Rain Dogs

by Adrian McKinty

  ‘What about its use with Valium?’

  ‘There doesn’t appear to be a lot of research into its contra indicators with Valium, but I called up a Doctor Quine at the QUB Medical School and she said that it was potentially very dangerous indeed. With, I’m quoting here, “the potential to induce a hypnotic state, paranoia, trance, mood swings and depression”.’

  ‘And when mixed with alcohol?’ I asked.

  ‘Alcohol exacerbates the side effects and contra indicators of both medications.’

  ‘There you have it,’ Crabbie said. ‘An already depressed young woman takes too many of those magic pills and she’s away with the fairies.’

  ‘If it wasn’t for the missing notebook I would whole-heartedly concur. That notebook never showed up, did it?’ I asked.

  Lawson and McCrabban shook their heads.

  ‘What about this Tim fellow? The ex-boyfriend?’

  ‘I spoke to him,’ Lawson said.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He says he didn’t break her heart. He says she was all right last time they spoke,’ Lawson said.

  ‘People called Tim always say that.’

  Lawson stood there looking at me.

  ‘OK, young Lawson, get on to the pathologist and tell him to hurry his arse up. No more delays. We may nearly be case-closed here. The Chief Inspector would like that. A dastardly car thief and a suicide on one day.’

  ‘Case closed?’ McCrabban asked when he had gone.

  ‘Case closed until the inquest. But we can probably clear all this stuff from the incident room and put it down in the evidence room.’

  ‘And wipe the whiteboard?’ Crabbie asked, dubiously.

  ‘No, not yet, Crabbie. Let’s not tempt fate. When we get the autopsy report things will probably be a lot clearer.’

  10: THE PRELIMINARY AUTOPSY REPORT

  Check under the car in the pouring rain. No bomb.

  Leathum’s newsagents: Guardian, Times, packet of Marlboro, Mars Bar.

  Drive into work. Up to the office. Space heater on, to warm the place up. Record player on, to cover the racket. Mussorgsky, played loud.

  Mars Bar, cup of coffee, ciggie. Walk to the incident room.

  A nearly empty whiteboard. Wow. Savour it. Just one name: Lily Bigelow.

  Nothing to do. Middle of the Troubles with its capital T. And nothing to do. This must be what it’s like to be a copper over the water.

  Coffee cup. Papers. Stopwatch. Pen. Guardian crossword. Start the watch. Solve the clues. Pen down. Stop the watch. Four minutes, four seconds. Reset the watch. Times crossword. One down: ‘Spinning might make her clothes fall off.’ Bit racy for The Times. Answer: Ecdysiast. One across –

  ‘Inspector Duffy!’

  Mabel’s voice.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Big letter for you, brown envelope, I think it’s from the pathologist.’

  ‘I’ve been bloody waiting for that. I’ll come and get it in three minutes.’

  Two minutes, forty-five seconds later: pen down, stop the watch.

  I said good morning to Mabel, picked up the envelope and carried it to Crabbie’s desk. ‘Join me for a little read?’ I asked.

  ‘Finally. What took them so long?’

  I opened the envelope, skimmed it, groaned.

  ‘What is it?’ Crabbie asked.

  ‘They’ve ballsed it up,’ I said. ‘Overworked patho. Or drunken one. Or incompetent one. They’ve ballsed it up, mate.’

  ‘What have they done?’

  I handed him the report. ‘They’ve screwed up everything. Time of death. Cause of death.’

  Lawson appeared from the break room with a mug of tea. ‘Is that the pathologist’s report?’

  ‘They say she died between 5 pm and 8 pm on the 7th. And they’ve written “homicide”, look!’ Crabbie said, and slid the report across the desk.

  ‘That can’t be right,’ Lawson said, putting down his tea and examining the report. ‘It’s not logical. Until six o’clock the castle was full of people and if she jumped between six and eight, well, that means that Underhill lied.’

  ‘And if he’s lied, it probably means he killed her. But it’s definitely not right. I guarantee you the time of death is a typo. The forensic officer on the scene and my good self put the time of death at midnight.’

