Cold Steel (6 page)

7

6.02 pm

'Put her on the central table.' Noel Dunne, the state pathologist, was directing operations in his 'office', Dublin's city morgue.

Rush-hour traffic had built up outside and horns blared as tempers flashed in the late afternoon heat. The morgue itself was a relatively small building, sixty feet wide and two hundred feet long, tucked in behind the coroner's office on Store Street in the north inner city. There was a police station next door and Dublin's main river artery, the Liffey, flowed to the sea a quarter-mile further south. The building was over one hundred years old and reeked of history. Inside its white-tiled walls generations of the dead of Dublin had been brought to be inspected and dissected, their cause of death determined. The bludgeoned, the bombed, the burned, the drowned, the shot, the strangled and stabbed had been laid on one of the autopsy tables in the central room. Those bodies fished out of the Liffey or the sea or discovered after days in the open were laid in a back room, the 'stinker's room'. The door between these chambers creaked with winds that draughted under ill-fitting frames. The roof of the morgue was wire-strengthened opaque glass that allowed plenty of natural light.

Three white-marble dissecting tables were anchored to the floor in the middle of the main autopsy room, six feet from one another. The marble was lipped to prevent
spillage and there was a short hose attachment at the top of each while a sink unit and swivel tap formed part of the bottom. There were overhanging fluorescents to light up the gloom when business continued well into the evening. In the old days an open fireplace had heated up the cold but this had been bricked over and wall-mounted electric units took the chill out of the air when needed. If the Dublin city morgue could speak, its voice would have had that rich gravely growl of a lifetime of Guinness, whiskey and cigarettes. But the walls were silent, the secrets of the dead safe.

The body of Jennifer Marks was laid face down on the central autopsy table, the handle of the knife still sticking out.

'Okay, Joe, get as many shots as you need of her back.' Dunne was walking slowly around the table, eyes darting behind beard and moustache as he took in the dreadful scene. Behind followed forensic photographer Joe Harrison.

FLASH! The first shot in the roll was an overview with knife handle sticking out like a landmark.

The autopsy room was crowded. Apart from Dunne and Harrison there were three white-suited forensics and a fingerprint expert. Resting against a bench two plainclothes detectives attached to the case looked on impassively.

Surgically gloved hands began removing the clothes from the young and stiff and cold body. First came her white Nike trainers.

'You can see grass stains on the heels of those trainers,' muttered Dunne.

FLASH! The trainers were caught.

Next came each navy blue ankle sock, gently teased off the stiff feet and placed on the nearby empty autopsy table. There, evidence bags waited to be filled.

'There's blood on those socks.' Dunne was scribbling on his autopsy chart.

The black panties were eased down and inspected for semen stains. The short black skirt came away next and it too was scrutinised for blood, semen and grass stains. Leaves, dirt, bits of gravel and cobwebs clung to the fabric. It was carefully laid separate from the others.

FLASH! The bare lower torso and legs were captured on film.

'Take a close-up of the blood smears on the side of her legs,' Dunne ordered and four flashes lit up the room.

A pair of razor-sharp scissors were produced and the black T-shirt stuck by blood to skin was cut, the line of incision well away from the entry wound. Carefully protected by two sets of overlapping surgical gloves, Dunne peeled the T-shirt in separate segments. FLASH! The room lit up again as Harrison's Nikon captured the sight of the naked back of a young woman lying on a cold white-marble autopsy table with a knife buried in her back to the hilt. For a moment no one spoke. Then the pathologist collected himself and walked around the table dictating immediate findings, directing further angles for Harrison's Nikon.

Jennifer Marks' body lay as it had been found, right cheek down, left side of face and lifeless eye looking sideways. Her long black hair lay in a tangled and blood-matted mess with bits of earth, leaves and cobwebs clinging. Her left ear with the three silver studs was clean. The hair was now carefully combed, traces of dirt and leaves and cobwebs placed in separate evidence containers, sealed and labelled. All finished it was time to turn her over.

