‘Could you commit yourself when you’ve examined the scene photographs?’
‘I’ll need to spend time examining the entire scene and post mortem photographs in minute detail,’ Pete told her. ‘For now let me have a quick scan through them and see if there’s anything blatantly obvious. You can put the kettle on in the meantime.’
Anna thanked Pete as she went over to the corner of the room and started making the coffees, conscious that she was beginning to get an ominous feeling about the Reynolds case. It was the first time she had sensed real doubt about his death being a suicide. If all the initial lines of enquiry and loose ends had been thoroughly investigated at the time then she wouldn’t be in the position she was now. Delon Taylor’s allegation had opened up a can of worms and the chances of resolving the inquiry before she went to the FBI Academy were rapidly fading.
Anna took the coffees over to Pete’s desk.
‘Agent Dewar has made some well-founded observations,’ Pete said.
‘I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.’
‘Although there’s no blood on the back of Reynolds’ right hand and the body position is . . . let’s say awkward as opposed to unusual, there are many variables that come into play.’
‘Such as?’
‘The exact position of the hand, distance between the gun and the victim’s head, and of course the recoil when it’s actually fired,’ Pete told her.
‘There were powder burns around the injury.’
‘Yes, I noticed the stippling pattern on the post mortem photographs. Can you send me a copy of Harrow’s report?’
‘Weren’t you sent it?’ Anna asked, amazed.
‘Nope, I did phone Freeman and asked for a copy but he just said cause of death was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.’
She threw up her hands. ‘Even the pathologist’s report didn’t say self-inflicted! Didn’t you complain about Freeman withholding information?’ Anna asked emphatically.
‘I’d only been working for the Met for a few months, Anna, and the last thing I wanted to do was upset the apple cart.’
‘Bloody Freeman’s got a lot to answer for,’ Anna fumed.
‘As I said, I need to do more work from the photographs on the blood distribution. I can get started on Monday . . .’
‘Monday?’
‘It’s Saturday tomorrow, and as much as I’d do anything for you, I’m afraid working weekends is a no-no.’
‘The week’s gone so fast I’d totally forgotten,’ Anna admitted.
Pete paused. ‘There is something that struck me as unusual in the scene photographs.’
‘What?’
‘Reynolds’ toxicology results showed no trace of any drugs but his blood-alcohol level was high.’
‘So he was drunk.’
‘He was over the legal limit but alcohol affects people’s behaviour in different ways. In Reynolds’ case it would have been seen as a mitigating factor towards suicide: emotional instability, loss of judgement and comprehension, those sorts of things.’
‘But what’s that got to do with the scene?’ Anna demanded.
‘There are photographs of all the rooms and in none of them is there an open bottle of booze or a glass. So where had he been drinking before he got home?’
‘You’re right.’ Anna began to flick back through her notebook, looking for the interview with Marcus Williams. ‘Williams never said Josh had been drinking but then again I never specifically asked him that question,’ she said.
‘Question is, then, where and with whom had he been drinking?’
‘Pete, your observations are bloody brilliant, but they leave me with more unanswered questions and work to do,’ she groaned.
‘Just doing my job.’ Pete smiled. ‘But until I do an in-depth study, my observations are strictly between the two of us.’
‘Of course, but you realize that if the Reynolds case does end up being a murder there will be an internal investigation and possible disciplinary action concerning the original investigation.’
‘I’ve kept records of everything, including my conversations with Freeman. I did my job, Anna, with limited information, and I suggested lines of enquiry that were ignored,’ he said defensively.
‘Believe me, I’m on your side, Pete, but people like Freeman will try and shift the blame. Right, I’d best be off. I’m going to Fulham mortuary to see if Dr Harrow is available.’
‘I’d tread carefully where he’s concerned,’ Pete warned.
‘Why, what’s the problem?’
‘General Medical Council recently suspended him for four months for misconduct and bringing the profession into disrepute in a murder and suspicious death case.’
‘My God! This case goes from bad to worse. How did you find out about it?’
