Cold as Ice (Willis/Carter #2)(8)
‘No obvious signs of the use of needles.’ Harding stopped dictating. She looked across at Carter.
‘Any luck with the jewellery or the tattoo?’
‘Not yet.’
‘What about the heroin?’
‘No reports of any problems on the streets, Doctor.’
‘Maybe she came from abroad and brought it with her,’ answered Harding.
‘If she did we might never find out about it – or her,’ replied Carter.
‘Really?’ Harding said sarcastically. ‘You surprise me, Inspector. So defeatist.’
Carter glanced Ebony’s way. They both knew what the sharp end of Harding’s tongue felt like. She rarely thought before she spoke. She didn’t see that she needed to. She was cocooned in the mortuary world where she was queen and reigned supreme.
She continued her examination: ‘Overall, the body is in a very poor state. I count . . . three infected ulcerated sites on her torso, a further six on her limbs. The largest of the wounds is on her left thigh.’
Mark followed her silent instruction as he moved into place and laid a paper tape measure down the length of the wound. ‘Twenty-four centimetres top to bottom, width sixteen point five. Depth . . .’ he said as he placed a Q-tip into the wound and gently prodded the base until he found the lowest point then he slid his fingers down level with the surface and took a reading – ‘seven centimetres deep in the centre.’ He slid the Q-tip around, prodding the sides of the wound. ‘Underpinning of the wound at ten o’clock, depth of . . .’ he measured it the same way as before – ‘five centimetres.’
Harding handed him a pair of tweezers. ‘Any debris inside there?’
He took the tweezers from her and got down level with the wound to have a look. His fingers disappeared inside the tunnel and re-emerged with the remains of a small eel.
‘Must have been having his breakfast when she was pulled out,’ Carter said.
Harding proceeded to cut away a section at the side of the wound and place it into a specimen tray. ‘She would have been in huge pain from these wounds,’ she said. ‘Some of them are showing signs of trying to heal. I can’t imagine she could have carried on normal life with these. We’ll have to wait until we have the blood results back to know what she had in her system but it will take longer to find out about these infected sites. It’s not a quick process; it involves growing a culture to identify it. The only time I’ve seen this amount of ulceration in random sites like this is in cases of MRSA, the flesh-eating bug. But, without doubt, left untreated like this, this many infected wounds would have led quickly to organ failure and death: I’m not quite sure why they didn’t.’
Harding moved down to the woman’s abdomen. ‘Skin slack – a child maybe? Rapid weight loss evident. There is bruising around the pelvis area.’ She lifted the woman’s right knee up and outwards. She began a detailed examination of the genital area. She opened the entrance to the vagina and examined a short thick scar.
‘She’s had a child within the last few years. She was given an episiotomy.’ Harding waited whilst Ebony photographed. ‘We’ll turn her over now.’
Carter helped Mark turn the body over.
‘We have one ulcerated site on her lower back section which is similar to the wounds on her front,’ said Harding. ‘But we also have deep grazing on the pressure points: shoulder blades, buttocks and calves.’ Mark handed her a scalpel. She cut down the centre of the back and across to free the area of skin over each shoulder blade and then lifted the flaps and cut them free to examine them. ‘Some sort of organic material, splinters or fibres of some kind, are growing into the flesh. She must have rubbed against something over a long period of time and it’s implanted and taken root in her flesh.’ She placed the skin on trays before lifting the victim’s right knee upwards and parting the buttocks.
‘There is tearing of the tissue around the anus and bruising around the inner thigh and leading up to the vagina, but this has also become the entry point into the body for the feeders in the canal.’ Harding inserted the end of a swab into the anus and looked at the end of it – minute particles of decomposing flesh mixed with a grey sludge from the canal were clinging to it.
‘Can there be many fish living in the canal?’ Willis asked
‘Carp, eels, perch, pike even.’ Carter answered. ‘Someone caught a seventeen-pound carp in the Regent’s Canal just near here a while ago. I used to fish there with my dad.’
‘Don’t they all die if the canal freezes over? asked Willis.
‘Survival of the fittest, Ebb,’ answered Carter.
Harding discarded the swab into the specimen tray. ‘I’m going to take a biopsy of the rectum via the anus. It tears easily and there might be something embedded inside.’ She took a scalpel from Mark and cut into the side wall of the anus and took a sample of tissue.
When she had finished, Harding changed her gloves and indicated that Ebony should come across to stand where she was for a moment, level with the woman’s head, to photograph as she cut into the flesh of the neck.
‘I’m now going to make a detailed examination of the injuries that led to her death.’ She pulled the magnifying lens and spotlight down over the victim’s neck and carefully cut into the crushed trachea with a scalpel. She opened up the neck and exposed the splintered bones, then turned the woman’s head and examined the neck closely. ‘All seven cervical vertebrae are broken. The discs and ligaments are crushed, compressed. The large muscles of the neck are torn. To do this much damage it would take continued and immense pressure. There are no signs of a tourniquet, which would show where the initial pressure emanated from, where the screw was turned, so to speak.’