Lynda La Plante - Above Suspicion

Though recently modernized, the morgue had retained its Victorian tiles, though the swill area and the steel tables and equipment were up to date. At one table a group of assistants cut away the filthy, torn clothes from the corpse of a junkie found that morning. The floor was white tiled and slippery. A second table was empty, being swilled down with a high-powered water jet. On the third table, or ‘slab’, lay their victim, covered by a green plastic sheet.

While his assistant listed the victim’s clothes, the pathologist, Dr Vernon Henson, spoke quietly to Langton. Anna watched as a black T-shirt and pink skirt were placed in an evidence bag for the forensic lab.

‘No underwear?’ Langton said quietly.

‘No panties,’ said Henson. ‘But there’s a bra. You probably want to have a look at the way it was tied.’

Langton gestured for Anna to move beside him as Henson was removing the plastic sheet from the body. It was at this moment that a gowned-up DCI Hedges walked in, snapping on rubber gloves. He glared at Langton. ‘You still breathing down my neck, Jimmy? Or are you just here for the thrill?’

‘I’m here, Brian, because if this girl is mine, you’ll have to give her up.’

Hedges shrugged. ‘You’ll have to prove it first. Right now, this is my case. So, if you don’t mind, butt out of my way.’

Langton stepped to one side. Hedges moved closer to the table as the two pathologist’s assistants turned the body over gently to face down. The hands were held together with a white cotton sports bra. The bra had been wrapped tightly around the wrists, then tied with some considerable force. Henson stepped aside to allow photographs to be taken from every possible angle before attempting to undo the knot. It resisted his efforts.

‘I’m going to have to cut it free,’ he said, almost apologetically.

‘Go ahead,’ Hedges instructed.

Trying to cause as little damage as possible, the pathologist snipped the material from the corpse’s wrists. The hands stayed in tight fists. The weals around the wrists were a dark plum red. When the girl was carefully laid face upwards again, her arms were drawn out to her sides, but her fists remained clenched.

‘We have what I think are her tights; again, they’ve been pulled exceptionally tight round her throat, cutting into the skin, so I doubt I’ll be able to undo them by hand.’

More photographs were taken of the way the tights had been knotted. Langton and Hedges virtually nudged against each other to get a clearer view.

The tights were pulled so taut that it was almost impossible to remove them. Eventually Henson clipped the knot away from her neck. The swelling had made the girl’s neck almost twice its normal size. The marks around it were deep, breaking through the skin; the tights had been pulled so roughly around her throat that the bruises were black, vermilion red and a deep purple shade. It was hard to recognize the girl on the slab as the same one in the photograph.

‘We’ve sent a lot of the larvae from her eyes and mouth over to the lab; they will give us an indication of how long her body has been in the woods. The insect infestation is more like we would experience in summer, due to the extraordinary weather conditions. I’ve got roses blooming in my garden and a few days ago, they were snowbound.’ Henson had a low, deep voice. His tone seemed more conversational than deferential to the work at hand.

‘Can you clean her up? Just so her family don’t see her like this,’ Hedges suggested.

Langton’s eyes widened. Henson, offended by the suggestion that, as chief pathologist, he would allow any relative to see their loved one’s corpse without ‘cleaning it up’, changed the subject quickly. ‘Stand back, please. Once I cut her up, the swelling will be released. We’ll be drawing her eyelids down, so the relatives won’t see her empty eye-sockets. You’ll see the little buggers have invaded her gums and the tip of her tongue is missing; could have been bitten by a fox.’

He turned to Langton and took a spatula to indicate the chewed tongue. ‘Unless she bit it off herself. If she did we’ll find it in her stomach.’

‘Took quite a blow here to her right temple, just above the ear.’

The camera continued to flash, taking the close-ups as required: face, neck, eyes, mouth and nose.

Henson waited till it was done, then drew back the long blonde hair to reveal a dark circular bruise congealed with dry blood.

‘I’d say it was a blunt, round-edged object, size of a ten pence piece. Once again, we have maggot infestation around the perimeter and there are eggs, so they’ll give us more to go on as to the time she’s been dead.’ Henson pulled at his mask.

Langton nodded. ‘Off the cuff, how long would you say?’

‘Bloody hard to tell. Decomposition is not that bad, but if she was left during the past month, well, we’ve had freezing weather, snow and ice, etc., etc. She has very dark areas over the entire underside of her body, which indicate she’s been in this position for a considerable time. Could be a few months, or a few weeks, definitely not days.’

Henson began to prise open her fingers.

‘Nails are in good condition. Looks like I won’t get much from underneath, but we’ll check, obviously.’

Henson stood back to observe the length of the body in more detail from the pink-painted toenails to the top of the head.

‘There are no scratches, or other signs she tried to fight back. Hopefully, the crack on her temple rendered her unconscious. I’d say by looking there was vaginal and anal penetration.’

Henson indicated the girl’s vagina, his fingers brushing her skin softly. ‘You see these bruises? That indicates it was pretty brutal. We’ll take swabs, obviously, but the anus is split on two sides. Basically that’s it until we cut her open and find out more, so let’s get started, shall we?

She’s been weighed: just seven stone ten, little thing. The X-rays will be coming back to us shortly. I didn’t find anything broken, but we will get them to you anyway. There’s a small birthmark on her right shoulder, but apart from that, she is blemishless. A very pretty creature at one time.’

Langton nodded. He had not glanced in Anna’s direction once and she was thankful, as she knew her face above the white mask was about the same colour. But so was DCI Hedges’s face and she was surprised when he turned to Henson.

‘Keep me updated, I want to see if forensics get anything from her clothes.’

Hedges walked out and Anna heard Langton give a soft, derisive laugh. Henson caught it and his eyes crinkled above his mask.

‘She’s already been washed down, so we’ll get started. I just need the stabilizing block under her head.’

Henson picked up the scalpel. Leaning in closely to make the Y-incision, he cut shoulder to shoulder, meeting at the sternum and then slicing down to the abdomen and into the pelvis. When the internal organs were exposed, the stench of rotting flower stalks was overpowering. As the hiss of body fluids and gasses permeated the room, Anna took fast intakes of breath, fighting to stay upright. Her head felt fuzzy. No wonder Hedges had made his exit quickly.

Next, Henson cut through the ribs and collarbone before lifting the ribcage up and away from the girl’s internal organs. Henson removed the organs individually to weigh them. After he had taken samples of fluids in the organs, he opened the stomach and intestines to begin an examination of the contents.

Despite her fuzzy head, Anna observed that Henson’s assistants worked as a tight unit. He never had to give an order and while they were doing the weighing and blood tests, he could concentrate on the corpse’s head.