Cold as Ice

Chapter 5

Doctor Jo Harding had a reputation for being as cold as the corpses she cut up. She was brittle inside, steel outside. She worked exclusively for the Murder Squad. She carried out the forensic post mortems in her laboratory in the Whittington Hospital mortuary department which was just a few minutes’ walk from Fletcher House and Archway Police Station.

Mark, the mortuary technician, knocked and entered her office as she was looking at the X-rays.

‘Inspector Carter and DC Willis are on their way over, Doctor.’

She pushed her chair back and looked up from her desk. ‘Okay – you can begin. I’ll be out in a minute.’

Mark left her office with a nod and went to get changed before going through to the body store and wheeling out the body from the canal. He waited to unzip the body bag. For him there was a ceremonial aspect to the disrobing of the victim. He showed reverence, in deference to the deceased person. He was a sensitive soul. He already smelt the odour of advanced decomposition. He kept his eyes lowered as he opened the zip all the way and then his eyes took in her injuries one by one and he felt a heavy sadness that was the same today as it had been the first time he’d seen a dead body, the day he started work at the funeral home where he had worked for eight years before joining Doctor Harding. He sadly peeled the edges of the bag back and looked at the auburn-haired woman, her face moulded into a mannequin of horror, her auburn hair snaking out and he thought how beautiful she must once have been. He moved to the top of the table and laid out the necessary tools on the tray above the sink.

Harding picked up the post mortem forms before going through to get changed into new scrubs and an all-in-one suit, white boots. Then she picked up visor and gloves and joined Mark in the post mortem room. The body was waiting on the stainless-steel dissection table.

She signalled to Mark to help and together they slid out and folded up the plastic sheet that the body had been wrapped in, ready to be sent to the crime lab. Harding carefully peeled away the last of the polythene from around the victim’s neck. ‘We’ll get the preliminaries done ready to start the examination when they get here. Start by brushing and washing her hair, eyelashes, eyebrows and pubic.’

Mark nodded that he understood and began gently combing her hair. He eased out the tangles and used a syringe to squirt water onto the scalp, flushing the debris into a bowl.

Harding was watching him from the corner of her eye. They’d been working together for three months now and were still getting used to one another’s ways. He washed the victim’s hair as if he were in love. He tilted his head one way and another as if mesmerized by the strands of colour in her hair. Harding coughed. She saw his hands speed up – efficiency replace sentiment – and watched as he finished up before removing the tray full of the washing liquid. He began combing through her eyebrows and eyelashes, and removed the make-up that had been hiding the swollen cheese-like texture of her face. Her bulging eyes were lovingly wiped clean of blue eye-shadow with cotton pads, her cheeks cleaned of red stain. When he finished the face he moved down to comb through her pubic hair.

Harding looked up from behind her plastic eye shield as Carter and Willis approached wearing full forensic suits. Harding handed Willis the camera with a querying look. Ebony nodded and took it. She switched it on and checked it was working before moving silently around the body photographing. After Harding, Ebony knew more about forensic pathology than anyone else in the room. And, although her degree was in criminal justice and law, forensics had been a hobby all her life.

Mark switched on the extractor fan beneath the table as Harding began official proceedings.

‘The diener here is Mark Langham; he has washed and prepared the body for autopsy,’ Harding dictated as she moved along the side of the dissection table. ‘We have collected hair samples and will continue with the exterior examination. DI Dan Carter and DC Ebony Willis are in attendance at the post mortem examination of the victim, a woman found dead this morning, pulled out of the Regent’s Canal. DC Ebony Willis will be recording the visual account of the autopsy. We are looking at a white female, approximately twenty-four years of age. She is five foot six and weighs six stone seven pounds. She has yet to be identified. She’s been in the water for approximately twelve weeks. Decomposition and submersion in water for a period of several months has caused a blackening of the skin which is lifting and separating from the muscle, on her body and limbs. Her abdomen is swollen and has a green hue.’ Harding halted at the top of the table. ‘Her head has been encased in plastic, which has led to it being preserved; adipocere has formed, giving it a tan colour, and causing a retaining of features as the fat melted.’

Harding moved to the side of the table and picked up the woman’s hand. ‘All but two of the fingers are missing on her right hand; they were probably lost while she was in the canal.’ She looked at the two ragged ends to the fingers and nodded to Mark, who had already anticipated her needs and handed her a scalpel and specimen tray. ‘We’ve already taken fingerprints.’ She began to cut away each of the nail beds from the two fingers, and deposited them onto the tray. She turned the woman’s arms over.

‘No obvious signs of the use of needles.’ Harding stopped dictating. She looked across at Carter.

‘Any luck with the jewellery or the tattoo?’

‘Not yet.’

‘What about the heroin?’

‘No reports of any problems on the streets, Doctor.’

‘Maybe she came from abroad and brought it with her,’ answered Harding.

‘If she did we might never find out about it – or her,’ replied Carter.

‘Really?’ Harding said sarcastically. ‘You surprise me, Inspector. So defeatist.’

Carter glanced Ebony’s way. They both knew what the sharp end of Harding’s tongue felt like. She rarely thought before she spoke. She didn’t see that she needed to. She was cocooned in the mortuary world where she was queen and reigned supreme.

She continued her examination: ‘Overall, the body is in a very poor state. I count… three infected ulcerated sites on her torso, a further six on her limbs. The largest of the wounds is on her left thigh.’

