13
IDENTITY
The steep-roofed Gothic building at the back of Camley Street had a melancholy air, even for a coroner’s office. The wet green banks of the St Pancras Old Church graveyard sloped down on either side of the walls, as if threatening to inundate the little house with the cascading tombs of the dead. Even a modern extension could not erase the sense of desolation that enveloped it. Tall black iron railings, each spear topped with a gold-painted fleur-de-lis, surrounded the doorway. Beneath a rowan tree, a muscular grave digger stood motionless, looking down at them with feigned disinterest. He was young, but it seemed to May that the mournful atmosphere had stained his features with sorrow.
King’s Cross was increasingly becoming an area of paradox; the more its pavements filled with commuters dashing between the stations, the less travelled were its backstreets. The morgue was only a few hundred yards from the huge international terminus that linked England to Europe, yet it was bordered by plane trees and beeches, waterways where herons stalked the reed beds and a nature reserve so quiet that often the only sound to be heard was the bleating of geese. Apart from the grave digger, there was not a soul to be seen in any direction.
‘What a bloody miserable place,’ muttered Renfield, glancing up at the swaying branches that scraped against the building’s low roof.
‘You haven’t been here before?’ asked May.
‘No, I always met Rosa at the pub around the corner. I dumped her.’
‘Why?’
‘She gave me the willies. She’s got a funny attitude to the dead. A bit like old Bryant. Believes in spirits and all that malarkey.’
‘Why is she doing this for you if you broke up with her?’
‘I don’t know. I was a bit surprised myself.’
Renfield thumbed the door buzzer. A slender olive-skinned woman with centre-parted black hair and dark, haunted eyes opened the door. She had an air of recent bereavement about her, which was at least appropriate considering where she worked. ‘Come in,’ said Rosa Lysandrou, checking the empty street behind them. ‘There’s someone here who wants to see you.’
May shot Renfield a look as they passed into the gloomy nicotine-brown interior. Rosa was dressed in mourning black, an outfit she regarded as respectful and proper for processing the dead. She looked like a woman who had lost any reason to smile soon after her teenage years. It seemed entirely natural for her to be in such a solemn place as this, although she did come over a bit like a character from a Daphne du Maurier novel.
‘Hullo there, Giles, what are you doing here?’ asked May, shaking Giles Kershaw’s hand as he stepped into the corridor.
‘I applied for this position as soon as I heard about the vacancy,’ replied Kershaw, unzipping the top of his green disposable suit. ‘St Pancras Coroner—it’s a huge step up for me. Come on, I’ll show you around.’ He led them into the building.
‘I must say I feel bad about what happened, the unit closing just after we recommended you for the position at Bayham Street mortuary. We put in a good word for you. I’m glad you landed on your feet.’
‘Well, I owe you a favour. Perhaps I can find a way to pay it back. Here, take a look at this.’ Giles opened a carved church door that led into the Chapel of Rest. Usually such places were bare white cells adorned with a single plain oak cross and a bench or two, but this one was elaborately Gothic, a proper Victorian chapel with brass candlestick holders and a life-sized painted statue of Christ crucified. His anguished eyes were turned Heavenwards and were weeping tears of blood. Livid wounds in His side gushed crimson rivers. Was this a deliberate psychological ploy, May wondered, that after relatives identified the bodies of their loved ones in the morgue they should come in here and see how Christ suffered? Was the idea to place their own grief in perspective and bring them to a better understanding of their religious beliefs? Or had it simply been done to creep them out with guilt?
‘A bit over the top, isn’t it?’ observed May.
‘Constructed by the architect of the church behind us. There was never a shortage of money for its upkeep, because of the fine residents in the graveyard.’
Kershaw took them along the passage to the autopsy room, and turned on the overhead lights, green tin circles that dated from the 1940s. ‘Come on in. Sorry about the smell of damp. I asked Rosa about it, and she said, “What smell?” I think she’s been here too long.’
‘Renfield used to go out with her,’ May whispered.
‘Oh, no offence meant. She’s very nice in her own way.’ Kershaw flicked the lank blond hair from his eyes. ‘Anyway, now I’m the new St Pancras Coroner. Rather an honour.’
‘You always had ambition,’ said May, following him.
‘I’m sure Mr Bryant would appreciate the circumstances surrounding my employment.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Didn’t you hear? The old coroner, Professor Marshall, apparently had some kind of nervous breakdown last October and vanished. Rosa knows all about it. She’s still very loyal to him. Gets a bit Mrs Danvers-ish if you ask too many questions. They couldn’t keep his job open any longer.’
‘Death doesn’t wait. I imagine you’ve stepped into a bit of a backlog.’
