Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(58)

“Boots,” the DCI replied. “You have heard of Boots, I suppose? Come on. I'm expecting a report on the postmortem from my man who stood in on it. And I'm hoping for something from forensic as well.”

The report was in. It lay in the centre of Emily's desk, its pages rustling in desultory fashion from the fan's efforts with the stifling air. Emily scooped it up and scanned the paperwork as she ran her fingers back through her hair. The report had come in with another set of photographs. Barbara retrieved these.

They depicted the corpse, disrobed and prior to dissection. Barbara saw that the beating he'd taken was a thorough one. There was bruising evident on his chest and his shoulders as well as the bruising she'd seen in the earlier photographs of his face. The discolourations were of an uneven nature, however. And neither their sizes nor their shapes suggested contact from someone's fists.

As Emily continued to read, Barbara ruminated. A weapon must have been used on Querashi. But if so, what sort? While the bruising didn't appear consistent with marks made by flailing fists, it also didn't appear consistent, full stop. One mark might have been made by a tyre iron, another by a board, a third by the back of a shovel, a fourth by the heel of a boot. All of which suggested an ambush, more than one assailant, and mortal combat.

“Em,” she said contemplatively, “for him to look this bad, there'd've been signs all over the pillbox—inside and out—that he'd been in a fight. What did your crime scene team pick up in there? Were there blood splatters? Maybe something used to whack him?”

Emily looked up from the report. “Nothing. Not a sprat.”

“What about something on the top of the Nez? Bushes tramped down? Ground stomped over?”

“Nothing there either.”

“Then on the beach?”

“There might have been something in the sand initially. But the tide took care of that.”

Was it really possible that mortal combat could occur without leaving its traces anywhere but on the body? And even if combat had occurred on the beach itself, how practical was it to assume that every indication of an ambush had been washed away with the tide? Barbara wondered about these questions as she looked at the condition of the corpse. It was certainly bruised, but the inconsistency of the bruises directed her thinking to another possibility.

She picked up a close shot of Querashi's bare leg and then an enlargement of one section of that leg. A ruler marked the area of flesh that the pathologist wished the police to note. Here, on the shin, was a hair's-width cut.

In comparison with the contusions and scrapes on the upper part of his body, a two-inch cut on his leg seemed small potatoes. But taken in conjunction with what she and Emily already knew about the crime scene, the cut provided an intriguing detail for them to consider.

Emily slapped the report onto her desk. “Not much that we didn't already know. The broken neck killed him. Preliminarily, there's nothing obvious in the blood. He says to give the clothes a going-over, though. He recommends having a close look at the trousers.”

Emily went behind her desk and punched a number into the phone. She waited, rubbing the back of her neck with a limp washing flannel that she dug from her pocket. She muttered, “This heat,” and then after a moment she said, “DCI Barlow here. Is that Roger?” into the receiver. “Hmm. Yes. Bloody miserable. But at least you've got air conditioning where you are. Try it over here for some real suffering.” She balled up the flannel and shoved it away. “Listen, have you got something for me? … On the Nez killing, Roger. … You do recall it? … I know what you said, but we're being advised by the Home Office bone man to give his clothes a going-over … What? Come on, Rog. Dig it out for me, won't you? … I understand, but I'd rather not wait for the report to be typed.” She rolled her eyes. “Roger … Roger … damn it. Would you just get the bleeding information for me?” She covered the mouthpiece and spoke to Barbara. “Prima donnas, this lot. You'd think they'd been trained by Joseph Bell.”

She went back to listening, reaching for a notebook on which she began to scribble. She interrupted twice, once to ask how long, once to ask if there was a way to tell how recently the damage had been done. She rang off with a brusque “Thanks, Rog,” telling Barbara, “One of the trouser legs had a rip in it.”

“What sort of rip? Where?”

“Five inches from the bottom. A straightforward tear. It was fresh, he said, because the threads were broken but they weren't worn or smooth the way you'd expect if the trousers had gone through a wash.”

“The pathologist has given you a photo of his leg,” Barbara told her. “There's a cut on the shin.”

“To match the tear in the trousers?”

“That's where my money is.” Barbara handed over the pictures. Those that had been taken on the Nez on Saturday morning were sitting on the edge of Emily's desk. As the DCI looked at the photos of the body itself, Barbara sorted out the pictures of Querashi in the pillbox and went on to those of the location. She saw where the victim had left his car—at the top of the cliff, abutting one of the white poles that bordered the car park. She noted the distance from the car to the café, and then from the car to the edge of the cliff. And then she noticed what she had seen without registering upon her first viewing of these same photographs on the previous night. She certainly should have remembered them from her own long ago visit to the Nez with her brother: a set of concrete steps that carved a diagonal gash down the face of the cliff.