Beau Death

by Peter Lovesey

  “Removing the clothes from a skeleton is a painstaking process taking several hours at the best of times but is even more laborious when the garments have mostly rotted and there is a generous coating of dust. Each item of dress can contain clues to the time since death, the subject’s identity and, more importantly, the cause of death. It’s all evidence and is treated with the utmost respect. That particular process would have taken far too long to perform in front of you. In fact, it was a two-day job. Strictly speaking, it was part of the autopsy and you must take it as a given. The remnants of the clothes are on the rack which my assistant will uncover later. Shall we begin?”

  He’s milking this, Diamond thought. It’s an act.

  “One takes nothing for granted,” Dr. Waghorn continued, ignoring the fact that he was asking his audience to take the undressing for granted, “so let’s start by confirming the sex of the deceased. What is the most obvious indicator of the gender?”

  A voice from the back said, “The pelvis.”

  “Who spoke?”

  Everyone turned to see. A hand was up in the second row from the back and it belonged to a shaven-headed male in a football shirt.

  Waghorn gave the offender a look as if he was next for dissection. “Do you understand English?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not deaf?”

  “No.”

  “My question about gender was rhetorical. Didn’t I ask everyone just now to remain silent?”

  For a short interval that must have seemed unbearably long to the hapless student, Waghorn stood in silence, as if the entire procedure had been ruined. Finally he resumed in that thin, strangled voice. “A female pelvis is typically broader than that of a male and this is most apparent in the anterior area known as the pubis. The lower section of the pubis is wider in the female to facilitate birth. Our subject is definitely male. I won’t prolong this by going into the several other signs of gender.

  “To save time, I measured each of the bones already, starting with the calcaneus at the heel and progressing to the top of the skull. In total he is 1.705 metres, a fraction over five foot seven, but beware. This will not be the height of the living body. A variability factor needs to be added. My calculation is five foot eight at death. Our height diminishes with ageing after reaching a maximum in our late teens or twenties. Let us now deal with what we have in front of us, starting from the top.”

  The magnified image of the skull was on the big screen.

  Waghorn was using a pointer. “In passing, note the prominence of supraorbital ridges characteristic of the male. And now you are—or should be—speculating as to racial identity. Difficult, always difficult, because of the continuum of variation among the races. I would normally look first at teeth, but we have none here. The recessive cheekbones and the narrowness of the palate suggest he was white or Caucasoid in racial type, but this can be deceptive. Of more interest is the tendency of the palate to be triangular rather than the deeper U-shape of the typical African skull. It’s a fine judgement, best left to the expert.” He bent over the skull as if he hadn’t seen it before, looked up at his audience and said, “Caucasoid.”

  No question who he meant by the expert.

  “The absence of any hair is to be expected, although we all know of cases of hair surviving thousands of years under favourable conditions. Of more interest in the present subject is the absence of teeth. This may lead us to make an assumption about age, but of course some people lose all their teeth early in life, so I shall look for more reliable indications of age presently when we examine the vertebrae.”

  The head bone connected to the neck bone. How laborious was this going to be?

  “Had the teeth been intact they would have yielded more information about age. Can we have the camera on the mandible, please?”

  Diamond’s knowledge of anatomy was scant, but he knew the mandible had something to do with the jaw. Still with the head bone, then.

  How long was this likely to take, and what would come out of it? Waghorn was hedging on almost every decision. Okay, the skeleton was male and Caucasian and average in height, but little of use to the investigation had emerged.

  The process continued in the same formal manner for the next twenty minutes, more of an anatomy lecture than an autopsy. Diamond was peeved by what seemed like a deliberate move to sideline him. The whole performance was designed to stifle comment. In a small group he wouldn’t have hesitated to ask questions. Here any interruption would undermine the teaching. Stuff that. He’d still speak up if there was cause.

  “And so we come to the ribcage.”

  The neck bone connected to the chest bone.

  “I would like the camera to display each side in turn, in no particular hurry.” Waghorn stepped to one side and took a drink of water.

  “Has everybody had a chance to form an opinion? I hope so, because there’s something of note here that I wouldn’t want any of you to overlook, and by the expressions on your faces I can see that most, if not all, of you have missed it. Once more, please,” he instructed the assistant filming the event, “and can we zoom in?”

  The image on the screen got unpleasantly large, more like venetian blinds than ribs.

  “I want to speak about the phenomenon known as green bone response, green bone being living bone still mostly covered with soft tissue. Do you notice the shape of the left fifth rib compared to its counterpart on the right side? Compared also to the other ribs? Green bone when damaged perimortem can react to trauma by bending or twisting in a characteristic way that you wouldn’t observe if the injury were inflicted after death, when the flesh has deteriorated. Look.” He used the pointer again.

  Diamond sat forward, prompted by the mention of injury. He was close enough to the skeleton almost to touch the rib, but it was clearer to see magnified on screen, and if there was a difference it was easy to miss. He still wasn’t certain he could see it.

