corridors reminded him of a map he’d once seen of the Valley of the Kings. Ancient designs, superimposed on shapes, on patterns long lost. Valentine leant on the side of the Land Rover, a mobile to his ear, getting the latest from Twine.
Shaw drank from a takeaway cappuccino, bouncing on his toes. Valentine cut the line to the murder suite. ‘We’ve got two hundred rooms — well, they call them rooms, some are nothing more than cupboards,’ he said. He didn’t have a hangover, despite the late-night binge. But the confrontation with Cosyns meant he hadn’t slept. So he was struggling to keep it clear, keep it simple. ‘But they’ll check them all. They’ve checked one already — the Hearing Voices Network. Nothing — just a PC, a few chairs, and a kettle. Most of the rest are going to storage — loo rolls to splints, scalpels to intubation bags, whatever the fuck they are. And the services, gas, electric, oil tanks. Foodstuffs for catering — tins, oils, dried food. Stairwells, lift shafts, piping. You’re right, it’s a maze.’
‘My guess,’ said Valentine, ‘is that as soon as Judd turned up as crispy duck they packed up shop.’ He snapped his fingers, then drank from a plastic cup, picking tea leaves from the end of his tongue.
Shaw studied the map, unmoved by Valentine’s pessimism. Hendre’s description of the room in which he’d woken up was a match for Level One — down to the incessant hum and the metal riveted doors. But was the operating theatre down there too? Could a patient have been taken up for the operation, then back down? That was more likely. What about one of those convenient gaps in the schedule at Theatre Seven? Then the patient recovered in secret — but never far from the hospital’s vital services.
Valentine rummaged in his coat pocket and produced a faxed statement. ‘This is the best Middlesbrough can do — it’s a note of the interview with Ben Ruddle, Norma Jean’s boyfriend, taken six weeks ago.’
The conversation had been chaotic, and Shaw noticed that whoever had conducted the interview had scribbled a note in the margin:
Ruddle had told the social worker he was living rough because he liked to see the sky. He’d given up the job at the market garden because they’d made him help out on deliveries and he didn’t like the van. And he had to leave anyway — because he had something he had to do. Valentine had highlighted the paragraph:
‘And there’s this,’ said Valentine, producing a black and white passport-style picture stamped with a prison number. The image bore little resemblance to the file picture from 1992 — the face had filled out, hardened.
It might have been Blanket: dark, Celtic, the wide gap at the bridge of the nose.
‘Question is,’ said Valentine, ‘why’d he come back?’ Shaw thought his way through an answer — because he’d loved Norma Jean, because he’d never stopped grieving for the child he’d lost, and now he had a chance to make the pay-off, buoyed up by drugs and booze. Maybe. But did Ruddle know who had killed Norma Jean? Or had he come back to Erebus Street, on the anniversary of her death, to make up his mind?
They heard the bells of St Margaret’s on the Tuesday Market chime the hour. Inside the Ark they found Justina Kazimierz ready to begin the internal autopsy on the body they now suspected to be that of the man known as John Pearmain, itinerant tramp, whose corpse they’d found on Warham’s Hole, minus the tell-tale upper joint of the second finger on his right hand, and minus his corneas, as well as the rest of the contents of the orbital cavities.
Shaw got into a surgical gown, then pushed his way through the heavy clear-plastic swing doors into the morgue, followed by Valentine. The stone carved angel looked down on the aluminium tables. Four were empty. A fifth held Pearmain’s body, naked and white, like
Kazimierz didn’t bother with any pleasantries. ‘ID is confirmed, by the way — although the missing finger didn’t leave a lot of doubt. His medical records are extensive and held at the GP centre which runs a clinic for the men at the Sacred Heart, so we’ve got matches on teeth, and a skull fracture.’
