‘Took quite a blow here to her right temple, just above the ear.’
The camera continued to flash, taking the close-ups as required: face, neck, eyes, mouth and nose.
Henson waited till it was done, then drew back the long blonde hair to reveal a dark circular bruise congealed with dry blood.
‘I’d say it was a blunt, round-edged object, size of a ten pence piece. Once again, we have maggot infestation around the perimeter and there are eggs, so they’ll give us more to go on as to the time she’s been dead.’ Henson pulled at his mask.
Langton nodded. ‘Off the cuff, how long would you say?’
‘Bloody hard to tell. Decomposition is not that bad, but if she was left during the past month, well, we’ve had freezing weather, snow and ice, etc., etc. She has very dark areas over the entire underside of her body, which indicate she’s been in this position for a considerable time. Could be a few months, or a few weeks, definitely not days.’
Henson began to prise open her fingers.
‘Nails are in good condition. Looks like I won’t get much from underneath, but we’ll check, obviously.’
Henson stood back to observe the length of the body in more detail from the pink-painted toenails to the top of the head.
‘There are no scratches, or other signs she tried to fight back. Hopefully, the crack on her temple rendered her unconscious. I’d say by looking there was vaginal and anal penetration.’
Henson indicated the girl’s vagina, his fingers brushing her skin softly. ‘You see these bruises? That indicates it was pretty brutal. We’ll take swabs, obviously, but the anus is split on two sides. Basically that’s it until we cut her open and find out more, so let’s get started, shall we?
She’s been weighed: just seven stone ten, little thing. The X-rays will be coming back to us shortly. I didn’t find anything broken, but we will get them to you anyway. There’s a small birthmark on her right shoulder, but apart from that, she is blemishless. A very pretty creature at one time.’
Langton nodded. He had not glanced in Anna’s direction once and she was thankful, as she knew her face above the white mask was about the same colour. But so was DCI Hedges’s face and she was surprised when he turned to Henson.
‘Keep me updated, I want to see if forensics get anything from her clothes.’
Hedges walked out and Anna heard Langton give a soft, derisive laugh. Henson caught it and his eyes crinkled above his mask.
‘She’s already been washed down, so we’ll get started. I just need the stabilizing block under her head.’
Henson picked up the scalpel. Leaning in closely to make the Y-incision, he cut shoulder to shoulder, meeting at the sternum and then slicing down to the abdomen and into the pelvis. When the internal organs were exposed, the stench of rotting flower stalks was overpowering. As the hiss of body fluids and gasses permeated the room, Anna took fast intakes of breath, fighting to stay upright. Her head felt fuzzy. No wonder Hedges had made his exit quickly.
Next, Henson cut through the ribs and collarbone before lifting the ribcage up and away from the girl’s internal organs. Henson removed the organs individually to weigh them. After he had taken samples of fluids in the organs, he opened the stomach and intestines to begin an examination of the contents.
Despite her fuzzy head, Anna observed that Henson’s assistants worked as a tight unit. He never had to give an order and while they were doing the weighing and blood tests, he could concentrate on the corpse’s head.
As Henson probed Melissa’s eyes, Anna’s view was obliterated. Without looking back, Henson addressed the room. ‘Well, she’d had severe haemorrhaging, which is usual for strangulation and we still have a veritable feeding frenzy in her eye-sockets. Nasty little sods.’
Anna focused her mind on trying to assimilate what he was saying, rather than looking down at the sliced-open body. Though the stomach contents had almost brought her to her knees, somehow she was still standing. Henson began the incision to lift the scalp. He sliced from behind the head, then peeled the scalp forwards over the face to expose the skull. At that point an assistant handed him a high-powered, high-speed, oscillating saw to open the skull. Next he was handed a chisel to prise off the skullcap.
So far Anna had managed to stay upright. It had seemingly become easier; the stench had mingled with antiseptic which helped. The sound of the chisel finished her off. Unable to control her retching, she only just made it to the ladies’ toilet in time. Banging past the cubicle door, she gasped for breath. She knelt over the toilet bowl and heaved. After several minutes, when she attempted to stand, her whole body was still shaking.
