‘At this time of year, flies would have found the body within an hour and laid eggs on the moist bits — the mouth, eyes, armpits and open wounds. The maggots would have hatched in twelve to twenty-four hours and started munching straightaway. The ones I sampled were under a centimetre long. That’s two days’ growth or thereabouts, but it depends a lot on temperature. I’m still waiting for those readings.’
Troy looked down at his life-logger. ‘They want us back at the field,’ he announced.
Lexi nodded and stood up. ‘That means you were right. More bodies.’
SCENE 3
The wood was no longer empty and peaceful. It was heaving with crime scene officers in white overalls. To Troy’s left, a line of policemen and women on their hands and knees stretched across the clearing. They were inching forward slowly, conducting a fingertip search for a weapon — or anything else that might be relevant. Two officers were coming to the end of their zigzag inspection of the area with ground-penetrating radar. Forensic scientists were carrying sealed bags back to the vehicles parked in the narrow lane beyond the trees. The team had found two more bodies, exactly where Troy had predicted. A small digger was parked between two new holes and four small mounds of soil. The pathologist — an outer called Kofi Seven — had removed the body that Lexi and Troy had already seen. Now he was examining another in a makeshift grave.
Walking beside Troy, Lexi said, ‘If there was a god, he’d have put a stop to stuff like this.’
‘It doesn’t work like that,’ Troy retorted. ‘Majors and outers have free will.’
‘Huh.’
They stopped and looked down into the first freshly dug hollow. This time, it was a woman. The corpse was too dirty and rotten to reveal much.
Kofi shook his head. ‘Don’t ask. I’ve got to get this one back to the lab before I can tell you anything. No obvious wounds, though.’
‘What about …?’ Troy waved his arm towards the second hole.
‘A male in an advanced state of decay, missing his right hand.’
Troy walked to the hollow, glanced down and shuddered. From head to stomach, the man was soiled but apparently whole. Below his waist, he was incredibly thin, as if the bottom part of his body had rotted much quicker than the top. Troy looked away.
‘The body’s very fragile,’ the pathologist said. ‘I’m still figuring out how to take it away in one piece.’
‘Cause of death?’ Lexi asked.
‘To be decided, but his throat’s been slit.’
Troy flinched but kept his distaste to himself. Lexi did not react.
‘Come and see me in the morning,’ Kofi said. ‘I’ll have a good picture by then.’
Signalling to the crime scene supervisor, Lexi asked, ‘Have you found a weapon?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘That fits — if the killing was done somewhere else,’ Troy said.
The supervisor told them, ‘We’ve bagged a lot of stuff, but I’m not sure we’ve got anything worthwhile.’
‘Tyre impressions or footprints?’
‘Possible faint trolley or cart tracks. It’s hard to say. But maybe that’s how the bodies got here. At least three sets of shoeprints so far. One probably belongs to the woman who found the first body.’
Lexi nodded. ‘Keep looking.’
SCENE 4
The bright white pathology laboratory was not Troy’s favourite place. Laid out on plinths, human bodies were objects for undignified exploration. To Troy, pathologists resembled customs officers who opened up suspicious suitcases and delved inside, putting aside clothes and possessions to uncover hidden evidence. They went to great lengths to discover the causes of death, apparently able to detach themselves from a person whose internal organs they lifted out, whose brain they accessed with a saw.
Kofi was tall and lean with a shaved head and large blue trainers. His feet had to be enormous. He towered over the three bodies that he’d labelled L4G#1, L4G#2 and L4G#3. L4G stood for Lexi Four/Goodhart. He would not understand Troy’s distress that, in the absence of real names, the victims had been given heartless codes.
‘You’ll recognize L4G#1,’ Kofi said. ‘A male outer, about thirty years of age. No ID of any sort.’
Lexi nodded. The result of the DNA test that she’d requested yesterday had come in. The victim was definitely an outer, but his profile was not in the DNA database so his identity remained a mystery.
Kofi glanced at Lexi and said, ‘With all this hair he’s got, I’m not surprised you missed a blow to the back of the head with a heavy, blunt object.’
Lexi asked, ‘Was it lethal?’
‘No. It would just have knocked him out.’
‘So, what killed him?’ said Troy
‘Prepare yourselves.’
‘What?’ Troy prompted.
‘He has no heart, liver or kidneys.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Cause of death: removal of heart, liver and kidneys. That’s why he’s lying here. It’s hard to regain consciousness without a heart.’
‘That’s …’ Troy was lost for words.
‘Unusual?’ Kofi suggested. ‘And rather intriguing.’
Finding his voice again, Troy asked, ‘Was it done … professionally? Can you tell?’
‘It wasn’t someone hacking away in a frenzied attack. It was done with a very sharp knife or a scalpel — and with care. But, no, it wasn’t up to operating theatre standard. And no one bothered to sew up the wounds afterwards.’
Lexi seemed to be suppressing anger. ‘What’s your estimate for when he died?’
‘He’s cold and rigor mortis has come and gone.’ He lifted the left arm by the wrist and the hand flopped. ‘Totally flaccid. That tells me he died more than thirty-six hours ago. The entomologist says there were no beetles, mites, ants or wasps, so he’s fairly fresh. Two or three days. You’ll be able to pin it down yourself, won’t you?’
Lexi nodded again. ‘I’m collecting temperature evidence right now. As long as the weather doesn’t change … Hey presto.’
Knowing that Kofi will have examined the man’s stomach contents during the post-mortem, she asked, ‘What was his last meal?’
‘Bug burger and chips. Mostly locusts.’
Troy turned up his nose.
‘Huh. You eat cow, don’t you?’ Lexi snapped at him.
‘Beef, yes,’ Troy replied.
‘Well, insects and arachnids are twelve times more efficient than cows at turning plants into edible protein. And they taste better.’
Kofi smiled at their bickering. ‘Do either of you want to hear about your second corpse? She’s fascinating as well. Maybe more so.’
‘Yes.’
Kofi turned towards the plump body that had a tag dangling from the left big toe. It labelled her as L4G#2. ‘She’s a major but an overnight DNA test tells me she’s got an outer heart.’
‘What?’ Troy exclaimed. ‘How’s that possible?’
Major and outer body parts looked much the same but their chemistry was different. They were completely incompatible.
‘Surgery. A bizarre — and very cruel — experiment or a transplant that went wrong because of an organ mix-up.’
Troy and Lexi exchanged a glance. Last night, when Troy had researched all of the buildings near the clearing, he’d found a reference to the Rural Retreat Transplant Clinic, situated at the far end of the reservoir.
Lexi asked, ‘How long would she survive with the wrong heart?’
‘A few hours at most. Her immune system would have rejected it pretty quickly.’
‘I don’t suppose it’s the first body’s heart, is it?’ Troy asked.
‘No. You can’t link them like that, I’m afraid. She died maybe a week before him.’ Kofi hesitated and then said, ‘Of course, despite appearances, it means you’ve really got four victims. The only thing we’ve got of L4G#4 is a heart. The DNA doesn’t match any database, so all we know is that he or she’s an outer.’