Kyle’s dark cow eyes opened and his long lashes fluttered as he focused. For a split second he made to smile then his face paled and he sat up. ‘Get off me,’ he muttered groggily.
‘Kyle, you’re—’
‘Get off me.’ Kyle squirmed unsteadily to his feet. ‘Don’t touch me.’ He righted himself and managed to stand then staggered away towards the darkness of the fields, pushing past Jake’s outstretched hands.
‘Kyle!’ shouted Jake after him.
Kyle lurched out of sight, sobbing. ‘Leave me alone, you bastard. I hate you.’
B
ROOK AND
N
OBLE ARRIVED AT
the shiny new mortuary in the Royal Derby Hospital complex at nine the next morning and headed straight for the Post Mortem Suite. When they arrived, Dr Habib was already finishing work on the dead man and was preparing to remove his gown and mask while an assistant took the final photographs.
Habib was a short chubby Asian man with soft brown eyes blinking behind thick round glasses. His face was wrinkle-free, despite advanced age, his hair, sticking out from under his surgical cap, was reddish-brown save for a few strands of grey that hadn’t seen sufficient henna.
After he stuffed mask and gown into a hazard bin, he muttered an instruction to his assistant who set down the camera and laid out the deceased’s hands, palm up, and ready to roll on the fingerprint ink. When Brook and Noble entered the lab, fiddling with surgical masks, they ventured no further than the freezers.
Habib grinned when he spotted them. ‘Inspector Brook. And Sergeant Noble also. Nice to see you. Just finishing up.’
‘You got an early start,’ said Brook.
‘It’s
a lot quicker without clothes to bag and organs to remove,’ said Habib. ‘And we’ve got a backlog to work off.’
‘What have you got for us?’ interrupted Brook, fearing a lecture on excessive workload – Habib’s favourite topic of conversation.
Habib paused, wondering whether Brook should be made aware of how much he had on his plate, then decided against it. ‘More questions than answers at this stage, I fear. A tricky case – but very interesting.’ He smiled warmly at his assistant who walked over to them, camera in hand. ‘Gentlemen,’ Habib gushed towards the detectives. ‘Can I introduce Dr Ann Petty?’
‘Detectives,’ she said through her surgical mask. Brook caught a glimpse of her green eyes as she ran them briefly up and down, first Brook’s then Noble’s frame before returning to her work. The two detectives pretended not to notice. This wasn’t a come-on but a reflex they’d noticed in every pathologist, undertaker or mortician they’d ever had dealings with. Without being aware of it, the technicians of death always ran an experienced eye over new acquaintances, to estimate their weight and assess how their corpses might present on a cold steel trolley. ‘Slab happy’ was the phrase Noble had coined to describe it.
‘Does this mean you’re no longer short-staffed, Dr Habib?’ asked Noble. Brook darted a warning glance at him.
‘For the moment,’ replied Habib. ‘For now, Dr Petty is under my supervision and will be replacing me when I retire next year, at which point
she
will be short-staffed.’ Habib chortled at his joke and looked around the room for approval.
‘Interesting case, you say,’ said Noble.
Habib gestured them through to the office at the side of
the lab and removed his gloves while Dr Petty continued with the fingerprinting. ‘And puzzling, though you’ll be pleased when I tell you that we’re reasonably sure the deceased wasn’t murdered.’
‘It was natural causes?’
‘No, Inspector. But also yes. He died of alcohol poisoning. That’s what I’ll be telling the Coroner.’
‘Is that a natural cause?’ asked Noble.
‘Not officially. But it is if you’re a chronic abuser of alcohol and drugs. For this gentleman, ingesting large amounts of very strong spirits would be routine, judging from the condition of his brain. Also, needle-marks on his arms indicate occasional drug abuse. Probably heroin – we’ll know for sure after more tests.’
‘But he drank himself to death.’
‘It looks like it. At first, Dr Petty and I thought alcohol levels were so high that maybe there might have been some element of coercion – nearly 500mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood. No normal person could be drinking at those levels without passing out. But there was no evidence of force in the usual places.’
‘Usual places?’
‘Specifically the arms and the mouth. If someone were wanting to force-feed alcohol to a person, normal practice would be to restrain their arms and head before forcing the bottle or glass into the mouth. It’s very difficult to do and would require multiple assailants.’
