‘On the contrary, Dr Schofield, I just want to know the truth. Did this woman commit suicide or not?’
‘I can assure you, DI Ridpath, Dr Ahmed has exactly the same desire. He believes she did and has stated so in his report. But he is happy to have his findings confirmed by Dr Schofield,’ said Dr Waterstone in a deep, mellifluous voice.
Ridpath didn’t reply. Were the doctors closing ranks against the Coroner’s Office?
Dr Schofield returned to the woman lying on the table. ‘We’ve just got started. Luckily Dr Ahmed has already sliced into this woman a month ago. He did an excellent job on the ribs even though I say so myself.’
Ridpath peered at the young woman lying on the stainless steel table. Her face was white with just a tinge of green around the nostrils. A brown ooze was seeping from her ears and her torso was discoloured with green, brown and dark blotches. The area around the neck was an open gash.
And then the smell hit Ridpath’s nose. He immediately covered it with a hand.
‘She’s beginning to pong a bit, isn’t she? Here’s a mask. I’d rub some of this under your nose too.’ He passed Ridpath a bottle of Vicks. ‘Personally, I don’t think it works but some of my students swear by it.’
Ridpath put a dab of Vicks on his top lip where it immediately stung. ‘Why is she beginning to decompose? I thought she’d been frozen for the last month.’
Dr Waterstone answered. ‘I believe she was left out on a gurney after they completed the post-mortem. No cold lockers were available at the time. And it was the busiest time of the year for us. No excuses, though, it shouldn’t have happened.’
‘Or they simply forgot about her while the pathologist wrote his report,’ said Dr Schofield. ‘Normally, if frozen, she would still be in autolysis…’
‘Autolysis?’ asked Ridpath.
‘The first stage of decomposition after death. The cells are cut off from oxygen causing carbon dioxide levels to rise and pH levels to drop. Waste begins to gather and poisons the cells.’
‘She’s past that stage?’
Dr Schofield gazed at the corpse. ‘Well past it. She’s well into bloat stage now. Sulfhemoglobin, a green pigment, settles in the blood, causing a greenish discolouration of the cadaver. You see it here and here.’ He pointed to the nostrils and to the green blotches on the skin. ‘Along with the gasses of decomposition, putrescine and cadaverine work to break down the cell walls. You can see the body is beginning to rupture and the skin starts to slough off around the arms and legs.’ He took a spatula from a tray table and pushed it between the lips, opening the mouth. ‘We have fungus growing on the inside of the mouth. If we left this woman out for a few days, she would quickly go into the next stage, active decay.’
‘Thanks doctor, I’ve heard enough. Have you found anything so far?’
‘Well, I’ve checked the notes from Dr Ahmed. They are short, almost curt in tone, but so far, accurate. He was unable to come to any firm conclusion about the wound itself; whether or not it was self-inflicted. I can understand this inability given its nature. But I would have preferred to have seen more tests performed. For instance, an X-ray of the chest for the detection of air in the venous system and heart, an examination of the stomach contents and a toxicology test on the blood.’
‘Once Dr Ahmed concluded on the balance of probabilities it was suicide, he decided further expensive tests were not necessary,’ said Dr Waterstone.
‘Ah, there lies the rub. Was it a suicide? Let’s examine the wound on the neck…’
Dr Schofield was in full dramatic flow now, aware he had an audience.
‘There are three reasons a cut throat occurs. Homicide, suicide or accident. I think we can rule out the latter in this case. Do we agree?’
Both Dr Waterstone and Ridpath said yes.
‘I read up on the literature before commencing this post-mortem. Forensic pathologists have a challenging task when ascertaining the manner of death when cut throats are presented with no proper history or witnesses. The OJ Simpson case highlighted this in excruciating detail.’
He leant in closer to Wendy Chen to examine the gaping wound on her throat. ‘The suicidal cut throat wound is similar to the homicidal cut throat from behind. The wound usually begins higher on the neck on the side opposite to where it terminates. If the deceased was a right-handed person, the suicide cut throat should typically start from upper third of the left side of the neck and end at a point lower than the origin on the right side.’
