'Other conditions factor in. The age of the body, how active the person was prior to death. If they were very active then rigor mortis can set in quicker. We don't know what this woman was doing prior to her murder but at that time of night we can assume she hadn't been jogging on the heath. So we look at other indicators.' She pointed to the photos mounted on the display panels.
'The heart, as you all know, is a muscle that pumps blood around the body. Once that pump stops working, at the time of death, blood collects in the most dependent parts of the body. That is livor mortis. Then the body stiffens, which is rigor mortis, and then with no heat being generated post mortem, the body begins to cool and this is the algor mortis stage.'
She pointed at the blue staining on the body of the dead woman. 'Blood will collect in those parts of the body that are in contact with the ground. Most commonly the back and the buttocks when the person is lying face up. The skin is pale because all the blood that keeps it pink drains into the larger veins. It can take minutes or hours after death, but livor mortis will manifest itself on the skin.'
She pointed to a close-up photograph of the discoloration on the woman's face. 'These purplish blemishes are what embalmers call post-mortem stain. It takes a few hours but after that the blood becomes what we call fixed. That is, it won't move to other parts of the body if the corpse is moved. So we can use that to also determine where the murder took place. And, in this instance, together with the other factors such as the arterial spray in the immediate area, we can say pretty definitely that the woman was killed in the place where she was discovered.'
Kate walked back to the desk and took another sip of water. She was aware that Delaney was watching her but determined to keep professional.
'There is a condition, at the time of death, known as primary flaccidity.'
'Bob Wilkinson knows all about that,' a female officer called out from the back of the room, and laughter erupted. Kate smiled, the grim photos on the wall behind were testament to the seriousness of the situation but the laughter didn't mean anyone in the room wasn't focused on the dead woman, and finding justice for her. Black humour was just a coping mechanism, after all.
She held up a hand. 'All right, settle down. Constable Wilkinson is already no doubt well aware that there are medications available on prescription for his particular ailment, so there is no need for embarrassment nowadays.'
Bob Wilkinson scowled, taking the ribbing in good heart.
Kate waited for the laughter to subside and then continued. 'A dead body will usually stay in full rigor mortis for anything between twenty-four and forty-eight hours. After that the muscles start to relax again and secondary laxity,' she smiled apologetically at Bob Wilkinson, 'or flaccidity occurs. And it will usually follow the same pattern as it began.' She gestured behind her. 'Not applicable in this case of course. Another way of gauging how long a person has been dead is by taking the core temperature. And again we have to factor in the ambient temperature. The unseasonably cold weather last night meant that the woman's body will have cooled a lot faster than if she had been murdered at home for example. Wherever her home is.'
Kate glanced back at the mottled face of the ravaged woman and wondered if anyone was waiting for her at that home. A distraught parent or worried boyfriend. She assumed she wasn't married as she had no wedding ring, or indications that she had ever worn one.
At the back of the room, meanwhile, Delaney was watching Kate as she pinned different photographs of the murdered young woman to the display board, and talked about the forensic analytical techniques. But those details washed over him, hardly taking in what she was saying. She was discussing putrefaction as another method of establishing time of death. But again it wasn't strictly relevant as putrefaction didn't take place until the second or third day after death and Delaney had seen enough corpses in his time to know about the telltale signs of green discoloration, and the putrid odour that accompanied it. An odour that told him they were already far too late for the victim and had given the murderer a good few days' head start on them. The first twenty-four hours were often critical in a murder case and if the body was putrefying before it was discovered it wasn't a good omen.
Kate turned to the room. 'We know the victim is a young female, we know she was murdered sometime in the early hours of last night and we know we are dealing with an extremely sick individual.'
A murmur went round the room again, sensing that Kate had finished but she held her hand up for quiet once again.
'One more thing.' She walked over to the display panels again and pointed at a blown-up photo of the young woman's neck. 'There is an unusual puncture mark on her neck.'
'Vampire you think, Doctor?'
A laugh went around the room again. But a nervous one. After all, the woman had been murdered in the dead of night, under a full moon, was dressed like someone out of Bram Stoker and had a couple of pagan symbols on her belt.
Kate let the laughter subside. 'I have no idea what to think.'
The previously recorded news highlights were playing on monitors throughout the building. Melanie Jones smiling at the camera. It was a practised smile, full of hope, innocence and genuine wonder at the world. A smile that belied the news that she had just been reporting. A third teenager stabbed to death in south London that week. An eighty-three-year-old woman raped and murdered in Nottingham. The foreclosure of a car works in the Midlands that was putting five thousand people out of work. At Sky News the policy was that the viewer should want to kiss the messenger not kill her. And a lot of people wanted to kiss Melanie Jones. The news is a bitter pill, after all, and Melanie Jones provided the sweet, sweet sugar that helped the medicine go down.
At the moment it was her line producer, Ronald Bliss, that was going down. His head nestled between her thighs as she sat legs akimbo on the toilet in the ensuite in his office. She wasn't smiling now. She was looking at her nails. There was a slight chip on her left index finger. She looked across at her handbag which was propped up against Ronald's knees. She'd have loved to get her polish out of it and fix the nail, but thought it might not go down too well. She looked at her watch. He'd been at it for five minutes, breathing heavily through his nostrils and sounding like a St Bernard in labour. Bliss was five foot six and several stones overweight and Melanie hoped the heavy breathing wasn't a prelude to a heart attack. She looked down at the top of his head; he was only thirty-eight but already his hair was thinning badly. She could see the pink of his scalp through the strands of his ginger hair, and frowned slightly. Someone should tell him about dandruff shampoo, but that was his wife's job, not hers. She looked at her watch again, she'd give him a couple more minutes for form's sake then make a few whimpering noises and give him a quick wank, which should keep him happy for a week or so and her own promotion prospects on line.
A buzzing in her jacket pocket and then her phone rang. She took it out and was about to click it off when the man below mumbled, 'Answer it, I like to hear your voice.'
Melanie curled her lip at him and answered the phone, suppressing a yawn.
'Melanie Jones.'
She listened for a while and then went very still. 'Call me back in fifteen minutes. I can't talk now.' She closed her phone and patted her producer on his head, just once and wiped her palm on the sleeve of her jacket.
'Sorry, Ronald, I think I just came on.'
The man looked up, a shifty tremor in his glassine eyes. 'I don't mind.'