Cath Staincliffe: Ruthless

‘Buzz me,’ Gill said as Garvey peeled off his protective suit outside the building, the all-in-one smudged with soot and ash despite his efforts to disrupt the scene as little as possible.

She watched him leave, taking the chance to lower her mask, breathe some less tainted air and let her face cool a little before returning to the chapel. Most people who died in a fire died of smoke inhalation, not from the ravages of the flames. Losing consciousness and dying before the heat reached them. But if this victim had been doused in accelerant and then set alight it would have been a truly horrific death.

Garvey rang as soon as the post-mortem was ready to start and Gill attended along with Pete Readymough, who would be exhibits officer for the investigation. She had briefed her syndicate to stand by in case they were unable to rule out foul play. And she had met with the press officer to instruct her as to the facts that could be made public at such an early stage: Unidentified body recovered from a fire at Old Chapel in Manorclough. A post-mortem will be carried out later today, after which police hope to release further details . The fire itself would have made the front pages of the local paper. With news now of a body, interest would be even keener.

The smell filled the dissection room, the stink of burned bone and charred meat overpowering the background smells of bleach and disinfectant. Gill listened to Garvey dictating notes as the body lay on the mortuary table, in exactly the same pose as it had been in at the chapel. The effects of the heat had fused the body in position, carbonizing the flesh. Once the external exam was over it would be necessary to break the limbs to gain access to the internal organs, most of which were likely to be cinders, Gill thought.

Garvey measured the body in sections to ascertain the height. Crown of the head to top of the spine, the curved back, the zigzag of the cramped-up legs. Added together it translated as six foot two inches. ‘Victim presents in the foetal position, left side uppermost. Cranial base evaluation and angle of the pelvic bone tells us victim is male.’ Garvey analysed the shape of the skull and concluded that the man was Caucasian. ‘Substantial charring, absence of clothing, body hair. Visible fractures to the lower ribs on the presenting left thorax. Dislocation to the hip.’ From the beam that had fallen, crushing the man where he lay. Fragments of rib poked through the frazzled skin, reminding Gill of the gaping roof at the chapel.

A wedding ring on the victim’s left ring finger, thick with sooty grease, was photographed in situ then Garvey removed it, small crumbs of flesh dropping from the finger as he did so. He peered at the band under one of the powerful lights above the table, took a sample swab from inside and out, then cleaned it up. ‘Inscribed,’ he said, ‘R.K. and J.S. 23.4.72.’ He glanced at Gill and sketched a bow. Gill smiled: this could be a useful lead, to identity if nothing else. Pete got an evidence bag ready and placed the ring inside.

As well as photographs of the victim, a number of X-rays were taken of different sections of the body, Garvey, Pete and Gill withdrawing from the room each time while the scanner did its job. The resultant images came up on the computer screen. Garvey clicked on the first, the skull.

‘Forensic odontology?’ Gill said, suggesting another route to identification. The teeth were uneven, some missing, some broken. ‘Doesn’t look like he had a check-up every six months.’ Must cancel my check-up , she thought, the day after tomorrow but she’d be up to her neck with this. Garvey clicked on the second picture. The hand and neck.

‘Some evidence of wear in the vertebrae,’ he pointed out.

‘Middle-aged?’ said Gill.

‘Most likely.’

Then the third image. The mesh of broken ribs, the main part of the chest. Gill noticed the dark smudges at the same moment as Garvey said, ‘What have we got here, then?’

He clicked closer. The smudges were clearer now, two of them, small cylindrical forms with a conical nose, the size of cigarette butts.

Gill’s heart missed a beat. ‘I think we can safely rule out accidental death, or suicide,’ she said. ‘The poor bugger’s been shot.’

They were ready and waiting in the incident meeting room when the boss arrived, having sent word that she was launching a murder inquiry. Rachel had been part of DCI Gill Murray’s syndicate for three years now. Could’ve been sergeant if things hadn’t conspired to make her miss her exam. But there’d be chance again if she stuck at it. And she was determined to do so. Things had been rocky and Godzilla had been on her back on more than one occasion, making Rachel feel like shit, but she’d not yet been chucked out. Janet reckoned that the boss rated Rachel as a keeper, someone who’d fly up the career ladder if she put her mind to it, but Rachel wasn’t so sure. She’d been on the receiving end of Godzilla’s tongue-lashing so many times that she sometimes thought the boss had it in for her. Though to be fair there had always been good reasons for the bollockings. Not as if they were trumped up, bullying or whatever.

‘This morning I attended the scene at Old Chapel, Lower Manorclough.’

‘There was a fire,’ Rachel said, interrupting without thinking, ‘last night.’

‘There was indeed,’ the boss went on after a short pause, ‘reported on the local news.’

‘No,’ Rachel said, wanting to set the record straight, ‘I saw it, I was there…’

Janet, on the other side of the conference table, raised her eyebrows at Rachel, either querying why she’d been there or warning her about butting in when the DCI was speaking.

‘… that’s how I know,’ Rachel tailed off.

‘Glad we’ve cleared that up,’ the boss said smartly. ‘What you won’t know is that our victim, male, Caucasian, identity unknown, was inside the building and initial evidence suggests he was shot, twice, then doused with accelerant and set alight. I must warn you the photographs are not particularly pleasant and are not required viewing. Avoid looking at them if you wish. Garvey found no soot inside what remained of lung tissue, which suggests the victim was already dead when the fire started.’

The photographs were projected on to the large screen. Kevin Lumb, on Rachel’s right, reared back. ‘Whoa!’ he said. ‘Barbecued or what?’

What a knob.

Kevin, dim though he was, realized he’d spoken out of turn when stony silence greeted his adolescent comment. ‘Shock innit?’ he said weakly.

It wasn’t enough.

‘DC Lumb,’ the boss said, no iron in her voice as yet but Rachel could tell it was coming, ‘our role as members of a major incident team is to represent the interests of victims of serious crime and attempt, to the best of our ability, to determine who perpetrated said crime. To make every effort to see a suspect apprehended, charged and, God-and-the-jury willing, convicted of that crime. And we carry out that role with professionalism, affording every victim the respect and dignity that any one of us might expect if it was one of our own in the mortuary. So just close your gob and put your brain in gear. Got it?’

Pete Readymough, to Rachel’s left, put down his breakfast butty and wiped his fingers on a tissue. Put off by the photos, she imagined. Pete could do with skipping a few meals, Rachel thought. He could probably survive several weeks on his reserves of body fat.

‘Sorry, ma’am,’ Kevin said. He gave Rachel a sideways, shamefaced look, as though he expected her to feel sorry for him. Ever since Sean had chosen Kevin as best man (fuck knows why, he barely knew the guy) Kevin had acted like he was one of the family. Chumming up to Rachel, oblivious to her put-downs, thinking she was joking when she told him to do one. Like his mind couldn’t really compute a universe where he wasn’t at its centre, loved by one and all. She might feel sorry for him if he had the nous to learn from his mistakes but he just repeated them.