He stepped back, examining the gash in the throat from all angles. ‘This wound appears to follow those parameters. Suicidal cut throats are usually, but not always, accompanied by hesitation marks.’ Again he examined the throat and the back of the neck. ‘In this case, no such hesitation injuries can be seen.’ He examined the wrists and the arms. ‘Nor does there seem to be any evidence of cutting or self-injuries or scars in the usual areas. Further, a fatal suicidal cut throat may be accompanied by a cadaveric spasm with the knife found clenched firmly in the victim’s hand. According to the police report, the weapon was found on the floor.’
He stepped back and looked at both Ridpath and Dr Waterstone. ‘The jury is so far undecided, gentlemen, on the question of suicide.’
‘So does that mean she did kill herself or she didn’t?’ asked Ridpath.
‘It means I haven’t made up my mind yet.’
The sudden urge for a cigarette crept over Ridpath. Anything to get away from this body and this smell. But he forced himself to stand there as the doctor continued with the post-mortem.
‘Now homicidal cut throats can be created in two different ways, depending on whether they are produced from the back or the front. We can rule out the front given the morphology of the wound.’
‘Dr Ahmed ruled out a cut from the front for the same reasons,’ said Dr Waterstone.
‘We are agreed. A cut from behind is more common anyway. The head is pulled back, and the knife is drawn across the neck, from left to right by a right-handed assailant and from right to left by a left-handed individual.’
The doctor demonstrated using his scalpel and the wild-eyed assistant, Vera, who appeared relieved when he released her after the demonstration. ‘The wound deepens at the beginning and tails off at the opposite side of the neck.’ He bent over the neck and examined the gash once again.
Ridpath couldn’t understand how he could be so close to the body of the woman.
‘It is noticeable the deep cut throat found in this case was a single incision without surrounding injuries. There are no hesitations, no starting or stopping associated with suicide attempts. We also see the direction of the cut is left to right, suggesting a right-handed person. Was this woman right-handed, Ridpath?’
The detective thought quickly. ‘I don’t know,’ he finally answered, ‘it wasn’t in any of the notes.’
‘We have the weapon here.’ From a stainless steel table, Dr Schofield produced a clear plastic bag. Inside was a small knife with a seven-inch blade found on the floor of the cell.
With his gloved hands, Dr Schofield took out the blade and inserted it into the wound below Wendy Chen’s left ear. It seemed to fit almost horizontally. He moved the blade across the throat to where the cut stopped below the right ear. ‘I believe we have our weapon, gentlemen. It fits well in the initial strike area beneath the right ear and gradually gets less deep as the blade cuts through the Adam’s apple and the carotid.’
He placed the knife back in the bag and picked out a scalpel. ‘The only way the victim could have done it herself would have been to hold the knife in her right hand and drive it into the throat, pulling it across so…’ He demonstrated the movement.
‘Dr Ahmed concluded this is what she did.’
Schofield pursed his lips. ‘It is possible if the victim was right-handed, but if she were left-handed, virtually impossible. See.’ He demonstrated with his left hand. ‘The angles of the wound would have been different. But when I checked her hands just now, I fou
nd calluses on the base of her left fingers but none on the right. There’s also an inkstain on her left index finger suggesting she wrote with her left hand. Usually, you only see them if a person is left-handed. Look at Vera.’
Once again, Vera reluctantly demonstrated for Dr Schofield. Her index finger had a splodge of green ink on it. ‘I’m left-handed, always have been.’
‘That’s observational rather than proof, doctor,’ said Waterstone.
‘That’s true. I’m afraid you’ll have to find out whether she was right or left-handed, Ridpath.’
‘Did Dr Ahmed mention this in his report?’ asked the detective.
‘He didn’t, I’m afraid. You have to understand if a pathologist has been told this is a suicide in an Immigration Removal Centre, those are the signs he will be looking for. Margaret’s brief to me was different.’
