‘I’m sure Miss Hamilton will correct me if I step out of line,’ said DI Dunn, making me jump, ‘but nail varnish was around for most of the last century. She could still have been down there for decades?’
Tulloch threw a quick glance at her boss, three tiny frown lines creasing the skin between her eyebrows.
‘Well, no, I don’t think so,’ said Renney, for all the world as though he were apologizing. ‘You see, although soft tissue can be very well preserved by acid peat bogs, the same thing just doesn’t apply to bone or teeth. In a peat bog, the inorganic component of the bone, the hydroxyapatite, is dissolved away by the humic acids. What’s left behind is the bone collagen, which then shrinks into itself and deforms the original outline of the bone. Another thing that happens is that the finger- and toenails,’ he glanced at me, ‘although preserved in themselves can separate from the body. I’ve taken bone samples and examined her teeth and I can say with some confidence that there is no trace of this process happening. Her nails are all intact. On the strength of that alone, I’d say she can’t have been buried for more than a decade, probably fewer than five years.’
‘Looks like you could be a suspect after all, Miss Hamilton,’ drawled Gifford, behind me. I decided to ignore that.
Renney looked up at him in alarm. ‘No, no, I really don’t think so.’ He looked down again and shuffled through his notes. ‘There’s a bit more I have to tell you. Ah yes, when I heard the body was coming I ran a quick Internet check on Miss Hamilton’s village. Tresta, I think it’s called?’
He waited for confirmation. I nodded.
‘Right. Well, I wanted to find out if the area has a history of bog finds. It hasn’t, as a matter of fact, but I did find something very interesting.’
He waited for us to respond. I wondered which of us would. I really didn’t feel like talking myself.
‘What would that be?’ asked Gifford, impatient now.
‘A massive sea storm took place in the area in January 2005. Severe gale-force winds and three very high tides. The tidal defences – such as they are – were breached and the whole area was flooded for several days. The village had to be evacuated and dozens of livestock were lost.’
I nodded. Duncan and I had been told about it when we bought the house. It had been described as a one-in-a-thousand-year event and we hadn’t let it worry us.
‘How would that be relevant?’ I asked.
‘If a bog gets flooded,’ replied Renney, ‘by either sea water or very heavy rain, its tissue-preserving abilities become impaired. Soft tissue, flesh, internal organs start to deteriorate and skeletonization kicks in. If our subject was in the ground when that storm occurred, I would expect her to be in a much poorer condition than she is.’
‘Two and a half years,’ mused Gifford. ‘Starting to narrow the field down.’
‘This will all have to be confirmed,’ said Dunn.
‘Of course, of course,’ gushed Renney. ‘I also had a look at her stomach contents. She’d eaten, a couple of hours before she died. There were traces of meat and cheese, some possible remains of grains, maybe from wholemeal bread. Also, something else, that took me a while to identify.’
He paused; no one spoke but this time our unwavering attention must have been enough for him.
‘I’m pretty certain they’re strawberry seeds. I couldn’t find any actual berries, they’re very quickly digested, but I’m pretty sure about the seeds. Which would suggest to me a death in early summer.’
‘Strawberries are available all year round,’ I said.
‘Exactly,’ snapped Renney, looking delighted. ‘But these seeds are unusually small. Less than a quarter the size of normal strawberry seeds. Which suggests . . .’
He was looking at me. I looked back, stupidly, with no idea what he was driving at.
‘Wild strawberries,’ said Gifford quietly.
‘Exactly,’ said Renney again. ‘Tiny wild strawberries. They can be found all over the islands but have a very short season. Less than four weeks.’
‘Late June, early July,’ said Gifford.
‘Early summer 2005,’ I said, thinking I’d misjudged Stephen Renney. He was self-important and irritating but a very clever man nonetheless.
‘Or early summer 2006,’ said DS Tulloch. ‘She could have been in there just a year.’
‘Yes, possibly. The key will lie in the tanning process. Matter doesn’t tan instantly when it’s put in peat; the whole process will take some time. But our subject was completely coloured, meaning the acids had time to seep through the linen and stain the corpse. The time all that takes will be pretty crucial. I intend to get on to it this evening.’
