“Good. Now listen up. You’ll see I’ve already noted the identity of the deceased, place, date and time of the post-mortem. Correct?”
“That’s correct.”
“So, next we record details of our external exam. We do this systematically, starting with overall impressions, before we do close physical examinations and swabs. Good morning Sheppard. Reviewing alger mortis, this is in line with the police’s estimated of time of death. He died between eight and thirty hours ago.”
Alistair Bornthwaite hadn’t moved and Daniel wondered how Alistair knew of his presence. Then he saw the pathologist’s face reflected in the aluminium spotlight above Hewitt’s body; he must have spotted Daniel’s reflection.
“You’ll bear with us Detective Inspector.” Daniel was about to say that this was fine and to carry on, but the pathologist didn’t stop for breath. “Shortly we’ll swab the mouth, ears, anus and urethra. Ordinarily, I would also swab the nose but, well, you can see how possible that is. Let’s start with the obvious shall we? There appears to be both a depression and compound fracture to the frontal bone, we’ll shortly withdraw the skin from around the skull to confirm. The injury is in line with the police report of a blow from a blunt instrument; the skin around the injury is intact though there’s a slight abrasion and extensive contusion. Suspected cause of death at this point is a brain haematoma of the frontal lobe, but we’ll open up the skull to be sure.
As for the face, the ethmoid bone, lacrimal bone, zygomatic bone, nasal concha and nasal spine have all been fractured. The coroner’s report made a specific request for toxicological testing … ordinarily I would look for physical signs of drug abuse such as a damaged septum, but this is clearly going to be problematic, so we will take a look at the hair. Yes, you see here, this is too wiry in places for his ethnicity, but not at the root which indicates drug use, most likely cocaine, in the last six months but not in the last six weeks. We will take a urine sample, but I doubt it will give confirmation in this regard, a blood sample may be more revealing. Are you getting all this?”
“Yes sir.” His assistant was sweating more now, and scribbling frantically.
“No other signs of injury to the front of the torso. Put your report down a moment and help me move him onto his side.”
“Excuse me, before you do that, might I have a quick word?” asked Daniel.
The pathologist turned to speak to Daniel from over half-moon glasses. “Yes, Detective Inspector, what is it?”
“At the crime scene I wanted Chase Meadows to remove a foreign object. I asked for her superior’s opinion, and was over-ruled.”
“I know, I overruled you.”
Daniel shrugged this off, “I wonder if you’d found a foreign object.”
“Wait here, I’ll only be a moment,” said Bornthwaite to his protégé. “We saw it clearly on the x-ray.” Alistair beckoned for Daniel to join him by a stretch of metal worktop, which housed three sinks. By the nearest sink, was a sample jar.
“There, you best pick it up, or I’ll have to change my gloves.” Daniel took hold of the jar, tipping it on its side and shaking it a little so the label no longer obscured its contents.
It was an engraved silver disc the size of a ten pence piece. On it, a man with a staff was crossing a river with a small child clinging to his back; the snapped end of a St Christopher pendant.
“So how did this get lodged in his flesh?”
“Only logical explanation is that his attacker did it. It might hold symbolism for one or other or both of them. Or, given the nature of the attack, it might be entirely meaningless.”
“How so?”
“Well, you’re the detective. But someone capable of inflicting such injuries …” They momentarily glanced over to Hewitt’s body and the ashen protégé standing behind, clinging to the clipboard. “Well … there might not be any rationality there at all.”
Daniel hummed respect for his view. “I know you’re busy here. I’ll catch up with you after the post-mortem. One further question, though. You also examined a Sebastian Fallon earlier in the year. You’ll remember him, I’m sure. He’d been disembowelled.”
“How could I forget, he was a giant. Took five people to lift that body, even without the weight of his organs. I examined his attacker on the same day.”
“Any similarities to this murder?”
“Come on Sheppard, we’ve barely started with this one. Nothing strikes me as similar, but ask me again later, when I’ve examined them both; Leon Jackson’s up next.”
