Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(43)

Hannaford nodded sagely.

Right tibia and right fibula fractured, Lisle continued. Compound fractures of the ulna and radius, also on the right, six ribs broken, left greater tubercle crushed, both lungs pierced, spleen ruptured.

“What the hell is a tubercle?” Hannaford asked.

“Shoulder,” he explained.

“Nasty business, but is all that enough to kill him? What sent him to the other side, then? Shock?”

“I was saving the best for last. Enormous fracture of the temporal bone. His skull broke like an eggshell. See here.” Lisle set his document on a work top and strolled over to a wall on which the human skeletal system was displayed on a large chart. “When he fell, I reckon he hit an outcrop on the way down the cliff. He flipped at least once, picked up speed with the rest of the descent, landed heavy on the right side and crushed his skull on the slate. When the bone fractured, it sliced into the middle meningeal artery. That produced an acute epidural haematoma. Pressure on the brain and no place for it to go that’s not lethal. He’d have died in about fifteen minutes although he would have been unconscious throughout. I take it there was no helmet nearby? No other headgear?”

“Kids,” Hannaford said. “They think they’re invincible.”

“This one wasn’t. Anyway, the extent of the injuries suggests he fell the moment he began the abseil.”

“Which itself suggests the sling broke the instant it took his full weight.”

“I’d agree with that.”

“What about the black eye? It was healing, yes? What’s it consistent with?”

“A bloody good punch. Someone gave him a decent one that likely floored him. You can still see the impression of the knuckles.”

Hannaford nodded. She gave a glance at Lynley, who’d been listening and simultaneously wondering why Hannaford was making him part of this. It was more than irregular. It was foolhardy of her, considering his position in the case, and she didn’t seem like a foolhardy woman. She had a plan of some sort. He would have laid a wager on that.

“When?” Hannaford asked.

“The punch?” Lisle said. “I’d say a week ago.”

“Does it look like he was in a fight?”

Lisle shook his head.

“Why not?”

“No other marks on him of a similar age,” Lynley put in. “Someone got one good blow in and that was that.”

Hannaford looked at him, quite as if she’d forgotten she’d brought him. Lisle said, “I’d agree. Someone snapped or someone was giving him discipline of some sort. It either resolved things, knocked him flat, or he wasn’t the type to be provoked, even by a punch in the face.”

“What about sadomasochism?” Hannaford asked.

Lisle looked thoughtful, and Lynley said, “I’m not sure sadomasochists like being punched in the face.”

“Hmm. Yes,” Lisle said. “I’d think your common S and M freak would be looking to have himself tweaked round his privates. Spanked as well. Maybe whipped for good measure. And we’ve got nothing on the body consistent with that.” All three of them stood for a moment, staring at the chart of the skeletal system. Lisle finally said to Hannaford, “How’s the dating coming along? Internet made your dreams come true yet?”

“Daily,” she told him. “You must try it again, Gordie. You gave up far too soon.”

He shook his head. “I’m finished there. Case of looking for love in all the wrong places, if I might coin a phrase.” He gazed mournfully round the mortuary. “Puts them right off, this does, and no getting round it. No dolling it up. I spill the beans and there you have it.”

“What d’you mean?”

He gestured to the room. Another corpse was waiting nearby, a sheet covering its body, a tag on its toe. “When they learn what I do. No one fancies it much.”

Hannaford patted him on the shoulder. “Well, no matter there, Gordie. You fancy it and that’s what counts.”

“You want to give us a try, then?” He looked at her differently, assessing and weighing.

“Don’t tempt me, dear. You’re far too young, and anyway I’m a sinner at heart. I’ll need the paperwork on this”?using her chin to indicate the trolley that had been washed off?“as quickly as possible.”

“I’ll sweet-talk someone,” Lisle said.

They left him. Hannaford examined a hospital plan nearby and ushered Lynley to the cafeteria. He couldn’t think she intended to have a meal after their visit to the morgue, and he found he was correct in this assessment of matters. Hannaford paused in the doorway and looked round the room till she spied a man at a table alone, reading a newspaper. She led Lynley to him.

It was the man, Lynley saw, who’d come to Daidre Trahair’s cottage on the previous night, the same man who’d asked him about New Scotland Yard. He hadn’t been identified then, but Hannaford did the honours now. This was ACC Ray Hannaford from Middlemore, she told him. The assistant chief constable stood and courteously offered his hand.

“Yes,” DI Hannaford then said to Lynley.

“Yes?” Lynley asked.

“He’s a relation.”

“Former,” Ray Hannaford said. “Regrettably.”

“You flatter me, darling,” DI Hannaford said.