  If Waghorn had found something of importance, all the posturing could be forgiven. He was in full flow again. “The bending of the green bone may not be obvious to most of you. When you get a full incision it shows better by curling inwards and if the cut is made in a way that exposes only a thin slice of bone then that piece will usually bend outwards. However, that hasn’t happened here. To the trained eye there is evidence of a thrust with a sharp instrument.” His pointer showed a tiny chip in the bone. “An instrument that damaged the rib as well as penetrating the soft tissue and inflicting a fatal injury. However . . .” He let the word stand on its own for a few dramatic seconds before adding, “It is not impossible that a separate thrust did the serious damage to vital cardiovascular structures.”

  Diamond couldn’t contain himself. “Are you saying he was stabbed?”

  “Did someone speak?”

  Reproach spread through the room like gas.

  Everyone waited, expecting the autopsy to be suspended.

  Waghorn stood transparently deciding how to deal with the offence. He took a deep breath, tilted his chin and announced to the room in general, “I had better explain that it is customary for the police to send a representative to witness a postmortem where foul play is suspected. The interruption came from . . . Would you remind me of your name, officer?”

  Bloody insulting. He was well aware of the name.

  The obvious response was to counterpunch. “Diamond, Detective Superintendent Diamond. You’re seriously suggesting one small blemish on a rib shows he was murdered? I’ve cracked my own ribs several times over playing rugby.”

  “Other people’s ribs, too, by the size of you.”

  There was amusement.

  “It doesn’t mean I died.”

  “We’ll take your word for that, Mr. Diamond.” Waghorn’s tongue was as sharp as any stand-up comedian’s.

  “I’m making a serious point. I’m saying the injury could have
happened earlier in the man’s life.”

  “And I can say what I wish in my own lecture theatre unless you propose to take over. I gave my expert opinion, subject to the limitations I am working under. If you were listening, I spoke of a probability, not a certainty.”

  “All on the basis of a chipped rib?”

  “On the basis of severe blood loss. Haven’t you seen the staining on the clothes?” Waghorn beckoned to the assistant who had been standing beside the clothes rack looking bored.

  She unzipped the plastic cover to reveal a few garments looking as sad as the unsold remnants of a sale. They were in large transparent evidence bags on hangers. She lifted off the almost threadbare eighteenth-century frock coat and displayed it to the students like an item up for auction, followed by the waistcoat in slightly better condition and, finally, the remains of the shirt. Each had a plate-sized brown stain on the left side. None of this had been visible at the scene, where dust had covered everything.

  “I took the precaution of sending some threads for testing,” Waghorn said. “Definitely blood.”

  Diamond let fly. “Why didn’t you inform me at once?”

  “What’s the hurry?” came back the response.

  It broke the tension and earned a cheap laugh.

  Waghorn rubbed it in. “Anthropologists are used to working with a timescale of centuries or millennia, not what happened yesterday or the day before.”

  Diamond had heard enough from this wannabe comic and was out of his seat looking at the clothing. There were stains in plenty caused by putrefaction, but the large dark patch from blood loss was unmistakable. He searched for the point of entry. Unfortunately the fabric was so tattered he couldn’t tell where the knife had penetrated.

  “May I resume, or am I under arrest for failing to report a crime?” Waghorn asked, still playing to his audience.

  “Were there any defensive wounds?” Diamond asked.

  “I was coming to that. Would you care to return to your seat? Everything comes to him who waits.”

  Diamond remained where he was.

  But Waghorn had the advantage and knew it. “Is this harassment, or what? I can’t be comfortable with you so close, as if at any minute you’ll be feeling my collar.”

  More laughter.

  Only in the interest of getting more information, Diamond returned to his seat.

  “Thank you.” Waghorn turned back to face his audience. “I was about to examine the vertebrae, another source of useful information about age, but perhaps I may be excused for pandering to the police and dealing first with the arms or, to be precise, the hands.”

  The camera zoomed in and the pointer came into play again, indicating the finger bones of the right hand. They were clearly incomplete. The forefinger ended at the knuckle.

  Was this the defensive wound Waghorn had said he was coming to—an entire joint severed? Picturing the struggle, Diamond was finding it difficult to contain himself. But he was glad he’d kept silent when Waghorn resumed.

  “Don’t be deceived by the absence of the top two sections of phalanx from the forefinger. The recovery of the skeleton from a partly demolished building was, to say the least, a difficult operation. Ideally I would have supervised the attachment of the sling we used to lift out the remains, but I was compelled to hand over to a team said to be experienced in such things. In consequence, several small bones were dislodged. The majority were recovered from the sling. Not all, unfortunately. Although I personally searched the loft space and the sling I didn’t find these tiny pieces of bone. All things considered, we were fortunate that this was the only loss. But the left hand is far more interesting.”

