The killer is, and you’ll find him—’
The fact they all knew for definite that there was a killer was not a shock, just another depressing reality for them to face. Frank knew most of the men there had never seen a dead body before. The only bodies he had seen were suicides, the most recent one a fifteen-year-old boy who hanged himself in a neighbour’s barn. Frank had found him – seconds after the boy’s mother had.
Part of him wanted to stop the whole world from revolving, but more urgently, to stop what was playing out in front of him. The violation of Katie’s privacy was almost unbearable. But he knew that the real violation had happened weeks ago. This part was something that made sense, that had to happen, that was done for the benefit of the victim.
People shuffled back from the body as Dr McClatchie moved in closer. Two forensic scientists hunkered down beside her. The photographer followed. Piece by piece, they removed the branches and leaves that covered Katie’s torso, stopping to photograph and video each new layer. After two hours, the body was fully revealed and they all stood up stiffly and stepped back.
Frank watched as bags were tied around the head, hands and feet of the body which was then zipped into a plastic sheath and carried away on a stretcher.
‘Any ideas as to cause of death?’ said O’Connor, walking over to Dr McClatchie.
‘That, I’ll tell you
Duke leaned against the van. The man parked in front of him sat with the window open, listening to the frenzied commentary of a Gaelic football match.
‘Come on to fuck, Din, you can get the result later,’ shouted his friend.
Duke watched them walk towards the entrance to Dromlin woods, bows held low by their side. A large woman in an orange jacket was sitting at a picnic table, a pile of papers in front of her. She smiled at them and handed them pens. When they finished writing, they nodded and she pointed the way. Duke waited. More men arrived and went through the same routine. Some groups walked right through.
‘Hi,’ he said to the woman. ‘Din’s gone in ahead with my bow. Can you give me a quick run-through of what’s happenin’?’
‘Fourteen by two 3D big game,’ she said. ‘There’s a good twenty of you so far. You’re a friend of Din’s?’
‘From the United States,’ said Duke, smiling.
‘He’s a great man for the GAA,’ said the woman.
‘Sure is,’ said Duke. He had no idea what she meant. He filled out a form and walked into the woods. Groups of archers stood by the trees, adjusting their bows. A man in a waxed jacket was putting up danger signs in the distance.
‘They should have had them up hours ago,’ said one man. ‘We haven’t even got the place to ourselves. They’re lettin’ in any Tom, Dick and Harry and we’ll have to wait at some of those targets for them to pass. It’ll take ages.’
‘I’m in no rush,’ said a second man, adjusting his compound bow. ‘I’m going for a slash.’ He lay down the bow beside his friend, who was too distracted by the signs to notice Duke grab, quickly and quietly, first the quiver, then the cool, smooth wood of the compound bow. In seconds he appeared through a clearing in the trees, within metres of the van. He put the equipment in the back, then sped away, briefly on the wrong side of the road.
The post-mortem room in Waterford Regional Hospital was the same size as a school classroom, with steel units running the length of one wall. Frank and O’Connor stood awkwardly by the sink, with masks dangling from their hands. Lara glanced over. It was like a Western, each one waiting for the other to draw. She was dressed in blue theatre scrubs, a long-sleeved green paper gown to her ankles and a green plastic apron. She didn’t wear a mask. She pulled on latex gloves, rubbed in a scented hand cream, then pulled on another pair of gloves. The men were watching her intensely.
‘I don’t mind the smell,’ she explained, ‘I just don’t want it on my hands when I’m eating my lunch. So I double bag.’ She turned and walked towards Katie’s body, laid out on one of the two stainless steel tables in the room, beside a tray of instruments. The men followed her, but stood at a distance. O’Connor was the first by a fraction of a second to put on his mask. Out of nowhere, the deep voice of Johnny Cash filled the room. Lara had slipped four CDs into the stereo on shuffle through two bluegrass compilations, a Hank Williams and a Johnny Cash.
‘I go through phases,’ she said to the surprised men. ‘Never thought I’d hit country, though.’
Then she barely spoke a word, as they watched her and a technician, a photographer, a ballistics and a fingerprint expert go to work.
‘Hmm, what have we here?’ she said, holding up a small dark fragment she had plucked from a head wound. The ballistics guy held open a plastic bag, she dropped it in and turned back to the body. ‘Here’s more,’ she said, removing a second and a third piece.
O’Connor stepped forward. ‘What do you think it is?’
‘No idea,’ she said. ‘And I probably never will until I’m sitting in court giving my evidence.’ She looked up at the men. ‘You’re the ones who get all the news back from the lab. No-one tells me anything.’ She walked around O’Connor and he stood back beside Frank, where they shifted on their feet until finally, four hours later, Lara pulled off her gloves and led the men over to the sink. Superintendent Brady had just arrived and been let in by the guard standing outside the door. He flinched at the smell, covered his mouth with his hand and crossed the room towards them. He seemed to look around for the source of the music.
‘The man in black himself,’ he said.
Lara nodded and smiled.
‘OK,’ she said. The three men huddled in front of her. She looked down at them and they edged back. ‘There is evidence of blunt force trauma to the head. She’s been struck several times, obviously with something heavy. There is also evidence of strangulation, damage to the larynx, fracture of the Adam’s apple. There’s been maggot activity on the scalp wound. When flies come to a corpse – which they would probably have done within hours – they look for the juiciest places to lay their eggs: this includes all the orifices, eyes, nostrils, ears, mouth, penis, vagina, anus. But, if there are wounds, that’s where they’ll head first. Excuse the pun. This explains what I was saying about the scalp. There was also evidence of maggot activity around the arms and hands, which could indicate the presence of defensive injuries.’
‘So, the cause of death?’ asked Brady.
‘I would say she was strangled and was then beaten about the head. When you’re strangled you don’t die instantly. She may have lain there gurgling which could have alarmed her attacker, who may have grabbed whatever was close by to finish the job. In this case, there were jagged marks, so I would say a rock.’
‘And time of death?’ said Brady.
‘It’s hard to say. The closest I could say based on the condition of the body is that it is consistent with the time of her disappearance.’
D.I. O’Connor was frowning.
‘I’m afraid I can’t be more specific than that,’ she said. ‘Time of death would be much more accurate if the body was found within days, but when weeks are involved, it becomes much more difficult.’
‘So, this guy could have held her somewhere, then killed her at a later stage?’
‘If you’re asking me whether or not the body was moved, I would say nothing points to it, but after that, it’s down to whatever trace evidence is found.’
‘What about sexual assault?’ said Brady.
‘I would say there’s circumstantial evidence,’ said Lara, ‘based on the fact that her underclothing and jeans were removed. Obviously, that would be highly suggestive of an attempted sexual assault but, I can’t commit to anything more definite.’
‘Why not?’ asked Frank gently.
‘What happens in decomposition is the genital area becomes very swollen…’ The men all dropped eye contact with her. She continued, ‘…and you can get rupture of the tissue in that area, which has happened in this case. It muddies the waters. Our only hope is the results from the vaginal and anal swabs. If the attacker used a condom, we have nothing.’