“Okay, when you do, I’m looking for something to explain that irrationality you alluded to.”
“We’ll collect samples of blood, urine, the lungs, brain, kidney, liver et cetera for toxicologists to test.”
“Especially for Leon Jackson, I think we should test for any substances that could have made him loose his mind.”
“Very technical Sheppard.”
“But you know what I mean.”
“We’ll test for an array of mind altering drugs, LSD, PCP etcetera etcetera. We might have to go for mass spectrometry. They’ll probably moan at the resources required.”
“That’s okay, they can moan at me.”
“Nice gesture, but we both know fine well it’ll be me they pick up the phone to. I must get back before our young puppy over there decides on an alternative career.”
As the double doors swung shut behind Daniel, he heard Bornthwaite say, “Why don’t you take a break for a minute and inventory our Formalin stocks. We’re going to need plenty today.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Aitken was on her way to Martin Dalgliesh’s house when the sight of a bungalow turned her head. She took her foot off the accelerator, letting the car coast. It wasn’t the property itself which caught her attention, more the manikins on the lawn. Half a dozen of them - mixed sex and naked - had been placed in what looked like a game of chase, where the leader of the line, a woman, had fallen to her knees and her pursuers were upon her. Aitken’s head swivelled, transfixed by the scene. When she finally regained focus on the road, she almost rear-ended a parked car. She swerved to avoid it, the rear tyres squealing their complaint.
That was the man Daniel spoke of, ‘local handyman has shop manikins stood in all sorts of poses on his lawn.’ What sort of person does that?
After a few minutes of Aitken’s repeated knocking, Dalgliesh’s mother answered the door of a featureless box of a bungalow. She wore a cerise dressing gown, had bare feet and was puffing on a cigarette, which accentuated her lips’ deep lines. Purple thread veins limned an intricate map across her cheeks.
“Sorry to disturb you Mrs Dalgliesh, is Martin home?”
‘He’s down the church-awll at the youth club. Wot you wont wiv ‘im anyway?”
“I’ve just got a few questions for him. Don’t worry, he’s not in trouble. May I ask how old he is?”
“He’s eighteen, this week just past. Wossis about?”
“I’m sorry Mrs Dalgliesh, if I could tell you I would.”
Mrs Dalgliesh flicked her head upwards - it appeared like an involuntary tick - then slammed the door.
Aitken muttered, ‘nice woman’ and walked back up the drive.
Aitken parked in one of the six spaces in the hall’s car park, and headed towards the entrance. The hall, three hundred yards downhill of St Hughs, was a red-bricked building with grey felt pitched roof. Pots with a flash of red and white flowers flanked the front door.
The door was locked. She walked around the side, looking down the length of the building. A set of double doors was swung open, a sign, white writing on green, read, ‘push bar to open’ on the inside of one of the doors. The doors, bouncing in the breeze, clattered against a contoured chair which stopped them slamming shut. She heard pleading shouts and the rapid thuds of hard running. “Man on, man on!” they yelled with urgency.
She stepped through the doors and shouted, “Martin Dalgliesh!” The thudding stopped, briefly replaced by the squeal of trainer rubb
er on polished wood. Ten boys in their late teens looked at her.
A taller, older lad, perhaps in his early twenties, picked up the burnt orange sponge football, tucking it under his elbow against his side, and said “He’s Martin Dalgliesh.” He nodded towards a boy sitting on a bench at the side of the hall. He wore a red tabard and blue shorts. One hand held his ankle, as if he’d just finished rubbing it. She recognised him instantly from the photos. Older now, of course, taller and his puppy fat had gone but his auburn hair and cleft palette were distinctive.
“May I have a word?”
Martin Dalgliesh silently got up and limped towards the end of the hall where a wedge of overlapping tables were stacked precariously. The goal keeper shouted at the lad with the ball, “Are we playing Nicky?”
