Middleton took a small tape recorder from his briefcase and started describing the wounds. He lifted each eyelid, the beginning of a slow, methodical examination. He inserted a thermometer into a nostril and noted the temperature. Felt the arms and tested for rigor by moving one. Looked at the hands and fingernails. Loosened the clothes around the neck and searched for other signs of injury. Turned the body and studied one of the blood- encrusted exit wounds at the back of the head.
'Have they picked up the bullets?'
'Not yet.'
'Buried in the ground, I dare say.'
'We can use a metal detector.'
The pathologist remained for over an hour before signalling to the waiting funeral director that he was ready to have the body removed to the hospital mortuary. Diamond stood back and watched his dead wife being lifted into a plastic zipper-case, and then into a plain fibreglass coffin, which was carried up the slope, through the crowd, loaded into a van and driven away.
With self-disgust he thought back to his first reaction to this, how he had been elated at the news of a shooting. And later joked about waiting to be introduced to the victim.
'Big shock,' Middleton said to Diamond. 'You want to go home now, take a Valium.'
'There's work to do. You know as well as I do - the first twenty-four hours are crucial.'
'Yes, but it shouldn't be you.'
He didn't dignify the suggestion with a response. Instead, he walked over to Halliwell. 'The bloke who found her - where is he?'
'Went off home, guv. He had the dog with him.'
'That's no reason to leave.'
'We took a short statement'
'A dog doesn't need to go home. Dog would stay in the park all day if it got the chance. Does he live nearby?'
'The Upper Bristol Road.'
'Which end?'
'This end, I think.'
'Get him here fast. I want to speak to him.'
He escorted Middleton to his car. 'Anything else you noticed?'
The pathologist said, 'What you don't find can be just as informative as what you do. Did you look at her hands?'
'I held them.'
'No damage. No sign that she put up a fight. When someone holds a gun to your head, you try and push it away. You fight for your life. This was quick, Peter. She didn't know much about it.' He opened the car door and got in. 'I wouldn't expect too much from the post mortem.'
Diamond watched him drive off.
Some time after, a constable approached him with a tall, thin man in tow. 'Sir, this is Mr Warburton, the gentleman who found the, em . . .' His voice trailed off.
Warburton, in his thirties, had a down-at-heel look, lank, dishevelled hair, his hands deep in the pockets of a black overcoat that was coming apart at the shoulder-seam. The shock of the morning's discovery may have left him looking troubled, or it may have been his stock expression. He swayed a little.
'You've been drinking?' Diamond said.
'A wee drop,' Warburton answered. 'It helps me sometimes. I got the shakes.'
'You found the body, I believe?'
'Heard the shots, didn't I?' He flapped his hand in the general direction of the Royal Crescent. 'I was right up there with my dog, causing no trouble, and I heard it go off and came down here.'
'What time?'
'Couldn't tell you.'
'We logged the call at ten-twenty, or thereabouts. See anything?'
'No.'
'Are you sure? How long after the shots did you get here?'
'Dunno.'
'Two minutes? Five? Ten?' As he said it, he knew he wouldn't get a precise estimate. The man was three- quarters slewed.
'Thought it was someone taking a pot at a rabbit.'
'Here?'
'I've seen them.'