‘One of my old colleagues who moved up North was the lead scientist on a case Harrow was disciplined for.’ Pete opened his desk drawer and produced a newspaper article that he had printed from the Internet. He read a line from it to Anna before handing it to her to keep. ‘The panel found Dr Harrow had “deliberately ignored the guidelines” for his own convenience.’
‘Well, I guess I can give Fulham mortuary a miss then.’
‘He should still be there.’
‘You said he’s suspended.’
‘Only from working on suspicious death or murder cases – if it’s natural causes he can still cut them open and get his hands dirty,’ Pete said cynically.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about him earlier?’ Anna asked, glancing at the article.
‘You know me. I always like to save the best for last.’
In the lift down to the lab car park, Anna read over the article on Dr Harrow, noticing from the dates that he had about a week or so to go before he had served his suspension. She anticipated that the man would be difficult to interview, as he would be on the defensive. Another case of misconduct could result in his licence to practise being permanently withdrawn, leaving him with no job at all. Anna had just got to her vehicle when she saw Dewar parking in a nearby bay. Her first thought was to avoid her by ducking down behind her car but she quickly realized how silly it would be if Dewar had already seen her. The only thing to do was to approach her first and as Dewar got out of her car Anna could see from the look on her face that she was in a foul mood.
‘I thought you said you were going to tell me when you were going to see the scientist.’
‘I live down the road and popped in on the off-chance. His secretary said he went straight to court from home this morning,’ Anna lied, wanting to leave Pete to get on with his examination of the scene photographs.
‘Then why did you tell Joan and not me that you were seeing Pete Jenkins?’
Anna realized that she had neglected to warn the constable not to mention that she was going to the lab.
‘I think Joan misunderstood me. I told her that I was going to pop in to see if Pete was there. Sadly, as I just said, he’s not.’
‘You’ve been here for quite some time. Were you seeing the pathologist as well?’
‘He doesn’t work here. His office is at the mortuary in Fulham. We could go there now, if you like.’
‘On the off-chance he’s there, I suppose?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’ll have to do for now. What’s the address of the mortuary?’ Dewar said tetchily.
‘It’s not far. I can leave my car here and go with you.’
As Anna got into Dewar’s car, she remembered that she still had the newspaper article in her hand, and quietly folded it up to place it in her jacket pocket.
‘You can go over Dr Harrow’s report with him if you like, explain your theory about the case being a murder,’ Anna suggested.
‘Yes. So, you still think it was a suicide?’ Dewar asked.
‘As yet I’m undecided. Anyway, you’re more experienced at behavioural analysis than I am.’
‘True.’
At the mortuary, Dewar hurried to pr
ess the entry buzzer and waited impatiently for someone to come out and greet them. Eventually, a young female assistant dressed in blue overalls and white clogs approached and opened the locked door. Anna introduced herself, as did Dewar, who then asked if Dr Harrow was available. The assistant told them that he was just completing a routine post mortem and showed them to his office where she said they could wait.
The office was rather shabby and stank of stale cigarette smoke; the stained red carpet and curtains looked tatty and threadbare, as did the furniture. The ashtray on top of the old wooden desk was full of dog ends and beside it was an unwashed coffee cup with cold dregs in it. To one side of the desk was a pile of pathology folders, the top one of which was bloodstained. Balanced on these was a small plate with the remnants of a sandwich. A dust-covered X-ray viewer was hung on one wall, opposite which was a line of dented and rusty filing cabinets. The only seats for visitors were two plastic hardback chairs arranged to face Harrow’s desk. Both Anna and Dewar decided to stand while they waited.
‘Somebody really fucked up the feng shui in here,’ Dewar remarked, looking round the room and shaking her head.
‘The last time I was in this office, Doc Jennings was the pathologist. Like him, it was immaculate,’ Anna replied.
‘Please say you’ve got a wet wipe in your bag so I can clean those two chairs if we have to sit down?’ Dewar asked.
