Beyond the plastic swing doors they heard Justina Kazimierz and her assistant preparing for the autopsies following the Shipwrights’ Hall poisoning. As Shaw parted the doors he felt his heartbeat quicken, as it always did. Both mortuary tables were covered by sheets. Over them, on the east wall of the original church, the stone angel stood on its niche, both hands pressed to its eyes.
The assistant removed the first sheet as if uncovering a sofa in a dusty summer villa.
Shaw reminded himself of the short conversation he’d just had with Valentine as they’d walked across the yard of St James’s towards the Ark. They’d decided to leave the pathologist to come to her initial findings before telling her of the link between the victims. That way they’d get a clear scientific judgement, unclouded by a conspiracy theory. It was what Justina Kazimierz would have done, but that wouldn’t make her any happier that they’d done it.
Freddie Fletcher lay naked, the black swirls of his hair covering most of the body, a tattoo revealed on his shoulder: Royal Artillery. He’d died, as they’d known he would, shortly after they’d left the hospital. Shaw recalled he’d talked proudly of his father’s military record. He thought it was probably one of the many tragedies of Fletcher’s life that he hadn’t been able to fight for what he believed in — however misplaced that belief had been.
‘Gentlemen?’ asked Kazimierz. The assistant set the Stryker saw whirring and handed it to her. Valentine concentrated on the moving hands of the clock on the wall, trying to imagine the mechanism within, the cog wheels interlacing, the steel parts clean, oiled and precise.
Shaw watched the saw slicing through the bloodless flesh, the breast bone severed, the ribs cut, the chest plate lifted clear to allow access to the principal organs. His own work in forensic art had entailed many hours alone in the morgue at Quantico — the FBI’s training centre in Virginia. He’d very quickly learned to see a corpse as simply the body in death — the once-living chamber of the soul. He didn’t believe in God, but he’d always believed in souls; a contradiction he’d be happy to die with.
Fifteen minutes later the pathologist stood back, picked the bloodstained gloves from her hands and poured a dark black coffee from a Thermos into a small glass.
‘This man was a dying man,’ she said. ‘There’s evidence of the initial stages of lung cancer — the left lung. The heart is diseased. The brain shows signs of a recent stroke, but it isn’t the first he’d suffered. But none of that killed him. Whatever killed him, however, did so very quickly. According to the witness report …’ She snapped a single sheet of A4 upright in her hand. ‘The sequence of events was thus: nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, internal bleeding, shock, then a period of nearly twenty-four hours in which his body tried to fight back. His lungs filled with fluid, then death. Even after death the toxin has continued to attack the kidneys — they would have failed if he’d lived long enough.’
‘The poison?’ asked Shaw.
‘Aluminium-based — possibly a phosphide. The chemistry here is very difficult, Shaw. I’ve sent a blood sample away, but we’ll get a better reading from the organs. Tom says there was an industrial rat poison at the Clockcase Cannery, so that could be it. But there’s no way at the moment I can be sure. Also, a phosphide is usually delivered as a gas — for fumigation. In powder form, such as our poisoner would have used, I don’t know what sort of concentration we’re dealing with.’
‘But it’s lethal?’ said Valentine.
‘Well, no, clearly it isn’t, is it?’ She glared at Valentine. ‘Because several people ingested large quantities and are still alive. But in this case it is the patient’s reaction which proved lethal, if I can put it like that. And I don’t understand that either, entirely. But as I say, he was already a dying man. So we’ll have to wait for the lab report. Clear?’
George Valentine had an answer to that, but he kept it to himself.
They moved to the second mortuary table and the sheet was removed to reveal Sam Venn. An identical autopsy was completed in half the time. Venn turned out to be a much healthier corpse than his one-time schoolfriend Freddie Fletcher.
Justina took them out into Tom Hadden’s lab, to the desk she used when in the building. She sat on the edge of it and drank more of the black coffee.
‘Similar — but different,’ she said. ‘Different because his body has reacted violently to the ingestion of the poison, but over a longer period of time. There may be complications related to his cerebral palsy, or possibly any medication he took to relieve pain in his muscles or bones due to the disease. I’ll check. Similar because I suspect the actual cause of death was pulmonary oedema — essentially, a build-up of fluid in the lungs, like our other victim. I think death occurred not long after he got him self to bed — six hours perhaps, maybe ten. So that would make the time of death somewhere between ten last night and two this morning. I did a quick blood test and we have traces of the same poison in Venn’s blood as Fletcher’s — though at a somewhat lower concentration than many of the diners. But again we need expert toxicology, and for that we need to send away, and for that we need you to sign the forms, Peter.’
Shaw had his head in his hands, elbows on one of the desks, trying to think.
‘Why didn’t he raise the alarm — call a doctor?’
‘Well — we’ll never know,’ she said. ‘My guess would be that he felt ill, went to bed because he thought it was just food poisoning. If he’d slept at all, or even lost consciousness, then the oedema would have accelerated. By the time he knew he was in trouble it was too late.’
‘But the way we found the body — the Bible — it was like he’d laid himself out,’ said Shaw.
‘Yes. I agree. I can’t explain that.’
But Shaw could. He couldn’t dislodge the conviction that Sam Venn had accepted death.
‘Overall, then — taking the three deaths together — what can we say?’ he asked. ‘Did you do the other victim?’
She shook her head. ‘John Blacker examined Mr Clarke’s body — but I’ve got the file. The first victim was exceptionally frail — any kind of body shock would have killed him. It did.’ She took off her hairnet. ‘We’ve got a hundred and three people exposed to the danger of poisoning by an aluminium-based toxin. Sixty-one ingest poison — in varying amounts, but at a constant concentration. It could be a batch of faulty cans — but the coroner’s officer tells me there are suspicions of foul play? Sabotage? Well. Maybe. But the three who died did so because they were susceptible to any shock to the system.’
‘So, a random poisoning. Three victims die due to physical weaknesses, but each weakness is different,’ said Shaw.
The pathologist nodded. ‘If you like. But as I say — that’s a guess at this stage, and not my finding.’
‘There’s something we didn’t tell you,’ said Shaw. He said it quickly, unsettled by the thought that the pathologist was his friend and that he’d led her astray.
He looked away, watching Hadden working on-screen, so that he wouldn’t catch her eye. ‘Well, several things. First, the cans didn’t fail; a toxic substance was added to each before they were sealed. We have the culprit in custody. Second, two of the three victims — the two next door — are suspects in a murder case. A third suspect should have been sitting at the same table for lunch. The chances we have two random victims who are our suspects is one in ten thousand. George worked it out — he’s good with numbers. And we know the poison was definitely the powder used to kill rats at the cannery, and that it was aluminium phosphide.’
The pathologist glared at them, then turned her back, refilling her coffee cup. Shaw estimated it would take her twenty seconds to work out they’d done the right thing. Now, armed with all the facts, she could come to a scientific conclusion.
It took her ten seconds. ‘Right. Well, my position is clear. It is entirely possible that sixty-one people given a metal-based rat poison would survive. Such a poison is not even completely effective on rats. But if we’re saying these men were targeted then there must be a secondary factor. Without the information that the victims were linked I — or any other competent pathologist — would have been happy to rest with the causes of death I’ve outlined. Clear?’