Stay of Execution

19

‘Is this new place an improvement, or what?’ asked Stevie Steele, his blue tunic rustling as he looked around. ‘There was something about the old Royal Infirmary that always gave me the creeps. Every time I went to an autopsy there I found myself thinking about Dr Knox, and Burke and Hare.’

‘The resurrectionists, you mean? The body-snatchers?’

‘They’re the boys. Every time I saw one in the old Royal I imagined the ghost of Knox the anatomist standing there instead of you or Prof Hutchinson.’

Sarah Grace Skinner, who was dressed identically, smiled at him. ‘You’re a romantic at heart, Stevie, aren’t you? It would have had to be Knox’s ghost. I doubt that he ever set foot in any part of the old Royal. He pre-dated that; his school was somewhere up near Surgeons’ Hall, I believe. Mind you, Burke’s still around.’

‘Uh?’

‘Well, his skeleton is, at least. After they’d hanged him, his body was given to the medical school for dissection; I guess it seemed appropriate at the time. His bones are still there. Plus there’s a pocket book made from his skin on show at the police museum.’

Steele shuddered. ‘We’re a ghoulish lot, us Scots, aren’t we?’

‘Not just you. I believe that Ned Kelly’s skull became a desk ornament in an Australian jail.’

The inspector looked round the autopsy room once more. ‘This is a different era, though. This place is purpose-built, everything’s stainless, there’s proper drainage, a high-pressure water supply and most of all,’ he pointed at the big fans set in the ceiling, ‘there’s a proper air-extraction system.’

Sarah gave a grim laugh. ‘They’re still looking for the ultimate air-freshening system,’ she said, ‘as you will discover when I open up the late Mr Whetstone.’ Steele winced, and moved a few feet away from the table.

She switched on the microphone above the examination table. ‘Let’s get started. The subject is a white male, mid-fifties, found hanging by the neck from a tree.’ She lifted the body’s right arm. ‘Rigor mortis appears to have worn off, this is consistent with the initial medical examiner’s estimate of time of death as approximately. .’ she checked her watch ‘. . thirty-six hours ago.’

She turned the head to one side. ‘The imprint of the belt is clearly visible.’ She felt the neck carefully, for over a minute. ‘However,’ she continued, ‘there is no apparent dislocation of the cervical vertebrae. Subject to more detailed examination, this would indicate that death was due to strangulation.’ She took a pace back, and looked at the corpse carefully, from head to toe then back again, walking around the table as she did so. ‘There are no visible marks on the torso or limbs,’ she paused, ‘except. .’

She moved forward again, close to the body, and took the right shoulder in both of her white-gloved hands, probing with her fingers, manoeuvring it slightly. ‘Inspector,’ she said, ‘can you confirm for the record that when the body was taken down rigor mortis was complete?’

‘Yes, I can,’ Steele replied, speaking loudly to make certain that the microphone picked him up. ‘Mr Whetstone was absolutely stiff when my officers took him down.’

‘And they handled him carefully?’

‘Certainly.’

‘In that case, this shoulder dislocation could only have happened pre mortem. It would have been very painful, and the shoulder would have been immobilised. Therefore it would have been very difficult for the victim to have made all the necessary preparations before hanging himself. That suggests he may have had help, or may have been attacked. Either way, since there’s no such thing as assisted suicide in Scots criminal law, it looks to me as if you could possibly have a murder investigation on your hands after all.’

‘Can I make a call to let Maggie know?’ Steele asked.

‘I’d rather you waited till I’m finished; unless you’d like to go outside to make it, then change into fresh blues.’

‘No, I’ll wait.’

‘In that case. .’ she said, picking up a scalpel.

The inspector watched in a kind of haze, doing his best to keep his heaving stomach under control. The only policeman he knew who did not mind witnessing a post mortem was George Regan, but his grandfather had been a village joiner, one of the last to combine funeral undertaking with the carpentry business. George liked to regale young coppers with a story from his childhood, which he swore was true, of watching Grandpa Regan lay out a late customer. In life the man had worn a wig, without mishap. In death as he lay in his coffin, it kept slipping sideways. After several attempts to fix it in place, the old tradesman had turned to his grandson. ‘Lad, wid ye pass me ma claw hammer, and a big nail.’

He was no George Regan and he knew it, but he managed to master his revulsion. Sarah worked methodically, in the knowledge that she might well be cross-examined in the High Court, and thus taking care to leave no questions that she might not be able to answer, to the detriment of the prosecution case. Fortunately, she was assisted by a pathology student, and that saved considerable time.

After just over an hour and a half, as her helper began to reassemble the remains of Ivor Whetstone and sew him up, she turned back to Steele. ‘Death by strangulation, as the result of hanging,’ she announced. ‘Apart from the dislocated shoulder, the other things I found that were significantly out of the ordinary were in the lungs: there is a significant tumour in the left and a slightly smaller one in the right. I’ve taken sections for biopsy, and I reckon that’ll show malignancy, a small-cell carcinoma. There are clear signs that it’s spread into the chest wall; if it’s there it’s probably in other organs too.’

The detective started to speak, but she held up a hand to cut him off. ‘All that said, I can’t tell you for certain that he would have been aware of its presence, not even at this stage of its growth. He may have thought, or hoped, that he had bronchitis; too many people play down symptoms that need investigating until it’s too late. Therefore it does not necessarily offer a reason for suicide, even if he could have managed to do it with that damaged shoulder.’

‘Any other marks on the body?’

Sarah nodded. ‘There was a cut on his right wrist, on the inside. It was fresh, and had been bleeding at the time of death. You saw the body. Can you remember whether there was any jewellery on it?’

Steele’s eyes narrowed as he replayed the scene in his mind. ‘Wristwatch,’ he said. ‘Worn as normal on the left wrist; it had a leather strap. And yes, there was a bracelet on the right wrist. It was a chunky gold thing.’

‘That’s what I thought. If the forensic technicians examine it, they’ll probably find traces of skin and blood. That raises the possibility that if the man was helped, or more likely attacked, he was grabbed by the wrists and the gold cut into him.’

‘So if we’re lucky we might get prints as well?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Good. I’ll tell Maggie when I call her. I’m clear to do that now, yes?’

‘Yes, but next door, please.’

She led the way from the autopsy room, and through to an office area, unfastening her tunic as she went, and ripping off her blue surgical cap. Steele did the same, and threw his protective garments into a wastebin on top of hers.

‘What do you do now?’ he said.

Sarah grinned. ‘Right now, I’ll have a shower, and after that I’ll grab a bite, then get round to working on a report for you and the fiscal. What about you? Off to catch a potential killer?’

‘Eventually, but first I’m either going to have a late breakfast or an early lunch, depending on how you look at it. Knowing what I was going to be looking at, I decided not to chance it.’

‘You and me both. I never do when I’ve a morning autopsy to perform. You never know what might crawl out when you open one of these up. So my brunch agenda’s the same as yours. Why don’t we team up? Where were you thinking of going?’

‘Actually, I was going home. My place is between here and the office, more or less.’

‘Sounds okay,’ she said. ‘Got enough for two?’

Steele felt a strange cold tingle in his stomach. Later, hard as he tried, he was never able to work out why he answered, ‘Yes, of course.’