BURY ME DEEP an utterly gripping crime thriller with an epic twist (Detective Rozlyn Priest Book 1) JANE ADAMS (fox in socks read aloud TXT) 📖

CHAPTER 20

Rozlyn knew officers who enjoyed post-mortems. Their reasons were many and varied. Some were simply curious; some awed by the complexity of the process and the insight it afforded into the act of death and dying. Others — and Brook fell into this category — saw them as a rite of passage to be gone through as soon as possible on joining the force and repeated as often as necessary as a sort of system check to make sure you weren’t going soft.

Rozlyn fell into none of those categories. Mortality was not something she required any reminder of and the methodical invasion of the human body was not something she ever could enjoy, even as an intellectual exercise.

She made herself attend because it was necessary to the efficiency of the job and because she didn’t think she could cope with Brooke’s jibes should she cop out.

Unlike those situations depicted in fiction it was quite rare for a body to jump the queue and be examined in the first hours after its discovery. While every effort was made to bump the victims of violence up the list, sometimes, especially when the cause of death was so evident, it was impossible. There were only so many hours in the day and so many pathologists to carry out the work. So, Charlie had to wait his turn.

This PM was one Rozlyn had dreaded. Charlie Higgins laid out on the stainless-steel table, naked and defenceless and with a large wound in the centre of his chest that shook Rozlyn badly. She leaned nonchalantly against the row of cupboards that ran the length of the room and watched from a respectable distance, coming closer only when directed by the man in charge.

“There’s not a doubt about the murder weapon, then?”

“Not a dicky bird of doubt. Want to see? There’s been some tissue shrinkage, of course, but . . .”

Before Rozlyn could protest that, no, she’d take the word of the expert, Chitall, the pathologist, had seized the weapon and begun its slow and careful insertion into the wound in Charlie’s chest.

“Come closer. You can’t see a damn thing from there. Now, look at the angle.”

With the utmost care, Chitall pushed the spear head home, sheathing it for a second time in Charlie’s flesh. “Of course, the force would have been greater than I’m applying. A single thrust, that was all it took, nicked the sternum and penetrated the heart. The cartilage attaching the rib did nothing to impede the progress. Whoever made this knew what they were doing, all right.” He eased it home, then stood back, triumphant. “Look, do you see it now?” He ran a finger along the haft that still protruded from the wound. “See it, see the angle?”

Rozlyn hadn’t taken it in. She’d been too busy feeling nauseous, fighting the red mist that blurred her vision and trying to swallow the bile rising in her throat. Then she saw what Chitall was getting at. The angle of attack didn’t make sense unless . . . “He was on the ground. He was already down.”

Chitall beamed at her.

“But how? I mean, his assailant would practically have had to be sitting on him. That would have been such an awkward strike.”

Chitall was shaking his head.

“What am I missing?”

“The shaft.”

“Shaft? There is no shaft.”

“No, but there was.”

“How do you know? If there was a shaft, why didn’t it break off inside the neck of the spear.”

“I know because I’ve found traces of it inside the neck, here,” He pointed. “And it didn’t break because when whoever did this tried to pull it out, it came away clean.”

“How? Why?”

At that Chitall shrugged. “Speculation only,” he said. “But the wood was common or garden stuff. Heavy dowel, probably. The kind you can find in any DIY superstore. I’m guessing it was used just for display. It’d been stained, there were fragments of that present too, and it probably looked good enough for show. It wasn’t intended to stay in place well enough for you to stick someone, just to look pretty when its owner hung it on the wall, or however you’d display such an object.”

That made a kind of sense. “Any other injury? Was he punched, kicked? How did he end up on the ground?”

Chitall shrugged again. “Anybody’s guess,” he said. “But he’s not exactly a big fellow. A good push would have done as well as anything and there’s micro bruising on the shoulders that might indicate that. But however he ended up on the floor, there’s no doubt what stopped him getting up again.”

Rozlyn nodded, her gaze fixed on that obscene conjunction between flesh and metal. “Would there have been much blood?”

“Depends if the assailant tried to pull the spear out at once or some time after and I’d go for the latter option. There’s evidence . . . don’t worry, I can show you that on the X-ray, you don’t have to look inside. Here, evidence of a second, shorter strike. The bone carries a second, much smaller notch, see?”

Rozlyn nodded. “So, you’re saying . . . you’re speculating that his killer stabbed him then when he tried to pull the thing out, he only got the wooden handle. So, he, maybe, tried to get it out by hand . . .”

“And the rocking motion of either attempt would have notched the sternum for a second time, yes.”

“So, it would have made sense to leave it in place until the body had been dumped.” She frowned. “What I don’t get is, if you go to the trouble of stealing an object like this, then to the further trouble of pulling it out of the wound, why chuck it away?”

“Why indeed? Sorry, I can’t help you there. People, as you know, do some strange things under stress. It could be that the assailant suddenly