Death Message

‘Help yourself,’ DI Steve Brimson had said. ‘I can’t remember what my missus looks like as it is.’

The part of Thorne that relished a decent scrap had felt rather disappointed.

Convoluted as it could be, there was at least a method for the allocation of officers among the Homicide Squad. No such system existed to decide who might have the honour of slicing up the corpse. As quickly as Thorne had read the lie of the land, Phil Hendricks had marked down the Coroner-appointed pathologist as someone rather less keen on any accommodation. He’d read it in the man’s handshake; in the widening of the eyes when they’d first encountered the spike through Hendricks’ eyebrow and the stud through his tongue. So, Hendricks too had been forced to stand and observe while the body of Raymond Tucker – such as was left of it – had been opened and gone through as dispassionately as luggage in a customs hall.

Thorne had seen countless post-mortems, many conducted by Hendricks himself, but they’d never been part of the same audience before. Glancing across at Hendricks, standing between himself and Steve Brimson, he’d wondered how involved his friend was getting with the procedure. He’d caught the occasional scowl and an involuntary twitch of the fingers. He’d been curious as to how far Hendricks had been mentally deconstructing his colleague’s work while he watched; critiquing the other man’s delicacy when weighing a liver, or his technique with a bone-saw.

‘He wasn’t too bad,’ Hendricks said. ‘But he’s clearly not in my league when it comes to good looks. You know, basic sex-appeal.’

They were sitting in a greasy spoon a few minutes’ walk from the mortuary. It was the sort of place that served a fried breakfast all day every day, but hungry as he was, Thorne couldn’t quite manage a full English this soon after a post-mortem. He’d settled for scrambled eggs on toast, while Hendricks tucked into a sausage sandwich.

‘What about cause of death?’ Thorne asked.

‘Fuck all to disagree with. Blunt trauma to the brain, massive internal bleed… occipital artery just about shredded. He would have died pretty quickly: first couple of blows would have done it. Now, you can call me Sherlock Holmes, but I reckon that bloodstained lump-hammer they found in Tucker’s flat might have had something to do with it.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Thorne said.

A waitress stepped up to clear the plates. She’d clearly been earwigging as she’d worked at the next table and Hendricks had caught it. ‘It’s a new TV show we’re writing,’ he said. ‘A maverick, gay pathologist. You know, usual stuff: fuzzy black-and-white bits, half a dozen serial killers every episode.’

The waitress pulled a face, as though she’d caught a whiff of something and couldn’t decide if she liked it or not. ‘Well, don’t have that bloke who used to be in EastEnders. I can’t stand him.’

They watched her leave, one of them enjoying the way her backside moved beneath a tight black skirt considerably more than the other.

‘It’s an odd one this, though,’ Hendricks said.

‘They’re always odd.’

Hendricks grunted his agreement. He stuffed what was left of his sandwich into his mouth and took a healthy slurp of tea. It always surprised Thorne that someone whose hands could move with such poise and dexterity ate like a half-starved docker.

‘Go on then,’ Thorne said. ‘Why is this one so strange?’

‘Killer can’t make his mind up.’

Thorne pushed a finger round the rim of his cup. Waited.

‘Five, six blows with that hammer. Decent ones, you know? Not that people are usually tentative when it comes to bludgeoning someone to death…’

‘Not as a rule.’

‘I’d probably call it “frenzied” if I was pushed in a witness box.’

‘But…?’

‘But then there’s this whole picture business. He smashes Tucker’s head in; then, while he’s stood there covered in blood – and he would have been covered – he calmly takes out his mobile phone and starts snapping away. Cool as you like.’

‘Maybe he took his time,’ Thorne said. ‘Went and cleaned himself up a bit. Composed himself.’

‘Maybe. Where he definitely took his time was in sending the picture to you. I reckon Tucker was dead nine or ten days when his poor old mum walked in and got the shock of her life. So, whoever killed him waited over a week before sending you that message. That’s pretty bloody relaxed, I’d say.’

Thorne had already worked it out; had come to the same conclusion when Brigstocke had told him that Tucker’s body had lain undiscovered for a while.

‘So, what the fuck is he?’ Hendricks downed the last of his tea. ‘Ordered or disordered.’

Thorne had come across a few who were both. He knew that they were the worst kind. The hardest to catch. ‘You can pay for the grub,’ he said. ‘Seeing as how you’ve cheered me up so much.’

‘I’ll tell you something else for nothing.’

‘Do you have to?’

‘I think there’s more to our victim than meets the eye.’

‘You’re really on form today,’ Thorne said.

‘I’m telling you.’

‘You should stop doing so much cutting and watch more of it. You don’t miss a bloody trick.’ But once Hendricks had told him what he meant, Thorne could not find much to argue with in his friend’s assessment.

They settled up and walked out into what remained of a grey afternoon. For a minute or two, heading towards the car, Thorne was back in the mortuary suite. Watching as the pathologist moved around the slab. The Home Counties monotone raised above the noise of the Tube trains, his commentary echoing off the tiled walls.

Thorne stared at the body again, his eyes moving down from the sunken cheeks and the spots of dried blood caught on lashes and stubble. He saw the intricate designs in blue and green and red. The pictures inked across the chest that disappeared from view as the flaps of skin over the ribs were peeled back and laid aside. Hendricks said he’d seen similar designs on a body before, but nothing as impressive as these: the large outline of a snarling dog’s head on one shoulder; the panther that stretched along an arm; the ornate cross and gri

Hendricks had a point.

Raymond Tucker had a few more tattoos than the average used-car salesman.

Once a body had been removed from a crime scene, the atmosphere changed. Eight hours since the discovery of Raymond Tucker and, in a first-floor flat that was already starting to smell an awful lot better, the scene-of-crime officers had done most of what would be necessary on the first day. Now there were just a few stragglers working the scene, cleaning up: the video and stills cameramen; the woman working as exhibits officer; a couple of fingerprint guys. Many SOCOs – who thought it sounded a little more glamorous – insisted on being called crime scene examiners these days.

To Thorne’s mind, ‘glamour’ in such circumstances was a relative term.

One day into it and, like a well-drilled unit of white-suited locusts, the team, whatever it chose to call itself, had completed the majority of the front-line forensics. Though a few were still moving around with that distinctive, all-too-evocative rustle, Thorne and Holland were at least spared the plastic bodysuits and bootees.

‘Small mercies,’ Holland said.

They were standing with their backs to the window, the dying light kept at bay by large black screens and the room illuminated by a pair of powerful arc lights. The furniture was modern: smoked glass and chrome; built-in bookshelves and halogen spots; a three-seater sofa covered in dark brown leather and light brown blood.

Thorne dug out some chewing gum from his jacket pocket. ‘Not a lot of mercy shown in here…’

The body had been removed from its final position between the sofa and the fireplace, and it was clear that the dead man had not fallen at the first blow. Aside from the blood, spattered in scratches across the sofa cushions, there were patterns in the other direction, thrown against the glass front of a tropical fish tank and, lower down, finely sprayed across a large wooden bowl filled with smooth stones, black and grey.