Love You Dead

83 Wednesday 11 March

The expert from Liverpool, Dr James West, was already seated in the tiny reception room at the Brighton and Hove City Mortuary, gowned up and with a mug of tea, when Cleo showed Grace through at a few minutes past midday.

A tall, thin man in his late forties, with a gaunt, rugged face framed with a shock of curly ginger hair and the kind of beard someone who had been several weeks in the jungle might sport, West rose and greeted him with a strong, bony handshake.

‘Apologies for keeping you waiting,’ Grace said.

‘Not at all, I was early.’ His voice had a trace of a South African accent. ‘It’s an honour to meet the famous detective.’

‘Famous?’ Grace grinned. ‘I don’t know about that!’

‘I googled you. You seem to have solved most major crimes in your county over the past decade or so.’

‘Very flattering of you. Let’s see if we can solve this one.’

‘Cup of tea or coffee, Detective Superintendent?’ Cleo, also gowned up, asked him, cheekily.

‘I’m good, thank you. I’ll go and get dressed.’

Cleo led him through into the changing room, put her arms round his neck and kissed him, before pointing to a set of scrubs and a pair of white rubber boots. ‘I’ll go and get Mr Carmichael out for you — I’m afraid we’ve had a hectic morning.’

‘But not Rowley Carmichael — he’s just chilling, right?’

‘Naughty!’ She wagged a finger at him and disappeared.

A couple of minutes later Roy led Dr West through into the suite of two post-mortem rooms separated by a wide archway. To their right, three naked cadavers were laid out in the main room, two elderly men and an elderly woman, over whom Mark Howard, the youngest of the city’s team of pathologists, was bent, taking stomach fluid samples, attended by Cleo’s senior assistant, Darren Wallace, and his colleague, Julie Bartlett. All three greeted Roy.

Over to the left, Cleo had opened a door in the wall of fridges and was sliding out a tray on which lay a body encased in white plastic sheeting. ‘Do you need him on a PM table, Roy?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘The tray’s fine, thanks.’

As she began to unwrap Rowley Carmichael, Grace lifted his face mask up to cover his nose and mouth, and the professor did the same, as a normal precaution.

‘You do know he’s been embalmed?’ Cleo said.

‘Yes,’ Grace replied. ‘Unfortunately.’

The process of embalming involved replacing all blood in the body with a number of preservative chemicals, as well as dyes, to slow down the decomposition process and make the body look more lifelike.

Grace had already been through the detailed Goan toxicology report, and the cause of death, from the venom of a saw-scaled viper, was not in question. But from his earlier trawl of the internet, he had a couple of big questions that could help very substantially with this investigation — depending on what Dr West had to say.

Both of them looked down at the elderly naked man. The embalming had done its stuff and his flabby flesh had a pink hue, more that of someone sleeping than the usual alabaster colour of a person recently deceased.

‘So, OK?’ West said, turning to Grace. ‘You want my views on the bite?’

Cleo pointed to the man’s right ankle. There was a small blue oval, drawn with a chinagraph pencil. Inside it was one barely visible mark, the size of a pinprick.

As if he had stepped straight out of an Indiana Jones movie, West produced a fold-out magnifying glass and peered at the mark for some moments in silence. ‘Hmmmnnn,’ he said. Then he said, ‘Hmmmnnn,’ again, sounding more dubious. ‘Interesting.’

‘Is that a bite?’ Grace asked.

‘Hmmmnnn,’ the expert said for the third time, looking deeply pensive. ‘You know, detective, you are quite right to query this. Yes, it is a snake bite, just a single fang, uncommon but it does happen.’ He continued studying the mark, putting the magnifying glass even closer. ‘You see, what is bothering me is the lack of any sign of ecchymosis.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Well, in layman’s terms, local discolouration of tissue. Your toxicology report identifies all the symptoms of death by Echis venom. But post-mortem, I would expect to see signs of inflammation, swelling and ecchymosis around the bite mark from the fang. The puncture here is in character with a snake bite. But without the ecchymosis I’d expect.’ He turned and looked up at Grace. ‘To be honest, in my opinion, I doubt strongly that the venom entered the body through this bite mark. Where exactly was this unfortunate chap when he was bitten?’

‘That’s the second thing I wanted to ask you,’ Roy Grace said. ‘He was in the swampy area of the crocodile park in Borivali East, outside Mumbai.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

West shook his head, his beard moving like the tendrils of an underwater sea anemone. ‘Not possible,’ he said. ‘I’ve been there, I know that place well. The Echis lives in open, dry, sandy and rocky terrain. Under rocks, in the base of thorny plants. This snake would not go near that swamp area.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Detective Grace, I’ve studied these creatures for much of my life. I could stand up in court and testify under oath that you would not find a saw-scaled viper in that particular area of that crocodile park.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Anything else you need to know?’

Grace smiled. ‘Not at this stage, no, that’s more than enough.’

‘Then I’ll head up to London, I ought to get back as quickly as possible,’ James West said.

‘Sure, I’ll drop you at the station.’