resignation, turned on their sides and awaited their own death. Hennessey watched Dr D’Acre as she worked, moving in a slow but determined, and yet gentle, manner, using as little force as necessary and handling each corpse as if it was a living being, and so she managed to create a distinct sense of reverence for the deceased. Her eyes, too, when he was able to see them, he noted, displayed a look of respect for the dead. Her mouth was kept closed as she worked, her soft jawline set firm. A single act of clumsiness, Hennessey realized, a needless look of distaste for the work she performed, or a smile, no matter how brief, or a split-second gleam in her eyes, or of eye contact with him or Eric Filey, would ruin everything, because her attitude, her professionalism, was example setting. She was leading from the front, and Hennessey and Eric Filey were willing followers and responded by exhibiting the same decorum.
Having laid out the skeletons, with the occasional help of Eric Filey, Dr D’Acre turned her attention to the least decomposed of the four, and as such, clearly the most recent of the five bodies to have been brought to Bromyards.
‘The body. . oh, please give this a number and today’s date, Kate.’ Dr D’Acre spoke for the benefit of the microphone, which was attached to an angle poise that was bolted into the ceiling. ‘Kate’ was, Hennessey assumed, clearly a skilled audio-typist who knew what to write in the report and what not to write. It seemed clear that D’Acre and ‘Kate’ knew each other very well and that they worked well together. ‘The body,’ Dr D’Acre continued, ‘is in an advanced state of decomposition and is almost completely skeletonized. It is that of an adult of the female sex. There is an absence of any significant injury to the skeleton. The skull and all long bones, ribs etcetera, appear intact. There is no sign of trauma at all.’ She turned to Hennessey, ‘That is worrying in a sense.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Hennessey nodded. He stood as far away from the dissecting table as possible, his place to be called forward to examine or witness something of significance only if invited to do so by Dr D’Acre. He was dressed similarly to Dr D’Acre and Eric Filey in green coveralls, including hat and slippers. They were worn over underclothing and always were incinerated after a single usage.
‘Early days, yet,’ Dr D’Acre returned her attention to the corpse, ‘but the absence of peri-mortem trauma indicates a slow and a lingering death.’ Dr D’Acre took the scalpel to the stomach, still discernible, and opened it with a single linear incision. ‘Nothing in there. . there might still have been some small trace of food even after this length of time, but its complete absence could mean that she was deprived of food in the last twelve or twenty-four hours of life. . but decay is too advanced. . the kidneys, too, are too decayed to be able to determine if she was deprived of fluid during the same period.’ Dr D’Acre laid the scalpel in the stainless steel tray containing a generous amount of disinfectant. ‘I will give all due attention to the task in hand, all due address, but if this corpse is typical of those found at the location in question, then I am obliged to give you advance warning that I am unlikely to be able to determine the cause of death.’
‘Appreciate that, ma’am.’
‘It’s likely going to be asphyxiation, plastic bag over the head. . or thirst or starvation. . in lessening degrees of mercy. Asphyxiation takes a matter of minutes, thirst will take a few days. . but if the victim is allowed fluid then starvation could take weeks.’
‘We wondered about the possibility of them freezing to death?’
‘Yes, hypothermia, that is indeed a fourth possibility, which will take a short time in the depths of winter and will also leave no trace upon the skeleton. Poison is an unlikely fifth, as is drowning, but those two might and will leave traces respectively. Heavy poisons such as arsenic and cyanide will leave traces, alcohol won’t. But I will be able to tell if they were drowned. . but the absence of a body of water in the area leads me to think it unlikely.’
‘I would think so too, ma’am, the fact that they were restrained and attached to a long chain makes me think that they were alive when they were abandoned. . alive and conscious. . from a police officer’s point of view.’
‘I would be inclined to agree with you, Chief Inspector, from a forensic pathologist’s point of view,’ she tapped her forefingers lightly on the rim of the table, ‘from the perpetrator’s point of view, I would think he’d want a rapid onset of death. . he would abandon them to thirst or hypothermia. He wouldn’t return each day with a plentiful supply of water to keep them alive until they starved. . too risky. So logic, not scientific analysis, points to hypothermia or thirst as the likely cause of death, depending upon the time of year they were chained up and abandoned. But that is encroaching on your area of expertise. Sorry.’
