“But no further prints like those found on the other objects?”
“No. The mat is quite new as you can see.”
“No other prints on the cocktail glass and now no other prints on this?” Cyril tapped the table with his pencil before Nixon spoke again.
“Further tests are continuing on the car but there’s no signs of door or lock damage. What’s rather strange, according to the report, is that the air vents on the dashboard were closed, pushed shut. Considering the weather on the day you’d naturally assume they’d be open and yet, when the body was discovered, both doors were fractionally ajar. I decided to check the photographs taken at the time the body was still in situ in the Jag. There are four adjustable dash vents on that model, two to the centre and one at either end. They too were closed. I spoke with a local dealer and he suggested that in summer, if we have warm weather, the interior temperature in the Jaguar F-Type coupé gets very warm and the climate control would be needed unless, of course, he drove with the windows open. Both doors on the Jag were found ajar like those on the Volvo. Seems to contradict my theory but from experience there must be a logical reason.”
Cyril looked at the faces sitting around the table. “Another unexplained coincidence. Owen, just add it to the board. Let’s see what the inquest on William Baines tells us.”
10
Cyril removed an auction catalogue from his desk and flicked through the pages. He was grateful that he could use his lunch hour to attend the fine art sale viewing at the town centre auction house; it would help to distract him. He desperately needed to see the Baines autopsy results.
At that moment, he felt like someone walking on thin ice, ice that showed small hairline cracks. As he walked he would not know if they would hold and enable him to cross successfully or if the cracks would get bigger causing all hell to break loose. He had that nervous feeling of uncertainty fluttering within the pit of his stomach.
He turned onto Albert Street, stopping to admire the hanging baskets on either side of the black door to the auction house. He entered, glancing at the items presented in the passageway. The reception desk was at the far end. Cyril waved and smiled at both receptionists before entering the main room. Removing his catalogue and his glasses, he started his search.
Owen was an old hand at watching the anatomical investigation. It was the whole ambience, the stainless steel and clinical perfection that he loved, he knew the procedures too. He would utilise the screen suspended just to his right to see a more detailed view of the autopsy. The small camera attached to the pathologist’s visor brought her field of vision directly to him. It was also recorded for evidence and teaching. Owen listened and took notes as Dr Pritchett carefully made the first detailed inspection of the body.
“The weight and height tell us that he was relatively fit. BMI is good. There are no immediate marks or contusions that might be linked to the day or time of death.” She sampled under each fingernail. “No identifiable damage to the nails or knuckles.”
Julie cut her usual U-shaped incision into the upper torso; some pathologists preferred the Y incision before inspecting the inner organs but both procedures did the same job. Hannah continued to photograph as Pritchett inspected and directed before she removed the internal organs. Each was extracted with care.
“All seems in order.”
She weighed the heart before inspecting it closely.
“Appears to show some signs of right heart failure but… it looks fine and the arteries look healthy, I’d say no coronary disease from this first inspection but we have to perform a standard examination and I’ll tag for a more focussed inspection of the cells. However, Owen, we can’t see if he suffered from arrhythmia and this condition, ventricular fibrillation, can bring about sudden death but…” She paused looking again at the condition of the organ. “I doubt... As I said, arrhythmia is something we can’t detect after death.”
There was another pause as she moved her hands containing the heart under a large illuminated magnifying glass.
“Signs of petechiae.”
“Sorry?”
“Minute burst blood vessels the size of pin heads that are ruptured. That could be due to asphyxiation.” She paused turning to look at Owen, noting the optimism on his face and quickly qualified her statement. “This damage can occur in over thirty-three per cent of all deaths so don’t read too much into it. It’s evidential and that’s all.” She turned back, placing the heart into a stainless steel container before returning to the body in order to look again at the cadaver’s eyes. She took a hypodermic needle and inserted it into the left eyeball before withdrawing some vitreous humour. Owen shuddered a little.
“So there’s nothing to indicate sudden death through heart failure or stroke?” Owen’s tone was a little subdued.
“As yet, no.” Julie looked up at Owen, her face protected by the Perspex visor. “We have more to investigate. You’ll have to be patient. I’ve noted prominent areas of lividity, demonstrating severe petechial haemorrhaging.”
“That’s where the blood has settled after death because the heart isn’t pumping if I remember correctly,” Owen said proudly. He noticed Hannah look up and smile.
“You have been listening, Owen.” Julie nodded slightly and then removed the lungs. She held the organs to the light balancing them in her hands, the oesophagus trailed to one side like a limp neck. She weighed them as she had done the heart. She looked again. “A little heavier than expected. This can be an indicator of death through asphyxiation too, Owen.”
“Could he have choked on a sweet or something, maybe one of those shocks that kill you when a bee stings you?”
“His airway was clear, one of the first things I checked and there seems to be no marking or damage to the back of the throat and certainly no sweet lodged.”
“A possible anaphylactic shock?”
“Good question. Difficult to tell at this stage but we have his medical history so that should be easily identified. The victim dies of shock rather than asphyxia. I’ll be sending peripheral blood for analysis and the outcome will tell us the answer to that question.”
