The Tooth Tattoo(122)

Clad in his own rather superior pale blue overall, Sealy was on his knees by the car studying the victim’s hands. Without looking up, he said, ‘Right up your alley, this, Peter Diamond. Grotty little backstreet tucked away between the railway and the cemetery. Home from home for you with your charity-shop suits. Are you enjoying yourself?’

‘I always enjoy seeing a genius at work,’ Diamond said. ‘Where did you buy your Andy Pandy outfit? The pound shop?’

Sealy stood up. Ever prepared with all the comforts, he’d been kneeling on a rubber cushion. ‘The deceased isn’t much of a fashion plate either. Do we know who he is?’

‘A viola player who was once in a famous quartet.’

‘He wouldn’t have played too famously with a digit missing from his left hand,’ Sealy said.

‘It hadn’t passed me by.’

‘I presume he was like Charlie Chaplin.’

Diamond frowned. ‘How does Chaplin come into it?’

‘Played the fiddle left-handed, didn’t he? You want to sharpen up your observational skills. What I’m saying is that this fellow must have done the same, used his left hand to hold the bow, so as to do the fingering with his right.’

‘That isn’t so,’ Diamond said. ‘He played the orthodox way. Couldn’t play at all after losing the finger.’

‘Should have been more careful, then.’

‘It wasn’t an accident. Have you looked at the head wound yet?’

Sealy was not ready to move on. ‘Are you one hundred percent certain he was right-handed?’

‘I’ve seen pictures of him playing.’

Sealy tapped his chin with his surgical-gloved finger. ‘That’s odd.’

‘The exit wound being on the right side of the head?’

Diamond said.

‘Well, yes.’

‘I thought so, too.’ Diamond aired his new bit of expertise. ‘It is the exit wound because it’s stellate, agreed?’

‘Swallowed a forensic manual, have we?’ Sealy said. ‘This is the problem. The bullet entered the head from the left side. Did a right-handed man put the gun to his left temple? Or use his left hand to fire with? Difficult and unlikely. Ergo if he really was right-handed he didn’t fire the gun himself. It was murder.’

‘From close range?’

‘Look at this.’ Sealy grasped the hair on the dead man’s head and pulled it back far enough to display the circular hole on the left side. ‘It’s too neat for a contact discharge and there’s no muzzle stamp, but there is what we call an abrasion collar caused by friction, heating and dirt. That’s close range.’

‘Right.’

‘The burning and powder tattooing wouldn’t be present if the gun was fired from a distance of more than, let’s say, a metre. Do you have any suspects?’

‘Several.’

‘Better look for GSR, then.’

‘You’ve got me there.’ Diamond had a blind spot for acronyms and abbreviations.

‘Gunshot residue. The thing was fired in a confined space. And don’t just check the hands and clothes. It can get into nostrils, ear canals, places you wouldn’t think of.’

Diamond wasn’t ignorant of forensic procedures, but he didn’t look forward to literally getting up the noses of the quartet without arresting them. He’d only just confirmed that murder had been committed and any evidence he had against the four was circumstantial. They wouldn’t think it a privilege to be asked for swab samples.

Sealy was still talking about the gun. ‘I wonder where the bullet ended up if it didn’t smash the window.’

‘He may have ducked,’ Diamond said, ‘in which case the angle could have been downwards and we’d find it lodged in the bodywork.’

One of the CSI team spoke up. ‘We already found it in the offside door, sir.’

‘Where is it, then?’

‘In an evidence bag with my boss. It’s a nine millimetre. Fits the Glock 17 that you see between the seats.’

‘Thanks.’ Diamond turned back to Sealy. ‘Is it too much to ask for an estimate?’

‘Of what? My fee?’

‘Time of death.’

‘Has any pathologist ever given you an accurate time of death? If so, he was either a bloody good guesser or the killer.’

‘Thanks for nothing, then.’

‘If I could give you an answer, believe me I would triple my fee.’

Diamond exited the tent and squirmed out of the protective suit. He’d formed a pretty clear picture of the killing. At some point last evening or early this morning Harry had parked the car opposite Anthony’s lodging with the intention of visiting him. His proven method was to sit in the car and observe before doing anything else. He may have spent the night there. The gun, his protection, would be kept somewhere handy, in a pocket, or the glove compartment, or lying on the passenger seat.