'Okay, Joe,' Dunne ordered as he switched to a different A4 page and began scribbling, 'get a close-up of the handle. Four different views.'

As Harrison chose his angles, Jennifer Marks' wax-like fingertips were blackened and pressed to collect their prints. The handle of the knife sticking out from her back was of an unusual type, small and narrow with a hemp grip. It measured four inches from end to hilt.

'I doubt I'll get any prints off that,' muttered the fingerprint detective.

FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! Pause. FLASH! The hemp-covered handle was captured on film.

The knife was pulled from inside the body with a slurping sound. A trickle of dark blood oozed at the entry site.

'Nasty piece of work,' muttered Dunne. He held the dagger by the merest edge of its handle. The blade was narrow and slim, six inches long and double-edged, tapering to an unusually long final point. Blood clung the full length. FLASH! FLASH! Harrison caught the murder weapon before it was eased into a cylindrical cardboard evidence box, sealed and labelled.

Four sets of gloved hands lifted and turned the body so that it now lay face up. The stiffening of rigor mortis made Jennifer Marks look like an athlete about to take off from starting blocks. One knee was slightly bent, the other held straight. Both arms were bent at the elbows. The signs of hypostatic lividity, the pooling of blood due to gravity after death, was fixed in the face and neck and abdomen. Just as Dunne began recording his external inspection of the front of the body, the tapping of Jim Clarke's crutch echoed off the marble floor. It was followed by the heavier steel-tipped steps of Moss Kavanagh. They moved to within a few feet of the autopsy table. For a few brief seconds Dunne and Clarke exchanged glances then the man with the steel-grey beard and moustache and equally steel-grey head of hair began recording his findings of death.

Clarke reached into a side pocket and fingered a pair of rosary beads. It was a ritual he had developed over the years since moving to the serious crime division. He was a religious man, a weekly Mass attender in an era when going to Mass was considered old-fashioned, still believing in his God despite bearing witness to inhumanity on a daily basis. He always prayed for the souls of the deceased he had to deal with, no matter how violent and cruel and criminal their lives might have been. He looked at the
lifeless eyes of Jennifer Marks as they stared at the opaque glass above. Bits of dirt clung to the side of her face that had lain so long against ground. Clarke began silently reciting the Sorrowful Mysteries of the rosary.
'Hail Mary, full of grace…
'

'There's bruising around the throat,' Dunne interrupted his note-taking and pointed an elbow in the direction under inspection. '…
the Lord is with thee…'
'There is indistinct marking on the side of her left neck.' Dunne directed the Nikon. FLASH! The marking was captured. Harrison changed lenses and zoomed closer. '…
blessed art thou amongst women…'
FLASH! FLASH! FLASH!

'There are defence injuries on the hands.' All eyes stared at the deep cuts, one so deep tendons had been exposed. '…
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus…'
'There are two stab wounds in the left chest,' Dunne placed a gloved hand on the body and felt for bony landmarks, 'one in the sixth intercostal space, mid-axillary line. The wound is V-shaped suggesting the knife was twisted.' '…
Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners

The clipboard was laid down and Dunne studied the second wound closely. Clarke's silent prayers continued.

'There is another stab wound two inches below the left clavicle beside the left sternal edge.' He paused and changed glasses again. 'The second wound shows bruising at the edge.' He stood up, arched his back and groaned loudly. The onlookers grinned, glad of any diversion. Clarke continued to finger his beads,'...
now and forever, until our death…'
'Well, he certainly didn't hold back,' Dunne announced to no one in particular. '…
Amen…'

'She has three silver studs in her left ear lobe, a tattoo over the nipple of her right breast in the shape of a butterfly.' He squinted closer, 'Professional job, I'd say.' He lifted the left arm as much as the stiffness would allow and inspected. Then he laid it down, the limb sinking as if in treacle.

Dunne walked to a side press and started pulling at
drawers until he returned with a thick-lensed magnifying glass. He bent slightly and peered at the inside of the same elbow and grunted. 'Needle tracks here.' He handed the lens to one of the white boiler-suited forensics, 'Have a look.'

