by P. F. Ford
‘What’s so urgent then, Eamon?’ asked Slater, once the greetings were out of the way. ‘I thought it was going to be a pretty straightforward case of man killed by bomb blast.’
‘Yes, that’s what I thought too,’ said Murphy. ‘Until I opened him up.’
Slater winced. He found dealing with a dead body bad enough, but the thought of opening someone up and removing their organs always turned his stomach over.
‘You’re not going to make me look at his insides are you?’ he asked.
Murphy smiled sympathetically. ‘That won’t be necessary,’ he said. ‘I can tell you without showing you.’
‘In that case, I shouldn’t need a sick bag.’
‘That’s true,’ said Murphy, ‘but I think you’re in for a surprise. When the body was brought in here, it was easy to see it had been caught in a blast. There were severe burns to the top of the face and top of the head, and most of the hair was gone. The fire service guys assured me the body had been blown backwards into a wall which had lots of shelves, and that the contents of those shelves had then come down and buried him.
‘Bearing in mind those shelves held lots of books, specimen jars, and other quite heavy objects, it would have been reasonable to expect to find severe bruising to the back of the body from the impact with the wall and shelves, and bruising to the front from the objects raining down from the shelves.’
Murphy stopped to take a mouthful of tea.
‘Are you telling me you found something else?’ asked Slater.
‘I’m telling you I didn’t find any significant bruising,’ said Murphy. ‘Almost none at all, in fact.’
‘But how could that happen?’
‘You know enough about these things to know bruises are caused by blood leaking from damaged capillaries, right?’ asked Murphy.
Slater nodded.
‘And you know blood pools in the lower regions of a dead body.’
‘I’m not with you,’ said Slater.
‘Bear with me and all will become clear. I believe the original theory suggested Ian was working at his desk when the device blew up in front of him, is that right?’
‘Yeah,’ said Slater. ‘But why do you say “the original theory”? Are you suggesting something else?’
‘Let’s say you were working at your desk,’ said Murphy, ‘and this thing explodes on the desk in front of you. It’s a fiery blast so it’s going to burn you pretty badly, but where do you think the burns would be worst?’
‘On my face,’ said Slater, using his hands to indicate how the blast would come at him. ‘It would come from just below my chest, so it would hit my chin first, I suppose.’
‘Exactly,’ said Murphy. ‘It would be on an upward trajectory. It would hit your chin and under your neck, go up your nose, scorch your eyes, remove your eyebrows, and melt any hair above your forehead at the front. However, the burns on this body would indicate the top of his head took the brunt of the blast. Burns to the face were much less than those to the top of his head, and there were no burns to the neck.’
‘So the bomb went off above his head? But how would that work? It would have to be suspended in mid-air?’
Murphy smiled. ‘It’s a puzzle, isn’t it? So I thought I should check with the experts. The bomb guys assure me the device was on the desk, as we all assumed, when it detonated.’
‘So what are we saying?’ asked Slater. ‘Was he kneeling on the floor or something?’
‘If he’d been on the floor, it’s doubtful he would have been thrown backwards into the wall. The desk would have deflected most of the blast over his head,’ said Murphy. ‘But what if he was slumped on the desk, with his head resting on his arms?’
‘You mean he fell asleep?’ asked Slater.
‘Mmm, well, not exactly. Blood doesn’t pool in sleeping bodies.’
‘What? You mean he was already dead?’ cried Slater.
‘It’s not cut and dried,’ said Murphy. ‘I still need to do a bit more work, but that’s what I think. If he had been alive, he would have breathed in the hot gases from the blast. His lungs would have been cooked, but they were as clean as a whistle. There was no sign of any damage from hot gases.
‘When the body was found, it was lying on its back, which has definitely made it harder to prove, but from the way liver mortis had set in I would say the body was dead before it ended up on its back. Also, rigor mortis was way more advanced than I would have expected if he had been killed by the bomb. I think he was probably killed two to three hours before that, and the body was then positioned in the chair with the head resting on the arms. That’s why the top of the head took the blast, and why the wounds aren’t consistent with what I would have expected.’
