The Running of the Deer

by Catriona King

  No, he preferred his food like the cavemen, something he felt he’d hunted down and killed himself, even if nowadays the closest he got to it was eating his steak rare. Picturing the juicy meat made up his mind.

  “On one condition. We go somewhere for dinner that serves steak.”

  “Why not add some caviar, and really wreck my end-of-year accounts?”

  The sarcasm was totally lost on him.

  “Nah, I never liked fish.”

  Craig rolled his eyes and gave in. “OK, steak it is. You’re welcome to join us, Miranda.”

  Liam gave the inspector a teasing look. “I think Miranda already has plans with our vet.”

  She retorted primly. “Something that I can neither confirm nor deny. I won’t join you, but thanks anyway, sir.”

  Craig nodded and then jumped off the bonnet.

  “Right, we’re off to the morgue to meet John now. He’s doing the boy’s post-mortem.”

  Des gathered his things. “Is he staying overnight?”

  “No idea. I’ll call him and find out.”

  While Craig checked, Liam sidled across to the forensics expert.

  “There’s a real weirdo in there called Erica. Animal pathologist. Watch her when she turns her head, she moves her whole body in line with it. It’s seriously strange.”

  Des nodded gravely. “I’ll be sure to look out for it.”

  Liam missed the sceptical look the scientist shot him as Craig returned.

  “OK, John is staying down too, and so is Mike. John asked him to join in the PM.”

  Liam sucked air in through his teeth. “Oooh…Annette won’t be pleased about that. He was supposed to be babysitting while she went to some chick flick tonight with her mate.”

  “How come I don’t know these things?”

  “Because I keep my ears to the ground and yours are always up in the clouds somewhere… or at some weird jazz club.”

  They all laughed at that one, and feigning revenge Craig held out his hand for the car keys.

  “Ach, boss, I was driving.”

  “And a damn fine job you did of it for two minutes, but it’s my new car so I want to drive it now.” He turned back to the forensic scientist. “Des, John said if you want to stay tonight he’ll pay for it as he’s already covering Mike’s. Marcie’s holding five rooms at the local hotel, so she’ll need to know in the next hour if you don’t want yours.”

  As he started the engine Miranda was in the back seat laughing at the men’s antics, almost wishing that she could stay with them in the hotel that night, just for the craic.

  Chapter Ten

  The C.C.U. 5 p.m.

  Davy’s search for Kyle on the C.C.U.’s roof, or ‘the fourteenth floor’ as it was referred to in code, had proved fruitless. For once the Intelligence Officer hadn’t been doing his ‘lonely as a cloud’ act, and when finally found he was chatting up a W.P.C. in the canteen and looked less than happy to be disturbed.

  Davy hovered tactfully by the restaurant’s doors for a moment, but indisputably within the D.I.’s view, and after a full minute of being deliberately ignored the analyst decided to walk across and interrupt. He cast an apologetic glance at the female officer, who even in the distinctly unattractive flat shoes and baggy green trousers that regulations compelled her to wear exuded an unmistakable appeal, then he turned to face the man so obviously intent on getting her into bed. Kyle Spence was a notorious love-em and leave-em merchant, with the emphasis on the leave.

  “Sorry, Kyle, but can you come upstairs? The chief’s given me s…something for you.”

  Spence didn’t look up as he answered, his gaze still fixed on his prey. Davy had seen such a look before in photographs, in a hawk eyeing its next meal, although the meal had seldom looked so pleased at their impending fate.

  “Unless it’s two weeks in Barbados it can wait, Davy.”

  What the analyst did next would be subject to many future hours of rumination, examining the whys and wherefores not to mention the consequences that such an action had been bound to bring down on his head. Even then he wouldn’t be able to work out whether it had been prompted by irritation at the D.I.’s rude dismissal, not only of him but of Craig’s instructions, or an act of chivalry designed to protect his next unwitting victim.

