Denial of Murder (3 page)

‘Yes,' Vicary replied with finality and nodding his head as he spoke, ‘I will be there for the police. For my sins, I will be in attendance.'

John Shaftoe reached up leisurely for the anglepoise arm which was bolted into the ceiling above the stainless steel dissecting table. The corpse of the as yet to be identified male who had, that morning, been found lying in the gutter in a street in a leafy well-set south London suburb was lying face up on the table with a starched white towel covering his genitals. Shaftoe pulled the anglepoise arm downwards until the tip which held the microphone was level with his mouth. ‘Dykk,' Shaftoe mumbled with undisguised annoyance, ‘damn and blast the wretched man.' Shaftoe turned to Vicary. ‘Do you know that he fought tooth and nail against my appointment here at the Royal London … tooth and nail.'

‘Really?' Vicary raised his eyebrows. ‘No, sir … in fact I didn't know that,' he replied diplomatically, rather than giving the truthful answer of ‘yes, you've told me many times'. Vicary stood against the wall of the pathology laboratory in the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel and, like Shaftoe and Billy Button, the mortuary assistant, he was also dressed in green paper disposable coveralls with a matching hat and slippers, also disposable after being used once.

‘Well, he did but he was jolly well overruled and, being the grossly immature half-wit he is, he took it personally and has resented me since the day that I arrived. This is one of his little games … one of his tiny-minded little games. He's quite a tall man, you see, and I am short, and he likes to push the microphone up out of my reach.' Shaftoe paused. ‘You see, he … the good professor, doesn't think that the sons of Yorkshire miners, that is when the UK had a coal industry … he doesn't think that the sons of colliers who had modest local authority educations should be permitted to enter the elevated ranks of doctors. He is a pain. He is poison. He is the bane of my life.' Shaftoe paused again, drew breath, and then continued. ‘So … a case file number and today's date, please, Helen.' Shaftoe spoke into the microphone for the evident benefit of the typist who would, later that day, be typing up Shaftoe's report on her computer. ‘The corpse is that of a person of the male sex who is Northern European or Caucasian in respect of his racial extraction.' Shaftoe laid both of his fleshy hands with their stubby fingers on the edge of the table and studied the corpse. Vicary noticed with satisfaction that the fingertips of the corpse were blackened with ink, clearly indicating that the scene of crime officers had already visited the hospital and taken the fingerprints. He knew it meant that, if the deceased was previously known to the police, then the man's criminal record would at that moment be on its way to his desk at New Scotland Yard. Vicary further pondered that if the man was not known to the police, he would certainly be known to someone. The trim figure, the usually clean-shaven face, the neat haircut; this man was no socially isolated down-and-out. Somebody would already be missing him; somebody somewhere would soon be walking into a police station and making a missing person's report. If indeed, Vicary pondered, they have not already done so.

‘Immediately obvious is extremely severe head trauma to the deceased.' Shaftoe continued to speak into the microphone in a soft yet authoritative voice with a clear Yorkshire accent. ‘The head injury caused massive blood loss and was probably the cause of death. It is certainly sufficient to be fatal. No other injuries are in evidence on the anterior aspect and the body overall appears to be well nourished and hydrated.' Shaftoe turned to his left and glanced across the laboratory towards Vicary. ‘He didn't experience hunger or thirst before he died … at least not for a long time beforehand.'

‘Noted,' Harry Vicary replied. ‘Thank you.' Vicary then looked across to where Billy Button stood. Vicary had grown to despise him, always finding Button to be a nervous, whimpering wreck of a human being, living in a state of permanent terror of his own death yet strangely, Vicary had always thought, working as a laboratory assistant in a pathology laboratory, rather than, as Vicary had further thought, pushing a lawnmower for whichever London borough he lived in.

‘Billy,' John Shaftoe, whom Vicary had observed was always much more accommodating of the timid Button than he could ever be, smiled at the awkward man and asked, ‘could you take the feet, please?' Shaftoe then moved to the head of the corpse and took hold of the shoulders. ‘Clockwise from your aspect as usual, Billy,' he said, then he counted ‘one … two … three,' and the corpse was turned to lie upon its stomach in a single, clearly well-practised manoeuvre. ‘No injuries are noted on the posterior aspect.' Shaftoe spoke into the microphone. ‘So back again, please, Billy, one … two … three,' and together he and Button rotated the corpse once more so that it rested face up on the stainless steel table. Button stooped unasked to pick up the towel which had fallen on the floor during the first rotation and replaced it neatly over the middle of the corpse.