‘But—’
‘But that usually results in cuts and bruising around the gums and mouth, sometimes chipped teeth. Obviously his mouth is not in tip-top shape but there’s no sign of such
trauma. Coercion would also present distinctive bruising on the arms and neck.’
‘But there’s none of that.’
‘The body has the extensive bruising common to chronic alcoholics; some marks are old, some new – but nothing to indicate restraint.’
‘Couldn’t the alcohol have been injected?’ asked Noble.
‘Fresh needle-marks often take longer to present,’ said Habib. ‘We’ll re-examine in a few days to be sure, but it’s extremely unlikely because it’s far too inefficient as a delivery system for that much alcohol.’
‘Do we know what he was drinking?’
‘Given the absence of the stomach, liver and kidneys it’s difficult to be precise until we do more tests. We will need to slice and dice what’s left of the brain for a more detailed analysis of toxins to be absolutely certain. The absence of blood . . .’
‘Absence of blood,’ repeated Noble.
‘There’s no clean blood. There was a little in the heart valves but that was clotted, and it would be contaminated. We’ve got enough for a blood group. And tissue samples should tell us . . .’
‘What do you mean there’s no clean blood?’ asked Brook.
‘Oh, forgive me, I thought you knew. This gentleman has undergone some form of post-mortem procedure and is in the first stages of being embalmed.’ He walked them back to the body on its stainless-steel table. ‘As well as removing all the organs, he was drained of blood. You see these two puncture wounds in the neck? They tapped into his major arteries. It’s a common enough procedure for funeral homes. It stops discolouration of the flesh.’
‘So
we don’t have a vampire at large,’ quipped Noble.
Habib chortled. ‘I’m afraid not.’ The diminutive doctor placed a thumb and finger on either side of the cadaver’s neck. ‘These incisions have been made by a surgical instrument so tubes can be attached. Draining the body of blood would require time and patience and preferably a tank to store the blood.’
Brook nodded. ‘So whoever did this might have access to specialist equipment.’
‘Well, it’s not essential, Inspector. Those preserving bodies in the Ancient World didn’t have any. But these days, as well as a large tank to contain the blood, he might also use a pump to help the blood drain. Otherwise things could get a bit messy.’
‘Not something that an amateur can do in his bedroom then,’ muttered Noble.
‘Absolutely not,’ answered Habib. ‘And strictly speaking he’s not an amateur. Whoever performed this procedure possesses a fair amount of anatomical knowledge.’ He indicated the large opening on the dead man’s flank. The stitching had been removed and, without thinking, Habib pulled the wound open so they could see inside. Noble looked at the ceiling while Brook pursed his lips. ‘This incision in his side was made to remove the internal organs and it’s quite a skill.’
‘Why remove the organs?’ asked Noble.
‘Well, unless he’s making a large haggis,’ sniggered Habib, releasing the flaps of flesh on either side of the wound, ‘the usual reason is to hinder microbial growth and decomposition. And it is common practice in hospital mortuaries for examination purposes, unless there are religious objections.’
‘Just hospitals?’ asked Noble.
‘There
are scientific facilities that use cadavers, medical schools, that sort of thing – they have skilled technicians for such procedures. It’s about preservation and, of course, reserving the organs for whatever procedures they might be undertaking.’
Dr Petty walked over to them, removing her face mask and cap. She had short blond hair with tinted highlights. Brook noticed Noble looking at her for longer than necessary.
‘Speaking of undertaking . . .’ she said to Habib.
‘Yes. Undertakers and funeral directors would be more likely in this case.’
‘Because it’s not clinical,’ said Brook, nodding. ‘But cosmetic.’
Petty smiled at him. ‘Right. Someone has very carefully, almost lovingly, begun the process of preserving his body. If he came to us as a suspicious or unexplained death,’ she nodded towards the spread-eagled chest cavity, ‘we observe the basics of our profession. We open them up completely for ease of access. It’s not pretty but it gets the job done. Equally, if we need to see the brain, we use a skull key and a saw to take off the top of the head. The only reason to remove the organs through this small incision seems to be cosmetic.’
‘To leave the torso unblemished.’ Brook nodded.
‘And this kind of cosmetic consideration is most likely to be found in the funeral service,’ said Habib. ‘Those gentlemen, and ladies perhaps,’ he added with a simper at Dr Petty, ‘are charged with bringing the dead back to life, at least while the coffin is open to relatives.’