The other man squinted, moving his head up and down until he had the best focus. 'Absolutely,' he agreed. 'No doubt about it.'

Clarke paused in the middle of a
Glory be to the Father
to inspect, surprised at the finding.

Dunne scribbled on his clipboard and drew an arrow to the mark. His eyes wandered further, 'There's a silver ring in the umbilicus,' then further again, 'an old appendix scar.' The eyes continued their inspection.
'Our Father who art in heaven…
'

A sudden looney-tunes' ringing on Kavanagh's mobile phone mercifully broke the oppressive atmosphere and everyone sighed with relief.

'Boss,' the big man mouthed. 'It's the parents. They're outside.'

It was Dunne who suggested meeting Dan and Annie Marks first. 'He's a fellow doctor, a colleague,' he explained as he slipped off surgical gloves and climbed out of his protective clothing. 'It's the least I can do.'

Clarke readily agreed. He'd had to do it so often in the past he was relieved to have someone else to break the news. Also he'd heard rumours of the wheelchair-bound wife being shielded from the public eye by her husband. He wanted to see why.

Dan Marks sat on a steel and wood chair beside a chipped formica desk in the small office that acted as waiting room. His wife, Annie, was slumped in a wheelchair beside him. Her face was pale and drawn, eyes red-rimmed and damp. Once dark hair, now flecked grey, was pulled back tightly, revealing flabby, sagging cheeks and wrinkled eyes. She looked much older than her thirty-nine years.

'Dr Marks, my name is Noel Dunne,' a comforting and
condoling hand was stretched but not accepted. 'I'm the state pathologist.'

'Take me to my daughter,' interrupted Annie Marks. She ignored everyone, her gaze fixed firmly on the door between office and inner chamber.

'I'm afraid…' began Dunne, hoping to cushion the horrific vision awaiting inside.

'I am a doctor, too,' snapped Annie Marks, eyes still on the door. 'I know what death looks like. You have a body in there that is probably my one and only child. Spare me your well-meaning words.' The voice was hard and cold, clipped and definite.

Dunne looked towards Dan Marks. The other man just shook his head. He seemed crushed. He wheeled his wife through the door and across the marble floor towards the central autopsy table. The audience moved back, averting their eyes. The body lay face up, now covered from feet to neck with a thick green surgical drape.

'Lift me,' snapped Annie Marks and for a moment her husband started to plead then cut his own words short.

He slipped the brakes on the wheelchair and came behind, placing both hands under his wife's armpits. His tall athletic body took the strain with ease. One detective started forward to assist but a grasping hold from Dunne restrained. Unsteadily, Annie Marks was lifted to a standing position. She gripped the edge of the white mortuary table with both hands, swaying slightly. She gazed down at the lifeless face, eyes moving from side to side, as if committing the vision to memory. Her left hand brushed a wisp of blood-matted hair away from the dead girl's forehead, then she slumped back heavily and started to sob, her control gone.

'It's her, oh my God, it's her.'

'She was stabbed three times, twice in the front of the chest and then in the back.' In the courtyard outside the morgue Moss Kavanagh was
relaying the final post-mortem findings to Barry Nolan, chief crime reporter for the
Post
group of newspapers.

'The knife was left in her back, buried to the hilt.' Kavanagh paused, imagining Nolan scribbling furiously at the other end of the line. He walked in a brisk circle to stop his legs cramping.

'Any definite leads?'

'Nothing yet, no suspect.'

'Anything else?'

'I've enough to take the whole front page if you really knew,' said Kavanagh, looking around, anxious to make sure no one was listening. 'I'm only gonna tell you enough for an exclusive, not enough to hang me.'

'Fair enough,' Nolan agreed readily.

Kavanagh was only too aware of recent grumbles from prominent politicians about leaks to the media. 'She might have been into drugs. I can't say any more than that. She may have been messing with drugs and got hurt.'