‘I have a little problem here, Mr Vicary.' Shaftoe turned to Vicary whilst once again resting both hands on the edge of the table. ‘I have to remove the scalp so as to enable me to examine the head injuries … That might cause the face to sag … and that is going to be a problem if the identification is to be done by relatives viewing using the old mark one eyeball method.'

‘We could always use familial DNA,' Vicary suggested. ‘I think that destroying the man's appearance is a risk we will have to take if we are going to establish the cause of death. It seems to me that it's unavoidable,' Vicary added as he noticed Billy Button wring his thin wrists, clearly nervous at the prospect of having to watch flesh being peeled back from the skull of the deceased.

‘Don't you worry, Billy,' Shaftoe winked mischievously at Button and grinned, ‘he won't feel a thing. I promise. Scalpel, please.'

Billy Button, thin of face, forced a meek smile by means of reply as he handed Shaftoe the requested instrument, placing it firmly, handle first, in Shaftoe's palm. Shaftoe took it and confidently drew it around the head of the deceased, just above the level of the ears. He placed the scalpel in a stainless steel tray of disinfectant and then, using both hands, peeled the scalp backwards, causing a slight tearing sound as he separated the scalp from the bone of the skull. ‘Ah … neater than I thought,' he said to himself. Then, speaking into the microphone, he commented, ‘Two linear fractures are noted, both of which caused significant and indeed life-threatening injuries. Would you care to have a look, Mr Vicary?'

Harry Vicary stepped forward, padding silently across the brown industrial-grade linoleum in his paper slippers. He approached the dissecting table and stood next to Shaftoe.

‘See this here …?' Shaftoe pointed to the skull and with his fingertips traced the line of a fracture which ran around the right side of the skull of the deceased. Shaftoe turned the head. ‘Rigor is establishing,' he observed. ‘That will help approximate the time of death. I would estimate that he was probably assaulted about six to eight hours ago … so say no earlier than about two or three a.m. today but that,' he added with a smile, ‘is very unofficial.'

‘Yes, sir.' Vicary also smiled. ‘Understood. Clear as daylight.'

‘Good man. This line was the first blow to be struck,' Shaftoe continued. ‘As you can see, it caused a very serious fracture which runs round all the way to the back of the skull, from the side above the ear completely round to the back of the head of the deceased. Then he was struck a second time on the top of the head … this fracture just here …' Shaftoe put his fingertip close to the second fracture, which Vicary noted ran from the middle of the top of the skull to the back of the skull where it terminated at the line of the first fracture. ‘You see how it does not go beyond the fracture line which runs round the back of the skull?'

‘Yes, sir,' Vicary replied promptly.

‘Well, thanks to this we can tell the order in which the blows were struck because a fracture line will stop if it meets an existing fracture. So the first blow he sustained was this one, running around the side to the back of the skull, then he was struck again on the top of the head, causing a fracture line which then ran down the back of his skull and stopped when it met the first, pre-existing fracture. Both caused extensive bleeding and either could have been fatal.' Shaftoe paused. ‘All right … so we continue … let's look inside the mouth. You know your average gob is invariably a veritable gold mine of information.'

‘The gob …' Vicary grinned. ‘Haven't heard that word for a long time.'

‘Yorkshire for mouth.' Shaftoe also grinned.

‘Yes, I know,' Vicary replied. ‘It's such a lovely word.'