Nicky ignored him, shouting in a perfect, instantly recognisable impression of Declan Donnelly, “I didn’t order a stripogram. Did you? … did you? … did you?” A few of the boys laughed. Aitken ignored them.
Dalgliesh perched on the closed lid of an upright piano, out of his teammates’ earshot. Their match noisily reconvened. The piano was flush against the wall next to the door which had earlier refused to open. Aitken mirrored his position, and smiled, keen to put him at ease. She would not take notes. This was just an informal chat. She spoke softly.
“I met your mum a short while ago. I was at your house looking for you.”
“That so?”
“A-hum. Martin … can I call you Martin?”
“Sure, it’s my name.”
“I want you to know that we want to help you.”
“Help me? I don’t need any help. What’s this about?”
“Earlier this year, you entered a house belonging to Sebastian Fallon and were cautioned for trespassing.” He hung his head a fraction and nodded. “It’s okay, we’re not concerned about that, but we are concerned about what you were looking for.”
“Look, Miss, like I told you lot at the time, I was just curious. Maybe I’d have picked up something, a souvenir, if I’d seen one, but I didn’t see nuffin’ and I took nuffin’.”
“Look at me Martin.” He looked up. She said, “It’s okay. We believe we know what you were looking for. We know what they did to you.”
The whites of his eyes turned a pinker shade. He flashed a look towards his teammates and stood up. He walked around the end of the piano, past Aitken, unbolted the door and left. Aitken followed him as he strode towards the car park exit.
“We can’t talk here,” he said.
“Wait, Martin, stop. We can talk in my car, or I can give you a lift somewhere so we can talk properly, if you like?”
He looked all around him, rubbing his upper arms, then the back of his neck. “Okay.”
Aitken edged towards the car, half expecting Martin to bolt; she recognised that fight-or-flight look. But he followed her, taking the passenger seat. He wiped his eyes roughly with his wrists as Aitken started the car.
“You have no business knowing,” said Martin.
“Let’s go somewhere less conspicuous and we’ll talk.”
They drove towards Daniel’s house in silence. Dalgliesh finally said, “Tell me what you found.”
“Pictures. Of Sebastian Fallon, of Anthony Nixon.” He looked out the window and Aitken got the sense that, in the undoubted swell of emotion bubbling up in him, shame was the strongest feeling in the mix; he wanted to look anywhere but in Aitken’s direction.
“I’m sorry to have to say this, Martin, but things like this happen all the time. It’s a sad fact of life, but it’s true. I see it a lot in my line of work.”
“Not to me it doesn’t.”
“To all sorts of people. There’s nothing to feel ashamed about. You should be angry with them - who wouldn’t be - they were the adults. It’s all down to them, it’s not your fault.” He was silent. “Does your mum know?” He shook his head.
Just as they pulled into Daniel’s drive, he turned towards her, “Why don’t you just leave it alone?”
“Because we want to stop this happening to other people, you must understand that.”
“It can’t happen to others though, can it? They’re both dead, and I hope the bastards rot in hell for what they did.”
“There was someone else, though, wasn’t there? The one who took the pictures.”
He grasped at the handle and moved to leave. Aitken reached out and took a gentle hold of his upper arm. “Don’t go. Tell us who was there Martin.”
He spoke with his back to her, gripping the handle, “You’d do best to forget this. And if I were you, I’d get out of Blaine altogether. I’d leave myself if I had the money, if I had somewhere to go. This isn’t the end of it.”
He pulled away from her grip. His arm came away easily, slicked as it was in sweat. He slammed the car door shut and rushed down Daniel’s drive with one straight, dragging leg, the other pumping hard.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Jonah wasn’t hard to track down. Daniel found him on Facebook. His hair had greyed further since they’d met on that plane bound for Minorca, but those steely blue eyes were just as bright and knowing. Not presuming Jonah would remember their meeting, Daniel took an extra precaution. He re-took his own profile picture, holding a piece of white card the size of his chest. Neatly printed in black across the card: “Jonah, sorry to bother you. We met on a flight, I hope you remember me. I need to talk.” He saved this profile picture then immediately sent Jonah a friend request. Twenty minutes later the request was accepted and a message arrived on Facebook messenger: a mobile number signed off with a J.