To Ridpath, it sounded as if Dr Schofield was making excuses for his colleague.
Dr Schofield continued to examine the woman’s hands. ‘No defensive injuries. If she had been attacked from behind, one would have expected to see them as she tried to grab the attacker’s hand or the knife.’
‘The lack of defensive injuries suggests suicide, doctor.’
‘Correct, Dr Waterstone. The left-handedness is not conclusive, Ridpath, but I would check it out if I were you. Now, let’s come to cause of death.’
He picked up the heart lying on a stainless steel tray. ‘There’s no evidence of air embolism such as frothy blood or air emboli in the right ventricle. The mechanisms of death in this case were blood loss and aspiration of blood following the cut throat.’
‘From his notes Dr Ahmed reached the same conclusion,’ said Dr Waterstone.
‘However, there are two things he missed.’
Dr Schofield waited for a second and Ridpath obliged him with the question. ‘And they are?’
‘The first is bruising just below the right ear, where it meets the jawline. See it’s clearly visible.’ He pointed to a large green and black bruise.
‘How did Dr Ahmed miss it?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps he thought she had fallen after cutting her throat and acquired it as a result of the fall. Or perhaps the bruise happened as a consequence of cutting her throat. The hand holding the knife jamming into this area.’
‘But surely he would have mentioned that conclusion in his report?’
‘One would think so.’
‘What caused the bruising?’
‘It could have been a fall, but it was more likely this woman was punched.’
‘Punched?’
‘Hit with the closed fist.’
‘I do know what a punch is, doctor. But there are no records of her being in a fight and she didn’t have any bruising when she was admitted into the IRC.’
‘No, she wouldn’t. My guesstimate, and it’s difficult to be precise after 28 days in a fridge, is she acquired this bruise any time from two to six hours before her death.’
‘You said there was something else, doctor?’
The pathologist bent over and stared at the woman’s right breast just above her dark nipple. ‘See here, two round marks. I’ve only ever seen these once before.’
Ridpath had to walk over to stand close to the body. The smell became stronger the nearer he got. He gagged but took a deep breath and bent down to look at the skin. Dr Waterstone joined him. There were two small black punctures close together. ‘What is it?’
Without answering, he produced shears and cut a section around the wound. He placed the inch-deep square of flesh in a stainless steel tray and handed it to Vera. ‘Can you make slides of this for me?’
She took the tray into a small room off the morgue.
‘What’s going on, doctor? What were the marks on her chest?’
‘I’m not sure, Ridpath. I have a suspicion this woman did not commit suicide, but I need to look at the slides under a microscope and I’ll be certain.’
‘Can’t you let me know more?’
‘Sorry, I’ve only seen it once before and I want do a little more work before coming to a conclusion.’
‘I don’t want to remind you, doctor, but we only have one more day before the inquest opens.’
‘I am perfectly aware of the date, Inspector,’ he carefully selected a scalpel, ‘now I suggest you do your job and let me do mine.’
He stopped for a moment, the scalpel poised over the stomach of Wendy Chen. ‘You might prepare yourself, Ridpath.’
The doctor used the scalpel to cut into the lining of the woman’s stomach with one swift stroke. Immediately, a smell gushed out and assaulted Ridpath’s nostrils. The smell was visceral, as if dredged up from the depths of some long-forgotten midden. It was a mixture of rotten meat, spoiled milk and decay, like the worst cheese in the world multiplied one thousand fold mixed with top notes of sewage.
Ridpath gagged involuntarily.
‘It’ll get a bit worse now,’ said Dr Schofield as his scalpel poised to cut deeper into the stomach.
Ridpath gagged again and rushed out of the room.
Behind him, Dr Schofield shouted in his high voice. ‘I’ll send you the report as soon as I can.’
Chapter 24
Outside the morgue on the main road, Ridpath stood and breathed in deeply, trying to rid his nostrils of the smell, but still it lingered. He could taste it in his saliva and smell it on his clothes. Even worse, the odour seemed to cling to him like a shroud, filling his head, clawing at his brains.
