Simon Beckett - The Scent of Death

‘Is that natural?’ Ward sounded doubtful. The pathologist either didn’t hear or chose not to answer.

‘It can be,’ I answered for him. Mummification could happen naturally for a number of reasons, from the acidity of peat bogs to extreme cold. But this was down to something else. I looked around the dark loft, seeing how the cobwebs nearby were stirring slightly in some faint air current. ‘These are pretty much ideal conditions for mummification. You can feel how hot it is up here, and it’ll be dry even in winter. And a big old loft like this has plenty of ventilation, so there’s enough airflow to draw out the moisture.’

While I was talking, Conrad was calmly opening more of the tarpaulin, revealing the shoulders and chest. The body lay on its back, slightly twisted and huddled inside the folds of plastic like a dead bird in a nest. The tarpaulin still covered the stomach and lower body, but it was already clear this wasn’t a large individual. From its size it looked to be either a juvenile or a small adult. The body wore only a ragged yellow T-shirt, stained by fluids produced as it decomposed. The short sleeves displayed arms and hands that had been reduced to sinew and bone. As with the face, the parchment-like skin had dried out to resemble cured leather.

‘The hands look arranged,’ Ward said, studying how the claw-like hands appeared to have been folded across the bony chest, as though the body were resting in a coffin rather than wrapped inside a plastic sheet. ‘Someone took time to do that. That suggests remorse or at least respect. Could be whoever did it knew her.’

Her? I looked at Ward in surprise. There was nothing to suggest the body was female, and given its condition we might not know for days. Not unless we found some form of ID.

‘It’s a little premature to start using the feminine pronoun until we’ve established the gender, don’t you think?’ Conrad said, giving her a withering glance.

Ward’s blush was visible even with half her face hidden behind the hood and mask. It could have been a slip of the tongue, but not one an SIO should have made.

She tried to hurry past her blunder. ‘Can you give me a rough idea of the time since death?’

The pathologist answered without looking up. ‘No, I can’t. Perhaps you didn’t hear when I said it was mummified.’

Now Ward looked angry as well as flustered. But Conrad had a point. Once the body reached this level of desiccation, any further physical changes would be so slow as to be virtually imperceptible. There were cases of natural mummification where human remains had been preserved for hundreds of years, or even longer.

‘Hard to imagine anyone hiding a body up here while St Jude’s was still a working hospital,’ Whelan said, filling the awkward silence. ‘Must have been after it shut.’

‘When was that?’ I asked.

‘Ten, eleven years ago now. Caused quite an upset.’

‘OK, that’s an upper limit, but it doesn’t help much,’ Ward said. ‘What’s the fastest the body could have mummified like this? Could it have happened in less than ten years?’

‘If the conditions were right,’ I told her. ‘The loft will have been pretty hot over summer, which would speed things up. But, looking at it, I’d say it’s probably been up here for at least two summers. There’s hardly any smell, even in this heat, which makes me think the mummification finished some time ago.’

‘Great. So we’re looking at a time since death of anywhere between fifteen or sixteen months and ten years. That really narrows it down.’

There wasn’t much I could say to that, so I didn’t try. Conrad was pulling back more of the tarpaulin. The stiff plastic was dirty, coated with what looked like cement or plaster dust and smears of blue paint. I was more interested in what wasn’t there, but then the pathologist peeled back the sheet covering the lower half of the body, and any other details were momentarily forgotten.

The legs were partly drawn up, bent together and angled off to one side. They looked to be mainly bone beneath the short denim skirt, which showed similar staining as the cropped T-shirt. That had ridden up even more, bunching just below the chest to expose the stomach. Or what was left of it. Most of the abdominopelvic cavity, from below the ribs to the top of the pubic bone, was gaping and open. Within it, what remained of the internal organs were so atrophied and degraded as to be unrecognizable.

But that wasn’t what made everyone fall silent. Lying inside the cavity were what looked like tiny pale twigs. I felt something twist inside me at the sight, and Ward’s indrawn breath told me she’d recognized them as well.

‘Rats have got to it,’ one of the SOCOs commented, craning to get a better view. ‘Looks like one died inside.’

‘Don’t be bloody stupid. And show some respect.’ Whelan’s tone was withering.

‘What? I was only—’

‘It’s a foetus.’ Ward spoke quietly. ‘She was pregnant.’

She seemed moved, as though the development had undermined her usual professional detachment. Whelan gave the offending officer a glare that promised there’d be more said later, then turned to Ward. ‘Looks like you were right about it being a woman, ma’am.’

It did, though Ward could hardly have known. ‘How old’s the foetus?’

‘Looking at the size and development, probably six or seven months,’ I told her.

Conrad had ignored the exchange. He turned away from the abdominal cavity as though what it held was incidental, focusing his attention elsewhere.

‘The pregnancy’s helpful,’ he murmured, more to himself than anyone else. ‘If she was of child-bearing age that narrows things down somewhat. Fully clothed, underwear still in place, so no obvious signs of sexual assault. Although that’s not conclusive, of course.’

‘She’s not wearing much, though. No coat, just a T-shirt and a skirt,’ added Ward. ‘No tights, which suggests she could have died during the summer months.’

Whelan made a seesawing motion with his head. ‘Unless she was killed somewhere with heating and then brought here. My wife won’t wear a sweater indoors even in winter. Just cranks the central heating up and lets me worry about the bills.’

Ward didn’t seem to be listening. ‘What about the, uh, the stomach? Could rats have caused that or is it some kind of wound?’

‘Ask me after the post-mortem,’ Conrad said. But then he sniffed, considering. ‘Rats would be more likely to go for an open wound, so it’s possible she was stabbed. But let’s not jump to any more conclusions, shall we? For one thing, there aren’t any visible bloodstains on the clothes, which suggests, if there was an injury, it didn’t bleed significantly.’

He was right. It would be easy to assume that we were looking at some sort of horrific wound, but I knew the tricks nature could play. At the moment there was only one thing I was certain about.

‘She was moved.’

Everyone looked at me. I hadn’t intended to announce it so bluntly, but the tiny skeleton, still in its mother’s womb, had affected me more than I’d thought.

‘Her body was somewhere else before this,’ I went on. ‘It was brought here after it mummified.’

Conrad gave a grudging sniff. ‘Yes, you’re right.’

‘Are you sure?’ Ward asked.

I nodded. ‘The foetal bones aren’t in any sort of anatomical position. They’ve been jumbled up, more than I’d expect, even allowing for scavengers. That suggests they were disturbed by fairly violent movement when there was no fluid left in the womb to cushion them.’

‘The body was rolled up in plastic,’ Whelan said. ‘Maybe it happened then?’

‘Possibly. The body wouldn’t have mummified if it had been in the tarpaulin all the time. Moisture would have built up inside, so it would’ve decomposed normally. If that had happened the plastic would be smeared with fluids, the same as the clothing.’