Lying the victim back down, Martin asked Lawrence for a small scalpel. Gibbs stepped back, thinking Martin was about to cut the body open for an internal examination. The last thing he wanted was anything splashing onto his tweed suit.
Martin placed the scalpel blade on the rope. ‘I don’t want to disturb the ligature knot, so I will cut through the rope at the front.’ He took his time, slowly cutting through the cord before removing and handing it to Lawrence.
The deep black and blue bruising imprint of the rope around the victim’s neck was now visible.
‘Considerable force must have been used to strangle her,’ Martin muttered.
Lawrence placed the cord on top of a property bag for closer examination.
‘It’s not hemp, so probably cotton or synthetic. About one inch thick and slightly frayed at both ends, as if it has been cut with scissors or a sharp knife, but I’ll get a scientist to look at it,’ Lawrence said.
‘It’s tied in a form of slip knot,’ Jane observed, wondering if the victim was attacked from behind in the alleyway.
‘Like a hangman’s noose,’ Gibbs remarked.
Moran leant over. ‘Looks like a sailor’s slip knot to me.’
Gibbs and Jane turned to Moran.
‘You’d know, would you, guv?’ Gibbs remarked.
‘Yes. I’ve been in The Met sailing club for ten years, so I know a bit about knots and loops. I’d say that if you untied the knot and laid it out flat, the length would be about three foot.’
Gibbs was impressed. ‘Good call, guv. Might help when we get a suspect, especially if he’s into sailing.’
Moran shrugged. ‘Possibly, Spence, but rock climbers, and even scouts, use the same or similar sorts of knots.’
Lawrence was deep in thought and didn’t hear Martin ask him for a large scalpel.
‘Is something troubling you, DS Lawrence?’
‘It’s the lack of abrasive injuries on the front of the victim, plus there was some smeared blood on the back of her coat, which may have come from the suspect, yet there were no drops of blood on the pavement at the scene, which is making me wonder if she was murdered elsewhere and her body dumped in Bussey Alley?’
Jane always respected Lawrence’s eye for detail.
‘Very astute, DS Lawrence,’ Martin responded. ‘The settling of blood on the front of the body, known as lividity, is consistent with the position she was found in. However, lividity begins to work through a deceased within thirty minutes of their heart stopping and can last up to twelve hours. Only up to the first six hours after death can lividity be altered by moving the body, but—’
‘So she could have been murdered elsewhere and moved,’ Moran impatiently interrupted.
Martin looked over the rim of his glasses, the habit that inevitably preceded a curt reply. ‘I wasn’t called to the scene, DCI Moran, to examine the lividity on her body in situ, so in answer to your question, I don’t know for certain, but she could have been. And before you ask, I will give an estimation of time of death after my post-mortem.’
Moran looked annoyed by the professor’s tone of voice. Martin was often blunt and to the point, but Jane felt he was being particularly condescending, especially as Moran was the senior officer in the room and in charge of the investigation.
Martin continuously made notes throughout the post-mortem and spent the next two hours dissecting the body, removing the internal organs and brain, weighing them and taking samples of blood and urine to test for drugs and alcohol. When he’d finished, he put down his clipboard of notes and removed his gown.
‘What was the state of rigor on the body at the scene?’ Martin asked Lawrence.
‘Pretty stiff, but not fully when we lifted her onto the body bag.’
‘Right, the rigor was fully stiff when we started at eleven, the stomach contents contained some semi-digested food particles, which is common in people who died two to six hours after a meal. This is in no way conclusive, but assuming she last ate between twelve and two, that gives a possible time of death range anywhere between two p.m. and eight p.m., which suggests that your thoughts about the body being murdered elsewhere and dumped in Bussey Alley are correct, DS Lawrence.’
‘If that occurred, I am somewhat confused about the number of buttons we discovered at the site where we found the body. We found three buttons and, on checking both her overcoat and the torn blouse, it appears there was a fourth button that was not recovered.’ Lawrence said.
Jane nodded. ‘The missing button could possibly have been left at the actual scene of the murder, unless she lost it before.’
Lawrence glanced towards her but no one else seemed interested.
‘The alleyway would be regularly used by the public and train commuters on a Friday night, yet the body wasn’t found until early Saturday morning. Makes sense he’d dump her after midnight when there’s less likely to be anyone about,’ Gibbs added.
‘He may have used a car and travelled some distance, or the murder scene may be in nearby premises and he carried her out to Bussey Alley,’ Jane stated, unintentionally yawning as she looked at the mortuary clock. It was just after 2 p.m.; she’d had no sleep for nearly twenty-four hours and was beginning to feel nauseous.
‘Might be a good idea if Jane went home and got some sleep,’ Lawrence suggested to Moran.
Moran shook his head. ‘Not at the moment. Our priority is finding out who our victim is, as it may well lead us to her killer and the scene of her murder. House-to-house is critical to this investigation. I want the forms that have been completed so far checked for anything that might assist or need urgent attention. A DCS will be appointed to oversee the case by Monday. I’d like unanswered questions resolved by then — even better, her killer in custody.’ Moran closed his notebook and left the room.
Jane returned to Peckham with DI Gibbs. The three-story red-bricked Victorian station was like Hackney, but much bigger, with a warren of small overcrowded offices. The stone-flagged floors, metal staircases and high windows cast a dull greyness inside the building. Even the array of wanted and missing persons’ posters looked well worn, like parts of the building itself that needed repair and a lick of paint.
The large green corkboard on the wall in the far corner of the CID office was now covered with photographs the SOCO had taken in Bussey Alley. The victim’s facial description was written up with an approximate age of late twenties to early thirties. Next to her name, address and time of death were large question marks. Gibbs picked up a black felt-tip pen and started to write down Professor Martin’s observations about the time of death span and the fact the body was dumped. He also wrote: Murder scene unknown.
DC Edwards sat at the indexer’s desk, looking through some of the house-to-house forms. He looked up at Jane.
‘Hope you don’t mind, Sarge, but I’ve been checking the completed H-to-H forms the uniforms brought in. Being a Saturday morning, a lot of people were at home...’
‘Which is where I wish I was right now, Brian.’
Edwards lifted a pile of the forms. ‘Me too. Anyway, I’ve been through half of these questionnaires, but so far there’s nothing to help us identify the victim. A few people had friends, or knew other residents, who were similar in description, but they were all checked out and none of them are missing or unaccounted for.’
‘Thanks, Brian. I’ll have to go through them anyway and sign each one off as correctly completed.’
‘No, you don’t,’ Gibbs said.
‘Yes, I do. Not that I don’t trust Brian’s abilities, but you heard what Moran said at the mortuary. If something gets missed, I’m the one he’ll will have a go at, not you or Edwards.’