Cold Wrath, page 7
‘I’ll certainly tell you if we do find it.’ Hennessey shivered slightly as he suddenly felt the chill of the laboratory. ‘124/7,’ he commented. ‘One hundred and twenty-four post-mortems and it’s still only July. That’s an unusually high number, is it not?’
‘Yes … it is, as you say, an unusually high number for this time of year. It’s quiet at the moment, but it has been an unusually busy six months for us. We have been working like Trojans since January. We’ll easily reach the two hundred mark before the end of December at this rate. That is a very high number of post-mortems in one year for our little city.’ She stepped back from the table. ‘So … Eric, photographs please, of the two tattoos. A single close up shot of each and then a more distant shot capturing both.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Eric Filey promptly picked up a 35-millimetre camera and advanced on the corpse of Anthony Garrett, took the requested photographs and then silently retreated to where he had been attentively standing next to the bench and to the right of Dr D’Acre, and opposite to where George Hennessey stood.
‘I see that you have taken the fingerprints of the deceased,’ Dr D’Acre commented, noting the black ink staining on the tips of the fingers and thumbs of the deceased.
‘Yes, as a matter of routine, ma’am.’ Hennessey once again shivered slightly. He had become used to the air within the laboratory being heavy with the smell of formaldehyde, but the chill continued to reach him. ‘Though there are certain indications that the deceased will be known to the police. We have not yet had any feedback from the Police National Computer, early days yet though. Very early.’
‘Of course.’ Dr D’Acre drummed her long, latex-encased fingers on the rim of the dissecting table. ‘I mention that because I am going to have to destroy his face and head, pretty as it is, so identification will have to be by scientific means, DNA, fingerprints, dental records, and not with the mark-one eyeball of a next of kin. We’ll take a photograph, of course, but that won’t be sufficient to determine identity for evidential purposes. I have to extract the bullet, you see, and that means cutting off the top of his skull and sliding his facial skin over his facial features. Once that has been done we can’t put the face back where it was, as it was.’
‘Fully understand, ma’am,’ Hennessey replied, ‘but I am quite sure the scientific methods you mention will suffice. As I said, there are strong indications that he is known to the police.’
‘Good … good … then we’ll crack on. Eric …’ She turned to Eric Filey. ‘A photograph or two of the face, please, before I destroy it.’ She stepped back and allowed Eric Filey to photograph the face from both sides and also at oblique angles, then closed on the corpse once Eric Filey had withdrawn. ‘So, rigor is established and the stomach is beginning to distend. I will examine the stomach contents to help establish the time of death by determining the extent of digestion of his last meal, though I think the fly larvae I collected this morning will do that more accurately, but we’ll be thorough, and we’ll never know what we might find of interest in his stomach. I’ll say now, though, as I have said before, and doubtless I’ll say again,’ Dr D’Acre insisted, ‘as I have oft times said, the best and most accurate way to determine the time of death is that the deceased died sometime between when he was last seen alive by a reliable witness or a CCTV camera, and the time the body was found. Anything else is pure conjecture, learned speculation, but speculation all the same. And we don’t presume to determine the time of death anyway, as you know, just the cause. Determining the time of death is for television dramas, but I am prepared to suggest it as an adjunct, and an unofficial adjunct at that, to my findings.’
‘That is appreciated, ma’am.’ Hennessey shifted his weight from his right foot to his left. ‘Unofficial or not, it’s greatly appreciated.’
‘But it’s only a suggestion. I emphasize that most strongly, it is not a scientifically proven finding. It can’t be.’ Dr D’Acre glanced sternly at Hennessey. ‘It will only be transmitted verbally to you.’
‘Understood, ma’am,’ Hennessey reverentially inclined his head, ‘understood and noted.’
‘I’ll look at the stomach contents later. I’ll do that last of all in fact, but I can tell you now that it won’t be too bad an experience for us, certainly not as bad as the “bloated floater”. Did I tell you that story? His body was found floating in the River Foss a few summers ago, and a hot summer at that.’
