Aside from the two small nuggets about his wife and sailing, the only other conversation Cleo had ever managed to prise out of Theobald was an explanation of why, in his fourth year at London’s Guy’s Hospital, he had decided to specialize in pathology; she hadn’t been able to tell whether he was joking or not when he’d told her that being a pathologist had two big plus points over being a doctor to the living. The first was that you didn’t have to make house calls. The second was that you didn’t have to bother with a good bedside manner.
And that latter, Cleo Morey often thought, really defined Theobald. Over the years she had been lumbered with this pedantic and totally humourless man on many of Roy’s homicide investigations. But despite Roy’s irritation at the man’s snail-like speed, he told her he could trust Theobald implicitly to do two vital things. The first was to establish beyond doubt the cause of death. The second was to provide evidence that, when produced in court, would be bullet-proof to attacks from even the smartest defence briefs.
Theobald began positioning each of the parts very carefully, until finally all those recovered so far were laid out like a jigsaw puzzle, with bits missing, on the shiny steel. A right arm; a torso; a left leg. No head, left arm or right leg had so far been found. Each of the pieces, they could all see clearly, bore evidence of cuts with a sharp knife, possibly a box-cutter or a Stanley knife, Cleo thought.
There was a new SIO attending the examination, DCI Mark Hailwood. The HM Customs Officer had now left after signing off the sachets of cocaine discovered during Florentina Shima’s postmortem, with a street value, he had estimated, of around £350,000, into temporary police custody. Other than that, the team remained unchanged.
With Roy full-on with his kidnap enquiry and the workload here looking like an all-nighter at the very least, Cleo stepped into her office and phoned Kaitlynn. She asked her if she could remain with Noah and Bruno until the morning, and probably throughout tomorrow, then returned to the postmortem room, in time to hear Theobald dictate his first observations.
‘The presence of blood around the incisions on the body indicates to me these were made whilst the victim was still alive,’ he announced into his machine, seemingly oblivious, as always, to his interested audience. ‘Torture?’
That was Cleo’s thought, too. Over the past couple of years there had been four partially intact bodies with similar cut patterns post-mortemed here. She stepped out, back into her office, closed the door and dialled Roy.
93
Sunday 13 August
16.00–17.00
Grace was regretting asking Potting to drive, which he had done to leave himself free to make calls. The DS drove at what seemed to him to be a ridiculously slow speed along the top of the Downs, almost making a mockery of the flashing blue lights and wailing siren.
The speedometer wavered between 45 mph and 50 mph.
‘You could go a bit faster, Norman,’ he encouraged.
Potting shook his head. ‘You have to justify your actions, boss,’ he said in a pedantic tone. ‘I don’t want them bastards in Professional Standards breathing down my neck because I crossed the limit.’
‘This is an emergency, life at risk, just put your bloody foot down!’
Ten seconds later, Grace was regretting his instruction.
The car was flying. Now, at 70 mph, they were approaching a blind brow, with a golf club entrance to the right; a van was looking like it was about to pull out of it, in front of them.
Grace pressed his right foot hard against the floor.
Norman Potting was still accelerating, either oblivious to the danger or putting too much trust in the blues and twos. Fortunately, the van stayed put. They crested the hill.
‘Sharp left-hander at the bottom, Norman,’ Grace warned.
Potting grunted. At the last possible moment, he dabbed the brakes. Somehow, drifting wide into the oncoming lane, the car made the bend.
Sweat was popping on Grace’s forehead. ‘Maybe slow a little,’ he suggested.
Potting gripped the wheel, his face set into a rictus of concentration. ‘Don’t worry, chief, I did the refresher course just recently — and DS Branson gave me some high speed roadcraft tips.’
‘I can tell.’
Grace knew this road like the back of his hand, it was the route he often took home from Brighton. They were heading towards the brow of another hill, which had a nasty right-handed kink. As they crested it, the car dancing in Potting’s hands, Grace saw the whites of the eyes of the driver of an oncoming lorry.
Somehow, they passed it, still alive.
He raised his voice. ‘Turn-off coming up, left four hundred metres.’
To his relief, he felt the car slow, just a little. They passed a dangerous junction, shot down into a dip and up the far side, then Potting braked hard and made the left turn into a single-track lane.
A cyclist was struggling up the hill towards them, forcing Potting to pull hard over to the left into the semblance of a lay-by to let him pass. Grace checked his watch anxiously. At that moment, his private phone rang. It was Cleo. He always loved to hear her voice and he was determined not to make the mistakes he had with Sandy, of either ignoring her calls or cutting her short because he was busy.
‘Hey, how are you doing?’ she asked.
‘Not great — you?’
The cyclist puffed past, glaring at them as if they had no right to be on the road instead of maybe thanking them, with their blue lights flashing, for courteously letting him pass.
‘Look, I know you’re under the cosh so I’ll be quick,’ she said. ‘I have something that might be of help.’
‘Yes?’
Potting drove on down the winding lane, siren wailing again.
‘Theobald’s started the PM on the body parts from the crusher site. They’re covered in what looks like razor cuts — just like a few cases I’ve seen before, and one you dealt with a while back, that was linked to the local Albanian community.’
‘Razor cuts as in torture?’
‘Yes. Theobald says the cuts were made while the victim was still alive.’
Five minutes later, after winding through the villages of Poynings then Fulking, Potting turned right, pulled up in front of wrought-iron gates and switched off the blues and twos. Ahead, at the end of a long drive, was a handsome, imposing white Georgian mansion. He put down his window and pressed a button on the entry-phone panel.
‘Thanks, darling, that might be really helpful. Call you in a bit.’
‘Love you.’
‘You too.’
‘Police, we would like to speak to Mr Konstandin,’ Potting said and held up his warrant card to the camera lens.
The gates opened and they drove up to the house. A bronze Bentley Bentayga was parked outside, along with twin, garish, black American SUVs. As they pulled up, the front door opened and two man-mountains emerged, similarly attired to the ones at Jorgji Dervishi’s home that they had encountered last night.
As both detectives showed their warrant cards, a booming voice from somewhere inside, with a cultured, broken-English accent, said, ‘Please, show our distinguished guests in!’
The two bodyguards stepped aside to allow the detectives through into an imposing hallway. The floor was black and white marble tiles, in a chessboard pattern, and the walls were hung with what looked, to Roy Grace’s inexpert eye, like Old Master paintings. There were fine antique hall tables and chairs, as well as a number of busts on plinths.