  I dialled the City Hospital.

  ‘Dr Beggs, please, pathology.’

  I got put through quickly. ‘This is Dr Beggs.’

  ‘Hello, Dr Beggs, this is DI Duffy from Carrickfergus RUC, I’m the investigating officer in the death of one Lily Bigelow in Carrickfergus Castle on the morning of February 8th. Listen, I’ve just received your autopsy report. Two things. First of all, you’ve written “homicide” where it should be “suicide”, and it looks like there’s a typo on it relating to the time of death. I’m afraid you’re going to have to fix that before we send the files to the coroner’s office. If there’s an inconsistency between the autopsy report and the RUC report, the coroner is going to kick up a right old stink.’

  ‘Let me look up the case. Hold on a moment, please,’ he said, in some kind of Geordie accent.

  I put my hand over the receiver and whispered to Crabbie. ‘He’s looking up the file … He’s a Geordie.’

  He came back on a minute later. ‘Inspector Duffy?’

  ‘Yes. Do you mind if I put you on speaker-phone and bring in my two colleagues, DS McCrabban and DC Lawson?’

  ‘Not at all. Now, what seems to be the trouble, Inspector?’ Dr Beggs asked.

  ‘You’ve written “homicide” and the wrong time of death down on the report.’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘Yes you have.’

  ‘No. I haven’t.’

  ‘You’ve written between 5 pm and 8 pm on February 7th, but the forensic officer on the scene and I estimated the time of death to be between midnight and 12.45 on the morning of the 8th.’

  ‘Your estimate was incorrect.’

  I sighed. ‘Dr Beggs, the forensic officer took a rectal temperature reading before 7 am. He recorded a body temperature of 27 degrees which is a 10 degree drop in body temperature. At the standard rate of cooling of 1.5 degrees per hour that would give a time of death between midnight and 12.45 am. Since this was a cold night I’d say that was a conservative cooling estimate and more likely she died between midnight and 1 am,’ I said, with a look of moderate satisfaction on my face. Crabbie grinned at me, sharing the pleasure of putting a know-it-all doc in his place.

  ‘Your estimates are mistaken, Inspector. She died between 5 pm and 8 pm on the 7th.’

  ‘She jumped from the keep at Carrick Castle and the castle was full of people until 6 pm and they didn’t notice any jumper. The caretaker, a Mr Underhill, inspected the castle grounds at 10 pm on the 7th and he didn’t notice any jumper either, so you can see why we’re convinced here that our estimate for the time of death is correct and your estimate, is, as our American cousins say, wildly off-base,’ I explained, patiently.

  Dr Beggs cleared his throat. ‘Have you got a few minutes, so I can take you through my reasoning?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I can see this is going to be an issue at the inquest, so I’ll have an intern type this up for you as well and send it by messenger before we hand in the full report.’

  ‘That would be much appreciated.’

  Dr Beggs cleared his throat again. ‘Well, detectives, as you’re probably aware, the two important unknowns in assessing time of death from body temperature are the actual body temperature at the time of death and the actual length of time the body has lain before it was discovered. Body temperature cannot be a useful guide to the time of death when the cadaveric temperature approaches that of the environment, or over the linear part of the sigmoid cooling curve. Any formula which involves an averaging of the temperature decline per hour may well give a reasonably reliable approximation of the time of death; however, when the initial temperature may have been elevated
or when environmental factors are such as to insulate a body –’

  ‘Dr Beggs, the body was not insulated and there’s no evidence for a higher than normal body temperature so –’

  ‘The pictures I have from your own forensic team show a body with snow on it which can be an effective insulator. But let’s leave that to one side. The presence of Nembutal, Valium and caffeine in the victim’s stomach and blood leads me to the conclusion that the core temperature of the victim was most likely elevated. The sigmoid nature of the relationship between the temperature of the cooling body and that of its environment should be kept in mind. And to quote a recent study I have in front of me: “Simple formulae for estimating the time of death are now regarded as naïve. These include the well-known Simpson formula, which says that under average conditions the clothed body will cool in air at the rate of about 1.5 degrees celsius an hour for the first six hours. Experience with this formula has shown serious errors and can now no longer be trusted, especially in the presence of extreme cold, where oxygen-deprived body tissue may be preserved for longer periods than was previously thought possible.”’