‘No, ma’am, I don’t think you did,’ Hennessey replied diplomatically, being all too aware of the presence of Eric Filey. ‘I don’t think that I have heard that incident.’ He had in fact heard of the ‘bloated floater’ many times before and indeed he had once visited the grave of said ‘floater’, and had done so in the company of Dr D’Acre.
‘He was found floating in the River Foss, as I said, he was about to burst and I think that the police were very fortunate to get him here before he burst in the van. Had that happened, it would have been a very unpleasant experience for the constables who were crewing the van. But Eric and I put the extractor fans on full blast … all of them. Eric left the laboratory before me. I took a deep breath and then I stabbed the stomach with a scalpel and ran for the door as there was an almighty hiss. And, what would you say, Eric?’ Dr D’Acre turned to Eric Filey. ‘It was about half an hour before we could come back in there … that sort of time?’
‘About that, ma’am.’ Eric Filey nodded in reply. ‘A very good half an hour, probably longer, in fact.’
‘Yes, it probably was longer than half an hour, come to think of it. Anyway, in the event I couldn’t find a cause of death and the police were never able to give him a name so the Coroner’s Office gave him the name John Brown, and he was eventually buried in a pauper’s grave in Fulford Cemetery. I was there, at the funeral, just me and the priest, as well as the four men from the funeral directors, who lowered the coffin into the ground. Well, strictly speaking, it was a “shell”, so called, the most basic form of coffin. I go and visit the grave from time to time. I find that I need to do that. It’s unmarked, as all paupers’ graves are, and he shares the plot with two other unidentified deceased. But he was once a living, breathing human being. You can’t escape from that fact. He had parents, maybe siblings, maybe even children, and no one relative of his knew where he was when he died, or even that he had died. It was a dreadful end, a terrible way to fetch up. No identity, floating in the river for several days, and wedged under the bridge at Walmgate before someone noticed his body, and that was only when it was set to explode.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Hennessey responded with continuing diplomacy. ‘Indeed, it was an awful way for any person to end their days.’
‘Well …’ Dr D’Acre sighed, ‘let’s get back to the here and now … but as you say, just an awful way to end one’s life. Well, at least this gentleman won’t suffer that fate. At least he’ll avoid all that. He seems to be known, and if he’s known he’ll be missed and then he’ll be reported to the police as a missing person.’ Dr D’Acre continued, ‘He appears to have been in a good state of health when he died, as already stated. His house was well appointed. He is clean and well nourished. He will definitely have a social network even if he did live alone. He would have received a set of cards at Christmas, of that I am sure.’
‘I would assume so, ma’am,’ Hennessey responded from his position against the wall of the pathology laboratory. ‘As you so rightly say, someone somewhere must know him, and someone somewhere will be missing him sooner or later.’
‘So, let us look in his mouth.’ Dr D’Acre took a stainless-steel rod of about one foot in length from the instrument tray, ‘always a real Aladdin’s cave of information in your olde mark-one gob. You know, I confess I do so love that word “gob” for mouth. It’s only apparently used in Yorkshire now but it was once widespread throughout the length and breadth of the British Isles and a “gobbet” is a word from early medieval times meaning “mouthful”. “Gob” was eventually replaced by the word “mouth” which apparently comes from the Old High German “mund” as well as an Old French source, but anyway, I still prefer the word “gob”, it’s so solidly Anglo Saxon.’ Dr D’Acre forced the stainless-steel rod between the teeth of the deceased and then levered the jaw open. It gave with a loud ‘crack’ which echoed around the laboratory. ‘I can just see the Merrie Men of Sherwood Forest, having felled and roasted one of the King’s deer, passing a leg around as they sat round the camp fire and each man in turn taking a “gobbet” of roast venison.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Hennessey grunted softly, ‘a “gobbet” of roast venison, now that does sound mouth-watering … it sounds very appealing indeed.’
