‘Islington CID are trying—his prints haven’t come up yet.’
Kershaw led the way to the drawer cabinet, pumped up a trolley and slid out a body covered in white plastic. Transferring the remains to the table, he folded down the top half of the sheet. ‘I’ve conducted an internal examination but the results won’t be very reliable without deeper analysis. Although the freezer was fairly airtight, I’m told the unit backed onto a warm ventilation shaft from the building next door, which raised his body temperature.’
‘Do you have anything at all?’
‘I can’t tell you exactly when he died because the crew from Islington had to pass the investigation over to their opposite numbers at Camden, and they didn’t maintain the body at the temperature in which it was found. By the time he got here he’d been placed in a variety of different atmospheres. As you can see, he’s a white male roughly thirty-three years of age, outwardly healthy if a bit overweight. He’s worked outdoors; there are tan lines on his upper arms, hard skin on the thumbs, a few cuts and nicks. The amputation was made with sharp, slim blades. Two distinct types of cut here, a series of small strokes to cut through the skin and meat, and a second with stronger pressure to sever the cartilage in the neck. Two knives, one for the heavy cutting, the second smaller and finer. It’s a professional job all right. I’m surprised the tattoo and the hands are intact. Unfortunately the ivy wreath is straight out of the book, a standard design, and one of the most common available. The cutting could have been done with surgical equipment, or the type of vegetable knife you can buy in any decent kitchenware shop. He was beheaded after death. The cuts are uniform and smooth, nothing to make the killer’s handiwork recognisable. We have microtomic equipment here, which has proven useful. I took a thin slice of tissue from the throat and another one from the gut to compare the effects of decomposition in an airless atmosphere. It’s not my field, so I had to use one of Professor Marshall’s contacts. Luckily Rosa kept his address book.’
May walked slowly around the body, studying it. Putrefaction had been halted in its advance, but the corpse’s skin had turned green and black, producing an acrid odour. He found it hard to imagine that this man had recently been walking around, eating in restaurants, watching TV. He was someone’s lover, someone’s son, but there was almost nothing human left. Without a head his trunk bore an unsettling similarity to something you would find in a meat locker. How would his loved ones feel if they could see him like this? ‘Get anything else?’
‘It’s tricky because the usual decay process has been interrupted by the relatively sterile storage of the body. Usually, after two to three days you get staining on the abdomen. The discolouration spreads, veins grow dark, the skin blisters after a week, tissue starts softening and nails fall off at around the three-week stage, and finally the face becomes unrecognisable as the skin liquefies—’
‘We don’t need a lecture about decomposition,’ interrupted Renfield impatiently. ‘Have you got a date of death or not?’
‘Four or five days ago,’ Kershaw replied, rattled. ‘The victim’s blood hadn’t had time to pool. He was dead when he was cut up, so it’s possible the attacker struck while he was in the shop. Either that, or he was killed very close by. In that case you’ll be looking for a van, because he was laid out flat; there were no blood creases behind the legs or in the elbows. I made a couple of calls; Islington CID have a record of gangs who have removed identification from their victims in the past, but there’s no obvious MO match with any of them, and none are currently active in the area where the victim was found. Whoever killed him was a bit careless about washing the body. There’s a streak of mud here, on his right shoulder blade. Looks like London clay. I’d like to get a sample off for analysis, but I don’t have a case number.’
‘Any idea how he died?’
‘There are no entry wounds on the body so it must be on the missing part. Possibly head trauma, although we’ll have to find it first.’
‘We haven’t found anything on the premises yet,’ said May. ‘Not that we expected to. I’ll have Dan Banbury make a thorough search, but the property has been used as a dumping ground for builders’ materials, so we won’t have time to get to it today.’
Kershaw looked down at the corpse and ran a forefinger around the neatly severed neck with tenderness. ‘I guess he’ll yield his secrets when the last piece turns up.’