‘Encroach all you like.’
‘Thank you, but I suppose that that is my way of apologizing for being unlikely to find a cause of death. I think my expertise, modest as it is, will be confined to doing what I can to assist in the identification of the deceased, especially since one victim had sustained a distinct head injury much earlier in her life.’
‘That’s still very, very useful, thank you.’ Hennessey then glanced at Eric Filey and repeated, ‘Thank you.’ George Hennessey had come to like Filey a great deal, and come to respect him; young, slightly rotund, not only was he clearly sufficiently good at his job that he impressed Dr D’Acre but, unlike other pathology laboratory assistants whom Hennessey had met, Filey possessed a warmth about him and approached his employment with a good-humoured attitude, although when circumstances demanded, as at that moment, he was capable of demonstrating sincere reverence.
Dr D’Acre used a stainless steel length of metal to prise open the jaw of the skeleton. ‘Definitely Caucasian or white European. . the skull is northern European in appearance, and could also be Asian, but the teeth confirm it. . definitely northern European in terms of race. . and there is some dental work which may prove very useful in determining her identity. As you know, dentists have to keep their records for eleven years. This particular victim was murdered, or at least lost her life, within the last eleven years. Probably in the last two or three, and the dentistry appears to be British.
So someone, some dentist, will have a record of her dental work and that is as unique as a fingerprint. Human teeth are like snowflakes. . no two sets are ever the same.’
‘That will also be very helpful,’ Hennessey spoke softly, ‘very helpful indeed.’
‘Yes, the field is narrowing. . no males as yet. . and just glancing at the other skulls here, and recalling the fifth victim in the drawer, it seems that all are northern European in terms of race.’
‘The field is narrowing, as you say, ma’am. We don’t need to look for males or people of ethnic minority in our missing person files.’
Dr D’Acre smiled and mouthed, ‘Thank you’, at Hennessey and then said, ‘I do like to be of some use.’ She then addressed Eric Filey. ‘Can you hand me the tape measure, please, Eric?’
Dr D’Acre extended the tape measure whilst Eric Filey held the tape at the head of the corpse, until it reached the feet. ‘Tall lady,’ Dr D’Acre commented, ‘five foot ten inches, or about a hundred and seventy-eight centimetres in Eurospeak. Add an inch on to that to allow for the shrinking of the cartilage and the decay of the flesh beneath the feet, then she would have been nearly six foot in life. She was also a young woman, about twenty-five years old, no older, possibly younger.’
‘Again, very useful to know, there won’t be many six-feet tall women in our mis per files. Hardly any in fact. . and possibly just one. . but only if she is local,’ Hennessey added, ‘only if she is local. I do so hope that some day we’ll have a national missing person’s database. . the National Missing Persons Helpline is a charity. It has been useful in the past but we need nationally held mis per records on the Police National Computer.’
‘Yes,’ Dr D’Acre replied softly, ‘that would make things much easier for all concerned. I am afraid I am close to completing here. All I can do now is remove one of the teeth and age it, that way I can tell how old she was when she died, plus or minus one year, and detach the skull and send it to the forensic science laboratory at Wetherby for facial reconstruction by computer modelling, so you might then have some idea of her appearance when alive. . but as for cause of death. . we will never know, not by post-mortem examination anyway. All information for your attention will be with you asap.’
‘A very interesting patient, very interesting indeed, and very popular with the reception staff and our visiting nurses.’ Dr Richard March smiled warmly at Webster as he momentarily took his eyes off the computer monitor on his desk. ‘Yes, got his details up on the screen. Old boy, died of respiratory failure.’
Webster’s face broadened into a smile.
‘You find that funny?’ March’s smile faded rapidly.
‘Frankly, yes, I do, but not in a spiteful way, I assure you. What I mean is. . what I find amusing is the term because what does “respiratory failure” mean but “stopped breathing”?’
March chuckled. ‘I see. . yes, quite true, but so many relatives of elderly patients need something more than “stopped breathing” and as doctors we can’t put “stopped breathing” on a death certificate, if we do then our