  The W.P.C. didn’t know it yet, but after a single sexual encounter with the lecherous spook, which would never be followed by a phone call, despite his departing, “I’ll call you”, the next morning, she would berate herself for a very long time. And how did Davy know this? How did he discern that the constable wouldn’t be perfectly content with a one-night stand and then happy to wave Spence goodbye, but instead likely to spend endless hours sobbing into her pillow and then run and hide every time she passed him on the stairs? He knew it because, despite his shy reticence or perhaps because of it, Davy was a gifted judge of people and he could read everything in the woman’s eyes.

  There were people of all genders for whom sex was nothing more than a nice meal, whether it was an anatomical five-course banquet or a biological fast-food drive-through, but there were others for whom exposing themselves, physically or emotionally, was a very big deal, and Davy could tell the difference between the two.

  So, with all those factors in mind, he decided not to repeat his request for Kyle to return to the squad-room but rather to pull out a chair at the table and sit, leaning forward so that the Intelligence Officer’s gaze was broken, and his view became Davy instead of the W.P.C. A filthy glare and a shifted chair later, Davy moved position to do the same again, until after a full two minutes of the same dance, Kyle Spence finally grunted in disgust.

  “Bugger off, Davy. I’ll be up later.”

  The analyst shook his dark head and deepened his voice.

  “No. Now. I promised I’d call the chief back after I’d updated you, and he’ll be waiting for my call.”

  He hadn’t, and Craig wouldn’t, but that was moot.

  He gestured vaguely around the eternal triangle. “But if you’d prefer, we could keep doing this for hours.”

  It earned him a threatening squint and then the spook rose slowly from his chair, turning his gaze back to his companion and smiling what he obviously thought was an endearing smile.

  “I’ll call you later, Sally.”

  When he’d travelled six feet he suddenly realised that Davy wasn’t with him.

  “You’re coming back up too.”

  They could have spent time debating whether it was a question, a statement or an order, but all would have elicited the same response, so Davy saved time by shaking his head straight away.

  “Nope. Buying some sandwiches. I’ll be up in five.”

  Whether the D.I. underestimated the analyst’s attractiveness or not was irrelevant, he knew that Davy was engaged so there was no risk that he would hit on the girl and he was safe to leave. But he’d completely forgot the bigger risk, that Davy might be remaining behind to pass on what he knew about his car crash romantic track record, which was exactly what the analyst did.

  It earned Davy Sally Rodgers’ pledge of eternal gratitude, before he bought the sandwiches that he’d never really wanted and returned to the tenth floor.

  ****

  The Police Mortuary. County Tyrone.

  As Craig pushed open the white front door of the county mortuary his mind was on the list of items he’d given Davy and Des to research. A lot rested on those answers, including whether their investigation might stall completely on its first day. If they couldn’t find out who the dead boy was it would be harder to work out why he’d been killed, and being without a motive could make it almost impossible to give his murderer a name.

  You could argue that that was true of every murder, but normally the detectives had something obvious to give them a direction: a school uniform, a loving family searching for their son, an earlier similar killing, just something, but this time they had none of those.

  On that point the detective smiled expectantly at
John Winter, who was slumped in a chair in the first room that they entered, the building’s spacious staff-room. It was a smile that wasn’t returned, so frozen was the pathologist’s face. When Craig turned to Mike Augustus in search of an explanation, he was answered by a shake of the head.

  “Have a coffee first, Marc. We’re still recovering.”

  It was Craig’s cue to talk about something else, but as all that came to his mind was the play that he and Katy were planning to see the following week at The Lyric Theatre, which discussion, without any of them having seen it yet, would begin and end with its title and date, he gestured Liam to lead on the small talk, knowing that the D.C.I. was never short of something to blether about.

  Liam didn’t disappoint, regaling the gathered group with Craig’s weird vibe comment and the surreal facility from which they’d apparently ‘just escaped’.

