Fire Damage (A Jessie Flynn Investigation, Book 1) (10 page)

When Callan saw the body on the aluminium dissecting table, he had the impulse to drive straight up the M1 to the Defence Intelligence and Security Centre in Chicksands, walk into Starkey’s room, take him by his hair and slam his face into the wall. Do it properly this time. Cause some real damage.

Andy Jackson – what was left of him – didn’t look more than eighteen, though Callan knew he was ten years older than that. Death softened the hard lines of people’s faces, turned men back into boys. The only thing that Callan could think of, looking at him – laid out on the slab, skin the colour of curdled milk, eyes filmy with death – was that a young woman was now a widow and that two little children would grow up with only celluloid memories of their father. What a waste of a life. A young man who worked out in the gym, paid his bills, called his family once a week from Afghanistan. Callan wasn’t looking forward to the discussion he knew he would need to have with Andy Jackson’s wife and parents.

His eyes strayed lower. The body had been cut from shoulder bones to pubis, skin peeled back, the ribs, marbled with fat, sawn through and cleaved open to reveal the intestinal cavity. A neat hole was punched through the stomach, the bullet wound, like an eyeless socket, blood clotted around the hole. It was disturbing how similar a human body looked to the animal carcasses he’d seen laid out on the market stalls in Afghanistan, the stench of death rising off them in the heat, alive with humming, feasting flies.

Senior Medical Officer, Major Val Monks, the coroner, walked around the table, galoshes squeaking as their soles grasped and released the damp floor. Holding her gloved hands out from the side of her body like a scarecrow, she gave Callan an air kiss on each cheek. Hardly an orthodox Army way of greeting, but he’d always thought that she was a square peg in a round hole. Having said that, all majors were not created equal. A major in the infantry was responsible for the day-to-day lives of scores of men. Val was responsible for a mortuary containing a score of dead ones.

She was early fifties, mother to one son in his twenties, ‘who had no intention of following his old mum into the Army’, she’d told him last time they worked together, over a year ago now.
Before.
Without the peppermint green scrubs, she could have been mistaken for any ordinary middle-aged mum shopping in Tesco’s, dark hair cut easy-care short, body gone a little soft around the middle, deep crow’s feet radiating from her gentle brown eyes, skin loose around the jawline. But she was professional, her mind as sharp as a tack.

‘Captain Callan. Good to see you again.’ Her smile was genuine. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d be coming back, Ben.’

He shrugged. ‘How could I stay away from all this?’

She returned his smile, but hers didn’t quite reach her eyes. He noticed her gaze flash fleetingly to the scar on his temple.

‘Don’t push yourself too hard.’

‘I won’t. And I’m fine.’

‘You don’t look a hundred per cent.’

‘You have one son. You don’t need to mother me too.’

‘I’m not so sure about that.’

Callan edged past her, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. ‘You’ve made a start.’

Val took the hint. ‘Yes, I’ve done the external examination, taken blood and urine samples, and oral and anal swabs, fingernail scrapes, hair follicle samples, the works. Better to be safe than sorry.’

Callan listened, eyes scanning the opened corpse on the slab in front of him. He was wearing identical scrubs to Val, a mask over his face. The air circulating in the mask was tightening his chest; he felt as if he was struggling for oxygen. Pulling the mask down, he took a couple of deep breaths. The air in the room was refrigerator chilled, but the cold couldn’t freeze out the smell of death, of viscera. He slid his mask back into place.

‘Give me the background to the case.’ Val had moved back to the dissecting table, was hovering over the body.

‘You’ve read the report,’ Callan replied.

‘Of course. But I want to hear it from you. Your opinion.’

Callan shrugged. ‘I don’t have much of an opinion at the moment. Two sergeants go for a run in the Afghan desert seven days ago. One of them ends up dead with a bullet wound from the other’s gun in his stomach.’

‘He shot himself? That’s what the report intimated.’

‘The very meagre fingerprint evidence that we have points to that.’

‘In what way?’

‘The only fingerprint forensics lifted from the gun was a partial of Jackson’s on the trigger.’

‘Could Starkey have shot Jackson, wiped the prints clean and then pressed his gun into Jackson’s hands?’

Callan smiled. ‘You’ve been watching too many bad cop shows, Val. No. The gun was well oiled. They need to be, in the desert with all that sand, to prevent stoppages. Starkey took good care of his personal weapon, which is great news for him and the armourer, terrible news for forensics.’