  ‘So you’re saying the cold made the victim’s body cool slower? That doesn’t make any sense,’ I said, beginning to think that Beggs was some kind of crackpot.

  ‘If I may continue, Inspector … The best-researched and documented method for assessing time of death from body temperature is that of Henssge. This is a nomogram method rather than a formula. The nomogram corrects for any given environmental temperature. It requires the measurement of deep rectal temperature and assumes a normal temperature at death of 37.2. Henssge’s nomogram is based upon a method which approximates the sigmoid-shaped cooling curve. Extreme cold can both radically hasten or retard body cooling. All of this is moot, however, because your forensic officer did not take a deep rectal temperature.’

  ‘He didn’t? How do you know that?’ I asked.

  ‘Because I phoned him and asked him. Chief Inspector Payne entrusted this task to a trainee forensic officer who did not place the thermometer deep within the victim’s rectum. Prudery and a misguided attempt to protect the victim’s modesty has produced bad data.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘When a deep rectal temperature has not been taken, the variables increase markedly, which is why we use other, more accurate, methods,’ he said, significantly.

  ‘What methods?’

  ‘There are several, but in this case the relevant ones were liver temperature and the progression of rigor.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Like I say, I’ll have an intern type this up for you and send it over, but if you’d like the details now –’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘When I performed my autopsy at 6.13 pm on February 8th, Miss Bigelow had a liver temperature of 17 degrees celsius, which was room temperature. Using various formulae this would suggest a time of death between 5 pm and 8 pm on February 7th. Furthermore, at the time of autopsy, I found that the process of rigor mortis had ended and, indeed, was in regression. This is very unusual before twenty-four hours after death. This, too, would place the time of death between 5 pm and 8 pm on February 7th.’

  ‘All right, so perhaps we were mistaken about the time of death, but I don’t see how that gives you a homicide diagnosis.’

  ‘Ah, yes, that’s a different matter and is explained by the issue of livor mortis.’

  ‘Go on …’

  ‘As I’m sure you’re aware, livor mortis is the pooling of blood within the body, which occurs when the heart stops beating and blood pressure ceases to exist. In this situation the blood falls to whatever parts of the body are lowest in relationship to the surface the body is resting on. As the body cools and the natural cellular processes cease the blood becomes fixed in a certain position. In general, livor mortis is fixed a few hours after death. Mortis causes areas of pressure to appear as white areas on the body. Bra straps, belts and other clothing can cause blanching in the areas under pressure. If a body is found fully clothed in reasonably tight clothing but no blanched patches are seen, this can suggest that the body was redressed after death. It can also suggest movement of the body after death. Lack of livor mortis signs on the parts of the body not at the lowest point of the body at rest strongly suggests the body has been moved after death. This was the case with Miss Bigelow.’

  ‘What?!’ Lawson and I exclaimed together.

  ‘The lack of blanching around Miss Bigelow’s brassiere suggests to me that she died in a sitting position or was placed in a sitting position shortly after death and the body was subsequently moved. She certainly died from massive head trauma, but not, I suggest, from a fall from the castle keep. She was killed by a heavy blow, or possibly blows, to the head and left prone or in a sitting position for several hours before the body was thrown from the roof of the keep in an attempt to make a murder look like a suicide.’

  ‘That’s not possible,’ Crabbie said.

  ‘Oh it’s possible, all right. Very possible. I wonder, too, why an experienced Detective Inspector and an experienced forensic officer didn’t notice how little blood was found around Miss Bigelow’s body.’

  ‘There was blood all over the shop! She was drenched in blood. It was horrific,’ Lawson said.

  I groaned. ‘No. There was certainly blood, but not enough,’ I replied.

