Terry kept his eyes on Brenda until she was swallowed up by the giant swing doors of the hospital before pulling away in his van.
Chapter Four
As Karys opened the mortuary door to him Forrest was glad to see that although she was still wearing her green cotton gown she had taken off the rubber apron and surgical gloves. He didn’t think he could get used to the idea of a woman who wore post-mortem garb while she ate. She gave him a shy, twisted smile.
‘Paget got us some sandwiches in,’ she said.
Her discomfort transmitted itself to Forrest, he felt acutely awkward. He held out his white paper bag. ‘So did I.’
The action went some way towards melting the tension.
‘Tuna,’ Karys said.
Forrest opened his bag. ‘And more tuna.’
Karys giggled. ‘Then I hope you’re hungrier than I am, and fond of tuna.’
‘Not particularly,’ Forrest said. ‘Too fishy.’
The ice was broken.
Karys chattered easily as she walked back down the corridor. ‘There’s no one else here. Paget’s gone home early. Time owing. There really isn’t much to do today.’ She laughed and half turned round. ‘Quiet. No bodies. Someone’s good fortune.’
‘Yeah, well, long may it last,’ Forrest said soberly.
Karys nodded her head. ‘Absolutely. Look,’ she said, suddenly awkward again. ‘I don’t know what you think I can do...I just guess, you know’
‘But your guesses are founded on the PM, aren’t they?’
‘Yes, I suppose they are.’
‘Then why don’t you put the kettle on and we’ll start by eating these sandwiches,’ Forrest said as they moved along the corridor. ‘I realize all this psychiatry business isn’t your scene but you must have done some psychiatry in your training.’
‘A couple of months, no more. A few forensics lectures.’
‘I’ve always thought...’ they’d reached the kitchen ‘...that doctors have to be psychiatrists.’
Karys laughed. ‘You mean to read what’s really going on in patients’ minds?’
‘Yes.’
‘I suppose we are — to an extent.’
‘Anyway, as I told you yesterday, Waterman’s insisted we rope in a forensic psychiatrist because of the mutilation on Wilson’s body.’
She half turned. ‘Who is it?’
‘A guy called Lewisham.’
Karys stopped abruptly. ‘Barney Lewisham?’
‘That’s the one. Though how much help he’s going to be I’m not sure. He seems a bit of a pompous git to me.’
‘He is that.’
‘You know him?’
‘We were medical students together. An experience I’d much rather forget. Well, it’s a small world, as they say.’
The mortuary kitchen was a tiny, clinical place, white tiled and tidy with only a Belling cooker, an electric kettle and a fridge. Karys filled the kettle and switched it on.
Forrest said bluntly, ‘Do you think the killer is likely to be someone from the hospital?’
‘Oh, come on. You can’t expect me to commit myself.’
‘Well, it would narrow the field considerably.’
‘I know that but—’
Forrest frowned. ‘I’ve been trying to work it out. Was it just chance that the body was dumped there in a clinical waste bag after what looked very much like botched surgery? All these medical connections.’ He was about to scratch the thinning part at the top of his head then, remembering his father, resisted the urge. ‘They have to mean something. Even you must admit it seems to point to an inside job.’
Karys stiffered for a moment before answering. ‘Inspector Forrest,’ she said formally.
‘Call me David — for goodness’ sake, Karys. We’ve worked together for more than five years.’
Karys jerked her head. ‘OK then — David,’ she said uncomfortably. ‘We’ve called it botched surgery because the stitches weren’t very neatly done. But I’ve been thinking about it. A lot. It wasn’t botched at all.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘There was nothing botched about it, apart from the suturing. No vague attempts at cutting. Just one sure slash. Like a surgeon would make. Careful and straight. The sutures were clumsy — but not that clumsy. They’re a bit of a knack. Look. I’ll show you.’ She vanished from the room and returned carrying a small foil pack and some surgical instruments plus a couple of gauze swabs. She lay them out on the work surface, tore open the foil pack and a length of silk attached to a curved needle dropped out. She anchored the needle between the jaws of some forceps, the kind Forrest had often seen her use routinely during post-mortem, then she threaded the needle through the swabs, pulling the silk behind it. Releasing the needle she wound the thread around the blades of the forceps and tugged the free end through, pulling it tight to make a suture. She snipped with the scissors. Only then did she look up at Forrest. ‘See what I mean?’ she asked. ‘It’s a knack. And our “surgeon” appears to have had it, albeit clumsily. I don’t think he’s had much practice. It was superficial surgery, fake surgery, but it wasn’t botched surgery.’
