‘Inconsistency in the extent of rigor is noted,’ said Reynolds and then, in an aside to Sussock, ‘Dr Chan’s humble observation was quite accurate.’
‘Indeed,’ said Sussock.
‘Neck and shoulder muscles reveal rigor mortis as would be expected with noted rectal temperature of one degree Celsius. The limbs remain supple.’ The silver-haired pathologist smiled at Sussock. ‘That’s not a mystery at all,’ he said, ‘I know what the answer is. Mind you, it’s going to prove to be a bit of a poser for you chaps.’
‘What happened, sir?’ Sussock asked, his voice echoing in the spartan room.
‘All in good time. Sergeant. All in good time.’ Reynolds surveyed the body. ‘There are a number of incised wounds and penetrating wounds about the chest, some very superficial, but two stab wounds seem to have penetrated, one to the aorta, I would think, judging by its location, which probably would have been the fatal wound, and a second to the upper shoulder; this last seems to have penetrated the artery and would have been fatal within minutes had the first not been fatal within seconds.’ He paused again and turned to Sussock. ‘I didn’t notice a great deal of blood at the apparent locus of the offence. Did you, Sergeant? There is no reference to blood in my notes.’
‘There was none, sir,’ said Sussock. ‘I made a special point of checking my own notes before attending here. I thought it strange that, given the amount of blood on the clothing, there should be little, in fact no blood, on the walls or the cobbles.’
‘It doesn’t surprise me that you said that. Sergeant.’ Reynolds laid his hands on the side of the dissecting table. ‘You see, the indication is that the body was moved after death and deposited in the location where it was subsequently found.’
‘Oh.’ Sussock involuntarily stepped one pace forward.
‘Well, yes, you see, with the body temperature as low as it is, we usually divide 99 by 1.5 to arrive at an indication of number of hours dead, 99 being the degrees Fahrenheit of the body when alive and 1.5 the number of degrees per hour that the body will lose temperature, at room temperature. Now, given the actual body temperature as noted, I would expect to find that rigor had already set in and was well established. I do in fact find rigor in the neck, but, as you perhaps saw, there is suppleness in the limbs.’ Reynolds stroked his chin. ‘The answer to the puzzle is that the body was murdered elsewhere and lay elsewhere during which time rigor set in, then the body was moved and, in doing so, the rigor was “broken”, as we say. You see, once a limb which is stiff with rigor has been forced to move, a knee is forced to bend, for example, then the rigor will not re-establish itself and the joint will remain pliable.’
‘So,’ said Sussock, ‘the body lay at another location for some time after death and then the murderer—’
‘Or an accomplice. Sergeant. Keep your options open.’
‘—or an accomplice moved the body, forcing the limbs to bend in doing so.’
‘Yes.’ Reynolds nodded. ‘That’s it; and he did that about twelve hours after death. It would need that time to allow rigor to set in to the extent that it has set in around his neck, which has not been “broken” in that sense.’
‘I see, sir.’ Sussock felt awkward. ‘Why would the murderer want to move the limbs, what advantage is there?’ Even though Sussock had pondered the question aloud, more to himself than to Reynolds, Reynolds picked it up.
‘The only reason could be to compress the body, Sergeant, to bend the knees up to the chest, for example. Let’s see, shall we?’ Reynolds took the right leg behind the knee and moved it up to the man’s chest. ‘Yes, that’s it.’ He let the leg down again. ‘You see, both the knee and the hip moved easily. The body was folded up to conceal it, probably in a sack or a chest, for example.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘But in this case the body hadn’t been folded upon death, otherwise rigor would have set in while it was in the folded position.’
‘In fact, what you’re saying, sir, is that the body stiffened in a prone position, it was “broken” and concealed and transported to the locus where it was found, with the joints once again elastic’
‘Yes, giving the immediate impression that rigor had just begun to set in, but it didn’t fool the sharp eyes of your police surgeon. Good man is Chan; on the ball. So in fact, when the body was found, the rigor was about twelve hours old. Perhaps you’d like to help me?’