Mark followed her silent instruction as he moved into place and laid a paper tape measure down the length of the wound. ‘Twenty-four centimetres top to bottom, width sixteen point five. Depth…’ he said as he placed a Q-tip into the wound and gently prodded the base until he found the lowest point then he slid his fingers down level with the surface and took a reading – ‘seven centimetres deep in the centre.’ He slid the Q-tip around, prodding the sides of the wound. ‘Underpinning of the wound at ten o’clock, depth of…’ he measured it the same way as before – ‘five centimetres.’

Harding handed him a pair of tweezers. ‘Any debris inside there?’

He took the tweezers from her and got down level with the wound to have a look. His fingers disappeared inside the tunnel and re-emerged with the remains of a small eel.

‘Must have been having his breakfast when she was pulled out,’ Carter said.

Harding proceeded to cut away a section at the side of the wound and place it into a specimen tray. ‘She would have been in huge pain from these wounds,’ she said. ‘Some of them are showing signs of trying to heal. I can’t imagine she could have carried on normal life with these. We’ll have to wait until we have the blood results back to know what she had in her system but it will take longer to find out about these infected sites. It’s not a quick process; it involves growing a culture to identify it. The only time I’ve seen this amount of ulceration in random sites like this is in cases of MRSA, the flesh-eating bug. But, without doubt, left untreated like this, this many infected wounds would have led quickly to organ failure and death: I’m not quite sure why they didn’t.’

Harding moved down to the woman’s abdomen. ‘Skin slack – a child maybe? Rapid weight loss evident. There is bruising around the pelvis area.’ She lifted the woman’s right knee up and outwards. She began a detailed examination of the genital area. She opened the entrance to the vagina and examined a short thick scar.

‘She’s had a child within the last few years. She was given an episiotomy.’ Harding waited whilst Ebony photographed. ‘We’ll turn her over now.’

Carter helped Mark turn the body over.

‘We have one ulcerated site on her lower back section which is similar to the wounds on her front,’ said Harding. ‘But we also have deep grazing on the pressure points: shoulder blades, buttocks and calves.’ Mark handed her a scalpel. She cut down the centre of the back and across to free the area of skin over each shoulder blade and then lifted the flaps and cut them free to examine them. ‘Some sort of organic material, splinters or fibres of some kind, are growing into the flesh. She must have rubbed against something over a long period of time and it’s implanted and taken root in her flesh.’ She placed the skin on trays before lifting the victim’s right knee upwards and parting the buttocks.

‘There is tearing of the tissue around the anus and bruising around the inner thigh and leading up to the vagina, but this has also become the entry point into the body for the feeders in the canal.’ Harding inserted the end of a swab into the anus and looked at the end of it – minute particles of decomposing flesh mixed with a grey sludge from the canal were clinging to it.

‘Can there be many fish living in the canal?’ Willis asked

‘Carp, eels, perch, pike even.’ Carter answered. ‘Someone caught a seventeen-pound carp in the Regent’s Canal just near here a while ago. I used to fish there with my dad.’

‘Don’t they all die if the canal freezes over? asked Willis.

‘Survival of the fittest, Ebb,’ answered Carter.

Harding discarded the swab into the specimen tray. ‘I’m going to take a biopsy of the rectum via the anus. It tears easily and there might be something embedded inside.’ She took a scalpel from Mark and cut into the side wall of the anus and took a sample of tissue.

When she had finished, Harding changed her gloves and indicated that Ebony should come across to stand where she was for a moment, level with the woman’s head, to photograph as she cut into the flesh of the neck.

‘I’m now going to make a detailed examination of the injuries that led to her death.’ She pulled the magnifying lens and spotlight down over the victim’s neck and carefully cut into the crushed trachea with a scalpel. She opened up the neck and exposed the splintered bones, then turned the woman’s head and examined the neck closely. ‘All seven cervical vertebrae are broken. The discs and ligaments are crushed, compressed. The large muscles of the neck are torn. To do this much damage it would take continued and immense pressure. There are no signs of a tourniquet, which would show where the initial pressure emanated from, where the screw was turned, so to speak.’

‘Maybe the killer used a length of something smooth, rubber tubing perhaps,’ said Carter.

‘Yes, perhaps,’ Harding answered. ‘It would have to be wrapped several times around the neck and then squeezed slowly to achieve this kind of result. Almost like a blood pressure monitor when it squeezes your arm – even, strong pressure all round.’ She spoke as she worked at opening up the neck and separating the fused bones. ‘Even her collarbone is broken, snapped under the weight of whatever it was that crushed her slowly, cutting off oxygen to the brain simultaneously.’

Ebony looked up at Carter from behind her visor.

‘Not done by the canal’s edge then, Guv? He couldn’t have done this there and taken the time he needed. What about the make-up?’

Mark answered: ‘I took a photo of her face and then I removed what was left of the make-up and I’ve bagged up the swabs to send to pathology to analyze, but I’m sure it’s what we used in the funeral home. It’s semi-permanent, waterproof. It’s really thick and the pigments are much stronger than normal make-up.’

‘So the person who killed her wanted it to be seen,’ said Carter. ‘Why else would he go to the trouble of preserving the head in a watertight bag?’

‘And he didn’t choose to weight her down, either,’ added Ebony. ‘She was always going to rise to the surface.’

‘But then we are crediting him with a lot of planning,’ said Carter.

Harding looked down the body of the woman with the Titian hair.

‘None of this happened overnight. Wherever she’s been, she’s been through immense pain and suffering in the last few months of her life – she’s been to hell.’