The blood had been washed from her body, but she was unrecognisable from her picture, with two huge swollen pouches for eyes. Lacey had been lying on her side in the dumpster, and now she was on her back, Erika could see the left cheek bone of that heart-shaped face was broken. Scores of deep cuts covered her chest, upper arms, and thighs.
Doug gave her a moment to take it in, then started to explain his findings. ‘These cuts are consistent with an extremely sharp object. They have an even depth and line, which makes me think she was slashed repeatedly with a small sharp blade. There is blunt force trauma on the back of the skull, the left ocular bone – that’s the eye socket – and the left cheekbone was shattered. You can see that her ears were pierced, and an earring was ripped out of her left ear.’ He indicated a torn earlobe.
‘Was she sexually assaulted?’
‘There’s no evidence of semen, or any latex residue,’ he said. ‘But she has internal injuries on the walls of her vagina. The cuts are small but again they are consistent with a small sharp blade being inserted… Perhaps a Stanley knife or scalpel.’
‘To torture,’ finished Erika.
‘I believe so, yes. Also, see the wrists. There is bruising consistent with her wrists being bound. I think in this instance her wrists were tied with a thin chain: see the linking in the bruising. She has identical bruising on her neck.’
‘She was tied up… Did you manage to take anything from under her nails?’
‘Note the fingers,’ he added, gently lifting one of the hands.
Erika’s stomach lurched. The fingernails had been pulled out.
‘When I saw her at the scene, her fingers were curled against her cheek. I hadn’t noticed this… Maybe she scratched him, and he didn’t want us to get his DNA,’ said Erika.
Doug nodded. ‘Her right arm is broken in two places, and you can see the toes on the right foot have been crushed,’ he said.
‘Cause of death?’
‘Despite all of this, the actual cause of death was catastrophic blood loss from an incision in the femoral artery in her left thigh.’ He moved to the side of the table, and gently parted her legs to show a small incision, high on her inner thigh near the groin.
Erika noticed that her pubic hair was shaven, with a tiny amount of stubble.
‘Was her pubic hair shaved during the post-mortem?’ she asked.
‘No.’
Erika didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but was this a sign of promiscuousness? She looked back to Doug.
‘I wouldn’t use it as a moral compass on the poor girl,’ he said, reading her thoughts. ‘Was it a bad choice on her part? Or were events thrust upon her, out of her control? That’s up to you to find out.’
‘She was reported missing last week, and her body was found several days later,’ started Erika.
‘Yes. I believe the wounds were inflicted over a period of several days; some had already started to heal. The incision to the femoral artery would have been fatal, and I would expect her to have bled out within minutes.’
‘So you think she could have been held somewhere and tortured?’
‘All I can say is that the injuries were inflicted over a period of two to three days…’
‘I’m impressed you were able to ID her so quickly,’ said Erika.
‘When the victim is found with her bag, wallet and ID, it’s fairly easy… but you should know this?’ he said, narrowing his eyes.
‘Yes. Of course.’
He looked as if he wasn’t buying it, but continued. ‘The incision on the inner thigh, the femoral artery, is precise. He knew where he was going with the knife…’
‘You think it’s a “he”?’
‘Are you going all politically correct on me, Erika?’
‘No. I’ve seen the havoc and violence women can inflict just as much as men…’
He beckoned her over to a large anatomy poster fixed to the tiled wall. The body, of undetermined sex, lay with arms splayed outwards and it showed the position of all the major organs and arteries.
‘You see here, the inner thigh at the femoral artery,’ he said, indicating with a biro. ‘The artery is buried in folds of fatty tissue. The femoral artery is used as an entry point for heart procedures: for example, when a stent is inserted to widen a heart valve. It’s non-invasive; instead of opening up the chest cavity you can go through the groin.’
‘You think the killer had medical knowledge?’
‘Again, that’s for you and your SIO to work out.’
‘Do you have a time of death?’
‘Looking at the rate of rigor mortis, I’d say she has been dead for 48 hours or more.’
Four days are unaccounted for since she went missing, thought Erika. Four days of fear, agony and pain.
She turned away from the anatomy diagram and went back to the table to look at Lacey, and the incision in her upper thigh. ‘Could it be a lucky guess on the part of whoever did this? Finding this femoral artery and making the incision?’ she asked.
‘Yes, but it would be a fluke to find it, and then make the correct incision first time. If she’d been unconscious, it would have been easier to locate, but you can see that she put up a fight.’
Erika looked down at Lacey’s beaten and broken body. The long neat line of stitches from her navel to chest, completed after the autopsy, were at odds with the random violence inflicted on her. Erika wished that the other cuts had been sewn up too. It just seemed to expose her even more.
‘It would be really good if you could catch this one,’ said Doug, his face set in grim sadness.
Erika nodded. ‘I will. I always do.’
Chapter Eight
Erika drove back to the police station in Bromley, and spent the rest of the afternoon staring gloomily at a spreadsheet on her computer. She couldn’t focus on the numbers, which kept blurring in front of her eyes. All she could see was the battered body of Lacey, lying in the morgue.
Just before five she was about to go and grab a coffee, when she made a decision and picked up her phone. This time, Melanie Hudson answered.
‘Did you get my message?’ Erika asked. ‘Josh McCaul, the lad who lives next to the kitchen showroom, states he saw a man called Steven Pearson acting suspiciously in the hours leading up to when he discovered Lacey Greene’s body…’
‘I got your message,’ she said irritably. ‘We have Steven Pearson in custody.’
‘Already?’
‘Yes. We brought him in a couple of hours ago. We did another door-to-door, and got a positive ID on him from a neighbour. Steven Pearson’s well known to the police in the area: GBH, ABH, attempted rape. He had Lacey Greene’s wallet on him, with her cash and bank cards, and he had a surgical scalpel. His arms and face are also covered in scratches…’
‘Did he have her mobile phone?’
‘No… Look, Erika, I appreciate you passing info on to me, but Superintendent Sparks gave you a direct order to stay away from this investigation.’
‘He did, but—’