‘Are you saying that —’
‘I’m saying nothing,’ Karys said, ‘but let’s begin by getting our facts right at the very least.’
Forrest persisted. ‘Are you saying then that this was a trained hand?’
‘Let’s just say, that if this was a lay person it was a very sure cut. Coldly done. And what lay person could manage a suture like that — even clumsily? Could you? Just after killing someone?’
Forrest shook his head. If he was impressed with the way Karys had analysed the evidence he was also a little uncomfortable at the unemotional way she dealt with this killing. A necessary part of being a pathologist, maybe, but an unsettling trait, this detachment. It made him wonder about her.
Fearing a rebuttal Forrest was hesitant about asking his next question. ‘So what sort of person—’ He got no further.
Karys interrupted him. ‘That is the psychiatrist’s field.’
‘Well, you’ve done some psychiatry. You just said so.’
‘As a medical student. And that was dealing with the odd schizophrenic, personality disorders, manic depressives. Not forensic psychiatry. I’ve sat in at lectures but I haven’t worked with criminal minds, David. It isn’t the same as actually meeting them, talking to them, asking them questions about what they do and why they do it. If I had worked among these people I would know more — for certain. Barney,’ she used the name, Forrest was pleased to observe, with some reluctance, ‘for all his conceit and...unpleasant personality. Barney will know. I don’t understand the criminal mind or what makes someone kill. Especially the mutilation bit. I want you to understand, I’m just guessing.’ She thought for a minute. ‘But I can’t believe this is the work of someone medically qualified. I mean — why would he?’
‘So you’re saying it wasn’t a medic?’
‘Well, I don’t think so. For one thing it’s the very opposite of our training.’
‘You use cadavers to practice on.’
Karys was stung. ‘We don’t kill them to get our practice in.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Karys. But this isn’t an ordinary killing.’ Forrest said the words in a low, unhappy voice. ‘I’ve led murder investigations before, but this is more abnormal than anything I’ve ever encountered. I’ve never dealt with post-mortem mutilation before. I’m worried, and I’m puzzled. There seems so much medical jargon that I don’t understand.’ He handed her a couple of forensic reports.
Karys was a tiny bit mollified. ‘Well,’ she said grudgingly, ‘even a House Officer would do neater stitches than that.’ She read through the top page and smiled. ‘At least I can help you with this. It’s about the sutures themselves. They’re 5/0 silk. That’s quite fine stuff, normally used in delicate surgery although there is the odd general surgeon who prefers to use fine silk as it leaves less of a scar.’ She scanned a couple more l
ines. ‘The needle it was attached to was what’s known as a reverse cutting needle. That means a curved needle with a sharpened edge on the inside of the curve. They could tell by looking at some of the excised skin under the microscope.’
‘Knowing this must narrow the field considerably.’ Karys agreed. ‘It should help.’
‘Anything more?’
She met his eyes. ‘It was a scalpel blade that made the incision.’
‘They’re sure?’
‘Ninety-nine per cent.’ Karys said. ‘They think the blade was probably large, with a curved edge. You realise that rules out a Stanley knife? I’ve got a chart in my drawer showing various blades. I’ll show you.’
The kettle started boiling. Temporarily it distracted them. ‘Tea or coffee?’
‘Coffee please. White, no sugar.’
Karys allowed herself a quick smile at the policeman. ‘Dieting?’
Forrest shrugged his shoulders. ‘My wife used to nag...’