She began dictating notes into a headphone, making a brief external examination. ‘Three points of interest, externally,’ she said. ‘The eyes, obviously. Both have been removed. One can only surmise that was in order to cut out the corneas — it’s not necessary to remove the whole eye to do so but a lot easier if the body is not going to be subsequently viewed by relatives. Gunshot wound. The bullet went through the heart. Luck or skill? Who knows, but my money’s on skill. And this…’ She used a gloved hand to indicate a scar on the lower abdomen, left side, which meant she had to lift the corpse slightly. Valentine winced at the sound of creaking joints.
‘This will, I suspect, turn out to indicate a kidney removal. I’ll know once we open him up. There are other operative scars — all long healed. We’ll take a look inside in a minute. But first…’
She turned to the other occupied mortuary table and pulled the shroud clear as if she was launching a new
‘This will be Dr Rigby’s last post mortem examination for the West Norfolk Constabulary,’ she said. ‘I suspect an early retirement is about to be announced.’
Shaw stepped in. ‘What did he miss?’
She laughed into her face mask. ‘What did he catch is an easier question. The subject’s overweight, so there are folds in the skin, and there’s the pitting. But there’s no excuse…’
Valentine noted the stitched autopsy incision down the chest bone and relaxed slightly, letting his eyes follow the pathologist’s fingers as she held apart two folds of skin on the lower abdomen.
‘Keyhole again; two incisions — just like Pearmain. I’ve ordered up the records on the other two names you gave me — Foster and Tyler, we may be lucky and get an ID. There are other scars.’ She indicated a ten-inch incision on one leg, running into the groin. ‘Vein removal… the key point, however, is that only the keyhole kidney surgery is recent. Very recent — perhaps less than forty-eight hours. All the other scars have healed, and healed well. That’s why Rigby missed them. But that’s not all. There’s something wrong with the kidney keyhole surgery — the stitches are poorly executed, and the wound itself, the interior trauma, shows signs of post-operative pyrexia…’
Valentine failed to deliver a polite cough.
She touched a finger to her forehead. ‘Sorry. Jargon, I know. Well, it’s an infected wound. That could have been caused by a whole list of things. We know the patient
‘And the botched stitching?’ asked Shaw. ‘Could he have died on the table?’
‘No. Absolutely not. There is some healing of the wound — very little, but some. No, death is post-operative. But, as I say, the work looks very — well, amateurish. Which hardly matches the evidence of the keyholes — an advanced procedure — or the other scars, which all appear perfectly professional.’
The pathologist straightened her back. ‘We may know more once we’ve looked inside Pearmain’s body. Which is why we’re here.’
She smiled broadly at Valentine, pinging the surgical gloves on both hands, turning back to the eyeless corpse.
She made the initial surgical incision, holding the blade of the scalpel up to the green-tinged sunlight coming in through the old chapel windows, before pressing down into the bloodless flesh, running a wound from shoulder tip to shoulder tip, then down the line of the sternum to the pubic bone. Shaw stepped in to watch but he could hear Valentine’s laboured breathing behind him. The DS had gone for the full face mask. He was ten feet away, and he wasn’t getting any closer.
The Stryker saw created a thin film of bone dust as the pathologist cut through the ribs, then lifted clear the chest plate.
She made a quick examination of the principal organs. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘Now that is
‘Tell me,’ said Shaw, as the pathologist re-examined the outer flesh on the abdomen wall.
She flipped the microphone back into place and told the tape. ‘The left kidney, the one beneath the surgical incision, is missing — as we would expect. The right kidney is in place — here.’ Shaw stepped an inch to one side to let the floodlight illuminate the plump organ, the colour of a bean in a plate of chilli con carne.
Her hands dropped inside the torso cavity. ‘And here, the liver — which is in situ — but you can see the scars? Someone has performed a hepatectomy, a partial removal of the healthy organ. A graft, if you like — common now, but sophisticated.
‘Why would you need a bit of healthy liver?’ asked Shaw.
‘Transplant. Essentially it’s grafted onto the failing liver in the recipient and takes over some of the workload.
