistent. Even in winter, a small amount of sunshine can raise the temperature enough to bring them out. But they can’t lay eggs un
derwater, and although the body had been exposed during low tide, no eggs laid then would have survived the subsequent immersion. So if there had been any sign of blowfly activity, it would have meant the remains had been on the surface for longer than the interval between tides. That would significantly skew the rate of decomposition, and therefore the length of time-since-death.
If there were no blowflies, at least we could rule that out.
While Frears went to carry out the post-mortem on the remains from the barbed wire, I set about the grisly task of my own. I don’t think any of us seriously doubted any more that Villiers had faked his own death. What had started out looking like a suicide had suddenly turned into a murder inquiry, and this time there was a body tying him to it.
Not even his father’s lawyers could argue that away.
I was optimistic that I’d be able to provide Clarke with more information about the unknown man found in Leo Villiers’ clothes. I started by looking at the X-rays taken before the post-mortem. The hammertoes of the foot from the training shoe had suggested this was an older individual, but what I could see of the body’s joints on the X-rays told a different story. They looked in good condition, with virtually no age-related degradation.
I thought about that as I studied the X-ray of the foot. The second toe in particular was badly deformed, and if age wasn’t a factor that meant the cause must be either congenital or occupational. Looking at that second toe, I thought it was probably the latter. But to find out more would involve examining the bones themselves, and there was only one way of doing that.
Denuding a decaying human body of any remaining soft tissue was never pleasant. Wearing a rubber apron and thick rubber gloves, I removed as much of it as I could with a knife and scissors, cutting it away as close to the bone as I could without touching it. It would be stored with the organs and rest of the body for later burial or cremation, once we’d extracted as much information as we could.
What remained on the examination table was a grisly stick-figure, more anatomical caricature than human being. Even then I hadn’t finished. I carefully cut through the cartilage at the joints, gradually disassembling the remains like the carcass of a chicken. The disarticulated body parts went into large pans of weak detergent solution, which I left to simmer overnight in a fume cupboard. Sometimes stripping the skeleton in this way could be a time-consuming business, involving repeated soakings in warm detergent and then a degreasing agent before it was ready to be examined. But that wasn’t necessary when the remains were as decomposed as these had been, especially since their long immersion in the creek had started the process anyway. By morning the bones should be clean enough for me to examine, and hopefully give Clarke more information.