‘That would explain the haircut and shave,’ said Brook.
‘We noticed that,’ said Dr Petty. ‘And did you see the fingernails have been scraped and clipped too. Also the body
was washed, with an antibacterial agent, possibly alcohol. It’s difficult to tell after the body was in the water.’
‘Maybe why he was dumped in the river,’ observed Noble.
‘More than likely.’ Petty nodded.
‘I hate to bring it up, but is there any sexual angle here?’ asked Brook.
‘There’s no sign of any sexual activity, forced or otherwise,’ answered Petty.
‘And could the deceased have been through here already and been misplaced?’ asked Noble.
‘Indeed not,’ said Habib sternly. ‘We don’t lose corpses – our procedures are too thorough. And if we had processed him he would have been cut open from the thorax, as you see.’
‘What about the scientific organisations that use dead bodies?’ asked Brook.
‘I can’t speak as to their procedures, Inspector,’ replied Habib. ‘But they’d only accept intact bodies. And they’d also open up the chest in the traditional manner.’
‘So he hasn’t been seen by any agency that does official autopsies or post mortems,’ concluded Noble, scribbling in his notebook.
‘We don’t think so,’ said Petty. ‘Besides, any doctor attending this man could certify COD. But I’m guessing a doctor hasn’t seen him or issued a Death Certificate. Being homeless, it’s also unlikely the deceased has given informed consent for his body to be left to science.’
‘And without consent, a medical school couldn’t have his remains,’ said Brook.
‘Exactly. In the absence of next-of-kin, he would be routinely interred,’ said Petty.
‘So his death is completely off the books until now.’
‘It
would seem so.’
Brook rubbed his chin. ‘So if the internal organs were removed . . .’
Habib nodded in encouragement. ‘The intestines too.’
‘. . . the intestines too,’ echoed Brook. ‘How did you manage to get blood from the heart?’
Habib grinned. ‘The heart was put back.’
‘Put back?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Why?’
‘No idea.’
‘You mean, whoever did this took out the organs and intestines but left the heart in,’ suggested Noble.
‘No,’ said Dr Petty. ‘The heart was severed from the arteries and removed with everything else, but some time later it was put back. There were even a couple of rough stitches attaching it to other tissue, presumably to ensure it didn’t fall out of the cavity.’
Brook’s brow furrowed. ‘What condition was it in?’
‘Very poor – the same as the brain. If he hadn’t died of alcohol poisoning, I suspect his heart would have failed within the year,’ said Habib.
‘Could someone be farming these bodies for profit?’ asked Noble.
‘And put back the heart because it was diseased and unusable?’ said Petty. ‘No chance. Given the condition of both the heart and the brain, I’d say none of the other internal organs would have been suitable for transplant.’
‘I see.’ Brook prepared to leave.
‘There’s one more interesting thing, Inspector.’ Habib walked over to a stainless-steel sink and picked up a small steel
bowl to show Brook and Noble the two small pinkish-grey objects slithering inside. ‘This is what’s left of the brain. It’s in two parts because it’s going to be sectioned for analysis. As you can see, it’s fatally compressed.’
‘Unmistakable,’ agreed Brook, glancing sideways at Noble – but for once his Sergeant didn’t respond, preferring to stare steadfastly at the white wall behind Habib’s head. Now Brook could detect the sheen of sweat on his brow and upper lip. Once, Brook would’ve felt the same. He looked at his watch. ‘John, go and find us both a cup of tea and wait for me in the gallery,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘I’ll finish up here.’
Without speaking, Noble darted a glance at Brook and hurried out of the suite.
Brook turned back to the two doctors, both oblivious to Noble’s discomfort. ‘Go on.’
‘You’ll observe the necrosis affecting the brain’s tissue. Very damaged and typical of the alcoholic. But look at this.’ Habib held the bowl out to Dr Petty and she picked up the two pieces of brain in both hands and turned them over. Habib indicated a series of cuts in the underside. ‘If we examine the underside of the brain, we can see the membrane has been punctured several times. Indeed, there has been some slicing of the brain into smaller pieces, some of which are missing.’
‘Missing!’ exclaimed Brook.
‘Now why this was done we can’t be sure,’ continued Habib.
Brook narrowed his eyes. ‘Wait a minute. Pieces of the brain have been removed?’