Anna told Dewar she hadn’t but gave her a couple of tissues. She wondered if the room was a reflection of Harrow’s work ethics.
‘If he walks in with blood and guts all over him I’ll be sick,’ Dewar said.
‘Right, ladies, what can I do for ya,’ asked a voice in a broad Yorkshire accent as a man who could only be Harrow entered the room still dressed in his mortuary overalls, the sleeves of which were spotted with blood. He had a cup of coffee in one hand and was lighting up a cigarette, which hung limply from his mouth. Harrow was a short man in his late fifties, bald and overweight with a large beer belly. His half-moon reading glasses teetered on the edge of his nose.
As he sat down in the worn leather chair it sagged a few inches under his weight. He opened his desk drawer and took out a packet of digestive biscuits then picked up the plate with sandwich crusts and tipped it into the bin. Using his nicotine-stained fingers he took six biscuits out of the pack, put them on the plate and invited Dewar and Travis to have one. Shocked by his lack of hygiene, they in unison said, ‘No, thank you!’
Dewar made the introductions and said she was on work experience with DCI Travis’s murder squad.
‘I doubt there’s much the bloody Met could teach your lot. FBI already know everything, don’t they,’ Harrow said and chortled at his joke, causing a lump of ash to fall from his cigarette onto his stomach. Dewar sat stone-faced, as did Anna, who felt quite repulsed by the man.
‘We need to speak to you about the Joshua Reynolds case,’ Dewar began.
‘Joshua who? Names mean nowt to me, they’re all dead when I get to them. What were his injuries and where was it?’
‘Gunshot wound to the head in a flat in Bayswater, November sixth last year.’
‘That were chap who owned a fanny club up town. Suicide job, as I recall.’
Harrow got up from his seat and shuffled over to the filing cabinets, blatantly ignoring the ‘no smoking’ sign above them.
‘Joshua Reynolds, you say?’ he said as he removed a file and took it back to his desk. ‘So what’s problem?’
‘I think that Reynolds may have been murdered and the scene staged to look like a suicide,’ Dewar said.
Harrow leaned forward, peered over the rim of his glasses, frowned and then took a bite out of his digestive biscuit.
‘You must be bloody FBI, cummin’ out with crap like that. There weren’t a single mark on his body to show a struggle.’ Crumbs from the biscuit dropped from his mouth onto the table as he spoke.
‘Would you argue if someone held a gun to your head? The position of the body and the blood distribution were wrong for his death to be a suicide. I think he was kneeling on the ground, holding his hands up in the air when he was shot.’
‘Can I ask you, what exactly do ya do in the FBI?’ Harrow asked as he opened the file and spread his notes and photographs around the desk.
‘I’m a supervisory special agent in the Behavioural Science Unit. I study offenders and their behaviours at crime scenes, advise on interview strategies . . .’
‘But ya don’t go out and get yer hands dirty, do ya?’
‘Admittedly, it’s rare that I actually attend a scene as I work from Quantico and cover the whole of the United States. Most of my work is with unsolved murders.’
‘Well, let me tell ya, young lady, I’ve been ta more crime scenes than you’ve had hot dinners. I draw me conclusions by looking at dead bodies, not bloody pictures!’
Harrow pushed forward a picture of Josh Reynolds’ body on the floor and close-ups taken at the post mortem of the entry and exit wounds to his head. The entry wound was smaller and quite symmetrical in comparison to the exit wound and the stippling effect from the hot gunpowder burning into Reynolds’ skin was clearly evident. Bits of skull bone and brain tissue protruded from the ragged exit wound on the left side of his head. Another photograph showed the skin of his head peeled back, revealing the holes in his skull. A metal rod ran from the entry to the exit wound to show the trajectory of the bullet. Harrow lit up another cigarette and took a large puff, exhaling the smoke in Dewar’s direction.
‘Right, so you think he had hands up in t’air.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘So how come there’s not a large mass o’ back-spatter blood on his upper right arm?’ Harrow demanded, using his index finger to point to the exact position on the photograph.
