Elly Griffiths - The Janus Stone

‘… epiphyses still detached… cartilaginous plate not yet ossified… size of the long bones indicates a child… would you say that it’s male or female, Dr Galloway?’

Ruth is looking at the pelvic bones. The female pelvis is shallower and broader than the male but this is not yet obvious in a pre-pubescent skeleton. She examines the sciatic notch, which is shorter and deeper in males. Again, this is barely detectable in a child.

‘Female, I’d say.’

‘Would you? That’s interesting.’ From this, Ruth concludes that Stevenson disagrees.

‘… trauma on sternum and third rib… what would you say that was, Dr Galloway?’

‘Looks like a knife mark.’

‘A knife mark the lady says, we’ll see…’

Stevenson turns to the skull. ‘External trauma to the cervical vertebrae…’

An axe, thinks Ruth. The head was cut off with an instrument like an axe and, like the cat, it was done by cutting from the front.

‘Cause of death – decapitation?’ suggests Stevenson.

‘Poena post-mortem,’ says Ruth shortly, turning to Nelson.

‘Mutilation after death. The head was cut off later. It was cut from the front, death by decapitation is nearly always achieved by cutting from the back.’

Stevenson grunts. ‘Interesting theory. What do you think Detective Chief Inspector?’

‘Stabbed in the chest, beheaded. One thing’s certain; it sure as hell wasn’t suicide.’

Stevenson laughs, turning back to the skull. ‘No eruption of permanent teeth…’ Ruth looks round at Nelson. No adult teeth – this means the skull is almost definitely less than six years old. ‘Filling on lower left first molar occlusal…’

This is interesting. It proves for one thing that the body is relatively modern (although fillings apparently existed in ancient China, it is only in the last hundred years that they have been in common use). Also, fillings are rare in such a young child. The composition will give valuable clues about dating.

Ruth leans forward.

‘Thoughts about the filling, Dr Galloway?’

‘I’d like a forensic dentistry expert to look at it.’

‘Anyone in mind?’

‘Yes.’

The examination is almost over. Stevenson takes samples for carbon-14 dating and Ruth fills in her skeleton sheets: post-cranial non-metrics, pathology, conclusions… Her back aches from standing up so long but she doesn’t want to ask for a seat and risk Stevenson’s contempt and Nelson’s suspicion. Does he suspect? She can’t allow herself to think so.

‘Do you want a bet on the dating,’ asks Stevenson, ‘five years each way?’

‘No.’

‘Suit yourself. I’ll take some samples for DNA testing as well.’

‘Will you get any DNA?’ asks Nelson sceptically, looking at the dry bones.

‘Maybe,’ says Ruth, ‘but DNA can be damaged by immersion in earth. We may not get a good enough sample.’

‘We will,’ says Stevenson. ‘Well, show’s over, folks.’

In the ante-room, Ruth changes out of her scrubs and washes her hands thoroughly. Although there was no blood in this post-mortem she still feels grubby and slightly sordid. Maybe it’s just overexposure to Chris Stevenson.

Nelson’s head appears round the door. ‘Christ, thank God that’s over. Bloke’s a complete tosser. Fancy a coffee?’

Ruth hesitates. Though the thought of coffee makes her feel sick, she would like, very much to go to a cosy café with Nelson but she has something else she has to do this morning.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, ‘I’ve got an appointment.’

‘Are you on your own?’

This is a question with so many layers that Ruth is momentarily struck dumb. She is manifestly on her own as she has presented herself at the hospital without anyone accompanying her. But she is doubly on her own as the father of her child does not even know she is pregnant. She thinks of Nelson as she saw him that morning, at the post-mortem, and tries to imagine him at her side, doting and supportive. No, it just doesn’t work. Even if Nelson did know, even if they were, in some unimaginable way, together, he would still spend his time looking at his watch and longing to be back at the station. What about her mum? She tries to picture her mother, cosy and smiling, offering advice and encouragement, telling her not to do too much and to eat ginger biscuits if she feels sick. No, even less likely. Shona? She would spend all her time flicking her hair about and making eyes at the doctors. Funnily enough, the only person she can actually imagine at her side is Cathbad. At least he’d be kind, although the purple cloak might prove a trifle embarrassing.

‘Yes. I’m on my own.’

The nurse ushers Ruth into a room with a bed and a contraption like a TV screen. Another woman stands by the screen, nonchalantly chewing gum. Ruth is reminded uncomfortably of the autopsy room. Only this time she is the body on the slab. Don’t be morbid, she tells herself. This is a perfectly routine procedure. So is an autopsy, persists the voice inside her head.

The nurse tells Ruth to undo her trousers, and rubs gel onto her stomach. Ruth squirms. She hates being touched on her stomach and avoids massages and beauty treatments like the plague. ‘Relax!’ she remembers a masseuse once saying to her. Eccentric she knows but, for Ruth, having some manicured stranger kneading your shoulder blades whilst chatting about their holidays is the very opposite of relaxing.

The other woman now places something like the end of a stethoscope onto Ruth’s stomach, pressing quite hard. Ruth has been told not to go to the loo before the scan and the pressure is really very uncomfortable. For a second she feels like jumping off the bed and heading for the nearest Ladies. But then she sees that the screen is full of what look like wispy grey clouds. In the centre of the clouds something is moving.

Ruth has seen scans before – of bones and other archaeological objects. She knows that the high-frequency sound waves bounce off solid objects. She knows how to look at degrees of light and shade, to assess density and structure. But this – this is something quite different. This collection of dark circles, moving slowly on the screen, this is both completely incomprehensible and suddenly utterly real. This is her baby.

‘That’s the baby’s heart,’ says the woman, speaking for the first time and pushing the gum into the corner of her mouth. She points towards four black, pulsating circles.

‘That’s its spine.’ Ruth sees a slender white line moving across the screen. For some inexplicable reason, tears come to her eyes. Then she remembers something.

‘Can you tell if it’s a boy or a girl?’

‘Not at this scan. We’ll probably be able to tell at the next one, at about twenty weeks.’

But looking at the screen through swimming eyes, Ruth is convinced that the baby is a boy. There is something masculine, almost jaunty, about the little figure swimming around in her womb. The woman points at another part of the screen. ‘Long legs. Has your partner got long legs?’

Has Nelson got long legs? Ruth imagines him striding from place to place, impatient, eager to get to the next job. He is tall, presumably his legs are long. Longer than Ruth’s, certainly. Then, suddenly, it hits her for the first time. This baby is half his. Up until this point, she has thought of the baby as entirely hers, has even thought that it is the only thing in the world that is really hers. But it is not hers. For a second she sees the shape on the screen as completely alien – a male, a miniature Nelson. She closes her eyes.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes… just a little sick.’

‘That’s OK. It often happens. We’re done anyhow.’ She hands Ruth some scratchy paper towels to clean her stomach and Ruth sits up slowly.