She had protected herself to some extent. She had refused to move in with me on Coronation Road, because, she said, the Protestant women gave her dirty looks.
She had bought herself a house in Straid. There had been no talk of marriage. Neither of us had said ‘I love you’.
Before the recent absences we had seen each other two or three times a week.
What were we? Boyfriend and girlfriend? It hardly seemed so much.
But what then?
I had no idea.
Crabbie looked at me with those half closed, irritated brown eyes, and tapped his watch.
“It’s nine fifteen,” he said in that voice of moral authority which came less from being a copper and more from his status as a sixth generation elder in the Presbyterian Church of Ireland. “The message, Sean, was to come at nine. We’re late.”
“All right, all right, keep your wig on. Let’s go in,” I said.
Cut to the hospital: scrubbed surfaces. Lowered voices. A chemical odour of bleach and carpet cleaner. Django Reinhardt’s “Tears” seeping through an ancient Tannoy system.
The new nurse at reception looked at us sceptically. She was a classic specimen of the brisk, Irish, pretty, no nonsense nursey type.
“There’s no smoking in here, gentlemen,” she said.
I stubbed the fag in the ashtray. “We’re here to see Dr Cathcart,” I said.
“And who are you?”
“Detective Inspector Duffy, Carrick RUC, and this is my spiritual coach DC McCrabban.”
“You can go through.”
We stopped outside the swing doors of the Autopsy Room and knocked on the door.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“DI Duffy, DC McCrabban,” I said.
“Come in.”
Familiar smells. Bright overhead lights. Stainless steel bowls filled with intestines and internal organs. Glittering precision instruments laid out in neat rows. And the star of the show: our old friend from yesterday lying on a gurney.
Laura’s face was behind a mask, which I couldn’t help thinking was wonderfully metaphoric.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” she said.
“Good morning, Dr Cathcart,” Crabbie uttered automatically.
“Hi,” I replied cheerfully.
Our eyes met.
She held my look for a couple of seconds and then smiled under the mask.
It was hard to tell but it didn’t seem to be the look of a woman who was leaving you for another man.
“So, what can you tell us about our victim, Dr Cathcart?” I asked.
She picked up her clipboard. “He was a white male, about sixty, with grey, canescent hair. He was tall, six four or maybe six five. He had a healed scar on his left buttock consistent with a severe trauma, possibly a car accident, or given his age, a shrapnel wound. There was a tattoo on his back – ‘No Sacrifice Too Grea’ – which I take to be some kind of motto or Biblical verse. The ‘t’ was missing from ‘Great’ where his skin had adhered to the freezer compartment.”
“Freezer compartment?”
“The body was frozen for some unspecified period of time. When the body was removed and placed in the suitcase a piece of skin stuck to the freezer, hence the missing ‘t’ in great. I’ve taken photographs of this and they should be developed later today.”
“What did you say the tattoo said?” Crabbie asked, flipping open his notebook.
She shrugged. “A Biblical verse perhaps? ‘No Sacrifice Too Great’.”
I looked at Crabbie. He shook his head. He had no idea either.
“Go on, Doctor,” I said.
“The victim’s head, arms and legs were removed post mortem. He had also been circumcised, but this had been done at birth.”
She paused and stared at me again.
“Cause of death?” I asked.
“That, Detective Inspector, is where we get into the really interesting stuff.”
“It’s been interesting already,” Crabbie said.
“Please continue, Dr Cathcart.”
“It was a homicide or perhaps a suicide; either way, it was death by misadventure. The victim was poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” Crabbie and I said together.
“Indeed.”
“Are you sure?” Crabbie said.
“Quite sure. It was an extremely rare and deadly poison known as Abrin.”
“Never heard of it,” I said.
“Nevertheless, that’s what it was. I found Abrin particles in his larynx and oesophagus, and the haemorrhaging of his lungs leaves little doubt,” Laura continued.
“Is it a type of rat poison or something?” I asked.
“No, much rarer than that. Abrin is a natural toxin found in the rosary pea. Of course it would need to be refined and milled. The advantage over rat poison would be in its complete lack of taste. Like I say it is very unusual but I’m quite certain of my findings … I did the toxicology myself.”
“Sorry to be dense, but what’s a rosary pea?” I asked.
“The common name for the jequirity plant endemic to Trinidad and Tobago, but I think it’s originally from South-east Asia. Extremely rare in these parts, I had to look it up.”
“Poisoned … Jesus,” I said.
“Shall I continue?” she asked.
“Please.”
“The Abrin was taken orally. Possibly with water. Possibly mixed into food. There would have been no taste. Within minutes it would have dissolved in the victim’s stomach and passed into his blood. It would then have penetrated his cells and very quickly protein synthesis would have been inhibited. Without these proteins, cells cannot survive.”
“What would have happened next?”
“Haemorrhaging of the lungs, kidney failure, heart failure, death.”
“Grisly.”
“Yes, but at least it would have been fairly rapid.”
“How rapid? Seconds, minutes?”
“Minutes. This particular strain of Abrin was home cooked. It was crude. It was not manufactured by a government germ warfare lab.”
“Crude but effective.”
“Indeed.”
I nodded. “When was all this?”
“That’s another part of the puzzle.”
“Yes?”
“It’s impossible to say how long the body was frozen.”
I nodded.
“Are you sure about that freezing thing? There are plenty of ways a bit of skin can come off somebody’s back,” McCrabban said.
“I’m certain, Detective. The cell damage caused by freezing is consistent throughout what’s left of his body.”
“And so you have no idea when all this happened?” I asked.
