River Deep (4 page)

Sullivan’s lips tightened. “Not if my suspicion proves correct.”

She did not question him. When he was ready he would tell her. But, like most pathologists she had worked with, he liked to distil the facts before suggesting a theory.

Alex Randall was still looking at the suit. “Nice,” he said.

One of the SOCOs spoke up. “People who flog Jags for a living tend to know their suits, Sir.”

“Is it English or foreign?” She didn’t even know why she asked the question.

PC Coleman answered, his face pinking up a bit. “Italian by the labels. But you can probably buy them over here. In London. Or Slough. For a price.” He cast a critical eye over the fabric. “Not a good fit though. Trousers a bit loose and long.” He shrugged. “Maybe he’d lost weight. Or maybe the material lost its shape in the water.” Who could know except the missing wife?

They laid the suit to one side. It had told them what they had already known. Humphreys breathed money.

And now Mark Sullivan moved on to perform the vital part of the operation – the delicate investigation of the fatal wound. And although the subject was gruesome, Martha enjoyed watching the pathologist work.

The more absorbed Mark Sullivan became in his work the more she forgot what he looked like and saw only a sober, methodical, professional man. She had heard whispers, mainly from Jericho, of marital disharmony, of alcohol abuse, of domestic violence and police involvement, of nights spent at the mortuary because he could not or would not go home. Jericho could be quite a malicious
gossip. But when she had faced her assistant with the indisputable fact that unhappy couples could easily separate he had had no answer to give. So Mark Sullivan remained an enigma and she was left with her curiosity. Every time she looked at him she wondered.

His fingers probed beneath the skin and fished out some white eggs, something like cod roe, from the mouth of the wound. “Calliphora,” he announced, as though introducing a friend.

“I’m sorry?”

“Bluebottle eggs.” He decanted a couple into a
white-topped
specimen pot. “I said the fly. With my little eye. Can’t be too careful. We’ll get an entymologist to positively identify but it may help with the time of death.”

She raised her eyebrows and Sullivan continued explaining.

“If I am right and this really is Calliphora they like their corpses fresh. The open wound in the chest plus the fact that the temperatures have been high for the time of year proved too tempting for a marauding bluebottle.”

It was hard not to feel repulsed.

He continued his scrutiny of the chest, standing back for the police photographer to record the proceedings before sawing through the sternum with a wire, examining some notches on the ribs then carefully probing further. Martha peered over his shoulder but did not interrupt him. He was absorbed, muttering to himself, using his gloved index finger delicately to explore the penetration of the weapon. She knew exactly what he was doing. Once, in an unguarded moment, he had confessed to her that while investigating cases like this he built up an almost fey picture of intent, assault, events. He was doing this now and she did not want to break the spell so stood still, making observations of her own. His face was
composed.
He glanced up and she flushed. He knew she’d been watching him.

He had reached the heart now, pushing aside the major vessels and immediately the explanation for Humphreys’ death was apparent, also the reason for the lack of
blood-staining
on the shirt and other clothes. The organ lay in a sack of blood which had leaked from a small puncture wound. The tip of the knife had reached the left ventricle and blood must have spurted out yet been contained in the pericardial sac. Sullivan made a guttural noise, almost feral. He had found what he had searched for. The cause of death. He looked up and there was the gleam of discovery on his face. Of knowledge. For him the picture was complete. But turning around to look at Randall she could see he did not understand. And Martha knew better than to quiz.

Almost losing interest, Sullivan turned his attention across to the lungs and found some blood-stained frothing in the larger tubes – the bronchi. And all the time Martha could tell his interest was waning because he had found what he was looking for. “No sign of disease,” he muttered into the tape recorder… “Healthy and muscular. Really good strong heart. No sign of atheroma.” He looked up at the rim of faces. “My guess is he was quite an athlete.”

She nodded her agreement.

His examination of the abdomen and lower limbs was much more cursory. The stomach was empty, all other organs healthy and intact. He filled a couple of bottles with blood samples. They would be sent for toxicology and alcohol and drugs levels. Some would be merely saved. In case … Finally he swabbed the sex organs for semen, but she could tell his interest had gone. The puzzle was solved. She waited until he was sewing up the thorax with
big, untidy stitches before speaking. “So?”

