Peter Robinson - A Necessary End

"Where the hell is this bloody doctor, anyway?" Burgess complained, looking at his watch. "It can't take him that long to get here. Everywhere's within pissing distance in this part of the country."

Burgess and Glendenning hadn't met yet, and Banks was looking forward to seeing Dirty Dick try out his aggressive arrogance on the doctor. "Come on," he said, "there's nothing more to do in here till the others arrive. We'll only mess up the scene. Let's go outside for a smoke."

The two of them left the workshop and stood in the cool evening air.

Glendenning, Banks knew, would smoke wherever he wanted and nobody had ever dared say a word to him, but then he was one of the top pathologists in the country, not a lowly chief inspector or superintendent.

From the doorway of the shed, they could see the kitchen light in the house. Someone-Zoe, it looked like — was filling a kettle. Mara had taken the news very badly, and Rick had called the local doctor for her. He had also phoned the Eastvale station, which surprised Banks, given Rick's usual hostility. Still, Seth Cotton was dead, there was no doubting that, and Rick probably knew there would be no way of avoiding an investigation. It made more sense to start out on the right foot rather than have to explain omissions or evasions later. Banks wondered whether to go inside and have a chat with them, but decided to give them a bit longer. They would have probably got over the immediate shock by the time Glendenning and the scene-of-crime team had finished.

At last, the back door opened and the tall, white-haired doctor crossed the garden, a half-smoked cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. He was closely followed by a fresh-faced lad with a camera bag slung over his shoulder.

"About bloody time," Burgess said.

Glendenning gave him a dismissive glance and stood in the doorway while Darby did his work. Banks and Burgess went back into the workshop to make sure he photographed everything, including the blood on the floor, the pen or pencil, the Queen Anne bureau and the typewriter. When Darby had finished, Glendenning went in. He was so tall he had to duck to get through the door.

"Watch out for the blood," Banks warned him.

"And there's no smoking at the scene," Burgess added. He got no answer.

Banks smiled to himself. "Ease up," he said. "The doc's a law unto himself."

Burgess grunted but kept quiet while Glendenning felt for a pulse and busied himself with his stethoscope and thermometer.

About fifteen minutes later, while Glendenning was still making calculations in his little red notebook, the forensic team arrived, headed by Vic Manson, the fingerprints man. Manson was a slight, academic-looking man in his early forties. Almost bald, he plastered the few remaining hairs over the dome of his skull, creating an effect of bars shadowed on an egg. He greeted the two detectives and went inside with the team. As soon as he saw the workshop, he turned to Banks. "Bloody awful place to look for prints," he said.

"Too many rough surfaces. And tools. Have you any idea how hard it is to get prints from well-used tools?"

"I know you'll do your best, Vic," Banks said. He guessed that Manson was annoyed at being disturbed on a Sunday evening. Manson snarled and got to work alongside the others, there to take blood samples and anything else they could find.

Banks and Burgess went back outside and lit up again. A few minutes later, Glendenning joined them.

"What's the news, doc?" Burgess asked.

Glendenning ignored him and spoke directly to Banks. "He's dead, and that's about the only fact I can give you so far."

"Come on, doc!" said Burgess. "Surely you can tell us more than that."

"Can you ask your pushy friend here to shut up, just for a wee while?"

Glendenning said to Banks in a quiet, nicotine-ravaged voice redolent of Edinburgh. "And tell him not to call me doc."

"For Christ's sake." Burgess flicked the stub of his cigar into the vegetable patch and stuck his hands deep in his pockets. He was wearing his leather jacket over an open-necked shirt, as usual. The only concession he had made to the cold was a V-necked sweater. Now that darkness had come, their breath plumed in the air, lit by the eerie glow of the bare bulb inside the workshop.

Glendenning lit another cigarette and turned back to Banks, who knew better than to rush him. "It doesn't look to me," the doctor said slowly, "as if that head wound was serious enough to cause death. Don't quote me on it, but I don't think it fractured the skull."

Banks nodded. "What do you think was the cause?" he asked.

"Loss of blood. And he lost it from his ankles."

"His ankles?"

"Aye," Glendenning went on. "The veins on the insides of each ankle were cut. I found a blade-most likely from a plane-lying in the blood, and it looks like it might have been used for the job. I'll have to make sure, of course."

"So was it suicide?" Burgess asked.

Glendenning ignored him and went on speaking to Banks. "Most suicides with a penchant for gory death," he said, "slit their wrists. The ankles are just as effective, though, if not more so. But whether he inflicted the wounds himself or not, I canna say."

"He's tried that way before," Banks said. "And there was a note."

"Aye, well, that's your department, isn't it?"

"Which came first," Banks asked, "the head wound or the cut ankles?"

"That I can't say, either. He could have hit his head as he lost consciousness, or someone could have hit it for him and slit his ankles. If the two things happened closely in succession, it won't be possible to tell which came first, either. It looks like the head wound was caused by the vice. There's blood on it. But of course it'll have to be matched and the vice compared with the shape of the wound."

"How long has he been dead?" Banks asked. "At a guess."

Glendenning smiled. "Aye, you're learning, laddie," he said. "It's always a guess." He consulted his notebook. "Well, rigor's not much farther than the neck, and the body temperature's down 2.5 degrees. I'd say he's not been dead more than two or three hours."

Banks looked at his watch. It was six o'clock. So Cotton had probably died between three and four in the afternoon.

"The ambulance should be here soon," Glendenning said. "I called them before I set off. I'd better just bag the head and feet before they get here. We don't want some gormless young ambulance driver spoiling the evidence, do we?"

"Can you do the post-mortem tonight?" Banks asked.

"Sorry, laddie. We've the daughter and son-in-law down for the weekend. First thing in the morning?"

Banks nodded. He knew they'd been spoiled in the past by Glendenning's eagerness to get down to the autopsy immediately. It was more usual to be asked to wait until the next day. And to Glendenning, first thing in the morning was probably very early indeed.

The doctor went back inside, where Manson and his team were finishing up. A short while later, the ambulance arrived, and two white-coated men bearing a stretcher crossed to the workshop. Seth looked oddly comical now, with his head in a plastic bag. Like some creature out of a fifties horror film, Banks thought. The ambulance men tagged him, zipped him into a body bag and laid him on the stretcher.

"Can you leave by the side exit?" Banks asked, pointing to the large gate in the garden wall. "They're shook up enough in the house without having to see this."

The ambulance men nodded and left.

Manson came out five minutes later. "Lots of prints," he grumbled, "but most of them a mess, just as I thought. At first glance, though, I'd say they belong to only two or three people, not dozens."

"You'll get Seth's, of course," Banks said, "and probably Boyd's and some of the others. Could you get anything from the blade?"