A Rush of Blood

Fifty

‘Is there a pogrom under way, by any chance, Detective Chief

Superintendent?’ the tiny pathologist asked. ‘We seem to be going through the Lithuanian population at a rate of knots.’

‘I’ll grant you, Joe,’ Mario McGuire conceded, ‘that God doesn’t appear to be on their side this week.’

‘Nor mine,’ said Professor Hutchinson. ‘With the exception of the late Mr Jankauskas, whose neck was broken manually, as cleanly as any hangman could have done it, they have tended to be particularly messy.’

‘You can confirm what we thought about Linas?’

‘Absolutely. It was very quickly, and very expertly done; no chance that it could have been accidental. There’s not a mark on him, not a single bruise.’

‘Are we looking for more than one person?’

‘All I can tell you is, not on the evidence of my examination.’

‘Will your report say any more than that?’

Hutchinson shook his head. ‘Very little. He had several things shortly before he died; a raw onion, a pork pie, two bottles of lager, and sexual intercourse. He smoked too much, but used no other drugs that I could find. He was suffering from a small tumour, undetected, I assume, on the frontal lobe of his brain that would have caused him a lot of trouble in the year or two before it killed him. He had poor personal hygiene and his dentist will not notice his passing, not having seen him for several years. Your man was murdered; we wouldn’t wish that on anyone, but I can’t feel too sorry for him.’ He frowned. ‘The two I’m working on now, however, they have got to me, particularly the gentleman. In all my career I have never received someone here on two successive days, walking in on Wednesday, and wheeled in last night. It hasn’t helped me to remain dispassionate.’

‘I can understand that,’ said McGuire, sympathetically. ‘Can’t you get someone else to do the examinations?’

‘As dear Sir Magnus, God rest him, used to say, I’ve started, so I’ll finish. Anyway, I’m being assisted by students. While I’m out here talking to you, they’re furthering their education.’

‘How far have you got?’

‘I can give you a cause of death, in each case. If dead people can be lucky, they were. Asphyxiation, caused by the inhalation of thick, toxic smoke; I imagine that the fire and rescue people told you to expect that.’

‘Actually they were fairly non-committal.’

‘Not like them, but never mind; that’s what saw them off, for sure.’

‘How about identification? You’ve taken samples, I’m sure; we may have to match them against personal items from the house. We’ve been going over what’s left of it.’

‘Not necessary. Your CID colleagues have been hard at work; they found dental insurance membership when they looked the place over and your Inspector Stallings reported it to me. I’ve got their dental records, and they match. There is also the fact that the male victim was wearing Mr Gerulaitis’s trousers when he died, to judge by the melted credit cards that we found in the charred wallet in his pocket, once we had prised it out of his incinerated thigh.’ Pause. ‘Are you going to tell me why your department is so interested in accident victims?’

‘Let’s just say that we had a special interest in Valdas.’

‘And have you found anything to further it?’

‘No,’ the head of CID admitted, ‘but we’re still looking.’

‘And that’s what we’re doing,’ Joe Hutchinson declared. ‘I must get back to my grim workplace and see what my would-be successors have found. One thing I can tell you, though, that may be of mild interest. Wednesday’s guest on my table had a very distinctive tattoo at the top of his right arm. Because of the way he was lying, that part of Mr Gerulaitis is reasonably well preserved, and it appears that he had its match, apart from the name at its heart. Both he and his cousin loved their wives, I think, and both visited the same tattooist.’

‘Incurable romantics, eh,’ McGuire muttered.

‘No, Mario,’ said the old pathologist. ‘There’s one event that cures everything.’