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“What the hell,” said Hamilton. “It’s Friday evening. The weekend starts here.”
Chapter 4
“Do you know that it takes about an hour or an hour and a half at between sixteen and eighteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit to cremate a human body?” Dr. Glende
The postmortem lab in the basement of Eastvale General Infirmary was hardly hi-tech, but Dr. Glende
“Thought you wouldn’t know that,” Glende
“We realize you’re a very important man,” said Banks, “and we’re eternally grateful to you, aren’t we, A
“We are, indeed,” said A
Glende
Banks shook his head. “All we know was in the report I sent you. His name’s probably Tom, and he was an artist.”
“It would help if I knew something about his medical history,” Dr. Glende
“Afraid we can’t help you,” said Banks.
“I mean, if he was a drug addict or a drunk or on some sort of dodgy medication… Why do you always make my job so much more bloody difficult than it needs to be, Banks? Can you tell me that?”
“Search me.”
“One day I probably will,” Glende
“Anyway,” Glende
A
“He’s got burns over about seventy-five percent of the body’s surface area. The most severe burning, the greatest combination of third-and fourth-degree burning, occurs in the upper body area.”
“That would be the area closest to the point of origin,” said Geoff Hamilton, cool and glum-looking as ever.
Dr. Glende
Banks noticed A
“Farther down,” Glende
When Dr. Glende
“Look, I’ve told you before not to call me Doc. It’s lacking in respect.”
“But have you found evidence of blows to the head?”
Glende
“But that’s what they look like to me,” A
“To you, lassie, maybe. But to me, they look like fractures caused by the heat.”
“The heat causes fractures?” A
Dr. Glende
“Of course it does,” he said. “Heat contracts the skin and causes splits that may easily be interpreted as cuts inflicted during life. It can also cause fractures in the long bones of the arms and legs, or make them so bloody brittle that they’re fractured while the body is being moved. Remember, we’re sixty-six percent water, and fire is a great dehydrator.”
“But what about the skull?” A
Glende
A
“Anyway,” he went on, “skull fractures caused by fire often radiate along suture lines, the weakest point in the skull’s surface, and that’s the case here. Also, the skull splinters haven’t been driven into the brain matter, which would most likely be the case if blunt-instrument trauma were present. They’ve been forced outward.”
“So you’re saying he wasn’t hit over the head?”
“I’m saying nothing of the kind,” Glende
“I know that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Or something like that.”
“Well, in this case,” said Glende
“I suppose it could have happened that way,” said Banks.
“Definitely possible,” said Geoff Hamilton.
“I’m glad you both agree,” Glende
“On the other hand, though,” Banks argued, “wouldn’t you expect to find skull splinters in the brain if that were the case?”
Glende
“Do you think you could find out?”
Glende
Wendy Gauge suppressed a smile as she handed him the required instrument, and the pathologist bent over the corpse. The nose had burned away, along with enough skin and flesh to allow the chin and jawbone to show through in places. Glende