  ‘Indeed. Miss Bigelow’s femoral artery was ripped from her chest in the impact after her fall. If she’d been alive I believe there would have been more blood than appeared in the crime scene photographs we were supplied with. Four pints might have pumped from a wound like that. I’m sorry to be so graphic at this hour of the day.’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘I should stress, however, that this finding is my own personal view. My colleague, Dr Paley, who was assisting, did not agree with this interpretation and our final report to the coroner will reflect that.’

  ‘Dr Paley agrees with the police estimates of the time of death?’

  ‘No. Dr Paley agrees with me about the time of death. That’s not in dispute at all. She died between 5 pm and 8 pm on the night of the 7th. Dr Paley, however, disputes my interpretation of the livor mortis evidence and whether there was insufficient blood at the alleged crime scene. He feels that the body was too badly damaged in the fall to reach any kind of conclusive result about livor mortis and blood loss.’

  ‘I see. But your interpretation is that the livor mortis results and the lack of blood around the body are evidence that this was probably a homicide.’

  ‘Probably, but not definitively,’ Dr Beggs said.

  ‘And there was the shoe,’ McCrabban said. ‘The killer put the wrong shoe on the wrong foot. You saw it, Sean.’

  The fucking shoe. Yes. The lack of blood. And the shoe.

  ‘Well, thank you very much, Dr Beggs. This certainly puts a new complexion on our case … Was there any sign of sexual activity that you could discover?’ I asked, thinking of possible motives now.

  ‘Miss Bigelow had had no sexual relations in the previous forty-eight hours, nor was the body violated post mortem, as far as I can see. There were no ligature marks, or signs of other violence or of intravenous drug use.’

  ‘OK. Well, thank you. We’ll be in touch if we need further help.’

  ‘My pleasure, and you should have the full typed report by the end of the week.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I hung up and looked at Lawson and McCrabban.

  ‘What now, gentlemen?’

  ‘Search me,’ Crabbie said. ‘This has knocked me for six.’

  ‘Lawson?’

  He shook his head.

  I took a sip of coffee and looked through the police-station window at the grey, forbidding castle just a few hundred yards away along the seafront.

  ‘Are those two trainee detectives still with us?’ I asked Crabbie.

  ‘Nope. They’ve been rotated up to Belfast now,’ he said.

  ‘OK, then, we’ll have to do this ourse
lves. We’ve got to re-examine those CCTV tapes of the castle between 6 pm and 6 am when Constable Warren was put on the front door – if there was really no way anyone else could have got into or out of the building after the doors were closed, then nice Mr Underhill must have killed her.’

  ‘What’s his motive?’ McCrabban asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Lily, unbalanced by her meds, decides to escape from the dreary castle tour. She hides somewhere and when he comes to do his inspection Underhill finds her. They get into an argument, he hits her, kills her. Maybe the meds make her pass out, Underhill finds her, tries to rape her, she wakes up. Maybe the meds make her pass out, she wakes up, can’t get out of the castle because of the portcullis, finds Underhill’s house, goes inside and finds him fiddling the books, reading kiddie porn … Could be a million things.’

  ‘Apart from the D&Ds he hasn’t much of a criminal record. Distinguished navy career, been in this job for ten years …’

  ‘If these autopsy results are to be believed, and I for one found Dr Beggs very convincing, then not only is Underhill lying about his inspections, but if she was killed then he’s probably the one who did it.’

  We looked at the CCTV tapes until our eyes were aching, but it was no go. No one entered or left the castle between 6 pm and 6 am when Warren went on the gate. After that Sergeant Mulvenny’s K9 unit had thoroughly searched the place from top to bottom and no one was hiding in the castle. There were no secret tunnels or any other ways in or out. That could only mean that Underhill was the killer.

  We took a tea break and I called a case conference in the incident room. ‘Gentlemen?’ I said.

  ‘Underhill can’t have been telling us the whole truth,’ McCrabban said, with his cold Vulcan logic.

  ‘I concur,’ Lawson said.

  ‘Let’s bring him in again.’

  11: INTERVIEWING MR UNDERHILL REDUX