“Someone stuck a knife through his heart.”

“Yet there was little blood on his clothes?”

Sullivan agreed. “Very little blood loss at all.”

“Strange.” She was fishing for information.

“What did you think of the lungs?”

“He didn’t drown. Some frothing blood in the trachea. He aspirated.”

“So the cause of death was …?”

“Pericardial tamponade. Quite rare. Invariably fatal.”

Sullivan began to wash his hands.

Randall cleared his throat. “Is it a homicide?”

“Ninety-nine per cent yes.
If
you’d found the knife still in the wound I’d say it was a very unusual way to commit suicide or a very unlucky accident. If the knife isn’t in the cellar.” He turned from the sink. “What am I saying?” He grinned. “I’m being overcautious. Of course it’s a homicide. Quick and professional. He was a strong man. His killer must have been even stronger. Or lucky. Just the one stab wound. But what a hit. The knife had a single-edged blade of a maximum of two centimetres wide and a minimum of fourteen centimetres long give or take a centimetre. Long and slim like a carving knife. Not serrated. No untidiness. It was sharp. The wound is clean and not ragged. If you forced me to make a comment on this I would suggest that he was very shocked by what happened. The knife penetrated the left ventricle and was driven right in. There is some compression of the material around the jacket pocket which corresponds with the wound on Humphreys’ body.”

“Would that have taken a lot of force?”

Mark Sullivan gave her a strange, sad smile as though he had woken from a dream. “You’re expecting me to say something about ‘extreme force’ or someone with ‘arms
like a chimpanzee’, Martha. But the truth is once you’ve penetrated the skin the rest is a piece of cake. It’s even possible a woman could have done this – if she was reasonably fit and was in a position to assault Humphreys without him first being able to fend her off.”

A vision of a woman? A lover? Someone near but not to be trusted? Humphreys’ wife?

“Could it have been an accident?”

“I’d take an awful lot of convincing but the usual defence is that the deceased ‘fell’ against the knife thus causing his own injury.”

“It’s possible?”

“Like I said, I’d take an awful lot of convincing. If he hadn’t taken a while to die.”

She stared at him.

“Think of it, Martha,” he urged. “The blood doesn’t gush out but leaks slowly into a bag to leave the circulation. The pericardial sac acts as a staunch.”

“How long?”

“That no one knows.” He grinned. “It’s something pathologists like to argue about over their late-night drinks at medical conferences. Who knows? Now I might be able to join them. The truth is it depends on how fast the blood leaked out. The wound was only small. The tip penetrated – not the full two centimetres maximum width of the knife blade. Possibly 500 mls. loss would be sufficient to cause death when combined with a penetrating wound to the heart. There is even some argument that the wound itself is enough to put the ventricle into fatal arrhythmia but generally the accepted estimates are between ten or so minutes and an hour or two.”

“Would he have been conscious?”

“We don’t know. At least we can’t say with certainty.”

The police officers were standing back, unfamiliar with
medical terminology. Alex Randall spoke for all of them. “So – for the benefit of the uninitiated, in words of less than ten syllables – can you explain, doctor?”

Mark gave him one of his lop-sided smiles. “Yes. Sure. Sorry, Alex – and the rest of you. The knife entered the heart, in this case the left ventricle. There was a lot of bleeding into the pericardial sac – the bag the heart lives in. This caused a lethal condition known as cardiac tamponade when, because of the increased pressure and loss of blood, the cardiac output falls – eventually causing death.” He put a friendly hand on Randall’s shoulder. “You don’t need to know all the details, Alex,” he said, “except that the stab wound was the direct cause of this man’s death.”

The officers were silent. Martha could almost see the cogs of Alex Randall’s mind start to turn, almost hear the metallic grind. A stab wound to a police officer’s mind is homicide. This would spark off a major police investigation. And discount the theory that Humphreys had caused the wound himself.

Mark gave a short laugh. “I think I’d like two questions answered at this stage,” he said. “The first is – why no ID?”

Coleman was the one to answer. “He might have been one of these guys who empties their suit pockets,” he said. “Keeps their shape.”