Shaftoe peered into the mouth of the deceased, having prized open the jaws which gave with a soft
crack
. ‘Well, I can tell you that he's home grown … he's one of us all right, a true Brit … or at least a long-term resident of our right little, tight little island. I note British dentistry, so he is not from North America or Continental Europe, or anywhere further afield like Australia or New Zealand. He's a Brit. Or, as I said, a long-term, very long-term resident here and because of the British dental work we can use his dental records to establish his ID, they being just as unique as his fingerprints. I think I might have preserved the face and so if a relative does come forward they can view the deceased, identify him and obtain some measure of closure for themselves, but if a name is suggested then we can always use dental records … Nothing else of note is in his mouth. There is no food caught in his teeth so he doesn't appear to have eaten just prior to being murdered.' Shaftoe paused. ‘Speaking of food, let's see what he had for his last meal.' Shaftoe asked Button to hand him a scalpel as he patted the stomach of the deceased. ‘There has not been much gas build up as would be in keeping with such a recently deceased corpse and so there is no need to take a deep breath.' Shaftoe placed the scalpel at the throat of the deceased and drove an incision down over the chest to the bottom of the rib cage. From that point he drove the scalpel to each of the man's hips, thus creating an inverted ‘Y' figure on the anterior aspect. ‘I am making a standard midline incision.' Shaftoe spoke authoritatively to the microphone as he skilfully manipulated the scalpel. He then peeled back the folds of flesh revealing the ribs, stomach and other internal organs. ‘The stomach is not distended.' Shaftoe spoke again for the benefit of the tape. He then punctured the stomach wall, and as he did so Vicary heard a slight
hiss
as what stomach gases had built up escaped but, as Shaftoe had predicted, the pathology laboratory did not fill with sufficient malodorous air to dislodge the heavy scent of formaldehyde, as Vicary knew would be the case if a corpse of about seven days old or older were being dissected.

‘Oh …' Shaftoe groaned with evident dismay, ‘he must have been quite hungry when he died. I can detect no remnants of food at all … none whatsoever. Yet I still stand by my earlier observation that he appears to be well nourished. Hunger and food scarcity was not a constant experience in his life, but for the last forty-eight hours of it, possibly the last seventy-two hours, he ate nothing at all. He would have been quite hungry, even very hungry, but far from starvation. It takes three weeks for an adult human to starve to death, though hunger strikers in hospital conditions where no exertion is required of their bodies have lasted nearly thrice that length of time … but a man trying to walk to safety out of a wilderness with no shelter can expect to live for three weeks without food and our friend here is far from that point. I can also detect fat deposits … and they would be the first to be gobbled up as hunger really sets in, so … no food for the last two or three days of his life.' Shaftoe paused. ‘I will take a blood sample and use it to test for toxins as well as to extract his DNA, but I am pretty certain that I have found the cause of death … blunt force trauma to the head … two blows with a linear instrument. The first to the side of the head and the second to the crown or top of his head, both delivered with great force. As I said, either could have been fatal. So one to do the job and a second one to make sure.' He turned to Vicary. ‘I will have my completed report faxed to you at New Scotland Yard later today, Mr Vicary.'

‘That would be much appreciated. Thank you, sir.' Harry Vicary left the pathology laboratory and walked silently to the changing room where he placed the coveralls in the waste bin provided and then re-dressed in his outer clothing. He left the Royal London Hospital and walked casually to Aldgate East Underground Station where he took the Tube to St James's, and from there walked the short distance to New Scotland Yard. As he had hoped, and indeed as he had half expected, a file on the deceased, having already been identified by his fingerprints, had been placed in his in-tray for his attention.

T
he slender file on Gordon Henry Claude Cogan so far made, Harry Vicary found, interesting but not wholly surprising reading. In Vicary's experience, victims whose skulls are splintered and who are then left lying half in and half out of the gutter to await discovery by the first luckless member of the public, in this case the milkman, to chance upon them are usually people with enemies who are also invariably known to the police. Gordon Cogan was no exception. Cogan was, according to the date of birth in his file, forty years old when he was murdered. He had one conviction for the abduction and rape of a minor, and a second conviction for murder. Any other crime(s) that Cogan had committed had either not been solved or not been reported, and there had to be other crimes, Vicary reasoned, because felons who abduct, rape and murder tend to ‘graduate' from less serious crimes. What did cause Harry Vicary eyebrow-raising and jaw-dropping astonishment was the seemingly unduly lenient sentence of just six months imprisonment for the offence of abduction and rape of a minor, which was committed when Cogan was in his early twenties. Vicary continued to read the file and he found that very shortly upon his release from prison for that offence he was then convicted of the murder of a young woman and served fifteen years of the mandatory life sentence. He had been released from that term of imprisonment just a few weeks before he was murdered. ‘Not a wholesome individual,' Vicary murmured to himself as he reached slowly forward for his mug of tea which stood on his desktop, next to his telephone. He drained the tea, which was by then lukewarm, then stood and carried the file on Gordon Cogan to the detective constables' room where he found Detective Constables Penny Yewdall and Tom Ainsclough both sitting at their desks, reviewing paperwork. ‘Busy, I see,' he commented warmly. ‘That is a pleasing sight. Most pleasing.'