The Tooth Tattoo(98)

‘We don’t claim it is certain. These questions had to be decided by a jury and they could have been mistaken.’

‘They wouldn’t be the first. And who carried out the autopsy?’

‘A hospital doctor.’

‘Not a forensic pathologist?’

‘She was a qualified pathologist.’

‘Not a forensics expert. We had two autopsies done on our victim. The second revealed that she was strangled. A small bone in her throat fractured. Unless your pathologist was looking for it …’

Dagmar said, ‘Nothing like this was in the report of our autopsy. But even if there was damage to the throat and it wasn’t discovered, it is too late now. The body was returned to Japan for disposal.’

He didn’t press the point any more. He wanted to stay on speaking terms. ‘Did you discover where this netsuke came from? They’re collectors’ pieces, aren’t they?’

‘Usually they are, particularly if they are antique. They can be extremely valuable. We had this one valued by an expert and he said the workmanship was of high quality.’

‘Even I can see that,’ Diamond said holding the ivory piece up to the light. ‘It’s obviously handmade, not cast.’

‘That is true,’ Dagmar said, ‘but the value is not especially high. It’s not antique. There are craftsmen working with modern precision tools who make these as copies of ancient designs.’

‘Forgeries?’

‘If they are traded as antiques, yes. But if they are sold as what they are, modern artefacts, you can’t call them forgeries. They have some intrinsic value for the workmanship.’

Ingeborg came in on the conversation. ‘But if they’re ivory, they’re illegal. Ivory products have been banned since 1989, and rightly so, in my opinion.’

‘That is true and no right-minded person would argue with you,’ Dagmar said in a tone suggesting she was about to do exactly that. ‘True of elephant ivory. But this netsuke is not elephant ivory.’

‘What is it, then?’

‘Mammoth.’

‘Get away,’ Diamond said.

Dagmar continued in her solemn voice, ‘Don’t you know about this? The melting of the ice-cap has revealed large quantities of mammoth remains in the Russian tundra. The tusks are workable as ivory and can be traded within the law. They are not particularly valuable.’

‘Yet this thing I have in my hand is actually thousands of years more ancient than the netsuke that are so prized. That’s weird.’

‘Weird, but true. Mammoth ivory netsuke are increasingly being worked and traded, and not just by Japanese.’

An awed silence had descended. Visions of mammoths roaming the Siberian wastes half a million years ago were pretty remote from the CID room in Bath.

It took Paul Gilbert to bring everyone back to the twenty-first century. ‘So how does this affect the case?’

‘It doesn’t,’ Dagmar said. ‘The symbolism would still be just as valid if it was made from plastic.’

‘Where would she have got it from?’ Diamond asked for the second time.

‘In Vienna? From some private source. You don’t find these in good antique shops.’

Diamond said, ‘We may sound ungrateful, Dagmar, but we’re not. We’re looking at it from the perspective of another case.’

‘I know about this. Your Japanese woman.’ Even so, her lip curled slightly as she added, ‘But if I understand correctly there was no netsuke found with her.’

‘Yet there are other things in common.’

‘But your woman was strangled, you said.’

‘And we must decide if we agree with that jury of yours that Emi Kojima committed suicide.’ Back to confrontation, but it had to be said.

Dagmar shot him a withering look.

He refused to blink. ‘Just now you said there were no obvious signs of foul play. I noted your words. Might there have been something you wouldn’t classify as obvious?’

‘Have you read the autopsy report?’ Dagmar asked.

‘It only landed on my desk this morning.’

‘We provided a translation.’

‘Thank you. I haven’t got to it yet. Is there anything we should know about?’

Keith Halliwell said, ‘I’ve been through it. Some of the fingernails on both hands were broken. She had quite long nails.’

Dagmar said, ‘It all depends on your interpretation. This may have happened when the body was underwater, or being recovered.’

‘Or when she was fighting an attacker,’ Halliwell said.

Dagmar shrugged in a dismissive way.

‘You went to some trouble finding out about her background in Tokyo,’ Diamond said. ‘The drugs and the prostitution.’