‘Sir?’ Sussock stepped forward.
‘If you’d take his feet…’
Sussock did so. Cold and clammy.
‘After three, anti-clockwise…’
With the posterior aspect upwards, the body looked painfully thin and wasted.
‘Poor skin,’ said Reynolds. ‘I mean, for his age. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was verging on the brink of scurvy.’
‘Really?’ Sussock was surprised. ‘I thought that went out with the wooden sailing ships?’
‘Not a bit of it. If you live on a diet of beer and tinned beans, especially a lot of the former, and have no fresh fruit or vegetables or fresh meat, then you’ll get scurvy. It’s caused by a poor diet, as is rickets, which even today is not uncommon in Asian children because they don’t get the nutrients from the sun here in the West and the typical diet of an Asian family doesn’t compensate for that loss. But to address ourselves to the matter in hand: you see the reddening of the shoulder blades, the lumbar region and the buttocks? Also, there’s a little reddening at the heel of each foot?’
Sussock noted the said reddening.
‘That is what we call hypostasis. We are particularly lucky that our friend is a thin person, because hypostasis is often difficult to detect. What it is, simply, is blood which has drained down the body according to gravitational pull and has collected at the point or points where the body is in contact with the surface on which it is resting.’
‘So if the body was laying face down, on its front, then hypostasis would be noticed on the chest?’
‘Exactly, but in this case, the reddening is on the posterior aspect.’
‘So, the body was left lying on its back?’
‘That’s it.’
‘For twelve hours, until rigor had set in?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Then it was moved, the rigor was broken to facilitate transport or for concealment, and it was then dumped where it was found.’
‘That’s it. Breaking the rigor wouldn’t have thrown me off the scent, so I think that you can assume that the breaking was done for logistical reasons rather than to lay a false scent, if you see what I mean?’
‘I see, sir.’
‘I think you’ll find a considerable amount of blood at the actual locus, because the hypostasis in this incident is faint, it would be significantly darker had most or all of the eight pints remained in the body, especially in such an emaciated body.’
‘Could you indicate the probable time of death, sir?’ Sussock pressed Reynolds. ‘In the light of this evidence?’
Reynolds pondered. ‘Rigor can set in rapidly or be delayed. A person who dies in his sleep in a warm bed in a warm room will have their rigor delayed. A person whose death is associated with fear, or activity, will have a rapid onset of rigor. This poor chap was stabbed to death from the front; he would have been in fear of his life; there’s a small laceration to the palm of his right hand, indicating that he’s right-handed and he tried to grab the blade, or use his hands to shield his torso. He knew what was happening to him and his last waking moments would have been moments of terror. His adrenalin would have been pumping, his heart racing…In his case, rigor would have set in rapidly, within twelve hours. Then he lay face up, and rigor established itself…It’s really hard to say. Sergeant.’
‘Even a reasoned and educated guess at this stage would be of great assistance, sir.’
‘Well, say within twenty-four hours as of now. The body was located at eight a.m. today, death may have occurred nineteen or twenty hours before that.’
‘M
idday, yesterday, sir?’ Sussock pressed.
‘That sort of time scale, within a four-hour “envelope” of midday yesterday. Not before ten a.m., probably not later than two or three p.m. Does that help?’
Sussock said that it did and it didn’t. As they rotated the corpse of the man believed to be one Edward Wroe anti-clockwise after three, so that once again his lifeless face looked up towards the filament bulbs and the starched towel was once again draped over his private parts, Reynolds asked Sussock what he meant.
‘Only that I had thought it to be another Saturday-night knifing. One ned cooling another, when both deep in the drink.’
‘I know the sort of thing,’ said Reynolds.
‘So now it seems we can discount that,’ said Sussock. ‘Solve one riddle and pursue another. That’s what it feels like. You see, what I can’t understand is, if someone is going to take the trouble of breaking a stiff’s rigor, why also take the risk of bringing it into the town and leaving it where it will be rapidly found? I would have thought it would be more sensible to take it out to Fenwick Moor and dowse it with petrol and incinerate it. That would really cause us problems.’
