Peter May - The Killing Room

And she hurried through revolving doors to ride in solitude to her room on the sixth floor and cry herself to sleep on a big, cold empty bed.

The body is apparently that of an adult Asian woman that has been mutilated. The head and extremities have been amputated and the body has been incised along its chest and abdomen.

Margaret spoke clearly for the microphone. Experience had taught her that the Chinese who transliterated the tape would be easily confused by any lapse by her into slang or dialect. The vocabulary was arcane and difficult enough.

The body lay on the cold stainless steel of the autopsy table, its amputated pieces assembled in a grotesque parody of the complete human form they had once comprised. The head lay at an odd angle, black holes where the eyes should have been gazing into nothing. One foot was missing. Deterioration was more advanced in some pieces than in others. Parts of the dismembered limbs had become purple-black and slimy, and blisters filled with decompositional juices were forming on the skin. The sweet smell of rotting human flesh filled the room, like luncheon meat that has been left in the refrigerator and discovered two weeks too late.

The body is nude, unembalmed, and is cold to the touch. Rigor mortis is not appreciated. The body is in an early to moderate stage of decomposition characterised by areas of red and green-black discoloration of the abdomen and legs, drying of the face and digits, and patchy drying of the body surfaces. There are also discernible areas of adipocere.

‘What is that?’ Li asked, and Margaret glanced up at him through the plastic of her goggles.

She enjoyed the anonymity of the pathologist during autopsy. She could hide beneath the shower cap, behind the goggles and surgeon’s mask. She could conceal her vulnerability under the surgeon’s pyjamas, plastic apron and long-sleeved gown. Barely any part of her was exposed to scrutiny. Gloves, steel mesh, latex and waterproof sleeves cloaked every inch of exposed flesh. Even her shoes were shrouded in plastic.

Today she felt particularly exposed to scrutiny. She knew that Li was watching her closely wondering if, perhaps, their relationship had reached its end. Mei-Ling, too, was carefully examining her every move. Perhaps she was also wondering about the state of Margaret’s relations with Li, and what might have passed between them last night. And, of course, Dr Lan was waiting for the first slip, the first wrong move, the first ambiguity, to justify his previous findings. The autopsy assistants were courteous and professional, but they were Lan’s men and made that clear to Margaret by their exaggerated deference to her Chinese counterpart. At the back of the room a green-uniformed forensics expert stood watching with interest. He was a young man, with round, gold-rimmed spectacles. Unusually for a Chinese there was stubble on his jaw. He could have done with a shave. Margaret felt the heat building beneath all her layers, and glanced up at the closed-circuit TV camera on the wall. Somewhere, she knew, in another room, other eyes were also watching.

‘Adipocere …’ she said, but paused and glanced at Dr Lan. ‘Perhaps you would like to explain to the Deputy Section Chief, Doctor.’ She could not tell what his expression was beneath his mask. He nodded curtly.

‘Adipocere,’ he said, ‘is a white-tan waxy deposit, especially over the face, breasts and buttocks. It is formed by conversion of the oily fats in the body fat to solid fats during slow decomposition, suggesting that a body has been dead for at least three months. In addition, in this case, there are patchy white dry spots which would suggest direct exposure to cold air, probably in a freezer.’

Margaret nodded, raising an eyebrow in approval, and then turned her attentions to an examination of the head.

The head has been separated from the neck at the third cervical vertebra. It is normocephalic. The hair is partially sloughing, but the remaining hair is coarse, straight, black, and measures fourteen inches on the top of the head. The skin is dry and there is adipocere over the face. The eyes are not identified, and there is brown, waxy and pasty material in the orbits.

She worked the mouth open with her fingers.

The lips are dry, darkened, but apparently free of trauma. The oral mucous membranes are sloughing, but also free of trauma. The teeth are natural and in fair repair, except for the identification of shallow grooves on the occlusal surfaces of the incisors.

Margaret examined the neck and moved down to the chest where an entry wound extending in a ‘Y’ shape from each shoulder, meeting at the breastbone and carrying straight down to the pubic bone, had been roughly sutured with a coarse, black, braided waxed twine.

Dr Lan said, ‘The same twine appears to have been used to suture the wounds in all the victims.’ Margaret nodded.

There is mottled drying of the skin of the chest and abdomen, patchy areas of mould, freezer burn and adipocere.

She leaned over to examine the wound more closely.

There is also a faint yellow-brown discoloration of the skin of the chest and abdomen.

The colour rose high on Dr Lan’s face, and he also leaned over to make a closer examination of the wound. Margaret said, ‘Were you aware of this during the other two autopsies?’

Lan shook his head. ‘The bodies were still quite muddy. It is possible I overlooked it.’

‘Is it significant?’ Li asked.

‘We’ll discuss that later,’ Margaret said coldly, and returned her attentions to the torso. She was afraid to speak directly to Li in case the emotion was apparent in her voice. She had slept for only a couple of hours before her body clock had wakened her, and she had lain for the rest of the night thinking about Mei-Ling, and about Li, and about their argument. Was it really just her paranoia and insecurity that made her distrust Mei-Ling? She had determined that today she was going to be only what she was good at — a professional pathologist.

The breasts are those of an adult female and are free of masses or trauma. The abdomen likewise bears the sutured incision but is otherwise free of trauma.

She pressed the flat of her hands on the soft, giving abdomen and then felt around with her fingers.

The abdomen is flat and on palpation appears to be missing organs. The external genitalia are those of an adult female and are free of trauma. The anus is patulous and atraumatic.

She moved on to the severed limbs, examining them for signs of trauma, other than amputation. But when she couldn’t find any, she turned the body to examine the buttocks and the spine, and then moved back to where the head had been severed, for further external examination of the wound.

The amputation edge of the head is sharp, bloodless, and passes through the third cervical vertebra. The bone bears several deep sharp tool marks, with the appearance of having been chopped. There is a small amount of clotted blood adherent to the surface, but the tissues are otherwise pale and bloodless. The amputation wounds of the upper extremities are similar to the head amputation wound. They are cleanly cut, bloodless and pale. There are no saw marks and they, likewise, have the appearance of having been chopped at the level of the upper third of the humerus. The leg amputation edges at mid-femur have the same appearance.

‘Is that important?’ Li asked. ‘The lack of blood at the amputation edges?’

Mei-Ling said, ‘All it means is that they were not hacked to death. They were chopped up afterwards.’

Margaret glanced at her and wondered why she was surprised. After all, Mei-Ling must have attended many autopsies. Why shouldn’t she understand the significance of the bloodless wounds? Mei-Ling shifted self-consciously under her piercing gaze and said, ‘We had a murderer here in the nineties who liked to hack up his victims.’