Michael Fowler - Heart of the Demon

* * * * *

Katherine Winter loved walking her dog at this time of the morning; except for the wildlife she had the woods to herself. A fine summer’s mist was beginning to drift up from the overnight damp floor, swirling around her legs as she broke into a jog. Whipping out the rubber ball from her fleece pocket she launched it towards a gap between the trees.

“Go get it Rusty.” she shouted.

The Irish red setter spun its head in the direction of the flying ball and then shot after it at breakneck speed. Twenty yards ahead Rusty darted into the undergrowth out of Katherine’s view and all she could hear for several seconds was the scratching of paws amongst the undergrowth. Her attention was distracted when above her she became aware of a cacophony of cawing, and looking up she saw a building of rooks, swirling and swooping, reminiscent of an army of apache helicopters, an image which she had seen so many times recently on the news broadcasts from Iraq. Within seconds Rusty’s barking was adding to the discordant sound. She wondered what on earth was happening, and although she experienced slight trepidation she pushed past the bushes towards the direction of her barking dog.

She spotted her Irish red setter resting on its haunches, staring upwards, still barking wildly.

Her eyes followed the dog’s line of sight. Nothing could have prepared Katherine for what she found herself looking at. Dangling from a rope, fastened to a large tree bough, was a man’s body. The first thing she noticed was the colour of his head. It was purple, and hopping bluebottles covered its bloated flesh. Then the smell hit her. It was a creeping, cloying smell of tepid urine and faeces, and her stomach leapt to her throat. Gagging, she gripped her nose and reached for her mobile.

* * * * *

DC Mike Sampson shifted uncomfortably in his oversized forensic suit. Because of his body weight to height ratio he generally found that to find anything to fasten over his pudgy stomach the sleeves would always be too long. Tugging at his sleeves had become a habit, and this was what he was now doing in his blue plastic mortuary oversuit.

He dropped the exhibit bag he had been carrying onto one of the side tables in the sterile room. The clear plastic wrapper contained an A4 printed note SOCO had recovered from the pocket of the hanging Geoffrey Collins. In bold letters it simply stated ‘I AM A MONSTER FORGIVE ME.’

Earlier that morning he had raced to Barnwell woods straight after briefing on the orders of SIO Detective Superintendent Robshaw, to take charge of a very active scene. Upon his arrival he saw that the uniform Sergeant and his shift had done a cracking job. The Police Medical examiner and Scenes of Crime had already been called out and were en-route, and a clear path had been roped off to the location where the lady walking her dog had discovered Collins’s body

Because of the efficiency of the sergeant and his team he was merely there to check that everything which needed to be done, was being done. His role at the scene ended when they cut down Collins for removal to the mortuary, ensuring that the loop and knot of the rope remained in situ around his neck.

That had been two and half hours ago and Mike was at the mortuary to observe Collins’s post mortem, confirm the suicide, and then they could wrap up this investigation and celebrate in the pub.

The post mortem was already underway by the time he had suited and entered the mortuary cutting room. Pathologist Lizzie McCormack together with a Scenes of Crime Officer were already moving business-like around Geoffrey Collins’s naked corpse which lay on one of the stainless steel autopsy tables.

The Professor was going through the preliminaries for the purpose of the recording tape. Height; weight; state of the body. The soft Scottish twang reminded Mike of the Mrs Doubtfire character from the Robin Williams movie.

She hooked one hand behind Collins’s head and raised it from the wooden resting block. Then carefully she began to slide the still knotted rope over the bloated, discoloured face. The SOCO officer clicked off several shots of the process with his Nikon camera.

Rolling the head from side to side she delicately stroked and touched several parts of Collins’s neck.

“As a slip-noose was used, ligature was in contact with the skin right around the full circumference of the neck,” she began. She moved the head again fixed a finger to an area of the neck and the SOCO officer racked off several more shots.

“Now this is interesting,” she announced after pursing her lips for a moment, “although there is evidence of bruising on and around the carotid vessels on the right hand side of the neck, except for the uppermost part of that side the ligature marks are faint and deficient on the sides and back.”

Mike took a step towards the body “What does that mean Professor?”

Lizzie held up a latex-gloved hand, a clear order that she wanted him to say nothing else. With her other hand she took up a scalpel from a tray next to her. Then pushing her spectacles up onto the bridge of her nose she began slicing into the soft tissue of the throat area of the cadaver. Diving her fingers into the incised front of neck, she began pulling and probing the larynx.

“There is bone injury in the air passage. There is a fracture of the hyoid.” She gave off a long drawn out “Hmmm,” before continuing with the remainder of the post mortem. Part way through she scraped under the finger nails, dropped some fibres into sample tubes and held the hands up for the Scenes of Crime Officer to photograph. Finally, after two hours she dropped the last of her instruments back onto a metal tray and snapped off her surgical gloves.

“Suicide by hanging?” Mike asked

“Oh indeed dear, this man’s demise was caused by strangulation, but this was no suicide.”

Lizzie McCormack’s response took him aback. “Not suicide?”

“The evidence couldn’t be much clearer. This man was murdered. See here.” The Pathologist raised Collins’s head from the support block and motioned a finger over the incised opening in the throat. “Contusions to the soft tissue and underlying muscle, and a fractured hyoid, all of which are indicative of manual strangulation. Coupled with the fact that the rope marks around the neck are merely superficial I conclude that he was already dead when he was strung up.” She took a long pause. “When it comes to murder they can’t pull the wool over my eyes. I have a few more tests to carry out but I’ve also found trauma to the face which leaves me to believe he has suffered significant blows to the mouth and left cheek which could have rendered him either unconscious or semi- conscious. Finding those injuries caused me to carry out further examinations, particularly of the hands. I found that the majority of his fingernails are broken and there are fibres and possibly flesh beneath the remains of his nails. I bet if you go back to the tree where you found this man hanging you will find striation marks on the branch, which has been caused by the rope when his dead weight has been hauled up.”

Mike gasped at the magnitude of these findings. His mind was racing. If it hadn’t been for Professor McCormack’s experience in dealing with murder victims this would never have been spotted. It could only mean one thing — Geoffrey Collins had been set up to make him look like the murderer. He pictured in his mind the recent bust at Collins’ flat. The real serial killer must have somehow got into Collins’s flat, assaulted and strangled him, used his computer knowing the police would trace it back to him, left the recently taken photographs of Kirsty and cleaned up any trace of himself before he’d left. And that’s why SOCO found the surfaces wiped with concentrated bleach. In his head he tumbled around everything he had recently learned. There was only one conclusion. Kirsty Evans’s attacker and the slayer of Carol Siddons, Claire Fisher and Rebecca Morris, had tried to throw them off his scent by killing Collins and making it look like suicide.