Michael Fowler: Secret of the Dead

This is a place which has seen better days , Hunter said to himself.

DC Mike Sampson was the first person Hunter spotted, hands locked into his sides, his squat rotund shape stretching the fabric of his forensic over-suit. He acknowledged their arrival with a nod.

He wasn’t the only person in the lounge. Professor Lizzie McCormack was in crouching position, knees bent, taking her weight on the balls of her feet, and examining the head and neck of a lifeless man slumped in an armchair to the left of the fireplace.

As Hunter eyed a dark stain covering the crotch of the man’s trousers, he realised why he’d been greeted by the strong stench of urine. Next to the body was an overturned low table and an upturned ashtray, the contents of which had scattered everywhere across the patterned carpet, which explained the tobacco smell. Also on the floor, close by the side of the armchair was the handset of a cordless phone. Its cradle was several metres away and the phone lead had been ripped from the wall socket. Strategically placed crime scene markers earmarked everything Hunter could see. There was little doubt that a major scuffle had taken place.

The dead man had an emaciated look; the facial features were waxen and stretched tight over the skull. Every outline of the bone structure was evident beneath the yellowing flesh. Wide open eyes were set deep inside dark ringed sockets. The shirt and jumper he was wearing hung off his thin, frail body.

Hunter’s initial thought was that the man looked like one of the Belsen victims. The body looked to have been dead for some considerable time and yet Hunter knew that Barry had last spoken with this guy only two days previously.

He also recalled Grace saying the deceased was a retired detective. If that was the case, then this looked like someone who had been out of the game for a long, long time.

“Lung cancer,” said Mike Sampson.

Hunter shot his colleague a glance.

“Mind reader eh?” Mike returned a rueful look. “I saw the way you were looking at him. I thought exactly the same when I first saw him. And you can obviously see the cause,” he said, pointing at the cigarette butts spilt across the floor.

Mike stepped around the pathologist who was still scrutinising the head and neck of the body. She was peering closely into the eyes of the cadaver.

He continued. “When me and Bully arrived, his daughter was still here. Bully’s taken her home by the way she only lives in the next street. He’s getting a statement from her about the last time she saw him, and background stuff.”

Hunter nodded. “Has she touched anything?”

“No everything’s as she found it. She was with her daughter and she pulled her out of the house and rang us straight away on her mobile. She was in a bit of a state, as you can imagine, so Bully’s taken her home. Before he took her there though, she told us that it looked as though someone’s searched through his stuff.” Mike pointed to several books lying across the floor next to a bookshelf. Then he indicated a writing bureau. The writing flap was down and various papers and envelopes were strewn across it, some had fallen onto the floor. “She said she had left the place tidy on Saturday afternoon.”

“Does she know if anything’s been taken?”

Mike shrugged. “To be honest Hunter, I don’t think she’s had time to check. We’ll have to bring her back here once we’ve got things sorted and the body’s out of the way.”

“And she’s confirmed that this is her father Jeffery Howson, and that he’s a retired detective?” Hunter looked the body over once more. He didn’t recognise him. He was thinking he must have already left the job by the time he joined CID. He switched his gaze to Barry, who responded, “Hair’s a lot thinner, and he’s obviously lost a lot of weight, but I recognise him from my days at District.”

“Daughter says he retired as a DC. She can’t remember exactly when that was but believes it’s over ten years ago now,” continued Mike Sampson. “He was diagnosed with lung cancer four months ago — terminal.”

“That’s not the cause of this man’s death though,” said Lizzie McCormack, pushing herself upright. Slim and petite, with grey hair and spectacles she bore an uncanny resemblance to the actress Geraldine McEwan and as a result had gained the nickname Miss Marple. “This man’s eyes are very badly bloodshot and there is some evidence of trauma around the mouth and nose. I’ll be able to tell you a lot more once I’ve done the post-mortem, but my initial findings are that he has died as a result of asphyxiation. It looks very much like he has been suffocated by someone, or something was used to smother his nose and mouth.” The pathologist paused and glanced down around her. Her gaze settled upon a brown cushion on the floor, a foot or so to the side of the chair. It lay beside the upended low table. She stabbed a finger towards it. “I’d have that checked out by forensics. That just may be the weapon.” Lizzie turned back to face them. “Oh, I’ve also found what appears to be extensive bruising to the wrists. Looks as though he’s put up a bit of a struggle while being restrained. With a bit of luck, there might be contact DNA from the perpetrator. Will you ensure his hands are bagged and sealed?”

Hunter nodded. “So, am I right in thinking that you’re indicating he was held tight by the wrists while being suffocated or smothered?”

“Eloquently summed up, DS Kerr.”

“So at least two people carried this out?”

“Nail on the head again. My my, we’ll make a detective of you yet.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You and I go back too far for it be anything else, DS Kerr.” She delivered him a cheery smile as she eased herself up straight. Then, glancing at her wristwatch, she continued. “I’ve taken an initial core body temperature reading and that indicates to me that he has been dead at least twenty four hours. Once again, I can be a lot more accurate once I do the PM. And if you manage to get things sorted and can get the body down to the morgue inside the next three hours, I can start that late this afternoon.” She snapped off her latex gloves, slipped them into her jacket pocket and returned a sideways glance as she made for the exit. “Nasty way to die you know suffocation. Like drowning. Panic, lots of panic. That’s what the victim endures. Terrible way to go,” she finished, shaking her head as she stepped through into the kitchen and then out of sight.

The disposable shoe covers Hunter was wearing rustled on the linoleum covered corridor as he headed towards the post-mortem suite of the Medico Legal Centre. As he pushed through the double slap-doors into the walk-in freezer area the familiar smell of formaldehyde greeted him, despite the automated deodoriser.

A mortuary technician was just offloading a male body from a gurney into the minus twenty degrees centigrade fridge. Hunter spotted the large sewn-up Y section incision extending from the chest down to the pubic bone of the naked cadaver, a clear sign it had undergone a recent post-mortem. One half of the face was gone — no jaw, no cheek and no eye socket, just a dark mush.

“What happened to him?”

“Suicide. Blew half his head off with a shotgun,” the green garbed technician answered as he slid the metal tray supporting the corpse onto a set of rubberised rollers inside one section of the fridge.

“What a mess. Must have been desperate?” Hunter added, taking one last look at the grisly self-inflicted injury as he slipped past.

“Farmer about to be evicted from his farm, I understand. Told his wife he was just going to clean out one of the barns. Must have been a hell of a shock for her, finding him like that.”