  “It was like that old TV series, The Prisoner. You know, the one where the bloke can’t escape from the holiday camp.”

  Miranda nodded enthusiastically. “That was filmed in Portmeirion village in North Wales. My granny came from there. They did a remake too, didn’t they?”

  “Aye, ten years back, with Jim Caviezel. But seriously, I thought they were never going to let us out of the place! You should have seen it. All corrugated Nissen huts, like something out of the war, and that vet pathologist woman, every time she turned her head her whole body followed, so they were always kept in a straight line!”

  If by ‘every time’ he meant ‘once’, then strictly speaking he was right, and anyway, Craig wasn’t about to ruin a good story on a pedantic point. His judgment was proved correct when after five minutes of Liam’s tall stories John’s icy expression began to thaw, and Mike, who seemed to have coped better with what they’d seen in the post-mortem than his boss, cheerfully suggested that it was time for fresh drinks.

  As he busied himself with the various steps in that direction Craig moved to sit beside his best friend, saying nothing until John’s straight-ahead stare angled slightly towards him and he murmured.

  “I never want to see anything like that again.”

  It said something about the boy’s injuries, knowing the horrors that the pathologist, and all of them, had seen.

  Craig nodded. “It’s not easy for anyone, but I think it’s even harder for parents. Liam’s finding this case difficult as well.”

  With that he walked over to Miranda, enough sympathy expressed. If he said anything more he would get emotional himself and as the boss he couldn’t afford to, not when he had to keep other people on track.

  “OK. It’s up to you two whether you feel we all need to see the body, or if you want to give us your PM report right here. While you think about that I’ll update you on where we’ve got to so far, and what Des is doing.”

  It surprised Craig by taking him a whole ten minutes to cover what they’d done that day. He hadn’t realised that they’d managed quite as much, but the visits to two vets, the clearing, the station and the facility had produced a lot, unfortunately mostly questions with no answers for now.

  John had listened so attentively while he’d been speaking that Craig could have been forgiven for expecting some wise questions to be asked, but instead the only thing that had seemed to penetrate was,

  “He was pretending to be Scottish? Why?”

  Liam answered for all of them. “That’s all you got from that summary? That Lokken was masquerading as a Scot?”

  The net result of the ensuing banter was that normal service was resumed, so that when Craig repeated his options of hearing the PM report in the dissection room or where they were, John voted with his feet and led the way down the corridor.

  Once inside the pristine dissection room, every bit as impressive as their own in Belfast, the two pathologists donned gloves and moved to flank a table bearing a small shape hidden beneath a sheet. John cleared his throat and started, detailing the boy’s bruises, caused so recently that they weren’t yet visible to the naked eye, and then displaying the X-Rays showing his extensive neck to toe fractures and listing the organ ruptures that said their victim had definitely been crushed.

  As he neared the end of his report his previously clear voice faltered, and he stepped back from the table, motioning Mike to carry on.

  “The boy was found naked but there was no sign of sexual assault, although we’ve done the usual swabs of course. His death could have been caused by many things, and had he survived he might have bled out from his ruptured spleen, lacerated liver, or his fractured bones, but he actually died from a skull fracture, or rather the cerebral haemorrhage that followed it.”

  Craig signalled to interrupt. “Caused by whatever crushed him?”

  The deputy pathologist shook his head. “Sadly no. It seems that his head was deliberately left free while the rest of him was crushed, and then as the organs I’ve just mentioned were bleeding and causing him excruciating pain, whoever did this decided to fracture his skull.”

  Craig was having trouble believing the cruelty. “You’re certain the skull fracture couldn’t have been caused by the crushing?”

  John decided to re-engage. “Positive, Marc. Sorry. The skull fracture was in his temporal bone, that’s at the side of his head, and it was a radiating not a crushing fracture. Crush fractures are depressed and diffuse and this one wasn’t depressed and radiated out from a single point.”