There was a pause as Julie looked carefully over the other organs.
“Nothing to do with the car, certainly not carbon monoxide…” She looked up at Owen. “We’d have seen clear signs.”
Owen heard Julie switch on the ‘Stryker’ saw. It made the hair on his neck stand up and also brought an involuntary shiver. It seemed to him to have the same effect as hearing the dentist’s drill as a child; he knew she was about to remove the top of the skull to access the brain with the high-speed oscillating saw. He stood slightly on his toes and avoided looking directly at the screen.
Cyril had marked a number of lots he wanted to take a closer look at but felt his concentration lapse on more than one occasion. It was when he approached a painting of a horse and cart trudging along a cobbled, terraced street that his interest became more focussed. The sketches and paintings of Norman Cornish had always attracted him, particularly those featuring interesting characters, characters who seemed to have vanished from most local communities.
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Cyril Bennett,” a friendly voice whispered over his shoulder. “Surely you’re not taken by that, it’s so simple.”
Cyril did not need to look round, he knew it was Linda, the main receptionist. He did not turn immediately but simply tilted his head to one side. “For real beauty I need to turn round.” He turned, smiled and looked directly at her and she blushed as usual. “But you’re not for sale, I know you’re spoken for.”
Linda was middle-aged, attractive and Cyril knew she had a soft spot for him.
“We have a fire bucket somewhere near here for occasions like this! You charmer but then from what I hear you and certain bodily fluids don’t mix,” she giggled openly. They both then laughed as Cyril leaned and kissed her cheek.
“Touché!” He turned back to the painting. “I love it! Like all his work,
he captures a time and place that was, I feel, a time more civilised… the good old days. The rag and bone man, the milkman, the bobby on foot patrol. Who wouldn’t want these characters to return to our streets and communities? They’re statements about things that were considered unimportant at the time, maybe even commonplace, yet now they’re gone their true value is appreciated and therefore missed.”
“What like rickets and diphtheria, Cyril?” She laughed. “Scarlet fever’s making a return but I don’t hear many people cheering. You should have been an estate agent, Cyril Bennett, the way your words of flattery paint pictures in my mind’s eye, not only about paintings either!” She looked directly at him, a deliberate act that made Cyril a little uneasy. She read its title out loud. “‘The Horse and Coal Cart’,” before pulling a face exaggerating her dislike of the painting.
“In my job, Linda, the secret is to get those two things in the correct order and believe me, sometimes with the evidence we work with we’ll often get the cart before the horse!”
They both laughed, Cyril more from relief that she had averted her gaze to the picture. “So what will it sell…?” He did not finish the sentence as his phone rang. “Excuse me. No peace for the wicked. Work calls as always.”
Linda moved away.
“What have you found, Owen?”
“Nothing. No heart problems, nothing. No reason he should be dead.” He could sense Cyril’s disappointment. “She did say one thing but said that at the moment she’d not bet a fiver on it.”
“And that is?”
“Hypoxia.”
“Strangled?”
“No, nothing like that. She found some evidence… just a sec… petechiae… which are burst blood vessels, minute ones just visible to the naked eye. They were on the outer layer of the heart and also within parts of the eyes and the brain. Following on from David Stephens’s findings, they’re looking to see if there are any similarities within the blood tests.”
“Asphyxia?” Cyril asked again.
“It’s one theory but as I’ve said before, the evidence doesn’t guarantee that outcome as these petechiae can appear in a higher percentage than the quoted thirty-three per cent of all deaths. There are different ways a person can die by asphyxiation too but there’s nothing to suggest that he was murdered. She’ll need more time. She says that she can only work on the evidence found but there are a number of speculative possibilities.”
“Speculative?”
“Unascertained was a word she used. The evidence is limited and therefore she cannot give a definitive cause of death.”
“Well done, Owen. Are you still with Julie?”
“No, heading back to the castle on the hill.”
“Meet me at The Harrogate Tea Rooms, the one in Westminster Arcade, in half an hour. You know the place? Need some peace and quiet to chat things through.”
Owen hung up and Cyril turned to look briefly at the painting again but his enthusiasm had evaporated, much like the characters trapped within.
The tearoom was busy but Cyril found an empty table in the far corner and ordered his usual. Although there was music it was quiet and he found that he could still think. He was even more convinced the deaths were in some way related, although he did not have one ounce of evidence to back up his theory, neither did he have a motive, it was just his instinct. Even the autopsy seemed to be against his viewpoint. He rang Harry Nixon.
“Harry, Bennett. Anything from Forensics on the car?”
“They’ve discovered that something heavy was placed behind the passenger’s seat. Circular. It’s a deep depression in the carpet and they’re trying to get a clearer 3D image of it. If successful, they should be able to determine what it might have been. They’ve run all the prints through the system but family, friends and a number of prints belonging to Colin Strong, his business partner, are all that’s showing, nothing out of the ordinary. I’ve arranged for CSI to visit David Stephens’s place and take a closer look at the Jaguar to see if there’s a similar indentation and any trace evidence from the potato. Thought it was worth a look.”