The tense struck her. ‘But she’s stopped?’
Forrest shrugged again. ‘She’s stopped nagging about my weight because she doesn’t care any more. She’s gone off with someone else. She can nag him instead.’
It was nothing more than a touch of masculine bravado, which Karys recognized. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
Forrest’s face froze. ‘So was I,’ he said, ‘at first.’
‘And now?’ She watched the steam billow from the automatic kettle and reflected that they always boiled for a little too long, switched off a little too late.
But Forrest said nothing and Karys dropped the subject.
She poured the boiling water onto the teaspoonful of Nescafé in each mug before adding the milk. Then she put them on a tray together with the sandwiches, still in their bags and carried them into her office, Forrest close behind her.
It was a light, clean room, if a little small, with plain grey carpeting, two scarlet-coloured armchairs, a teak desk, and frosted glass windows. An organizer cork board held a couple of notices about medical lectures and a calendar with appointments scribbled on most lines. The coffee table and filing cabinets both held toppling piles of magazines. All, it seemed to Forrest’s curious glance, on forensic medicine. In fact, he observed, the room contained nothing else except a mirror on the wall over the filing cabinet, and even that was half obscured by the leaning pile of journals. Vanity here, it seemed, played second fiddle to knowledge and practicality. There were no photographs: no husband, lover, boyfriend or children. That made him thoughtful. In fact, now he wondered about it, in the five years he had worked with Karys he had never once heard her talk about her family. Yet she must have someone. Everyone had someone. Everyone except him. The old emotion of bitter self-pity threatened to swamp him. He hadn’t been a bad husband. He’d worked long hours, but that was surely part of his job, she’d known that when she’d married him. No, the problem had been that after marriage Maggie had changed and he hadn’t. She had matured, become sophisticated, interested in art and painting, music, ballet — he grimaced — culture with a capital ‘C’. He watched Karys settle into her seat and put the sandwiches on a plate, laying them out as neatly as his mother used to.
But he asked the question too soon in the embryonic relationship. ‘You married?’
Instantly Karys looked up with a fierce, guarded look. ‘No,’ she said shortly and handed him a sandwich. ‘Tuna?’ And then, as though it would help regain the easy, comfortable mood she asked, ‘Or tuna?’
‘Tuna,’ he said.
Karys crossed her legs and leant back in her chair, without knowing it mirroring the gesture with which Brenda Watlow had attempted to attract her son-in-law. Forrest caught a vague waft of a soapy, sweet scent, a strange contrast to the green cotton surgical gown that enveloped her short figure. But despite the gown, the attitude had overtones of sexuality of which Karys, unlike the theatre sister, was unconscious. For an instant Forrest had a flash of perception. If she had felt anything for him she would have changed into something a little more flattering. The realisation depressed him.
‘Well go on,’ she prompted, speaking seriously. ‘Ask away, although I really don’t know what I can do to help.’
Forrest took a mammoth bite out of the sandwich and spoke with his mouth full. ‘I know it’s going over old ground but let’s start with the killing. There was no medical knowledge needed for that, was there?’
‘The killing itself? The blow to the head? No,’ she said decisively. ‘There was no specialized medical knowledge in that at all. It was the same old clumsy thing, the bash with a blunt instrument. Favourite thugs’ greeting.’
Forrest pursued the point. ‘So anyone could have done it?’
Karys nodded. ‘Anyone.’
‘And the strangulation?’
‘Anyone! The answer was the same but the question diverted her thoughts back to the tie, the funny, Disney cartoon tie and she felt a shudder of recognition as though she knew the mind that had used it.
Forrest took another large bite out of his sandwich before proceeding.
‘The sutures and scalpels and things like that — it seems to me that anyone can get hold of them. We rang the surgical suppliers. They don’t make any checks. You simply order.’
‘I’ve run some checks myself,’ Karys said. ‘Unofficially. On the sutures. The suppliers have told me they deliver around 200 boxes every month just to this hospital. A box contains 20 packs.’
‘What sort of accounting is there?’