‘Not insurmountable problems,’ said Reynolds sharply, ‘but I take your point. I think you said that you found the murder weapon?’
‘We—well, I found a knife, sir. It’s at the Forensic Laboratory at present.’
‘Can you describe it?’
‘Common or garden five-inch thin-bladed kitchen knife, wooden handle. I’ve got one in my house and I dare say you have one in yours. It was found close to the body, heavily bloodstained.’
‘Well, it’s certainly the sort of weapon that would cause injuries like this, there is the characteristic “fish-tailing” of the stab wounds typical of injuries caused by a thin blade, and five inches is easily sufficient to reach the aorta; it would have penetrated the shoulder artery with four inches to spare. Send it over and I’ll test it as I promised I would.’ Reynolds took a short-bladed instrument from the instrument trolley. ‘I’ll scrape under his fingernails and see what tales they tell, then I’ll open up his stomach and see what he had for his last meal in life and when he had it. Will you stay?’
Sussock said he thought perhaps not, if the good doctor didn’t mind. Perhaps the results could be phoned in.
He left the mortuary of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, walking down the cream-painted corridor with pipes on the ceiling and doors off to the left and right, some with yellow radiation warning signs on them. He walked up the wide staircase to the ground floor and left by the main doorway. He walked across the car park with the magnificent facade of the building behind him and left the hospital proper via the casualty department. At that moment the casualty department was enjoying a lull, the trolleys were empty, the examination booths had their curtains drawn open. A doctor, young-looking, childishly young to Sussock’s eyes, sat on a trolley writing up a file. Two nurses stood chatting to each other; in the reception cubicle someone laughed at a joke. It was the calm before the storm. Even on a Sunday, from 10.0 p.m. onwards, the casualty department at the GRI would be crowded with bloody, damaged people nursing wounds, many smelling of alcohol, and grey cardboard vomit bowls and rolls of tissue would litter the floor; new graffiti would be added to the walls. Relatives would have to be comforted, others would burst into tears with relief.
Sussock walked through the automatic doors and left the hospital through the ambulance bay and walked to where he had left his car. The empty Sunday-afternoon streets allowed him a smooth drive through the city, past the new residential buildings of Strathclyde University, over the Queen Street Station railway bridge, where a down-and-out was scrubbing the castiron railings with a toothbrush. Sussock drove along Bath Street up to the summit, crossing a series of major roads that was the grid system of Glasgow Town, driving between imposing lines of Victorian buildings. He drove down the further side of Bath Street towards Charing Cross where the motorway drives a trench through the city. He turned off the thoroughfare and into the car park at the rear of the police station at Charing Cross. Sussock entered the building in a bustling flurry of an open raincoat and wide, baggy trousers, holding a battered hat in one hand, pushing doors open with the other. The phone on his desk rang just at the instant that he tossed his hat on to the peg at the top of the coat stand.
‘Sussock,’ he said, standing at his desk, still with his raincoat hanging from his shoulders.
‘Switchboard, sir,’ said a young man’s voice, and a little nervous too, thought Sussock. ‘Dr Kay, Forensic Laboratory, phoned when you were out. She requested you phone her back. She said that she’d be in the laboratory until fourteen-thirty.’
‘There was no message in my pigeonhole.’
‘I had no time to put it in, sir. Then I was told that you had entered the building.’
‘Not good enough, laddie, not good enough at all. It’s a vital message. Make time. Ask someone to do it for you. Who are you?’
TC Chandler, sir.’
‘New here?’
‘Yes, sir, straight from Training College.’
‘Learn from this incident, Chandler.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Sussock put the phone down. He glanced at the digital clock on his office wall. 14.25. He took his coat off and hung it from the peg beneath his hat. It was a battered, shapeless coat and he had long since given up hanging it from a hanger. These days it drooped like a sack from the peg. He returned to his desk and phoned Jean Kay, Ph.D. at the Forensic Laboratory.