‘So …’ Dr D’Acre peered inside the opened mouth. ‘Well, I can tell you that this gentleman certainly knew the value of dental hygiene, he has very little plaque. There are a few missing teeth, but the majority of his teeth are still there. I note British dentistry. So, if the tattoo or the DNA don’t help in the search for his identity, then dental records will. In the UK dentists have to retain their records for eleven years, a minimum of eleven years, and dental records are as unique as fingerprints or DNA.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Hennessey replied, despite knowing very well of the uniqueness of dental records and of their importance in assisting with the identification of deceased persons.
‘Very well.’ Dr D’Acre took a deep breath, and exhaled. ‘He was not at all a bad-looking man but I’m afraid that sadly I am going to have to ruin his face and remove his jaw to obtain an impression of his teeth to match against dental records. I doubt he’ll mind though … in fact, I am sure he won’t mind in the least.’
‘Yes, he’s past caring, ma’am,’ Hennessey quipped. ‘He’s long past caring.’
‘Indeed … and he won’t feel anything either.’ Dr D’Acre picked up a handheld battery-operated circular saw which had a blade of approximately three inches in radius. She switched the machine on and it whirred loudly, causing Hennessey to avert his gaze and then wince as Dr D’Acre applied the rapidly spinning blade to the side of the skull of the deceased. ‘Well, if you need the bullet from within his brain, Chief Inspector,’ Dr D’Acre smiled apologetically, ‘I have to do this. It is as the French say, “you cannot make the omelette without first you must crack the egg,” and so the top of his skull must come off. It’s a question of needs must.’ Dr D’Acre sawed around the circumference of the skull, just above the ears. She then laid the saw on the instrument trolley and then, with the help of Eric Filey, she turned the body upon its anterior aspect to enable her to access the rear of the head so as to enable her to complete sawing round the circumference of the skull. When the body was once again lying face up on the table and the starched white towel replaced, Dr D’Acre then, using both hands, lifted the top of the skull away causing a slight sucking sound as she did so, and thus revealing the brain of the deceased. She then took a long surgical knife and cut the brain in cross-section at the point that it protruded the skull; that done, she carefully lifted the top of the brain and placed it gently on a dissecting tray. Taking a long pair of surgical tweezers, she probed the bullet hole until she made contact with the bullet and, grasping it, she slowly extracted it. ‘It is a .22 methinks and it appears to be a hollow point. Very nasty, but that is a job for a ballistics expert to comment on.’ Dr D’Acre considered the bullet and then placed it in a stainless-steel bowl. ‘I’ll label it and send it off to the forensic science laboratory at Wetherby,’ she added, without looking in Hennessey’s direction. ‘They can tell you all about it, or they can tell you all that they can about it, anyway … not quite the same thing, but you know what I mean.’
‘Indeed, ma’am,’ Hennessey replied. ‘I fully understand the difference.’
‘So, the stomach.’ Dr D’Acre reached for the scalpel. ‘Take a deep breath, gentlemen. Are the fans on, Eric?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Eric Filey glanced at the fans. Then he breathed in deeply.
‘OK, here we go.’ Dr D’Acre also took a deep breath and, turning her head to one side, she pierced the stomach. The gases therein escaped with a distinct hiss as Dr D’Acre stepped back from the table waving her hand from side to side. ‘Well,’ she announced after a few moments of silence, ‘not as bad as it could have been and nothing like the previously mentioned “bloated floater”.’ Dr D’Acre then advanced on the corpse and then fully exposed the contents of the stomach by making an incision from just beneath the ribcage to the upper intestines. ‘The stomach contents are little,’ she remarked for the benefit of the tape recording. ‘His last meal has been fully digested, indicating the time of death as being about forty-eight hours or so before his body was discovered. I’ll trawl for poisons in his blood as a matter of course, as procedure dictates, but the single gunshot wound to the skull will be the cause of death, of that I am certain. The gun was fired at a distance of about twelve inches from his forehead, or about thirty centimetres in Euro-speak, or so I would estimate, and that means we can safely rule out suicide as I say, because there would be gunshot residue on his hands, and because the gun would have been found in the vicinity of his body when it was discovered. He was a long-time resident in the UK and he was in good overall health when he died.’