Metallic wind chimes tinkled faintly outside. Daniel looked out of his conservatory window onto his garden at a song thrush flicking water off its wings as it paddled in a stone bird bath. He dialled Jonah as he watched.
After establishing it was a good time to talk, they exchanged memories of their conversation on the plane and briefly discussed how the ‘climate’ was with Daniel’s team. Their small talk ended with Jonah saying, “You want to talk about something else, though, don’t you Daniel?”
“That I do … that I do. How are you with statistics?”
“Better than fair, why?”
“Good. I’d like to put a little puzzle to you.”
“Go on.”
“I can’t tell you about the details, because it’s part of an ongoing investigation … but let’s just say I have two incidents in close proximity, with similar circumstances, happening in the same calendar year and I just can’t shake the possibility that the two incidents are-”
“Connected?”
“Yes, linked somehow. I have this notion that, statistically speaking, a co-incidence is so unlikely there must be a link.”
“Have you ever lived in London, Daniel?”
“No.”
“It doesn’t matter. Did you know that, during the war, the British army were convinced that the Germans were using a targeting system on their bombs?”
“No, I’d not heard that.”
“Well, that was the conjecture. They went about proving whether this was the case by getting a map of London, drawing a grid of locations, and then plotting how many bombs had landed in each square inside the grid. With me so far?”
“I think so.”
“Then they counted those squares with no bombs, those with one bomb, two bombs et cetera. They plotted these numbers against a distribution called the Poisson distribution.”
“Boursin? Isn’t that a cheese.”
“No … Poisson, with a P as in Simeon-Denis Poisson, the famous statistician. Well, as famous as a statistician gets. Anyway, the crucial point is that this distribution is a random one. Any pattern matching the distribution must also be a random one. The bombing pattern was perfectly random; no targeting system in evidence. Is your incident one that could happen country-wide?”
“Yes.”
“Then get a map of the UK - create a grid with, say, 100 equally sized squares, and go back a year, further if
you can, and plot how many incidents of that nature occurred in each area. Just pump the numbers into a spreadsheet I’ll send you - I’ll need your email address - you’ll soon know if you have anything odd or not.”
“Jonah, thank you so much.”
“Not at all, can I ask you a couple of things?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t the police have statisticians for this sort of thing?” Daniel tried to contain a snort of laughter.
“If this was high priority, I might have it back in a week. As it is, I’d be lucky if they even entertained the request.”
“I see. My other question is, how did you guess I’d have a statistical background?”
“You just had that air about you.”
“Did I come across as that nerdy?”
“No, not at all. It’s just that … you know … you meet some people who don’t take anything on face value. My hunch was that, when something’s reported in the news or professed to be true, you would be the type to interrogate how the conclusion was drawn: the facts, the figures, the data. You must know the type: those who relentlessly pursue knowledge. Well … you struck me as that type.”
“Under that unassuming mask, Mr Sheppard you’re one perceptive man.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Daniel got off the phone from Jonah as Aitken let herself in through the front door. They stood in the hall, Aitken beside the table with Alison’s picture, and Daniel opposite her. The light hazed in through the frosted glass behind Aitken, gilding the odd stray hair which wasn’t held up. They exchanged stories of the morning, both convinced a third person was involved in the torture of Martin Dalgliesh. Aitken’s look became glazed when Daniel told her about ‘this Poisson distribution business’. If he was honest, he’d felt pretty glazed describing it. Still, they didn’t have to worry about that now. Aitken’s main concern was how hard it would be to extract the data from the office for national statistics. Daniel was more optimistic, he didn’t need a summary from them, or multiple filters, just the raw data: postcode, date and crime type. Surely that couldn’t take them long.
Prepared to Die Page 13