‘Thank you,’ said Tulloch, sounding as though she meant it.
Wild strawberries. As a last meal I could think of worse. She had eaten wild strawberries and then, a few hours later, someone had cut out her heart. I started to feel sick. Ghoulish curiosity had been satisfied and I wanted to go. Unfortunately, I’d yet to play my part.
‘What do you need me for, Dr Renney?’ I asked.
‘Stephen,’ he corrected. ‘I need to check something with you. Something in your area.’
‘Was she pregnant?’ asked Tulloch quickly.
Stephen shook his head. ‘No; that I could have spotted for myself. A foetus in the uterus, even a tiny one, is pretty much unmistakable.’ He seemed to be waiting for me to speak.
‘How big is it?’ I said.
‘About fifteen centimetres across the diameter.’
I nodded. ‘Probably,’ I said. ‘I’d need to see it to be sure, but maybe . . .’ I turned to Inspector Dunn.
‘What?’ he said, eyes flicking from me to Stephen Renney.
‘Our victim had given birth,’ said Renney. ‘What I can’t tell you, and I’m hoping Miss Hamilton can, is how shortly before death it occurred.’
‘The uterus swells during pregnancy,’ I explained, ‘and then starts to contract again immediately after delivery. It usually takes between one week and three. Generally, the younger and healthier the woman, the quicker it happens. If the swelling is still in evidence, it means she gave birth within a couple of weeks of her death.’
‘Are you happy for Miss Hamilton to examine the body?’ asked Stephen.
DS Tulloch’s eyes shot to her boss. He raised his wrist, checked the time and then glanced at Gifford.
‘Is Superintendent Harris coming over to take charge?’ asked Gifford.
Andy Dunn frowned and nodded. ‘For the next couple of days,’ he said.
Of course, I had no idea who Superintendent Harris was, but I assumed some bigwig from the mainland. I guessed, from the speed at which they’d arrived at my house earlier, that DI Dunn and DS Tulloch were local and were shortly to find themselves sidelined. Given the rarity of serious crime on Shetland, that had to be incredibly frustrating for them and one look at Tulloch’s face told me I was right. Dunn, I was less sure about. He looked troubled.
‘Can’t hurt to know,’ said Gifford. ‘Are you OK to do this, Tora?’
I had never felt less OK in my life.
I nodded. ‘Of course. Let’s get on with it.’
We gowned and scrubbed up, the five of us, each witnessing that the others had totally followed procedure. We put on gloves, masks and hats and followed Stephen Renney into the examination room. It took about fifteen minutes and I had an absurd sense of urgency; of time running out; of needing to make haste, get it done before the grown-ups arrived and put an end to our games.
She lay on a steel trolley in the centre of a white-tiled room. Her linen shroud had been cut clean away, leaving her naked. She looked like a statue, a beautiful brown statue; almost like a bronze carving that had lost some of its lustre. I found myself wandering up towards her head.
She’d been pretty, I thought, but it was hard to be sure. Her features were small and dainty, close to perfect in their regularity. But beauty is so much more than perfection of feature; the particular mix of colour, lig
ht and warmth that gives a face beauty are totally lacking in a corpse.
She had very long hair; so long it trailed over the sides of the trolley. It twisted in long spirals; it was the sort of hair I’d dreamed of having as a child. I started to find it hard to look at her face and moved down the body.
Although I’d attended post-mortems in the past – an essential part of training – I’d never seen a murder victim before. Even if I had, I don’t think anything could have prepared me for the damage I was looking at.
On her abdomen Dr Renney had made a Y-shaped incision to enable examination of her internal organs. It had been crudely sewn up; an ugly, disfiguring wound. The damage to her chest area was even more extensive but, in this case, Dr Renney carried no responsibility. There was a deep wound between her breasts, roughly oval in shape and about two inches long, where I guessed the blunt instrument had been inserted. I tried to imagine the force needed to inflict such a blow and was glad Dr Renney had told us what he had about Propofol. A jagged tear stretched vertically from the wound in both directions, reaching close to her neck and down almost to her waist, where the forcing open of the ribcage had torn her skin. I had a sudden vision of hands, red with blood, plunging themselves into her and of large, scarred knuckles tensing white with strain as the rib bones started to crack under the force. I swallowed hard.