Val nodded. ‘Why was Starkey armed?’

‘They were both armed. There’ve been so many green-on-blue attacks – so called friendly Afghans killing UK and US forces – that everyone carries their personal weapon at all times, even within NATO camps.’

‘Fortunately, I’ve never had the privilege of going to Afghanistan. The Army prefers to ship the dead bodies to me, rather than to ship the live me to the bodies.’

Callan had forgotten how forthright she was, at odds with her appearance. It reminded him of why he liked working with her.

He looked down again at the splayed corpse on the dissecting table in front of him, skin waxy as a shop dummy’s, blotchy with black and blue post-mortem lividity, a couple of other purple marks visible to his eye, blooming over the skin of the shoulder and torso. Taking a step back, he pulled the mask from his face again, took another couple of deep breaths, through his mouth this time, sucking the chill air into his lungs without the smell accompanying it down his airways. Snapping his mask back into place, he turned to Val.

‘Starkey had a black eye and bruising to his torso. There look to be bruises on Jackson.’

‘Yes, there are. Significant bruising to the torso, indicative of a physical assault, and very severe bruising to the knuckles of his right hand, indicating, I would say, that he gave as good as he got, which would stack up, given what you have told me about Starkey.’

Callan’s gaze followed the latex-clad index finger of her right hand as it moved to Jackson’s left shoulder.

‘Here,’ she continued. ‘A large bruise, with faint finger marks.’ Her finger tracked upwards. ‘See, here. Curling over Jackson’s collarbone. That indicates to me that he was shoved hard on the shoulder with a flat hand, perhaps more than once.’

Callan nodded.

‘And there are a couple more bruises here and here,’ Val continued, moving her finger down Jackson’s left side, until it was hovering to the left of his sternum. ‘Fist marks, rather than the flat hand you saw on the shoulder.’ Her finger continued down on to his stomach. ‘And another on his abdomen, to the left of his umbilicus.’ She straightened, with a sigh. ‘It certainly looks as if they had a fight before Jackson was shot.’

Callan rubbed a hand across his eyes, left his fingers there for a moment, pressing into his eye sockets. His head was aching: a dull, monotonous thud.

‘You OK, Callan?’

‘Of course. Just a headache. I’m not used to working for a living.’ Giving Val a brief smile, he dropped his hand back to his side. ‘What else?’

‘Horizontal abrasions to the lower back.’

Callan bent forward, looking where she indicated. ‘Grazes?’

‘Yes. From sand, I would say, as they were in the desert. So at some point, Jackson was lying on the ground – moving though, twisting from side to side, definitely still alive. His shirt must have ridden up, leaving the skin of his waist and lower back exposed, which is why we have grazes there and nowhere else.’

Straightening, Callan nodded. ‘Starkey had grazes on his elbows and forearms. Does Jackson have any defensive wounds?’

‘Skin cells under the fingernails. I’ve taken swabs and sent them off for DNA analysis but, from what you say, we can assume that the DNA will be Starkey’s.’ Val gave a grim smile. ‘They had a physical fight, for sure, before Jackson was shot.’ Folding her arms, she tilted back on her heels. ‘I would say that they started off standing – the shove mark to the shoulder would indicate that – and finished up wrestling in the dirt.’

‘Adult,’ Callan muttered.

Val raised an eyebrow and smiled. ‘You can always rely on male soldiers to be adult.’

Callan shivered. It was colder in this room than outside in the car park; he wished he’d kept his coat on.

‘How long did the medics take to arrive after the shot was fired?’ she asked.

‘Four or five minutes.’

Val frowned. ‘And Jackson died within that time?’ Her voice sounded incredulous.

Stomach wounds, where the victim received medical attention quickly, were rarely fatal – Callan had seen enough in combat to know that. Bleeding to death from a stomach wound was protracted, lengthy, particularly one caused by a 9 mm handgun bullet, relative small fry in the world of ballistics. The stomach wasn’t a vital organ, at least not in terms of keeping someone alive in the short term. So death from a stomach wound came when the victim had lost so much blood that their body couldn’t function any more. It was a slow and painful way to die.

‘Seems like you’ve got yourself a puzzle here, Callan.’

‘A puzzle I’m hoping you’re going to help me solve.’

‘I think you may be putting too much faith in my abilities.’ She beckoned him forward, indicating the bullet wound, the clotted blood surrounding it.