‘God, I could use a cigarette right now,’ he said out loud. He was tempted to stop one of the passers-by and bum a cigarette off them. But he knew if he did, he would be back to smoking twenty a day. The cigarette with Emily Parkinson had to be a one-off.
‘No more, no more,’ he said out loud again, forcing a female pedestrian to glance at him and subtly increase her pace past him.
He sat on the wall. Where was this case going? He was working hard but the clock was ticking constantly against him. He was rushing things to hit an artificial deadline of the inquest date. Consequently, the investigation was suffering. It was time to slow it all down. Examine everything, question everything. He took out his notebook.
Until he received Dr Schofield’s final report, the jury was out whether this was a suicide or something more sinister. Listening to both pathologists, they seemed to be arguing at one moment it was a suicide and at another it could have been something else.
What was it?
‘Patience, Ridpath,’ he heard Charlie Whitworth’s voice telling him. ‘Don’t rush the bloody evidence, let it speak for itself.’
‘Right, Charlie,’ he said out loud. The Immigration Removal Centre had to be a good place to start. What had happened between the discovery of the body and the arrival of Ronald Barnes? The first responders from the ambulance service were there. He needed to find out who they were and question them pretty quickly. Why hadn’t Barnes interviewed them? There was nothing in the police report.
Second, were there any other suicides in the centre over the last year? Was there a pattern to the deaths? He wrote himself another note.
Third, where did the knife come from? The centre says it wasn’t one of theirs, so how did Wendy Chen get hold of it?
Fourth, and this was the biggest question of all, how was the door unlocked? This was supposedly a secure facility, doors don’t just open by themselves.
And what about the victim? Why was she detained in the first place? Where was she arrested? Why was she removed so quickly to the IRC? And of course, who had she rung at the police station?
Too many questions, too little time.
For the first time in a long while, Ridpath was overwhelmed by a case. There were just too many unknowns. He smelt the lapel of his jacket; the scent of death lingered over him. He had to get his suit dry-cleaned as soon as he could.
And then there was one of those momentary flashes of insight which occasionally happened to him when he was under stress; he realised what th
e biggest unknown of all was.
If Wendy Chen hadn’t committed suicide, if, in fact she was murdered, how had somebody killed her in the middle of one of the most secure places in Manchester?
Now Ridpath desperately needed a cigarette.
Chapter 25
His assistant was gazing at a computer monitor when he walked back into the Coroner’s Office.
‘Hi Ridpath, how was Dr Schofield? Sorry I couldn’t make it, got stuck with these.’ She pointed to the piles of schematics of the IRC on her desk.
‘Fine, up to his arms in people’s insides as usual.’
‘What a fab job. Isn’t he great?’ And then she corrected herself. ‘Isn’t he great at his job, I mean?’
Was something going on between them he knew nothing about? He decided it wasn’t his business what they did after office hours. He had enough problems to deal with without getting involved in the personal affairs of two adults. ‘Did you find anything, Sophia?’ he eventually asked.
‘While you were away enjoying yourself at the morgue, seeing dead people we always called it at Uni, I’ve been buried under schematic plans and CCTV cameras.’
‘And…?’
‘Look at this.’ She opened one of the light blue plans on her desk. It showed the total layout of the IRC. ‘I plotted the location of the CCTV cameras on this master schematic…’
Ridpath noticed she had put little red Xs where the cameras were located.
‘…and added blue Xs for the inoperative ones.’
‘Great, Sophia, at least we can see where the cameras were located now and which weren’t working.’
She leant over the table, staring at the plan. ‘That’s the point, there’s something about the schematic bothering me.’
‘What?’
‘If I knew, Ridpath, I would be telling you.’
Ridpath jabbed his finger at the location of Room 7. ‘We need to check if that door was opened during the night. The control room will have recorded all movements.’
‘Right first time. So I rang Lucy and asked for the information. Apparently, they don’t record the opening of the doors to the individual rooms.’
Where the Innocent Die Page 9