‘They had someone covering, but he rubbed Rosa up the wrong way and was forced to move on pretty sharpish. I couldn’t have taken on the position without you and Mr Bryant showing so much faith in me. Sadly I don’t think I can repay that faith today. I’m afraid I’ve no ID on your freezer man. I can’t access any of the old PCU databases. It’s annoying because I wanted to check his fingerprints through IDENT1, but we’re not allowed to use the system. Fifty identification agencies in Great Britain, and we’re locked out of all of them.’
‘Islington CID are trying—his prints haven’t come up yet.’
Kershaw led the way to the drawer cabinet, pumped up a trolley and slid out a body covered in white plastic. Transferring the remains to the table, he folded down the top half of the sheet. ‘I’ve conducted an internal examination but the results won’t be very reliable without deeper analysis. Although the freezer was fairly airtight, I’m told the unit backed onto a warm ventilation shaft from the building next door, which raised his body temperature.’
‘Do you have anything at all?’
‘I can’t tell you exactly when he died because the crew from Islington had to pass the investigation over to their opposite numbers at Camden, and they didn’t maintain the body at the temperature in which it was found. By the time he got here he’d been placed in a variety of different atmospheres. As you can see, he’s a white male roughly thirty-three years of age, outwardly healthy if a bit overweight. He’s worked outdoors; there are tan lines on his upper arms, hard skin on the thumbs, a few cuts and nicks. The amputation was made with sharp, slim blades. Two distinct types of cut here, a series of small strokes to cut through the skin and meat, and a second with stronger pressure to sever the cartilage in the neck. Two knives, one for the heavy cutting, the second smaller and finer. It’s a professional job all right. I’m surprised the tattoo and the hands are intact. Unfortunately the ivy wreath is straight out of the book, a standard design, and one of the most common available. The cutting could have been done with surgical equipment, or the type of vegetable knife you can buy in any decent kitchenware shop. He was beheaded after death. The cuts are uniform and smooth, nothing to make the killer’s handiwork recognisable. We have microtomic equipment here, which has proven useful. I took a thin slice of tissue from the throat and another one from the gut to compare the effects of decomposition in an airless atmosphere. It’s not my field, so I had to use one of Professor Marshall’s contacts. Luckily Rosa kept his address book.’
May walked slowly around the body, studying it. Putrefaction had been halted in its advance, but the corpse’s skin had turned green and black, producing an acrid odour. He found it hard to imagine that this man had recently been walking around, eating in restaurants, watching TV. He was someone’s lover, someone’s son, but there was almost nothing human left. Without a head his trunk bore an unsettling similarity to something you would find in a meat locker. How would his loved ones feel if they could see him like this? ‘Get anything else?’
‘It’s tricky because the usual decay process has been interrupted by the relatively sterile storage of the body. Usually, after two to three days you get staining on the abdomen. The discolouration spreads, veins grow dark, the skin blisters after a week, tissue starts softening and nails fall off at around the three-week stage, and finally the face becomes unrecognisable as the skin liquefies—’
‘We don’t need a lecture about decomposition,’ interrupted Renfield impatiently. ‘Have you got a date of death or not?’
‘Four or five days ago,’ Kershaw replied, rattled. ‘The victim’s blood hadn’t had time to pool. He was dead when he was cut up, so it’s possible the attacker struck while he was in the shop. Either that, or he was killed very close by. In that case you’ll be looking for a van, because he was laid out flat; there were no blood creases behind the legs or in the elbows. I made a couple of calls; Islington CID have a record of gangs who have removed identification from their victims in the past, but there’s no obvious MO match with any of them, and none are currently active in the area where the victim was found. Whoever killed him was a bit careless about washing the body. There’s a streak of mud here, on his right shoulder blade. Looks like London clay. I’d like to get a sample off for analysis, but I don’t have a case number.’
‘Any idea how he died?’
‘There are no entry wounds on the body so it must be on the missing part. Possibly head trauma, although we’ll have to find it first.’
‘We haven’t found anything on the premises yet,’ said May. ‘Not that we expected to. I’ll have Dan Banbury make a thorough search, but the property has been used as a dumping ground for builders’ materials, so we won’t have time to get to it today.’
Kershaw looked down at the corpse and ran a forefinger around the neatly severed neck with tenderness. ‘I guess he’ll yield his secrets when the last piece turns up.’
‘We don’t have the time to wait for that,’ said May. ‘We have to establish an identity fast.’
‘There was one peculiar thing,’ said Giles, uncovering the corpse’s pale feet. ‘What do you make of this?’
Renfield and May leaned forward. Just below both ankles, there were dozens of tiny black specks.
‘Scratches?’ May asked.
‘Burns,’ replied Kershaw. ‘Hot metal filings. He didn’t wear proper work boots. They’re in different stages of healing, so they didn’t all happen at the same time. It’s a professional hazard. He’s done some welding.’