‘Rigor begins in the face and jaw,’ she said, as if talking to students or thinking aloud, ‘followed by the upper limbs and finally the hips and legs.’ She glanced up at the figures watching her. ‘Unfortunately rigor and lividity occur at unpredictable rates. This poor woman died violently, meaning adrenaline, which is an accelerating factor. She was kept in a sealed environment for some hours, the boot of a car. The temperature within would have been fairly stable but gradually increasing if the car was in direct sunlight for any length of time. Meanwhile, the body was protected from insect activity, weather extremes and other variables.’
She began to manipulate the body, first the feet, then each leg, lifting and bending, watching the knees. She proceeded to the abdomen, pressing down, and finally grasped and rotated the head a few centimetres left and right.
‘Rigor has come and gone. I have no reason to reconsider my opinion yesterday, that the victim had been dead for six to eight hours when found.’
Challis sipped his coffee. He hadn’t asked for it but it had been delivered, white, watery and tepid. His knees were squashed between the sofa and a coffee table as solid as a brick wall.
‘How did she intend to get to the station from the dentist? Taxi?’
‘She walked. It’s not far: five minutes?’
‘She had a specific train in mind? She had a timetable?’
Rice blinked. ‘Don’t know. She doesn’t usually take a local train.’
‘What would Delia do,’ said Challis carefully, ‘if she were faced with a long wait?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s a limited service on that line, only a few trains each day.’
Erin Rice removed her husband’s hand, placed it on his bulky knee, and they all eyed it briefly, a disembodied hand. ‘Delia was always impatient,’ she murmured. ‘Impatient to marry that man, impatient to get to the city.’
Impatient.
Challis put his cup down and started the motions that would get himself and Sutton out of the house with the least disruption, pain and haste. ‘Thank you both for helping us clear that up. It will help us pinpoint Delia’s movements.’
He didn’t say final movements. He couldn’t say it would bring her back. He couldn’t promise it would identify her killer. Bill and Erin Rice were crying again anyway. They weren’t thinking about blame or justice just yet.
The pathologist lifted her head and called, ‘Lights.’
The room darkened. She ran a UV light over the body slowly, quartering the pale, slack flesh. ‘Lights,’ she called again.
The room brightened. ‘No semen present on the surface of the body.’
‘Get on with it,’ Schiff muttered. ‘Vagina, mouth, anus.’
‘No fibres,’ Berg said presently, ‘nothing under the nails, nothing caught in the hair-apart from trace elements from the car itself.’
Schiff muttered, shook her glossy head and restlessly checked her phone for messages.
More time passed. ‘No semen present in the mouth, vagina or anus,’ Berg said.
And later: ‘It is entirely possible that we’ll find trace elements of a different order in the victim’s eyes, nasal passages and ear canals, telling us where she’d been before being forced into the car. Needless to say, analysis will take time.’
‘Needless to say,’ said Schiff.
She was standing very close to Pam. Pam moved away.
Before starting the car, Challis made a phone call. He asked a question, said thanks, pocketed the phone.
‘There was a train through Somerville at eleven past three,’ he said, ‘but Delia Rice was still in her father’s car then, on the way to the dentist. The next was at ten to five.’
Sutton said nothing. It was as if he hadn’t listened or didn’t know what to do with the information, so Challis started the car and pulled away from the kerb. There was silence as they passed a stretch of sodden grassland, a Christmas tree farm and one of the Coolart Road roundabouts. Injecting some sharpness into his voice, Challis said, ‘You heard the mother: Delia was impatient by nature.’
Scobie Sutton came out of his fog. ‘Right…’
‘Think about it. When she realised she’d have to wait for an hour and a half, she decided to hitchhike. Got herself rescued by a nice policeman.’
‘And her father so close,’ said Sutton tragically.
Challis tuned him out, checked his watch. Too soon to call Murph at the morgue.
Quietness settled as Berg began to cut into the body. Pam watched with a clammy dread. The only sounds were the faint hum of the ceiling lights, murmured voices in distant corridors, fabric scraping against fabric as Jeannie Schiff grew increasingly restless. Finally the pathologist said, ‘Major petechial haemorrhaging…Bloody froth caked around the mouth…Damage to the hyoid…’
She looked up at the detectives. ‘Death was due to manual asphyxia.’
‘Well, we all knew that,’ Schiff said, striding for the door.
32
At two o’clock that Monday afternoon, Steve Finch was absorbed in slotting more RAM into an old desktop PC when the air cooled and shifted. Or he’d imagined it. What he wasn’t imagining was the man standing on the other side of the workbench that doubled as his counter and desk. He jumped, trying to hide the response. ‘Didn’t hear you come in.’
The man said nothing and Finch thought cop. He read him quickly: slight build, well dressed, aquiline nose, eyes twinkling with cold intelligence. The kind of cop, Finch thought, who catches criminals because he thinks like one.
‘What can I do for you?’
‘The name is Towne,’ the man said, flashing ID.
Finch glimpsed the name, a logo and some of the words before it was folded into a pocket again. ‘Federal? What would the federal police want with me?’
‘I’m told you’re the go-to guy if someone wants to fence a stolen painting,’ the man said.
Finch screwed his face into a scoffing dismissal. ‘I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, pal, but-’
Towne dug into another pocket and now held a small pistol. He wasn’t listening to Finch but gazing as if amused up and down the nearby shelves. With a grunt of satisfaction, he shoved the barrel into a rack of army greatcoats and fired. The coats were excellent sound suppressors. Finch gaped and bent to protect his groin. Then he straightened, trying to present a smaller target to the mad policeman.
‘You can’t do that.’
‘I just did.’
‘I’ll never sell them now.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, genuine army wear, complete with bullet hole,’ said Towne.
Finch’s commercial instincts clicked into gear. ‘But still…’
Towne pocketed the pistol and leaned over the counter in a matey fashion. ‘Let’s start again: I have it on good authority, namely the art and antiques squad, that you are the only show in town when it comes to fencing high-end paintings and other collectibles, like coins and stamps.’
Obscurely flattered, Finch said, ‘I’m not confirming or denying.’
The pistol came out again and Finch backed away. ‘No. Jesus. Put the gun away.’
Towne didn’t.
‘All right, okay, what do you want?’
‘You can start by telling me if you deal with this woman.’
A photograph of Suze, looking younger and a bit feral but still heart stopping. Finch cast glances around his shop as if searching the dim recesses of his memory. He took in the front door, the ‘closed’ sign turned out to the world. ‘Er, might do.’
Towne fired through the greatcoats again and said, ‘Think what you can charge for a coat with two bullet holes in it. I don’t want “might” or “maybe” answers, Steve.’