‘So, definitely murder?’ Hennessey sought to clarify the issue.
‘If you like.’ Dr D’Acre peeled off her latex surgical gloves. ‘You could say that he was assassinated. I dare say you could say that. I can only determine the cause, if I can, but off the record, it seems to me to be a cold and deliberately planned murder. So yes … the police could say murder … but in the manner of an assassination, clearly so. Someone wanted this man, Garrett, dead and that person or persons unknown got exactly what he or she … or they … wanted.’
George Hennessey took his leave of Dr D’Acre and Eric Filey, went to the male changing rooms and took off the disposable green coveralls and dropped them into the yellow ‘sin bin’. He re-dressed in his own clothing and walked out of York District Hospital. As he did so his eye was drawn to the red and white Riley RMA which he had noticed earlier that day when it was driven to The Grange, Millington, and which had been parked half on half off the kerb behind the police vehicles. Owned by Dr Louise D’Acre, it was by then parked in her designated parking bay, held, he knew, in place by the engaging of the reverse gear not the parking brake as was the owner’s custom, so as to preserve the efficiency of the parking brake when it was needed to help control the car in traffic. It was a practice that her late father had taught her, so she had once told Hennessey, her father being the car’s original owner. George Hennessey had become very familiar with the car, having enjoyed occupying the front passenger seat on not a few occasions and having discovered the cramped interior, by comparison to modern vehicles, and that despite the car’s generous outside dimensions. One had, he had found, to step up into the vehicle and then climb down to exit it. But that, he reasoned, was just how cars were made in the UK in the immediate post-Second World War years, appearing to be quite large on the outside by comparison to modern cars but with space at a premium within the passenger compartment. The car was lovingly maintained by a service and repair garage in Skelton, to the north of York, the proprietor having elicited a promise from Dr D’Acre that he would be offered first refusal should she ever come to sell the vehicle. Dr D’Acre had once told Hennessey that she had been willing to make the promise in the knowledge that the car would never be sold. She had inherited the car from her father and had promised it to her third-born child, her only son, when he was of age, and it would thusly be retained in the D’Acre line until the line ceased, or the car eventually deteriorated to nothing. Whichever came first.
That day being warm, very warm and sunny, George Hennessey chose to walk the walls to Micklegate Bar and the police station, being, as any resident of the city knew, the speediest way to transit the medieval centre of the city. Joining the walls at Lendal Bridge, he threaded his way in and out of groups of brightly clad tourists of all ages, in groups large and small, and the occasional local man or woman clearly doing what he was doing and being easily distinguished because they looked straight ahead as they walked, and not from side to side, and by being more soberly dressed and not laden down with cameras. He left the walls at Micklegate Bar and, as he did so, he glanced with horrific fascination up at the spikes across the front of the Bar where, in medieval times, the heads of traitors to the Crown had been impaled and left to rot for three years before being removed. Hennessey crossed the road when the traffic lights showed the green man in the pedestrians’ favour and entered Micklegate Bar Police Station. He signed in at the enquiry desk and walked through the ‘staff only’ doorway. He nimbly took the stairs, two at a time, to the upper floor of the building and walked confidently down the CID corridor and, entering his office, swept the Panama hat from his head and skimmed it through the air towards the hat stand which stood in the far corner of the room.
His hat, the gracious reader will not be surprised to learn, missed the hat stand by a comfortable two feet and hit the wall above and to one side of the Chief Inspector’s filing cabinet. He bent forward to pick it up from the floor mumbling that disposing of one’s hat in such a manner is a lot harder to do in actuality than it appears to be in films. Hennessey placed his hat on a vacant hook on the hat stand and then sat behind his desk, feeling more than a little thankful that none of his team had witnessed his forlorn and utterly theatrical attempt to hang his hat. He sat forward to ponder the papers which lay upon his desk top, when, at that moment, Somerled Yellich appeared on the threshold of his office.