‘Bloody hell,’ said Slater. ‘I wasn’t expecting anything like that!’
‘I’m sorry if I’m confusing the issue,’ said Murphy.
‘Don’t worry about that. It is what it is. You can only do your job and tell us what you find. Do you know how he was killed?’
‘I’m not going to speculate. I haven’t found anything conclusive, like a blow to the head with a blunt instrument. It appears he suffered some sort of respiratory failure, just why, I’m not sure, and I’m not going to guess. I’m waiting for the toxicology results, maybe there will be something in there.’
‘Just so I’m clear,’ said Slater, ‘are you saying this is fact or just your best guess? I mean if you can’t find conclusive proof he was dead before the bomb went off, we’re up shit creek without a paddle, right?’
‘The fact his lungs weren’t scorched proves he was dead. I’d stake my reputation on that,’ said Murphy. ‘But because this is so important I’ve asked for a second opinion. Another forensic pathologist will be here later today to go over my findings and offer his own opinion. We should have the tox report back by then as well.’
‘You’ll keep me informed, yeah?’ asked Slater.
‘Of course,’ said Murphy. ‘You’ll be the first one to know.’
‘I’d better go and tell my boss the good news.’ Slater smiled wryly. ‘She’s not gonna like this one little bit.’
‘Tell her I’m sorry if it doesn’t fit in with her theory.’
‘I’ll do that,’ said Slater. ‘But don’t be surprised if she doesn’t accept your apology. This is just the latest in a long line of unexpected surprises.’
Chapter Eighteen
By the time Slater got back to the police station, Eddie Brent had delivered his report to Goodnews and left. He found her down in the wrecked forensics lab.
‘It’s a bit of a mess,’ he said.
Goodnews sighed, resignedly. ‘That’s an understatement,’ she said. ‘After all that arguing I had to do with the chief constable to keep it open, now it looks as if someone’s given him a good excuse to change his mind and close it down.’
‘You’re kidding me,’ said Slater. ‘He won’t do that, will he?’
‘It’ll cost a fortune to put this right,’ she said, looking around. ‘We’ve lost our star forensic scientist, and there’s a possibility he might have been compromised. I was doing well up until now, maybe even pushing my luck and getting a bit too big for my boots. Would you miss an opportunity like this to put me in my place?’
‘But it’s hardly your fault, is it?’
‘It’s on my watch,’ she said, with a shrug. ‘So as far as the CC is concerned, it must be my fault.’
Slater felt a certain amount of sympathy for her, but he had always thought this was the sort of thing that was likely to happen when you sat yourself in the hot seat; sooner or later, you would get your arse burned.
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘enough about my problems. Let me run you through what they think happened in here.’
She pointed to the desk where Ian Becks used to sit. ‘You can see from the huge scorch mark where it went off. They reckon it was an incendiary device designed to cause a fire rather than bring the building down. It was triggered by a pay-as-you-go mobile
phone. They found melted bits of it scattered around. Fortunately, the CO2 extinguishers put the fire out pretty quickly so the main damage is restricted to the immediate vicinity of Ian’s desk.’
‘That’s a pretty specific target, then,’ said Slater.
‘It looks that way. It wasn’t a huge blast but it would have hit him right in the face and was enough to send him back into that wall behind. That brought everything down on top of him off those shelves.’
She pointed at what was left of the shelves. The contents were now in a huge pile on the floor.
‘The poor bugger was buried under all that lot. If they hadn’t heard his mobile phone ringing when you called him, they might not have found him for hours. They say it’s not the sort of device that’s normally used to kill people. If he hadn’t been sat right in front of it there’s a good chance he would still be alive.’
‘Actually he wouldn’t,’ said Slater. ‘Eamon reckons he was dead before the bomb went off.’