At the basin she ran cold water and kept splashing and dabbing her face with a paper towel, but every time she stood straight, she felt her stomach heave. The stench seemed to cling to her clothes, her hair and her hands, even though she washed and rewashed them using soap from the dispenser.
Still feeling dizzy, Anna leaned against the corridor wall and waited.
Langton eventually strode out of the morgue. ‘Dead approximately four weeks,’ he muttered to Anna and pulled off his green tunic. ‘She’d been lying there all that time.’ His mask hung by its thread. ‘It’s bloody unbelievable.’
Not waiting for her response, he continued towards the gents and disappeared inside. A moment later he emerged and gestured for her to follow him along the corridor.
‘You ever done synchronized swimming?’ he asked, still zipping up his trousers.
Anna was unsure if she had heard him correctly. ‘Sorry?’
‘They have these nose clips so they can stay underwater. They’re very useful. You clip one on and it forces you to breathe in and out with your mouth.’
‘You can also suck Mint Imperials.’ Langton turned round towards Anna once they were in the patrol car. ‘Those little round mints.’ He rested his arm along the back of the seat. ‘You get used to it; when you know what to expect, it’s easier.’ He returned his gaze to the front again.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured, embarrassed. She was at a loss what to say next, or whether there were questions she should have been asking.
The smell of the soap dispenser’s liquid, an odour like pinewood forests, was making her feel car sick. As if she didn’t have enough to contend with already. She closed her eyes, praying that she wouldn’t start retching again.
‘Sorry,’ Langton murmured as she opened a window. She noticed he had a lit cigarette in his hand. ‘Can’t smoke in the station. Well, not supposed to, anyway. Can’t smoke in most places now, so …’ He shrugged, then, inhaling deeply, leaned back on the headrest. A few moments later, somewhat out of the blue, he asked her, ‘Your mother still alive?’
‘No, she died two years before my father.’
‘Right. I remember, now. What was her name?’
‘Isabelle,’ she said, bemused.
‘Isabelle? Yes. She was very beautiful, I remember.’
She watched him flick the cigarette butt out of the window. The cool air from the open window was making her feel less nauseous. To her surprise, she found herself saying, ‘I take after my father.’
He chuckled, ‘I guess you do.’
Her father had been a heavy-set man: square-shouldered, with thick red curls. Her mother on the other hand had had olive skin and deep-black hair. She had been a stunning woman, tall and slender and very artistic; a designer. Anna had her dad’s hair, which sprouted all over rather than growing in a specific direction. She wore hers cropped short. For a redhead, she was unusually dark-skinned, unlike her pale freckly dad, and had inherited her mother’s dark eyes. She was short, also rather square, but she carried no fat; it was all muscle.
Anna had ridden horses since she was a toddler. She had won so many rosettes that she could cover herself from top to toe in red and blue ribbons. Once her dad had pinned them all over her and taken a photograph; she had only been eleven years old.
Anna’s thoughts turned towards Melissa. What had her young life been like, before she was reduced to her present state? She thought of herself at that age, then younger. She realized Langton was talking to her and she leaned forwards. ‘Sorry, sir, I missed that.’
‘The reason I force myself to go through the post mortem, to see that little soul cut to shreds, disembowelled, dehumanized, is because, somehow, it makes it easier. It steadies the anger. That prick Hedges couldn’t take it, of course. Wimp!’
He closed his eyes; conversation seemed at an end for now.
Anna followed Langton to the incident room, where he threw off his coat, took a marker and headed towards the board. He began listing the information he’d received from Henson. Without turning, he called out, ‘Jean, can you get me a chicken and bacon sandwich, no tomatoes, and a coffee.’
Jean, a thin-faced constable in uniform, was working at one of the computers. She stood up as soon as he called her name: ‘You want a Kit-Kat, or anything else?’ She didn’t look as if she suffered fools gladly.
‘No, thank you. Bacon and chicken sandwich, no tomatoes.’
Mike Lewis walked in as Langton continued to mark the board: ‘Mike, it looks like our tip-off was right.’
‘OK! We got a time of death?’