'I think I did,' said Fitzduane. 'It was all so rushed.'
'That's the way these things normally are,' said Keane. 'It makes the whole affair easier for all concerned. A few little white lies like saying the lad died instantly do nobody any harm.'
'Didn't he?'
'Lord, no,' said the sergeant. 'It wasn't read out in open court, of course, but the truth is the lad strangled to death. Dr. Buckley estimated it took at least four or five minutes, but it could have been longer – quite a bit longer.'
They drove on in silence. Fitzduane wondered if the blue rope was still in the trunk.
The duty lieutenant came into Kilmara's office. He was looking, Kilmara thought, distinctly green about the gills.
'You asked to be informed of any developments on Fitzduane's Island, colonel?'
Kilmara nodded.
'We've had a call from the local police superintendent,' said the lieutenant. 'There's been another hanging at Draker.' He looked down at his clipboard. 'The victim was an eighteen-year-old Swiss female, one Toni Hoffman – apparently a close friend of Rudolf von Graffenlaub. No question of foul play. She left a note.' He paused and swallowed.
Kilmara raised an eyebrow. 'And?'
'It's sick, Colonel,' said the lieutenant. 'Apparently she did it in front of the whole school. They have an assembly hall. Just when all the faculty and students had gathered, there was a shout from the balcony at the back of the hall. When they turned, the girl was standing on the gallery rail with a rope around her neck. When she saw everyone was looking, she jumped. I gather it was very messy. Her head just about came off.'
Did she say anything before she jumped?' said Kilmara.
'She shouted, ‘Remember Rudi,’' said the lieutenant.
Kilmara raised the other eyebrow. 'I expect we shall,' he said dryly. He dismissed the lieutenant. 'Obviously a young lady with a theatrical bent,' he said to Gunther.
Gunther shrugged. 'Poor girl,' he said. 'What else can one say? It sounds like a classic copycat suicide. One suicide in a group has a tendency to spark off others. Many coroners think that's one good reason why suicides shouldn't be reported.'
Kilmara gave a shudder. 'Ugh,' he said. 'This is gloomy stuff. Until our green lieutenant came in with the tidings, I was geared to go home early and bathe the twins.'
'And now?' said Gunther.
Kilmara waited a beat and grinned. 'I'm going to go home early and bathe the twins,' he said. He put on his coat, checked his personal weapons, and slid down the specially installed fireman's pole to the underground garage. He'd tell Fitzduane about this second hanging tomorrow. Hugo would have to get by on one hanging this night.
He was unmercifully splashed by the twins.
The city of Cork, Ireland's second largest, had been sacked, burned, pillaged, looted, and destroyed so often since its foundation in the sixth century by St. Finbar that it now seemed laid out with the primary objective of stopping any invader in his tracks.
Its traffic problem was impressive in its turgid complexity, and on a dark, wet March evening it had reached a pinnacle of congestion that was a tribute to the ingenuity of its corporation's planning committee.
Fitzduane had a manic private theory that the reason the city's population had expanded was that none of the inhabitants could get out, and so they stayed and became traders or lawyers or pregnant or both and conversed in a strange singsong that sounded to the uninitiated like a form of Chinese but was, in fact, the Cork accent.
Fitzduane actually quite liked Cork, but he could never understand how a city that stood astride only one river could have so many bridges – all, apparently, going the wrong way. In addition, there seemed to be more bridges than during his last visit, and some seemed to be in different locations. Maybe they were designed to move secretly in the dead of night. Maybe the reason the British had burned the city – yet again – in 1921 was just to find a parking space.
He was agreeably surprised when the SouthInfirmaryHospital loomed through the sleet.
Fitzduane transferred the slides of the hanging to the circular magazine of a Kodak Carousel projector and switched it on.
The screen was suddenly brilliant white in the small office. He pressed the advance button. There was a click and a whir and a click. The white of the screen was replaced by a blur of color. He adjusted the zoom lens and the focus, and the face of the hanged boy, much enlarged, came sharply into view.
Buckley held an illuminated pointer in his hand, and from time to time, as the slides clicked and whirred and clicked, he would point out a feature with the small arrow of light.
'Of course,' said the pathologist, 'I didn't see the locus -the place it actually happened – so these slides of yours help. They should really have been handed in to me before the inquest, but no matter.
'Now, under our system, the decision as to whether the pathologist sees the deceased at the locus depends on the police. If they have any reason to be suspicious, the body is not disturbed in any way until the fullest investigations are carried out. In this particular case the sergeant used his judgment. A youth was involved, and his death occurred on the grounds of his own college. A very fraught situation, and the sight of a victim of hanging can be quite traumatic, as you know. There were no signs of foul play, and the sergeant knew that hanging almost invariably means suicide. There was also the matter of determining that the lad was actually dead. All these factors encouraged the sergeant to take the view that he should cut down the deceased immediately, and I have to say that it is my belief that he acted correctly.'
Fitzduane looked at the grimacing figure on the screen. He had an impulse to wipe away the blood and mucus that so disfigured the face. He tried to make his voice sound detached as he spoke. 'He must have been dead, surely. I checked his pulse when I found him, and there was nothing – and just look at him.'
The pathologist cleared his throat. 'I must point out, Mr. Fitzduane,' he said, 'that given the position of the hanging body, I doubt that you could have carried out an adequate examination. The absence of a pulse alone, especially considering a normal layman's limited experience, is by no means a sufficient determination of death.'
'Are you saying that he could have been alive when I found him – even without a pulse and looking like that?'
'Yes,' said Buckley in a matter-of-fact voice, 'it's possible. Our investigations, based upon when he was last seen in the college, when the rain stopped and so on, plus, of course, your own testimony, indicate that the hanging must have taken place between half an hour and an hour of your finding him. He could have been alive – just – in the same way that a victim of drowning can survive a period of total immersion and can be brought around by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.'
As Buckley spoke, Fitzduane tried to imagine giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to that bluish face. He could almost feel those distorted lips stained with spittle, mucus, and blood. Had his revulsion killed the boy? Had it really been so impossible to cut the body down?'
'For what it's worth,' said Buckley, 'and this is not a scientific opinion, merely common sense, he was almost certainly dead when you found him. And anyway, I fail to see how you could have cut him down single-handed, since the evidence stated, as I recall, that you had no knife of similar item. In addition, there would have been the probability of further damage to the boy when the body dropped. Finally, if any trace of life did remain, the brain would have been damaged beyond repair. You would have saved a vegetable. So do not harbor any feelings of guilt. They are neither justified nor constructive.'
Fitzduane smiled faintly at Buckley.