Goodnews looked stunned. ‘If it wasn’t the bomb that killed him, what the hell was it?’ she asked, incredulous.
‘He’s not sure yet. There’s nothing physical he can point to as being a definite cause of death, but the damage sustained by his body isn’t consistent with him working at his desk when it went off. If he had been alive, his lungs would have been scorched from breathing in the hot blast, but they’re squeaky clean. There’s also a problem with liver mortis and rigor mortis. The timing just isn’t right.
‘He thinks Ian was killed a couple of hours earlier and the body was placed in the chair at the desk so it would look like he had been working there. He didn’t say as much, but I got the impression he thinks something will show up in the toxicology report.’
‘Could he be wrong?’ she asked.
‘He seems pretty confident to me, but just to be sure he’s got another pathologist coming down to check out his findings.’
‘That means he’s not sure then.’
‘I think it’s just Eamon being thorough,’ Slater said. ‘He wouldn’t have told us if he wasn’t pretty sure of himself. He’s just covering his arse because he knows it’s not what anyone expected.’
‘So, if we assume he’s right,’ said Goodnews, ‘Ian was dead before 7pm—’
‘Which puts our mystery fake courier right in the frame,’ added Slater.
‘But what’s the incendiary for?’ she asked. ‘If there was something he wanted destroyed, why not do it while he’s there? I mean, if it was records or something, he could have just taken them away and destroyed them at will.’
‘Perhaps it had nothing to do with that,’ said Slater. ‘Maybe it was simply all about destroying Becksy. You know, destroy the face, destroy the person.’
‘That makes it a very personal sort of murder. How would that fit with your Serbian mafia theory?’
‘It doesn’t rule them out,’ he protested. ‘These are clever and devious people. They could easily stage a murder to look like anything you want if they thought it would throw us off the scent.’
‘I’m still not convinced,’ she said, ‘but I suppose you’re right, we can’t dismiss it completely.’
The doors creaked open and a PC popped his head around it. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said, when he saw the extent of the damage.
‘Yeah,’ said Slater, grimly. ‘Normal service is unlikely to be resumed anytime soon.’
The PC looked suitably glum.
‘I hope you didn’t come down here just to gawp at the damage,’ said Goodnews.
‘No, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Sorry. Sergeant Sanders said to tell you they think they’ve found the van.’
Goodnews and Slater exchanged puzzled looks.
‘Van?’ said Slater. ‘What van?’
‘The missing one that you asked everyone to look out for,’ said the PC.
‘Blimey, yes,’ said Slater. ‘I’d nearly forgotten all about that. I’ll be right up.’
The PC headed back upstairs.
‘I assume you want me to deal with it?’ asked Slater.
‘Aye, please,’ Goodnews said. ‘Take Biddeford with you if you like.’
‘Do I have to?’ he asked, as he started towards the doors.
‘Yes. You need to talk to each other. This case is getting more complicated by the hour, and we have a very small team to work with. If we’re going to solve it, I need everyone working together. That means you two as well. I don’t care how you do it, just make sure it works, alright?’
‘I suppose when you put it like that I don’t have much choice, do I?’
‘None at all,’ she said. ‘And be careful. If you have the slightest suspicion about that van, you stay away until we get the bomb squad in.’
That stopped Slater in his tracks. ‘You don’t think that’s likely, do you?’
‘I certainly bloody hope not,’ she said, ‘but with this case, who can tell?’
Chapter Nineteen
‘
The boss thinks we need to talk,’ said Slater. ‘She’s concerned we spend too much time at loggerheads and it’ll interfere with the investigation.’
‘Perhaps if you both trusted me bit more and didn’t keep checking up on me, it would help,’ said Biddeford, eyes on the road ahead as he drove. ‘I mean why were you checking that CCTV footage again? I’d already done it.’
Slater had to tread a little carefully here. He didn’t want Biddeford to find out Goodnews had asked him to check it again. There was no need for him to know that, because that wasn’t why he had checked it in the end.