When I’d found her, the ribcage hadn’t been properly closed. I’d seen something of the damage inflicted inside and the missing organ had been conspicuous by its absence. I was inclined to agree with Renney. A heart removed in such a fashion couldn’t have been used again.
The room had fallen silent. I realized everyone was waiting for me.
‘It’s here,’ said Renney, from behind me. He was holding a steel dish. He carried it over to the worktop that ran along three walls of the room and I followed. Tulloch stood to my left, Gifford slightly behind. I could hear his breathing above my right ear. Dunn kept his distance.
Bracing myself, I lifted the uterus. It was heavier and larger than you would expect in a woman of her size. I put it on the scales. Fifty-three grams. Dr Renney offered me a ruler. I measured the length and the breadth at its widest, superior level. An incision had already been made and I opened it. The cavity was large and the muscular layers thicker and more defined than you would find in a woman who had never gone to full-term pregnancy. The whole process took about three minutes. When I was satisfied I turned to Stephen Renney.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She gave birth between a week and ten days before death. Difficult to be more precise.’
‘Will you have a look at her breasts for me?’ he asked, smiling, delighted to have been proved right. I swallowed my irritation. This was his job; naturally he wanted to do it thoroughly.
I walked back to the trolley. Our victim was slim, but now I knew what I was looking for, I could see a few rolls of pregnancy fat around her midriff. The flesh around her abdomen looked slack and her breasts seemed large on a small frame. I went closer and ran my hands around the right one; the left was too badly damaged. The lactiferous ducts were swollen and her nipples were large and had cracked in places.
I nodded.
‘She’d been feeding,’ I said, hearing my voice tremble and not caring. I couldn’t look at any of the others. ‘Are we done?’ I said.
Renney hesitated. ‘Well, I was wondering . . .’ He glanced down the body. Oh no, I was not examining this woman’s vagina. I knew what I would find.
‘Perhaps we should leave it for the others now,’ I said.
He paused for a moment. ‘There is one other thing the officers should see. Will you help me turn her?’
Gifford caught my eye. ‘I’ll do it,’ he said, stepping forward. He walked to the head of the trolley and slid his gloved hands beneath her shoulders. Stephen Renney held her around the hips, counted down, ‘Three, two, one, turn,’ and she was lifted up and turned. We could see her slender back, freckled shoulders, long slim legs and curved buttocks. No one spoke. The two police officers stepped closer to the trolley and – I couldn’t help it – I did too.
‘What the hell are they?’ asked Gifford at last.
Symbols, three of them, had been carved into the victim’s back: the first between her shoulder blades, the second across her waist and the third along her lower back. All three symbols were angular, made up of entirely straight lines; two of them were vertically symmetrical, the third was not. The first, the one between her shoulder blades, reminded me a little of the Christian fish symbol:
The second, across her waist, consisted of two triangles lying on their sides with their apexes touching; how a child might draw an angular bow on a kite string:
The third was just two straight lines, the longest running diagonally from just above the right hip bone to the cleft of her buttocks and the second crossing it diagonally:
Each one measured about six inches at its longest dimension.
‘Very shallow wounds,’ said Renney, the only one of us not transfixed by what we were looking at. ‘Painful, but not life-threatening in themselves. Made with an extremely sharp knife. Again, a scalpel springs to mind.’ He glanced at Gifford. So did I. Gifford was still staring at the woman’s back.
‘While she was alive?’ asked Tulloch.
Renney nodded. ‘Oh yes. They bled a little, then had time to heal partly. I’d say a day or two before she died.’
‘Which would explain the need for restraint,’ said Dunn.
Tulloch glanced down and then up at the ceiling, her hands clenched into fists.
‘But what are they?’ asked Gifford again.
‘They’re runes,’ I said.
Everyone turned to me. Gifford screwed up his already deep-set eyes and twisted his head as if to say, Come again.
