interested in, but we’ve tried everything-benzidine test, precipitin test, demonstrable fatty acids, nitrogen content. No go, I’m afraid. The only other time-related fact we have is that ballistics have matched the cartridge cases to a gun used in two other shootings in South London during the mid-eighties, but that doesn’t really narrow your time frame, does it?’
‘This bit about “indicators of non-Caucasian ancestry”, Sundeep,’ Brock queried.‘Can we be more specific?’
As they’d been reading the summary, Kathy had noticed Dr Prior shake her head several times. Now she answered Brock’s question.
‘They were black,’ she said bluntly.
It was Dr Mehta’s turn to shake his head.‘Dr Prior, I’ve been trying to emphasise to our colleagues here that such a term is arbitrary and meaningless in science. Racial categories have no biological reality.’ He sounded testy.
Dr Prior gazed calmly back at him and said,‘That’s nonsense, Dr Mehta. You’ve completely ignored my evidence in your summary. The morphological arguments are compelling and well established. Race is a biological fact, and the three victims were as black as I am. I think the police need to know that.’
‘Nonsense!’ Mehta almost shouted. ‘I quote Sauer, I quote Brace:“There are no races, there are only clines.” If we can’t dispel this wicked misconception, who can?’
The odontologist, Dr Lyons, was peering over his glasses at his forensic colleagues. From what Kathy could make of his part of the report, the dental evidence had been disappointingly inconclusive, and throughout he’d had the air of someone rather bored and impatient to get back to his laboratory. But now he, the only white member of the trio,seemed intrigued by his colleagues’increasingly irate debate about race.
It was interrupted by the arrival of Morris Munns, who bustled in with a cheerful ‘Morning all’ and an ancient leather doctor’s bag. The lenses in his glasses were so thick that Kathy was always worried that he would barge into something, which was ironic since he was perhaps the most skilful photographic specialist and enhancer of latent images available to the Met. Dr Mehta, somewhat tightlipped,invited him to speak,and from the bag he produced a plastic evidence pouch containing an irregular lump of material.
‘This is the remains of the shoe Sundeep gave me,’ Morris said in his broad cockney.‘It was found with Bravo’s body. And hidden beneath what was left of his leather instep, Sundeep was smart enough to notice something odd.’
Mehta’s sulk relaxed a little, mollified by this compliment.
‘Under examination, I found a fragment of what turned out to be rag paper.We ’ad a go with it on our new image detector equipment, digitally enhanced, and eventually came up with this.’ He passed out copies of a photographic enlargement, twenty times life size, of an irregular area of grey. Across its surface was a blur of darker grey smudges. Kathy held the picture at arm’s length, screwing up her eyes, until finally a pattern emerged.
‘Kathy’s got the idea,’ Morris said, and handed round another image, in which the first had been overlaid by red symbols, corresponding roughly to the shapes beneath. The smudges now read:
‘Brilliant, Morris,’ Brock said,‘as always.What does it mean?’
‘I reckon it’s a betting slip, don’t you? An old-fashioned one, hand-written. The horse is Celia’s Dream, running at odds of seven to two.’
Horseracing was another acknowledged area of Morris’s expertise, and Brock was impressed. ‘What about the other numbers?’
‘Dunno for sure. 8.22 can’t be the time of the race-too early or too late and too odd. It could be the date, American style, month first-August twenty-second. Maybe Bravo was a Yank.’
‘Or the bookie was,’ Mehta suggested.
‘All right, we’ll see what we can find out,’ Brock said. ‘Many thanks. And thanks also to you and your colleagues for your report, Sundeep.Worth every penny, I’m sure. I realise what a rush it’s been. Is there anything else?’
‘Will you be wanting facial reconstructions?’ Dr Prior asked.
‘Definitely. Are the skulls in good enough condition?’
‘Oh yes. Of course, there are big differences in the thicknesses of facial tissues for different races.’ She paused with a slight smile on her lips, and Kathy realised she was needling Sundeep. ‘But we have pretty accurate tables for both pure Negroid and mixed-race subjects. The South Africans have done a lot of work in this area.’
Dr Mehta winced at that, but he had obviously decided on a more dignified, patronising approach. ‘Yes, well, as we know, the results of facial modelling are open to conjecture. But Dr Prior is a very artistic practitioner.’
Kathy gathered that ‘artistic’ was probably the most damning compliment that Mehta could find. As they got to their feet, Kathy made a point of speaking to the anthropologist. She introduced herself and they shook hands.
‘What was that all about, with Dr Mehta?’ she asked.
‘Oh,it’s an ongoing thing with us.Sundeep is a soft-tissue man, and they tend to see the way the responses of races to climate are evenly graded across populations, without clear breaks-the clines he mentioned. But deep inside you, in your bones, the opposite is true. There are sharp divisions between the races, and I can tell much more clearly what you are from your skull than from your skin. But of course, the reason Sundeep gets so heated isn’t scientific. He thinks that exposing biological differences between the races encourages racism, so he wants to suppress them. I, on the other hand, believe the opposite. I think that if we don’t explain exactly what science tells us, we encourage myths and stereotypes. When I was a student and my lecturer first explained the evolutionary basis of race I felt liberated.For the first time I understood why I was black.’
She paused, studying Kathy’s face as if trying to make a decision,then added,‘And this case is about race,isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’
‘Oh, I think so. I think these murders were racially motivated, don’t you?’
‘I don’t think we know enough yet. They could be many things, gangland killings . . .’
‘No,this isn’t some crack-crazed Yardies taking pot shots at one another. And it wasn’t done to intimidate the opposition-the bodies were hidden. This was deliberate, like a military execution, torturing them first,breaking their bones,then making them kneel, shooting them from above and in front, through the crown. This was cold hate. Race hate.’ Dr Prior leaned closer to Kathy and whispered in her ear.‘Use your imagination,sister.’Then,as she was turning away, she added, ‘And forget about Sundeep’s jibe about facial reconstruction. I’ll show you exactly what those two boys looked like.’
Kathy was silent in the taxi back to Queen Anne’s Gate with Brock, and finally he said,‘You’re very quiet, Kathy.’
‘Just thinking about what Dr Prior had to say.’She noticed mud on his trouser legs. The on-site teams were now working around the clock ahead of expected bad weather, and she wondered if Brock had spent the night out there. ‘You’ve been pretty quiet yourself.’
Her remark sounded abrupt and he said nothing for a while, staring out of the taxi window at the dark figures hurrying along the cold streets. She wondered if she’d annoyed him. Then he turned and smiled.‘Yes,you’re probably right.We should get together and talk about things. Soon.’
She wasn’t sure if he meant about work or something else. Then he added,‘But first I want to get a fix on when they died. From that, everything else will follow; without it we’re helpless. What did you think of Morris’s conjuring trick?’
‘Pretty convincing.’
‘Mm. Are you a punter?’
‘Afraid not.’
‘No, I didn’t think so. Me neither. But I’d like you to make it your number one priority.’
‘You want me to track down Celia’s Dream?’
‘Yes. Drop everything else. I dare say it’ll take time. Talk to experts, people in the industry, but don’t mention where this came from. And don’t tell anyone else about it.’
Kathy looked at him in surprise.‘The team?’