‘I though I had explained that,’ he said, patiently. ‘When I spoke to the courier, he was adamant he hadn’t been inside the building. Even when I told him we had him on CCTV he wouldn’t change his story. I would have asked you to check it, but I couldn’t sleep thinking about it so I decided as I was awake I must just as well come in and do it myself. I’m sure you would have done the same.’
‘So you weren’t just checking up on me?’ asked Biddeford.
Slater sighed. ‘I can’t make you believe me, Steve,’ he said. ‘It’s down to you, mate. It’s the same with this idea you have that I’m trying to hold you back all the time. You seem to think I’ve got some grudge against you because of something that happened months and months ago. I let got of that a long, long time ago. You’re the one who’s keeping that flame burning, not me.’
Biddeford said nothing for a few moments, then he took a quick glance at Slater. ‘But you have checked me out, right?’ he asked.
‘I’ve had to, once or twice,’ said Slater. ‘You know yourself there are bits of this job you’re brilliant at and bits that you hate. We’re all the same. I hate going to post mortems and I hate telling people they’ve lost a family member, but it’s part of the job, and you have to give it one hundred percent even when you hate doing it. If you’re honest, you’ll admit you don’t always do that. You tend to rush through the stuff you don’t like and that’s when someone has to check up on you.’
Biddeford’s face reddened, and Slater could see he was struggling to know what to say next.
‘You make me sound like a right wanker,’ he said, eventually.
‘You know that’s not true,’ said Slater. ‘In my opinion, you can be a bloody good copper when you’re on your game. It’s just those slack moments that let you down.’
‘Christ, how bad am I?’ asked Biddeford. ‘Is this why Goodnews won’t recommend me for DS?’
‘Actually, she’d love to,’ said Slater. ‘But she can’t all the time you’re making silly mistakes. Cut those out and you’ll make it easily.’
Out of the corner of his eye, he was sure he saw Biddeford sit up a little straighter, and lift his head a little higher.
‘This must be the place,’ said Slater, as they turned a corner and saw the blue flashing lights up ahead.
The van was hidden down a narrow alleyway that led to a disused factory at the far end of an old industrial site. The alleyway was lined with chain-l
ink fencing, so the van was clearly visible, but with half the other units empty it was no wonder no one had reported it sooner.
‘Good hiding place,’ said Biddeford, as he climbed from the car. ‘Out in the open where there’s no one to see it. Clever.’
The van was parked with the passenger side hard against the fence. Even so, there were only a couple of feet to spare on the driver’s side.
‘Goodnews thinks we need to be careful in case it’s a booby trap,’ said Slater.
‘She’s getting bit carried away, isn’t she?’ said Biddeford. ‘This is Tinton, not bloody Afghanistan.’
‘But we have just had our forensics lab fire bombed,’ Slater reminded him.
‘Yeah, but even so. Is it really likely?’
‘Probably not,’ agreed Slater. ‘But we’ll humour her and take it slowly, okay?’
‘Fair enough,’ said Biddeford. ‘Shall we do it?’
Slater nodded and they walked slowly and carefully towards the back of the van.
They got to within about three yards of it when there was suddenly a loud booming noise from the van. Biddeford threw himself to the ground. Slater felt his heart skip several beats but nothing else happened. Noisily, he released the breath he had been holding. He looked down at Biddeford, who was still lying face down with his hands over his head.
‘Nice reflexes,’ said Slater, with a smirk, ‘but I think you can get up now. If it was a bomb, it was a very gentle one.’
Biddeford climbed sheepishly to his feet. ‘You can laugh,’ he said, brushing himself down, ‘but it would have been you who got your head blown off, not me.’
‘At this range we would both be goners,’ said Slater, ‘no matter how good your reflexes are.’
‘I suppose you have a point,’ admitted Biddeford. ‘But what the bloody hell was it?’
Slater peered through the back window. ‘I think we’ve found our missing man. He was just letting us know he’s in there.’
Biddeford joined Slater and squinted through the window.
