“Yes that was it. And he certainly was a demon wasn’t he. I remember the injuries to that poor girl.” She shook her head. “It always amazes me how cruel humankind can be. Wasn’t it six girls he murdered?”
The professor’s rhetorical question provoked a flashback. Grace could feel her chest tighten as images burst inside her head. And though twelve days had gone by since that fateful evening, the memory was still as sharp as if it had all happened yesterday.
That last investigation had caused her so much mental pain, and had physically exhausted her. She had only just got back to work after taking a week off sick to get her head right. As she reflected, not for the first time, she thought about how catastrophically things could have ended for her that night, after they had finally tracked down their crazed serial killer. She knew that the mental pictures and feelings from that night were going to live inside her for quite some time to come; the Force’s counsellor had told her that.
She took in a deep breath, held it, let it out slowly; exactly the way Beth, Hunter’s wife, had advised her to handle the onset of a panic attack.
“Any way that’s all in the past now. Back to the present eh! Well Grace you’re not a moment too soon we are just about to start.” Lizzie McCormack’s voice snapped her out of her daydream.
The petite grey haired Professor peeled on her latex gloves and pulled a metal trolley to her side. Upon it, laid out in pristine condition, glinting beneath the bright artificial lighting was every conceivable surgical tool and evidence collection container imaginable.
The body, fished from the lake, was laid out on one of the central steel mortuary tables. It had been removed from its body bag but was still wrapped up in its bundle. Despite being soiled by a substantial amount of silt and broken reeds Grace could now see that the body had been shrouded inside a rug of an Asian style design.
Professor McCormack reached up and switched on a microphone suspended above her. In her soft Scottish accent she began her PM preamble, opening with the time and date. Then instructing her technician to cut away the bindings she took a step back and slid her green scrub mask up over her mouth and nose.
He began to snip at the cord securing the rug. The binding was white plastic coated washing line.
“Careful as you unwrap it,” Duncan Wroe said to the technician, moving in closer with his camera. “I’ve known in the past that the murder weapon has been thrown in when the killer has wrapped up the body.” He seesawed his gaze between Detective Superintendent Robshaw and Grace. “By dumping the body in the lake the murderer was obviously hoping it would never be found and therefore they might just have thrown in any weapon they used.”
The second the technician carefully peeled the sides of the rug away from the cadaver the stench hit Grace and she reacted by quickly slapping on her own paper facemask, which until then had been hanging around her neck.
Even the sterile antiseptic smell that was supposed to cover the rot and decay of the dead, that permeated inside the brightly lit room did not dissipate the stench.
The body was grotesque; dark, bluish, purple and swollen beyond recognition, though there was no mistaking it was female; long black matted hair covered most of her face and neck, and she was naked.
The technician moved aside and Professor McCormack took over, exploring inches of the cadaver at a time, pausing from time to time to scrutinise certain marks before moving on. She cleared her throat and continued with her exordium.
“The clothing has been removed to reveal the body of a woman of Asian appearance in a state of advanced decomposition. This is manifested by skin slippage, discolouration, bloating and the presence of a foul odour.” With thumb and forefinger she began sliding the long strands of black hair away from the deceased’s face. “Well, well.” she exclaimed, “I think I’ve more than likely found this young lady’s cause of death.”
Angling a slender forefinger over the corpse’s neck she leaned back to allow the SOCO manager in and snap-off more photographs. Grace and the Detective Superintendent took a step forward, adjusting their posture to get a look at what the pathologist was pointing to.
Lizzie McCormack continued in her soft Scottish lilt. “On the left hand side of the neck approximately two and a half centimetres below the jaw line is an incision which is approximately fifteen centimetres in length. The large vessels either side of the neck have been severed. The larynx has been severed below the vocal chord through to the intervertebral cartilages. The arteries and other vessels contained in the sheath have all been cut through. The cut is very clean, very precise.” The Forensic Pathologist raised her eyes catching Grace’s gaze. “Her death would have been immediate.”
She returned to the corpse, picking up limbs, examining the hands and fingers. Then she began to turn the body. As she rolled the cadaver onto one hip she suddenly gave off a surprised “hmm,” and beckoned to the SOCO Manager. “Mr Wroe, I take my hat off to you.” She supported the bloated carcass whilst he shot-off a series of frames. After he had finished she pulled out an object which had been hidden beneath the body.
Grace could see that Duncan was doing his best to suppress a grin. It was one of his triumphant grins that she had witnessed so many times before when he had uncovered a vital piece of evidence.
“In all my years as a pathologist I have never seen anything like this before,” she said holding up something which closely resembled a knife.
Grace looked at the object and then exchanged glances with her colleagues. It was quite apparent from the look each of them shared with one another that none of them had quite seen anything like it before.
Lizzie McCormack dropped it into an exhibit bag and handed it to Grace.
She eyed it again, this time studiously, through the clear plastic, turning it over repeatedly.
“A real vicious looking thing,” said Detective Superintendent Robshaw looking over Grace’s shoulder.
The weapon was twenty centimetres long and had a curved blade. Half of it consisted of a black metal handle or grip with two small metal hoops at either end.
“These loops look like where your fingers should go — you know like a knuckle-duster type of grip.” Grace said out loud. Her response was as much as a question as that of an answer. She searched for agreement in the face of her boss but he merely shrugged his shoulders. She scrutinised it one further time before handing it over to the SOCO manager as the pathologist began her internal examination of the body. Picking up a scalpel Professor McCormack began the Y shaped incision at the front of the torso, cutting from the breastbone down to the pubis.
A rancid gas erupted from the body and Grace caught herself gagging. She pressed her head down into her chest and tried to fill her nasal passages with the floral perfume she was wearing. She had always hated this part of the post mortem.
An hour later after careful removal and examination of the corpse’s internal organs the forensic pathologist rounded off her head-to-toe examination, reported on her findings and wrapped things up. She reached up, switched off the microphone, snapped off her latex gloves and faced Grace and Detective Superintendent Robshaw. “The girl has taken a severe beating prior to her death. I’ve found at least thirty blunt trauma wounds to her head, upper torso, buttocks and legs, caused by clenched fist and boot. Three of her ribs are broken — she would have been in a great deal of pain before she died.” Lizzie shook her head in disgust. “Duncan should be able to get at least one good sample of a shoe print from the girl’s thigh area. She also has defence wounds to her hands and arms. Several of her nails have been chipped and broken and I have managed to swab them for perpetrator DNA. There is also bruising to the inside of her thighs and genitalia. In other words she was raped prior to death as well.” She shook her head again. “I have examined the girl’s trachea and lungs and there is no airway froth or sediment indicative of drowning. And there is no fluid in the paranasal sinuses or stomach. Therefore she was already dead before she went into the water. In conclusion death was the result of the severe haemorrhaging of the carotid artery in the neck caused by a sharp edged instrument. Forensics will no doubt match the wound to that knife found with the girl.” She paused dropping her latex gloves into a biohazard bin and then continued. “The incision across the throat is left to right and the penetration angle of the cut suggests that the killer was above or on top of her to carry out this action. That leaves me to believe your killer is left handed.”