‘Speaking,’ said Dr Kay, after a pause and after the line had clicked twice. She had a soft voice, authoritative without being overbearing.
‘DS Sussock,’ said Sussock, ‘P Division. Returning your call.’
‘Oh yes. The clothing and the knife. Well, the knife is a promising source of information. Blood on the knife matches the blood group of the deceased. A positive, as given by telephone from the GRL A Dr Reynolds, I believe?’
‘That’s correct, madam,’ said Sussock. ‘In fact, I’ve just come from Dr Reynolds’s theatre in the GRL’
‘I see. Well, as I said, the blood group clearly matches up. There are a number of fudged fingerprints on the blade and the handle of the knife, but one very clear print on the handle. We have photographed it and I have laid the knife on one side in a sealed container should you wish your forensic assistant to lift the latent. We’ll get the report to you by courier later this afternoon.’
‘Thank you, madam,’ said Sussock crisply.
‘I have to point out what may be strange, and equally may have a simple explanation, and that is that the print on the handle, the one clear print on the knife, is reverse to the blade. What I mean by that is that the person who left the print on the handle was at the time holding the knife as he would if he were holding the blade towards him, not away from him as he would have been if he was using the knife as a weapon. The smudged prints on the handle and the blade indicate that the knife at some point was held in the conventional manner, that is to say the manner which it would have been held if it was to be used as a weapon, with the blade pointing away from the holder. Similarly, though your forensic assistant may confirm this, it seems to me that the gloved hand, the one which left the smudges, the gloved hand was not the hand which left the latent. The gloved hand was much bigger and heavier. I’ll make reference to it in my report.’
Again Sussock said, ‘Thank you, madam.’ He relaxed in his chair and then leaned backwards, as he found that he tended to do when speaking with a certain professional expertise. ‘Weapons like that knife are passed from ned to ned, sold for the price of a pint of lager. It’s not surprising that there are a number of different prints on it.’
‘I see,’ said Dr Kay, receptive to Sussock’s knowledge. ‘How does that explain the reverse print on the handle? To hold the blade like that would imply that the assailant was standing beside or even in front of his victim.’
‘Knives are often concealed inside jacket s
leeves,’ said Sussock, ‘reverse way up, either in the sleeve opposite to the hand which holds the knife so the person reaches across and slides the knife out, or sometimes it’s held in the sleeve of the hand which holds the knife, so that the knife drops handle first into the person’s palm and is then swivelled in the fingers.’
‘I see,’ Dr Kay replied slowly. ‘That would certainly seem to account for the position of the thumb print and the series of smudged prints. How interesting.’
‘Nothing on the clothing, madam?’
‘Dirty, cheap, thin; he would have suffered from the cold if this was all he was wearing at this time of year. I’ve found traces of motor oil in the denim, as if he had lain face up in a pool of oil. All I can tell you at the present is that it’s oil with grit and metal filings…’
‘An industrial site?’
‘I’d say the floor of a garage,’ said Dr Kay. ‘I’ll do more tests and try to pin down the type of oil, grit and metal, but what I can tell you as of now is that it’s a recent impregnation. There is no evidence of previous prolonged or regular contact; the site of impregnation is too localized. It’s all embedded in the rear of the clothing, nothing similar on the front. It is not as though they are his working clothes.’
‘I see.’ Sussock pinned the phone between his ear and his shoulder while he scribbled notes on his pad. ‘How recent, can you say, madam?’
‘The oil is still fluid. It’s still sticky to the touch. The simple tests are the most accurate. Within twenty-four hours.’
‘Interesting. The pathologist—’
‘Dr Reynolds?’
‘Yes. He is of the opinion that the attack itself took place elsewhere to the locus at which the body was found.’
‘Well, that would not be out of the question, not at all at odds with my findings to date. That is to say that it seems that the young man was attacked and murdered in a garage or on an industrial site and then taken to the alley where I am led to believe that he was found. Yes, I have discovered nothing to indicate that he was murdered where he was found.’
And Did Murder Him Page 3