‘There is some blood there.’
‘Yes, but it’s downward, having arced backwards from entry wound.’
‘There’s no blood on the back of his right hand and there should be,’ Dewar pushed.
‘So bloody what, that proves nowt. Although this were a close-range gunshot, barrel were not pressed right up against his head.’
‘How do you know that?’ Dewar asked indignantly.
‘’Cause if gun was touching victim’s head, you’d get an abrasion ring, and also a clear imprint of the weapon’s barrel on victim’s skin.’ Harrow made the shape of a gun with his right hand and held it to his head to demonstrate what he meant, then continued.
‘So say gun is inch or two away from head. He pulls trigger, bang equals recoil equals shooting hand moving back away from body so blood back spatter doesn’t reach it. Simple as that.’
‘Well, you’re not a blood-pattern expert so I think that is an opinion best left to a scientist.’
Harrow glared at Dewar. ‘Neither are you, Miss Fancypants. We have a saying where I’m from: “If tha knows nowt, say nowt an ’appen nob’dy’ll notice.”
Anna couldn’t believe how restrained Dewar was being but felt she needed some support against the unsavoury Harrow.
‘There’s no need for you to be so rude to my colleague,’ she objected.
‘RUDE, me bloody rude! You’re the ones who came in here making out I’m some incompetent bloody idiot. You’ve read me report and the Coroner agreed with me so that’s t’ end of matter.’
‘I also have some concerns about the Reynolds scene and the lack of forensic examination,’ Anna said firmly.
‘I don’t have to talk to you. Now get out of my office.’
‘As the DCI in charge of the case, I am considering asking for a full independent disciplinary inquiry to be made concerning every detail of the original investigation.’
Harrow sat back in his seat and looked directly at Anna, who knew the mention of such an inquiry would get his full attention.
‘I’m sure that’s the last thing you would want at the present time,’ Anna continued, as Dewar looked perplexed, wondering how the DCI had got Harrow to back off so quickly.
Harrow said nothing as he stubbed out his cigarette and instantly lit another one, tilting his head upwards and blowing the smoke away from Anna.
‘Josh Reynolds’ stomach contents – I didn’t see any mention of them in your report,’ Anna observed.
Harrow looked through his report. ‘That’s because there were none.’
‘None recorded or none in his stomach, Doctor?’
‘I’ve got down here “stomach empty”.’
‘His blood-alcohol level was very high so he’d been drinking on an empty stomach.’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you be any more specific on the time of death.’
‘No, too many variables like the empty stomach, intoxication and the central heating was on.’
‘You said Reynolds had been dead between eight to twenty hours.’
‘That’s right.’
‘We believe he made a phone call at seven p.m. on the fifth.’
‘Entirely possible – as I said there were many variables, so I could not be more specific.’
‘Did you voice any opinions about the scene to the Crime Scene Manager, Freeman?’
Dewar glanced at Anna, as Harrow let the smoke belch from his nose. ‘We were both there, discussed it and agreed.’
‘What did you agree?’ Anna was keeping her voice quiet and controlled.
‘That it could have been a suicide. We kept an open mind until I completed the post-mortem.’
‘So if it could have been a suicide, it could also have been a murder. Did you advise Freeman to call a forensic scientist to the scene?’
Harrow scratched his head. ‘That’s not my responsibility – you’d have to ask him.’
Anna had got the exact measure of Dr Harrow and he knew it. He pursed his lip angrily.
‘Thank you for your time, Dr Harrow. We will see ourselves out,’ Anna said.
Returning to the car, Anna asked Dewar to drop her at the lab so she could collect her own vehicle. Dewar nodded but had a puzzled look on her face as she turned round.
‘Have you got something on him?’ she asked, and Anna nodded.
‘Spill the beans on the big fat toad,’ Dewar said, grinning at her.
Anna took out the newspaper article from her pocket and read it aloud.
Wrongful Death Page 12