‘Viking runes,’ I elaborated. ‘I have them in my cellar at home. Carved into some stone. My father-in-law identified them. He knows a lot about local history.’
‘Do you know what they mean?’ asked Tulloch.
‘Haven’t a clue,’ I confessed. ‘Just that they’re some sort of ancient script brought over by the Norwegians. You see them quite a lot around the islands. Once you know what you’re looking for.’
‘Would your father-in-law know what they mean?’ asked Tulloch.
I nodded. ‘Probably. I’ll give you his number.’
‘Fascinating,’ said Gifford, seemingly unable to take his eyes off the woman.
I peeled off my gloves and was the first to leave the room. Tulloch followed close on my tail.
‘So, what happens next?’ Kenn Gifford asked, as the four of us walked back down the corridor towards the hospital entrance.
‘We start combing through the missing-persons lists,’ replied Dunn. ‘We get the nail varnish tested, find out what make it is, maybe even what batch, where it was sold. Same with the linen she was wrapped in.’
‘With DNA and dental records, and what we know about her pregnancy, it shouldn’t take long to find out who she is,’ said Tulloch. ‘Fortunately, we have a relatively small population up here to work with.’
‘Of course, she might not be from the islands at all,’ said Inspector Dunn. ‘We might be just a convenient dumping ground for a body. We may never know who she was.’
My stomach twisted and I realized how totally unacceptable that possibility was. There would be no closure for me until I knew who she was and how the hell she’d got into my field.
‘With respect, sir, I’m sure she was local,’ said Tulloch, surprise clear on her face. ‘Why would anyone travel out here to bury a body when there are miles of ocean between us and the nearest mainland? Why not just dump her at sea?’
It occurred to me that, had I murdered anyone, I’d have done that anyway. The Shetland Islands have an estimated coastline of around 1,450 kilometres, but a land mass of just 1,468 square kilometres: a very uncommon ratio. Nowhere on Shetland is more than about five miles from the coast and nothing could be simpler than accessing a boat. A weighted b
ody flung overboard a mile or so out to sea would stand a much smaller chance of being discovered than one buried in a field.
At that moment, my pager and Gifford’s went off simultaneously. Janet Kennedy’s blood had arrived. The two officers thanked us and left, heading for the airport to meet the mainland team.
An hour later, all had gone well and I was back in my office, trying to summon up enough energy to go home. I was standing at the window, watching the day growing dimmer as banks of cloud rolled in from the sea. I could just about make out my reflection in the glass. Normally I change before going home but I was still dressed in surgical trousers and one of the tight vests I always wear under my coat in theatre. I had a sharp, almost stabbing muscle pain between my shoulder blades and I reached back with both hands to massage it.
Two hands, warm and large, dropped on to my shoulders. Instead of nearly jumping out of my skin, I relaxed and allowed my hands to slide out from underneath them.
‘Stretch your arms up, high as you can,’ commanded a familiar voice. I did what I was told. Gifford pushed down on my shoulders, rotating backwards and down. It was almost painful. Actually, it was very painful. I felt the urge to protest, as much at the impropriety as at the physical discomfort. I said nothing.
‘Now, out to the sides,’ he said. I reached out, as instructed. Gifford wrapped his hands around my neck and pulled upwards. I wanted to object but found I couldn’t speak. Then he twisted, just once, to the right and released me.
I spun round. The pain was gone, my shoulders were tingling and I felt great; as though I’d slept for twelve hours.
‘How’d you do that?’ I was barefoot and he towered above me. I took a step back, came up sharp against the window ledge.
He grinned. ‘I’m a doctor. Drink?’
I felt myself blush. Suddenly unsure of myself, I looked down at my watch: six forty-five p.m.
‘There are things I need to talk to you about,’ said Gifford, ‘and I’m going to be snowed under for the next few days. Besides, you look as though you need one.’
‘You got that right.’ I found my coat and shoes and followed him out. As I locked my office I wondered how he’d managed to open the door and cross an uncarpeted room without my hearing him. Come to think of it, how come I hadn’t noticed his reflection in the window? I must have been deep, deep in a daydream.
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