  The police officers looked confused.

  “Trust me on this. We can tell what sort of blow caused each fracture, and this skull fracture couldn’t have been caused by crushing. It was caused by a single sharp blow to the side of his head.”

  Craig screwed up his face in disgust. “So, the boy was crushed from neck to toe with his head left entirely free, presumably so that he could watch, then his skull was fractured to kill him.” He turned to Liam. “Does this feel like torture to you?”

  “Maybe, but it feels more like a punishment to me. Not so much tortured to get information, but punished as an example maybe? The deer heads suggest others were there watching.”

  Craig nodded briskly at the suggestion. “Yes. Punishment. Very good.” He turned back to the medics. “John, any idea what caused the pressure injuries on his body? No, actually, hold that thought for a moment. Miranda, your team was called to the scene, was anything found nearby that could have caused these pressure fractures?”

  She shook her head adamantly. “I went there myself, sir, and I didn’t see a thing.”

  “No boulders or a mill stone maybe?”

  Liam frowned. “Is this mill country?”

  “No idea. Get Davy to check it out.”

  Miranda told them what she knew. “There are a lot of dairy farmers around here, but I don’t know of anyone milling flour.”

  “Davy will find out. So, you definitely didn’t see anything that could fit with that?”

  The Tyrone inspector shook her auburn head. “Nothing. To be honest I didn’t notice any stones lying around. The ground was pretty clear.”

  Craig nodded. There’d been nothing there when they’d visited either.

  Miranda hadn’t finished.

  “And, actually…” She thought for a moment. “You remember there were no tyre tracks, well, I didn’t see any tracks where a cart might have carried a big stone in either.”

  Liam shook his head. “One trip in a cart wouldn’t necessarily leave a ruck in the earth, unless it had rained heavily.”

  “Two trips, in and out, but anyway it didn’t even drizzle on Saturday night, which is unusual around here. Maybe whoever did this wiped any tracks away? From the centre of the clearing outwards.”

  Liam nodded. “Could have done…Any cart would’ve had to have been small.”

  John had been waiting patiently for his chance to speak again and now he did.

  “It wasn’t a boulder or a mill stone. The boy was crushed using several stones, possibly piled up in a tower. It was similar to a technique used in the middle ages in Europe
and America called Peine Forte Et Dure. It means forceful and hard punishment. The technique used was to ‘press’ people between two boards using heavy stones, or by using bone vices. It was used during the Salem witch trials and didn’t stop in the UK until the late seventeen-seventies.”

  It brought tears to Craig’s eyes just picturing it, so he decided to shelter in the science.

  “Can you explain how you know that?”

  “Because his injuries and bruising revealed areas of differing pressure and some of sparing on the body. The sparing showed in the complete absence of bruising in some areas, which you wouldn’t find if it was one large stone exerting an even pressure on each part. In that situation you would expect the bruising to be uniform throughout, and bony prominences to have displayed skin splitting, which we didn’t find. Also, the fractures are different in different places. Some are clean breaks, others are more complex, and there are even a few greenstick fractures-”

  “Which are?”

  “Where immature, soft bone breaks incompletely, in the same way that a young twig would, with splintering at the ends. They usually occur in children under ten, but with the boy’s poor nutrition…”

  As his voice tailed off, Mike took over again.

  “The pressure used to cause these injuries would have been varied but enormous. It’s estimated that it takes four thousand newtons to fracture a humerus, compared to the force that gravity exerts on all of us, which is only nine point eight.”

  Liam gawped in disbelief. “You’re sure something normal like a car couldn’t have done it?”

  It said something when being crushed by a vehicle was considered normal.

  The deputy pathologist shook his head. “Nothing that straightforward, I’m afraid. It was definitely stones. Some of the bruises suggest that they were thrown at the boy as well, before he was crushed.”

  Craig stared at him incredulously. “You’re saying he was stoned? Like they do in the Middle-East?”