Helen Fields - Perfect Crime

Callanach grinned at Ava. Ailsa was an outstanding pathologist, but she didn’t mince her words on any subject.

‘Now, with any high-fall victim, we have accidental fall, suicide or criminal event. Look here.’ She picked up the corpse’s right hand, flattening his fingers out on her own palm. ‘There’s a substantial amount of debris under his fingernails – three out of five were broken off during the fall as there’s fresh blood dried in with the debris. That debris is comprised of brick dust and dirt.’

‘He clung on then,’ Callanach said.

‘He most certainly did,’ Ailsa responded. ‘Which is why I’m ruling out suicide.’

‘You don’t think he changed his mind? I mean, climbed to jump, started to fall and grabbed at the wall, or it just happened as a matter of instinct?’ Callanach asked.

‘Not a normal pattern. Suicides usually jump a distance when they’ve decided to go and he’d have had to jump backwards to have grabbed the wall. If that was the case, gravity would probably have tipped him onto his back very high up, making it impossible for him to have got a hold on the wall with his fingertips.’

‘If I decided to commit suicide out at Tantallon, I’d jump off the cliffs into the sea, not from the castle walls to the ground. Too messy,’ Ava added.

‘So, not suicide. Accident, then?’ Callanach asked.

‘A much more likely prospect,’ Ava said, ‘and one I’m still seriously contemplating. It’s possible he slipped, managed to get a hold for a while but couldn’t pull himself back up, particularly given the ripping of the fingernails. Only, it’s not that easy to fall off the walls at Tantallon. If it was, they wouldn’t let anyone onto any part of the castle. He had to have climbed onto the outer aspect of the wall.’

‘Misadventure?’ Callanach queried. ‘Being a bit brave, climbs up, slips, grabs hold and it all goes wrong. Any sign of drink or drugs?’

‘No odour when I opened the stomach or brain to suggest serious alcohol intake, and I usually know pretty quickly if that’s an issue. As far as drugs go, I’ve taken samples for a tox screen and put those on a high-priority request. What I wanted to show you is this …’

Ailsa put the man’s hand back down on the metal pallet and positioned the magnifying glass over his middle finger, adjusting the light so it was flat over the top.

‘Look here,’ she said.

Ava and Callanach leaned in for a closer look, turning their heads to check from different angles.

‘I give up,’ Ava said eventually. ‘The hand’s badly bruised, with substantial grazing. I can see the three ripped nails. It’s all what I’d expect.’

‘All right, what you don’t know is that only one of these fingers is fractured. Middle finger, right at the top, in the distal phalange near the base of the nail.’

Callanach slipped his gloved finger underneath the area and felt the bone.

‘I can’t feel anything,’ he said.

‘The break isn’t displaced, so I wouldn’t expect you to. It only showed up on the X-ray, but there’s no healing at all, and fingers heal quickly, so it’s a new break but not caused by the force of the fall. It’s distinct from the other fractures.’

‘Caused when he was gripping the rock?’ Ava asked.

‘I thought so, then I saw this …’ Ailsa brought the magnifying glass even closer to the end of the middle finger and pointed at a tiny purple V-shape, just visible against the paler flesh of the hand. ‘That mark wasn’t caused by the rock. It’s the wrong side of his hand for a start. When he hit the ground, his palm was facing the floor, I know that from the impact pattern. This bruise is deep and fresh. I’ve excised the skin and looked underneath. Recent trauma, hard. It’s probably also what caused the fracture beneath.’

‘Your best guess as to cause?’ Ava asked.

Ailsa folded her arms and tipped her head to one side. ‘I’m hesitant,’ she said. ‘This is a bit of a reach.’

‘But it’s the reason we’re here, right?’ Ava raised her eyebrows.

‘Indeed. This definition and shape is unusual. Without the fracture, I’d have been less positive, but a substantial amount of force was applied, so weight was put onto the finger. It looks to me like the tip of a boot’s tread mark. That would explain the fracture, too. As I say, that’s not backed up by anything else. There are no other injuries that can’t be explained by the fall. No other defensive wounds. In these circumstances, without witnesses or a clearer picture of what happened, I wouldn’t be able to base a legal case on it.’

‘Well, let’s hope there’s an innocent explanation. We haven’t had a murder in Edinburgh since that gang retribution killing in Braidburn Valley Park at Christmas. I was hoping we’d manage to go more than a couple of months without another murder investigation.’

‘I’m just telling you what I see,’ Ailsa muttered. ‘Maintaining law and order’s your area of expertise.’

‘Not really. My squad just gets to clean up after societal norms have been decimated. Anyway, standing here won’t provide answers,’ Ava said. ‘Perhaps when we’ve identified him, we’ll get a clearer picture. Send me your report. I’ll open an enquiry but keep an open mind for other possibilities. Does that sound reasonable?’

‘It does indeed,’ Ailsa smiled. ‘This man’s only in his early thirties. I think we owe him this much at least. It’s no age to die, under any circumstances.’

‘It certainly isn’t,’ Ava agreed, walking to the postmortem suite door before removing her cap and gloves and depositing them in the bin. She reached out to hug Ailsa. ‘How are you keeping?’ she asked, stepping out of the sterile suit.

‘You mean for an old person?’ Ailsa grinned.

Ava tutted at her.

‘I’m fine. Less stressed than either of you, I’m guessing. I’m glad to hear Luc’s taken some time off. When did you last get a holiday, girl?’

Ava laughed. Ailsa, a friend of her parents from years back, would never cease to refer to her as a child no matter how old she got or what rank she was.

‘I’ll take a break soon, I promise. We’ve finally appointed a new detective inspector, so that should ease things a bit. We’ll head out to Tantallon now. Anything in particular we should be searching for?’

‘It’s a needle in a haystack, but I’d like to get a look at the missing fingernails. They might just be harbouring a few cells that’ll paint a fuller picture,’ Ailsa said.

‘Don’t hold your breath,’ Ava warned. ‘It hasn’t been treated as an active crime scene by forensics. What do you say, Luc? Are you up for a night-time stroll along the castle walls?’

‘Perfect end to a perfect holiday,’ Callanach smiled. ‘I’ll get my coat.’

Stopping off at the police station, Ava and Callanach grabbed wet-weather gear, more substantial flashlights than were in the boots of their cars, and notified the control room of their plans. By the time they’d driven the thirty-odd miles east from the city centre towards North Berwick, taking the winding lanes from the main road to the tip of the coast with due respect for the rain and wind, it was just past midnight.

They sat quietly in Luc’s car, having bypassed the car park at the end of the lane in preference for parking directly outside the entry booth-cum-gift shop. Looking across at the vast curtain wall that had once shielded the inner grounds of the castle from marauders, they listened to the increasingly thunderous rain.

‘I came here for a weekend to do an archery course as a child,’ Ava smiled. ‘By the end of the first day, I thought I’d fallen in love with the instructor.’