  To Diamond’s eye, the image that now flashed on screen was less interesting than what they had just seen. The bones appeared to be complete.

  Waghorn said, “Observe the middle phalanx of the little finger, or pinky, as our American cousins term it.”

  The camera operator zoomed in on the piece of bone between joints.

  “Can you see a tiny nick?”

  The magnified end of the pointer looked the size of an ingot as it hovered over the bone. The indentation Waghorn was talking about was clear.

  “This, I suggest, is evidence of what interests Mr. Diamond, an apparent attempt to parry an attack.” He took a few steps away and punctuated his remarks by improvising a reconstruction of the scene with the pointer in his right hand jabbing at his left. “So we can posit a sequence of events. Our man is under threat from somebody with a sharp instrument. He raises his left arm to ward off the attack and is cut on the finger. A second thrust hits him in the chest, splintering bone, penetrates the flesh and ruptures a vital organ.”

  Diamond hadn’t needed the histrionics from the pathologist. He’d pictured the attack as soon as the damage to the finger was shown. Conflicting emotions gripped him: contempt for Waghorn’s behaviour and excitement at being presented with what promised to be the most sensational murder case of his career. Nobody else in the room knew that the victim could actually be Beau Nash and he had no intention of telling them his theory as to how and why the body had been removed to Twerton.

  Waghorn was back on script and talking about outgrowths on vertebrae. Diamond didn’t pay attention. His brain was mapping a procedure of his own. How do you deal with a murder two hundred and fifty-odd years ago when all potential witnesses and suspects are dead?

  If the killing of Beau Nash was the overriding issue, there was still the secondary mystery to be explored: why had the body been found in the loft in Twerton? Was that where the murder had taken place or had he been stabbed to death at his home in Sawclose and moved there? Find the answer and you might unmask the murderer. An encouraging amount of information had already been unearthed, but there was more to come, he felt confident. He’d need to enlist more help from historians like Estella.

  How would his employers react to him spending time on an eighteenth-century murder case? Headquarters wouldn’t be thrilled if twenty-first-century crimes were put on the back burner. He’d have to make clear that this wasn’t happening. But the beauty of the Beau Nash case was that Georgina had insisted he did the job. He could quote her own words back to her if necessary. “I want this death investigated properly and you will be in charge. You attracted all this media attention and you can deal with it.” The media interest wasn’t going away. Once the press learned the identity of the skeleton and the cause of death the phone lines at Concorde House would go into meltdown. In fairness to everyone at the new police office, he’d better give advance notice of what they should expect. He’d have another session with Georgina as soon as this autopsy was over.

  You’d think a murder from so long ago could be dealt with at leisure.

  Not so.

  But the urgency that now gripped Peter Diamond wasn’t shared by Dr. Waghorn. His painstaking journey across the arid landscape of the bones continued into a second hour and seemed to be heading for a third. Most of the students had a glazed look and certainly Peter Diamond did. He was strongly tempted to make his exit now that the cause of death had been established. Anything else of interest would surely appear in the report for the coroner. But he was here as the police witness and he had a duty to see it through. If something else of interest showed up he’d kick himself for jumping ship.

  The usual sequence in dealing with an unexplained death requires identification of the body before the autopsy takes place. The first duty of the coroner is to find out who the deceased was. When it is obvious that no one can say for certain, then the autopsy goes ahead in the hope that it will provide information about age, racial type and physical appearance, including any disfigurements. The coroner will then carry out an investigation as the first stage of the inquest.

  Of course Diamond had his own opinion who the skeleton was, but legal proof was another thing altogether, and this suited him. No need for Waghorn to
know. Better all-round if the autopsy took place without prejudice. So the big detective was comfortable, not to say cocky, at being the only person in the room who could name the victim.

  Yet he was under no illusion. Any time now the news would break that the skeleton of Beau Nash had been found. Once that was known, it was inevitable that one of the students in this room would tell the press about the fatal stabbing.

  His secret was helping him sit this thing out.

  The hip bone connected to the thigh bone. His own thigh bone needed stretching. Two hours gone. A coffee would be good.

  And so it continued from thigh bone to knee bone to shin bone to ankle bone to heel bone to foot bone to toe bone when he felt like chorusing in relief, “Now hear the word of the Lord.”

  “In summary,” Waghorn said, dashing Diamond’s hope that this marathon was over, “the deceased was an elderly male, probably over seventy, about five foot eight in height, toothless, but otherwise intact, who would appear to have met a violent death by some sharp instrument that marked his fifth rib on the left side and the middle phalanx of the small finger of his left hand. The latter is of significance because a defensive injury would suggest he was the victim of an attack, rather than inflicting damage on himself. The staining of the left upper part of the clothes leads me to presume that the likely cause of death was the business end of the sharp instrument penetrating the thoracic cavity and severing a vital organ. This will, of course, go into my report. Are there any questions?”