Full Dark House(34)

‘You realize what you’re saying—it’s possible that she collapsed and got her feet caught.’

‘I have to say that because of the trace evidence.’ Finch moved down to the base of the table and rolled back the sheet. ‘You can see the avulsive trauma here in tissue dragged right from bone, separated from all of its connective materials. That’s how we know the skin and musculature around the ankles have been torn, not cut. These parallel scrape marks are actually scored deep into the cartilage, and the bones are severely compacted to a depth of an eighth of an inch. That’s consistent with the concrete ledge hitting the feet and breaking them off. You can get Runcorn to look along the ledge for vertical striations that include bone particles. Obviously the pain must have been appalling, and for a young lady to remain still while something like this happened, I just think it’s unlikely that she would have been conscious. There’s another thing. She’s very short, slender, very small-boned, virtually no body fat.’

‘A lot of dancers are tiny,’ May pointed out.

‘Small people are easier to poison, although there are exceptions to the rule. Women get drunk more quickly than men because they carry more fat. Dancers are a different kettle of fish, though. A fast-acting muscular poison, possibly something naturally occurring, would have taken care of her. I just ran tests for a substance called coniine, which paralyses the body in pretty much the same way as curare.’

‘Curare? I thought that caused heart failure. One has images of blowpipes being aimed in the jungle.’

‘That’s because it was used by Orinoco Indians. A plant resin. But I believe there’s a prescribed clinical version available in America. It’s not unheard of for doctors to inject it into pre-op patients in order to reduce the amount of anaesthesia needed. The point is, we’ve got a positive match for coniine, but not for curare. Something was definitely introduced into her body, but I’m at a loss to understand how. There are no visible puncture marks of any kind.’

‘What about in the feet?’

‘Obviously I’ve yet to examine those.’

‘But you don’t think it likely that she was injected.’

‘I didn’t say that. I said there are no visible signs so far. Hypodermic injection sites can heal very quickly and disappear completely within two days.’ He tapped a pencil against his long yellow teeth. ‘There is something here, though. Take a look at this.’ He pointed to the small radiophonic monitor angled above the cadaver. ‘One of our new gadgets. I’m not sure how reliable it is yet. It’s taking subcutaneous readings from different levels in her body tissue. This is the balance of acids that occurs at cellular level. They should all be about the same height.’ The screen showed a number of bright green lines, but some were much taller than others.

‘And what does that mean?’ asked May, looking up at the chartreuse-tinged face of the pathologist.

‘That’s rather the problem.’ Finch narrowed his eyes as he studied the drifting pulsations. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’





16

OFF THE RADAR

Janice Longbright was seated on a stack of Tampax boxes trying to type with two fingers. Outside, on the steps of Kentish Town police station, a gang of teenagers were screaming at each other. The former detective sergeant forced herself to block out the noise and concentrate. With the Mornington Crescent offices blown to smithereens, the unit’s surviving personnel had been evacuated to the nearest annexe, but with the force on full alert, no chairs or desks were available for them to work from. The Tampax boxes had been found in the boot of a boy’s car, cushioning a number of rifles and stolen army pistols, and made a passably comfortable seat.

The sounds in the street were becoming more confrontational. Longbright looked around the overcrowded office at men and women barking into phones, and was unsurprised that no one had the energy to go outside and stop the fight before someone got hurt. The gang members would be at each other again the second the police departed. Trying to help them was like sticking a plaster on a cut throat.

With John May still off on leave, Longbright had reluctantly agreed to return to the unit for a few weeks. Balancing the telephone on her knee, she tried Sam Biddle’s number. This time she got through to him. The Home Office’s new police liaison officer was supposed to be providing them with relocation plans and news of emergency funding, but was proving evasive.

‘I can’t give you anything concrete at the moment,’ he insisted. ‘There are too many other priorities.’