‘Notice anything strange, Callan?’

‘Not a lot of bleeding.’

‘Right.’ A pause. ‘Jackson’s Army medicals – did they flag any problems?’

Callan was suddenly freezing cold and his head hurt. Hurt more than ached, a sharp, stabbing pain.

‘The medicals, Callan? Any congenital problems?’

What was she talking about?

Pulling the mask off, he sucked in a deep breath. ‘Medicals. My medicals? No. No problems.’

‘His medicals.
His.
Andy Jackson’s.’ Her voice was heavy with concern. ‘Did they flag any problems? Congenital defects?’

‘None. He wouldn’t have been allowed to join the Army if they had.’

The smell was getting to him – that smell he’d erased from his brain over the past six months, antiseptic and death, so thick in the room he could taste it on his tongue – raw meat, methane from intestinal gases, the metallic stench of clotted blood. Gripping on to the edge of the autopsy table, he steadied himself.

‘Do you want to step out for a minute, Callan?’

‘I’m fine.’ His voice was slurred, even to his ears.

‘I don’t think you are.’

He was losing focus.
Shit.
Why hadn’t he recognized the signs? He had a few seconds, maybe less. ‘Yes. I need a minute.’

Black spots in front of his eyes, vision around that blurred. Turning, he stumbled for the door. Slammed out into the anteroom, banks of lockers to store corpses to his left and right. Bouncing off a couple of the lockers, he staggered towards the door, banged into it, grappled for the handle –
where’s the fucking handle?
– found it, shoved it down, fell into the corridor. Mercifully, it was deserted.

His legs gave way and though he grasped for the wall, his fingertips screeched on smooth paint and he slid straight down it, crumpling to the floor. His head was jerking from side to side, he couldn’t control it. His legs were cycling against the vinyl tiles, arms thrashing, his whole body writhing and spasming. His head felt as if it would explode from the pressure.

Slowly, the fit receded. Swallowing the vomit in his mouth, he lay for a minute, curled up on the cold vinyl, shaking and panting. He felt as if someone had banged an icicle through his skull, straight into his brain. Shaking, he dragged himself around on to his stomach, hauled himself on to his hands and knees. The air conditioning was blowing cold air; he could feel the sweat running down between his shoulder blades. He felt sick and he still couldn’t see properly.

Footsteps approaching.
Fuck.
He couldn’t be seen like this. He’d lose his job. Lose everything. Jamming his hands against the corridor walls, he levered himself to his feet. He felt weak, shaky, like a newborn fucking calf, struggling to walk. The inside of his mouth was coated in bile and he knew that he must stink of it.

A lieutenant from the Military Police rounded the corner carrying a sheaf of papers, an officer who’d joined the Special Investigation Branch after Callan left for his most recent tour in Afghanistan. He saluted. Callan nodded, couldn’t yet coordinate a salute, not a convincing one anyway. The lieutenant paused by the door into the anteroom, hand resting on the handle. He looked as if he was about to say something.

Pushing himself away from the wall, Callan stepped forward, indicating the door. ‘After you,’ he said.

‘First time autopsy?’ the lieutenant asked, his lip curling.

‘It’s been a while.’

‘So I heard, Captain Callan.’ He was using all the right terminology so Callan couldn’t pull him up on it, but his tone was clearly insubordinate.

Head dipped to avoid further eye contact, Callan pushed through the door into the anteroom, then through to the dissecting room. Val Monks glanced up from Jackson’s body when she heard the door open.

‘We’re done here for the moment, Callan.’

‘What?’ he muttered.

He wouldn’t meet her eye. He was as pale as the corpse on her slab, his amber eyes twitching, radiating nerves. Her heart went out to him. Her son was a conveyancing solicitor in Guildford. A safe, cosy job, the only danger it entailed, grappling with spoilt middle-class housewives who wanted their houses bought yesterday. This boy, only a couple of years older, had a bullet buried in his brain.

Epilepsy.

She’d seen it before, as a junior doctor. She knew that she should report him to his superiors, would be disciplined and rightly so, if it was found that she had known and said nothing. But she had no intention of doing that. The Army let kids like this down every day; used them up and spat them out. If discovered, he’d be invalided out, given a small payoff and left to sort himself out, sink or swim in civilian life with no support. Too many of them were sinking, committing suicide, ending up as drug addicts living under cardboard in some faceless city. Someone else could find out and report him. It wasn’t going to be her.