Karys just stared. ‘In the hospital? You must be joking. Boxes of them could go missing every single day and no one would be the wiser.’
‘So they could have come from Queen’s.’
‘That’s not all,’ Karys said. ‘They also supply veterinary surgeries, GP surgeries, some dentists, you name it, David.’ She was a little more comfortable using his first name second time around. ‘And not being classed as a drug or anything there are no tight controls. Anyone could steal them. From anywhere. They’re not even locked up. They’re just lying around. And that’s ignoring the fact that, as you said, the suppliers deliver to virtually anyone who orders from them.’
‘So the list is thrown wide again?’
Karys nodded. ‘But the bags are marked with the hospital code.’
‘Yes.’ Karys’s answer was reluctant.
Forrest leant in close, hoping to catch another waft of her scent. He was disappointed. ‘What other equipment would he have needed? Something to hold the skin?’
‘Maybe. He’d definitely have needed a pair of forceps to grip the silk. Scissors. Any old scissors. But anyone can buy a pair of forceps or some scissors. Boots sell them as well as all the other chemists. They don’t have to have come from the hospital at all.’
‘Could the lab tell us anything about the scalpel?’
‘A bit. The same sort of sources as the sutures. Chemists don’t normally supply scalpels. Particularly specialized ones.’
Forrest was appalled. ‘But it’s potentially a lethal weapon.’
‘How many murders have you heard of using a scalpel?’
‘None — illegally.’ It was a sick joke.
Karys ignored it.
‘The actual blade?’
She drew a small chart from the top drawer of the desk. It was a catalogue of scalpel blades, twenty-eight in all. Different shapes and sizes. ‘Each one is used by a surgeon for a different part of the body or a different procedure,’ she explained, before pointing out a large, curved blade with a number 22 etched on it. ‘This is the one that carved through Wilson’s groin,’ she said. ‘The lab could afford to be ninety-nine per cent sure because at one point our “surgeon” had missed his mark. Then he retracked to his original, planned line. By looking at the layers of skin under the microscope the lab could be quite sure.’
‘Well that helps.’
‘It will help if your killer’s source was the hospital, because even in such a huge hospital complex as this only one or two thea
tres will habitually use both number 22 blades and 5/0 silk. When you think of it, it’s a funny combination — very fine silk, but a clumsy blade. The blade is robust enough to be used for adult, abdominal surgery. But the silk’s far too fine for that. It would break. It’s far more suitable for plastic surgery. If you found a theatre which used this particular combination — say it did plastics a couple of days a week and abdominals for the rest of the time, it might help you to home in on someone a bit quicker. The only trouble is that the other theatres may well keep this combination in stock.’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t know what Barney will make of the combination, but to me it suggests even more that your killer was unlikely to be a medic.’
‘Maybe,’ Forrest said thoughtfully, ‘Wilson’s murder was something else. Not sadistic mutilation or anything like that. Maybe it was a sort of yah boo at the medical profession rather than an act committed by a medic or a mock-medic?’
Suddenly, without warning, Karys went cold. It was the childish phrase Forrest had used that had triggered it off. Yah boo. She could visualize the sort of person with awful clarity, tongue lolling and eyes rolling ceilingwards. Poking fun at the self-conscious status of a surgeon. It forced old memories back into her mind so she knew she would return to sleepless nights. The more she tried not to think, the clearer the picture became. She knew the type of warped mind that would have found the murder of Colin Wilson funny, the mock-hernia operation on a dead man something to laugh about. She understood the person only too well. In fact she was so familiar with his mind that she could picture him suturing the wound of a dead man, snipping the stitches with sharp, pointed scissors.
Forrest was staring at her.
The sandwich suddenly seemed immensely unappealing. She put the half-finished one back on her plate, nauseated. She must say something. ‘How specific could they be about the plastic bag?’
‘It came from the hospital trust. There was a code. Along the top. According to the hospital manager it almost certainly came from one of the operating theatres within the last few months.’
‘I see. Any particular theatre?’
A Fatal Cut Page 7