“So did you find his wallet, cheque book, credit cards and mobile phone anywhere in the house?”

Coleman shook his head.

“Or in the car?”

“No.”

“And the second question?” Martha asked.

“What made that round mark on his chest? It was done shortly before death and was quite a hefty whack. It probably had nothing to do with his death. I’m simply curious.
I can’t work out what did it.” He untied his long, rubber apron and spoke to the mortuary assistant. “Better tidy him up,” he said.

Martha moved away while Peter did his job. Mr James Humphreys had been a well-dressed man who had died a violent death. Why?

Shrewsbury was not a violent town. Its ancient buildings, unchanged for centuries, reflected a safe town whose inhabitants were largely peaceable. It stood on a hill, safe from marauders, encircled by the protective River Severn except for a narrow strip in the North East. And that was watched over by the Castle which nowadays houses the Regimental Museum. So in the streets people walked in security. It was as though the embrace of the river, combined with the geographical fortification of the town, made them feel insulated against the twenty-first century. Salopians still lived in a gentler, earlier era. Here there were no marauding gangs of vicious villains, little crime or drug dealing. No prostitution – unlike a century ago when areas like Mardol had been the haunt of drunken seamen, prostitutes and pick-pockets. Grope Lane had not found its name by chance! Neither had Butcher’s Row or Fish Street. People walked on history in this town. And yet there was enough blood in its past. There had been a bloody battle of Shrewsbury six hundred years ago and centuries before that Dafydd ap Griffith had been hanged, drawn and quartered at the spot now marked by the High Cross.

And now there was another savage murder to add to its archives. How long would Humphreys have lain in the cellar of Marine Terrace if the River Severn had not flushed him out? The crime would have remained concealed for longer. For how much longer? And why had no one come forward to claim him yet?

“Alex,” she said impulsively, “I’d like to visit Marine Terrace again. Can that be arranged? Maybe tomorrow?”

He nodded gloomily, still tussling with the prospect of a major investigation on top of the problem of the floods. “Provided the river’s gone down and we get no more rain. The property’s been under feet of water. The cellars are still partially flooded. It’s a right mess. We’ve sent frogmen in. There doesn’t appear to be anything more down there except a few drowned rats but it’s a difficult crime scene to search completely. And potentially dangerous too. We’re really going to have to wait for the Severn to recede all the way back before we can be absolutely sure we’re not missing anything. And that could take a week.”

He was distracted by his mobile phone. He frowned, spoke into it for a moment or two, flicked the off button, his face taut to make a significant announcement. “Well, we may have something like an answer soon. Mrs Humphreys has been located and picked up. She’s in a Squad car, on the M54 – less than half an hour away. We’d better get her husband cleaned up and ready for viewing.” The mortuary assistant busied about his work and the police officers clustered in the corner, talking.

“Martha.” Alex’s eyes were on her. “I don’t suppose… It might be an idea…”

She put the words into his mouth. “You want me to stay?”

“You’re going to have to make contact with the family at some point.”

She nodded. “OK.”

It was less than half an hour later when they heard a car pull on to the mortuary car park. Minutes ticked by before the bell was rung and they heard voices. One loud, female, the other Peter, the mortuary attendant.

They let Alex Randall deal with Mrs Humphreys. As the
Senior Investigating Officer it would be part of his job to liaise with the family of the murder victim so it was helpful if he made early contact. And it didn’t seem quite right for the pathologist who had just carved up her loved one to have too much to do with grieving relatives. They heard her step, the clack clack of high heeled shoes, before they caught sight of her passing the window. A tall, well-built peroxide blonde, in her thirties. Alex led her into the viewing room. They could make out his shadow behind the curtain, head bent, hands lifting the sheet while she bent forward. Then suddenly everything changed. There was a shriek. The woman jerked back. Randall stiffened. Martha stood up. Mark Sullivan looked up from his notes. “What’s going on?”

Alex told them what had happened. He had drawn the cloth away from the face. Mrs Humpheys had drawn in a deep breath, stared, then gasped and looked up, confused. “I’m sorry,” she’d said, “I’m so awfully sorry. But this man is not my husband.”