Peter May - The Fourth Sacrifice

‘ There is a two-to-two-and-a-half by four-centimetre area of pink contusion with golden, parchment-like abrasion over the malar area of the right cheek and the lateral orbital rim .’

Injuries sustained as the head hit the floor and rolled. Now she moved to a description of the trauma, scrutinising the neck wound in detail.

‘ There has been complete decapitation as mentioned above. The posterior edge is three centimetres inferior to the anterior edge and the wound edge is sharpest on the left posterolateral aspect. There is a thin rim of abrasion at this posterolateral edge, and its anterior aspect bears a one-by-two-and-a-half-centimetre flap of skin. This flap of skin rests against the anterior, exterior aspects of the neck. There is vital reaction at the wound’s edge. The wound crosses the spinal column at the fifth-sixth intervertebral space. There is complete transection of all soft tissue structures of the neck: the trachea at the level of the third tracheal ring; the carotids inferior to their bifurcations. The soft tissue edges indicate a forward direction of the instrument .’

‘Meaning what exactly?’ Li asked.

She threw him a withering look. ‘That I’ve seen a cleaner cut,’ she said.

She proceeded to photograph the neck from various angles, before examining the grey-green discolouration on the pale tan cut surface of the spinal column. She indicated that she wanted a tape lift. Pathologist Wang cut a length, several inches long, of broad, clear, sticky tape. Holding it by the ends, he placed it over the cut surface of the tough, fibro-cartilaginous tissue between the fifth and sixth vertebrae, and Margaret pressed it home. Wang then peeled it away, taking with it some of the microscopic metal or mineral particles left by the blade of the murder weapon, and preserved them by sticking the tape across the rim of a glass petri dish.

Margaret looked up at Li. ‘I take it you’ve followed similar procedures on the previous victims?’

‘We have.’

‘And?’

‘The particles were subjected to analysis under a scanning electron microscope. The primary elements detected were copper and tin.’

‘Bronze,’ she said. ‘Some kind of ceremonial or ornamental sword? Perhaps even a genuine artefact?’

‘Perhaps,’ Li conceded.

‘Well, it must be one of the three,’ she said. ‘No one’s made bronze swords for serious use since they discovered iron.’ She paused for thought. ‘What about the signature?’

Li frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

Margaret was impatient, and addressed him as if talking to a child. ‘Even the smoothest blade has nicks and imperfections that leave microscopic striations on the cut bone — a signature. I assume you have taken sections of vertebrae from the previous victims?’

Li glanced at Wang who nodded.

‘Good,’ said Margaret. ‘Then there’s an outside chance that if you examine the cut surface of the bone or disc, using a comparison microscope, you can match up the striations and tell if the same murder weapon was used in each case. An experienced swordsman would normally strike with the same part of the blade each time, what you might call a sweet spot. So it might have left the same signature each time. And, of course, if you ever recover it, you will certainly be able to match the sword to the murders — a little like a ballistic comparison. It’s called toolmark examination.’

‘This is not … mm … a procedure we have previously employed,’ Pathologist Wang said, and Li was surprised at the fluency of his English.

‘Well, I’d like you to employ it now,’ Margaret said. ‘It could be important. If your criminalist needs advice on the procedure I’ll be happy to help.’ She gave the nod to one of the assistants to cut a section of the spinal column. Using the same oscillating saw he would later employ to remove the top of the skull, he cut through the spinal column a few inches below the wound and put the severed chunk of vertebra into a formalin-filled storage jar held by his colleague.

The sound of the saw had been sharp and mournful, for all the world like some unearthly creature wailing for its dead. Sophie, who had been standing at the back of the room, sweat gathering across her scalp, her complexion like putty, put a hand over her mouth. But she caught Margaret’s eye and knew that one way or another she had to stick this out. She swallowed hard, breathed deeply, and tried to think herself somewhere else.

Margaret stood back to let the assistants collect blood and vitreous samples for toxicology. Again she took the opportunity to steal another look at Li, who kept his eyes steadfastly on the procedure. She wanted to grab him and shake him and ask him why. But she felt the tears start to fill her eyes and she looked quickly away again, as the needle inserted by one of the assistants to draw fluid from the right eye of the decedent caused the eyeball to collapse. She refocused on the job in hand. The rest of the autopsy was largely routine and would take around forty-five minutes. Just forty-five more minutes.

The assistants placed a block of wood under the body, mid-chest, to help expose the chest cavity when she made the initial ‘Y’ shaped incision, starting at each shoulder, meeting at the bottom of the breast bone, then continuing on down past the umbilicus to the public bone.

Once the rib cage had been cut away, providing easy access to the organs, Margaret worked her way systematically through the heart and lungs, finding nothing abnormal, until she came to the stomach. She clamped and transected the oesophagus, freeing the stomach from its fatty connections, then cut it from the duodenum. Everyone was hit by the smell of alcohol. Margaret sniffed two or three times and raised an eyebrow.

‘Smells like vodka to me. A man after my own heart.’

She held up the stomach and, making a small incision, drained its contents into a measuring jug. The stink of it filled the room. She opened the stomach up for inspection.

‘ The oesophagus is lined by grey-pink mucosa. There are no diverticula or varices. The stomach contains four hundred and seventy-five cubic centimetres of thin, blue-brown liquid containing multiple tiny, pale blue particles resembling medication residue. No recognisable food is identified. An ethanol-like odour is noted. The gastric mucosa is stained pale blue, apparently by the gastric contents, and the rugal pattern is normal. ’

She switched off the microphone again. ‘Roofies,’ she said. ‘Classic date rape drug. Two or three 2 mg tablets and the recipient becomes looped, spacy, sleepy … Even more effective when taken with alcohol. Explains why he submitted so placidly to his execution. Except for the minor bruising around the wrist ligature, there is absolutely no sign of trauma to indicate that he put up any kind of a fight.’

‘It was a drug called flunitrazepam that was identified in the stomachs of the other … mm … victims,’ Pathologist Wang said.

‘Same thing,’ said Margaret. ‘Roofies is the street name. Rohypnol is the trade name. Made by the Roche Company. Very popular in the wrong hands when it was first marketed because it was colourless, odourless and tasteless when dissolved in drink. So Roche changed the formula to make it turn blue. Kind of hard to slip into someone’s drink without them noticing.’

Wang said, ‘In the other three it was mixed with red wine.’

Margaret thought about it for a moment. ‘Hm. I guess that would probably do it. Might make it a bit turbid, though if you weren’t a practised wine drinker you might not know the difference. But in this case,’ she indicated the open carcass on the autopsy table, ‘it would sure as hell have turned bright blue in vodka.’

Li frowned. ‘Then why would he have drunk it?’