“Well done. Arrange for me to see Colin Strong. This afternoon if possible. Call me as soon as it’s done.”
Owen waved and smiled on seeing Cyril.
“You’d have hated that, sir. It’s a messy business when they cut through the skull. It’s the noises mainly that give me the heebie-jeebies, and then there’s the stuff all over her hands, quite disgusting… I’m starving!”
Jonathan Stephens was washing the Jaguar when the CSI officers’ van came up the drive following a police vehicle. He stopped, dropping the sponge into the bucket and dried his hands on his jeans. His heart fluttered momentarily.
“Mr Stephens?”
Jonathan moved towards the police car.
“Just routine, sir. These guys just need a moment with the Jaguar. We can do it here or take it away, the choice is yours. There’s something these officers need to check.
“It’s open.”
“You said the glass and the potato were under the driver’s seat?”
Jonathan nodded. “The spud was almost in the glass.”
Only one CSI approached the vehicle and opened the passenger door. She crouched shining a coloured light parallel with the black carpet mat that filled the footwell. Pulling on the back of her nitrile glove, she allowed the underside of her wrist to rest on the mat. It was still damp.
“The carpet’s damp. Did you know?” She stood, directing her question at Stephens.
He nodded. “I’ve just used the carpet cleaner on them.” He pointed to the industrial cleaner to the side of the garage. “Spilled a coffee yesterday, bloody latte too. The milk was beginning to stink so it needed doing. The cup holders are useless for a car costing this much!”
The CSI turned and walked to the van shaking her head as she looked at the police officer. “Waste of time and money that,” she mumbled to her colleague.
Stephens watched them leave as he retrieved the sponge from the bucket and tossed it onto the car’s bonnet, releasing a number of spectrum-wrapped bubbles into the air. He simply raised his eyebrows, smiled and continued his task.
11
Craig Gillan turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door, a task he had performed for longer than he cared to remember. The same medical odour welcomed him like a sharp slap but swiftly disappeared as his sense of smell adjusted to the confines of the surgery. He dropped his bag on the chair and looked at the day’s appointments. His first one was in twenty minutes, just time for a tea and a flick through the paper. The autoclave clicked away in the small, darkened storeroom.
Finishing the last of his tea he tossed the newspaper onto the waiting room table, slipped on his white coat and went to prepare for his first patient. He felt sure the topic of the day would be the two deaths within a week but then it would be more stimulating than the usual fixation on the foibles of Harrogate’s weather or the newly found practice of removing car wing mirrors.
Bennett was looking at the whiteboard when Nixon popped his head round the door. “Nothing from the Jag. Stephens’s lad had washed the mats, spilled coffee on it, allegedly, so Forensics could do nothing.”
The nag grew within Cyril. “Funny that, or convenient. Maybe it’s me. Am I just a suspicious person, Nixon, or do you too feel as though someone’s pissing up our backs and trying to assure us it’s rain?” He looked up and immediately thought of Liz, a phrase she had often used.
How the time seemed to have flown since her murder but he knew one thing for sure, that all the coincidences would have chewed away at her just like they were gnawing at him. She would not have rested until she had come to a solution or a total dead end.
“I hear you, Liz,” he said reverently as he turned back to look again at the board. “I hear you.”
It was not long before Owen flung open the door. “Thought you’d be in here chewing the fat.” He waved the full autopsy report. “Julie asked me to tell you, Something
is rotten in the state of Denmark and said that you’d fully understand. She then mumbled something about a ghost and walls… talks bloody gibberish that woman when she thinks of you,” he said as he grinned salaciously.
“Hamlet, Owen! Shakespeare, the Bard of Avon… words like… pearls and swine seem to follow this conversation so naturally.”
“He should’ve been bloody barred, bard from the school curriculum. Christ, sir, hated his stuff, filled with disjointed English that I could never understand. Certainly didn’t speak like that in Bradford when I was growing up. Give me Roald Dahl any day of the week, all snot and bogeys. I couldn’t get enough of that!”
Cyril just sighed. “Somehow, Owen, you never cease to amaze me.”
“Thank you, sir.” Owen stood and thrust out his arms in an attempt to create a theatrical pose. “Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; to lie in cold obstruction and to rot… Speaking of dying and rotting…” He tossed the report on the table whilst keeping a straight face. “You need to take a butcher’s hook.”
Cyril looked across at his colleague convinced that he was winding him up but he could never be certain. “Thought you hated Shakespeare.” He picked up the file. “So she’s found something?”
Owen just lifted his shoulders.
Cyril went through the report as Owen hummed some unfathomable tune. “She’s recommended that parts of the body be retained for specialist investigation, going to a histopathologist. The cause of death cannot be immediately identified and therefore the term natural causes cannot be ruled out.”
“Do you think Caner saw something too and the coroner brought an open verdict because of either the drug misuse or possible uncertainties or irregularities but there wasn’t enough evidence to request an inquest?”
“Maybe Julie’s found something that will allow us to justify the allocation of resources.”
The Third Breath Page 6