Vanishing Point

‘Aye, I can see that!’ Wolfe said with a wheezy laugh.

Wolfe suddenly went from a wheezy gurgle of laughter to struggling to breathe. Brady watched as the pathologist bent over as he tried to free up some air in his lungs. Despite suffering from asthma, and having carried out countless autopsies on lung and throat cancer patients, Wolfe was still a hardened smoker. His twenty a day was seen by him as moderate. As was his daily couple of lunchtime pints.

‘You want to cut back,’ Brady advised, concerned by his old friend’s sudden loss of colour from his face and his bluing lips.

‘I have cut back … I used to smoke forty a day … didn’t I?’ panted Wolfe, still bent over. ‘Aye, and it’s no doing me any harm!’ wheezed Wolfe, still managing a wry smile.

Brady watched as he pulled out his blue Becotide inhaler and breathed in four long puffs to open up his airways.

Finally, he straightened up. He frowned at Brady’s look of concern.

‘It’s not me you should be worried about, Jack. Take a look in the mirror. You look worse than half the stiffs we get in here.’

Brady unconsciously touched the open wound above his eye.

‘I can put a couple of stitches in that for you?’ Wolfe offered.

Brady shook his head. ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ Brady replied. ‘You’ve got your work cut out as it is.’

‘Well, laddie, it’s your funeral when DCI Gates clocks you,’ Wolfe replied, disgruntled. The look of disapproval on his face was aimed directly at Conrad. As if for some reason Conrad was responsible for the condition of his boss’s face.

Wolfe dropped his gaze back to the work at hand. He was dressed in a white surgeon’s gown and skull hat with white rubber boots which had a yellow stripe down the back with his name, Dr A. Wolfe, written in black ink. On his small, but long-fingered, delicate hands he wore white latex gloves.

To anyone’s eye he looked like a surgeon. The difference was, his patients couldn’t be saved.

Brady winced as he looked at the gutted insides of the victim. Her ribs had been forced apart and her organs had been removed leaving behind a scene of bloody carnage. A pool of black blood swilled around in what was left of the empty carcass.

‘You sure you don’t need the bucket?’ queried Wolfe.

He had an uncanny knack of knowing when someone was going to puke.

‘No, just aching a bit. That’s all,’ Brady said.

‘This isn’t like you, Jack. Normally you’d take someone down before they even had a chance to look at you,’ Wolfe wheezed.

Brady held his breath as he tried not to react. Wolfe had performed most of the autopsy, which accounted for the disconcerting smell emanating from the systematically butchered body. The internal organs still had to be replaced back into the chest before the deep Y-shaped incision which worked from the shoulders down to the groin could be stitched up and the body could be stitched back together. But first the internal organs would have to be individually weighed and documented. The slightest detail noted.

Brady looked across at Harold, the anatomical pathology technician. Not that Wolfe ever used him. Harold’s job was mainly to stand around and watch as Wolfe cut up and investigated every unusual detail on whatever stiff Harold had removed from one of the thirty body refrigerators in the hospital. Harold was a tall, gaunt-looking young man with long reddish-blonde hair tied back in a ponytail and a long red goatee beard plaited in two strips.

‘What have you found?’ asked Brady as he walked round to Wolfe.

He was busy examining the victim’s internal reproductive organs which were still in situ.

‘The victim wasn’t pregnant at the time of death but she had had an abortion within the last month I’d say,’ replied Wolfe.

‘Both her fallopian tubes and ovaries are scarred by severe endometriosis. As is the uterus which also shows evidence of extreme trauma. So I’m surprised she was able to get pregnant given the scar tissue. But you see here?’ Wolfe said, pointing. ‘There is an area of haemorrhage on the anterior surface of the cervix where it joins the body of the uterus. This haemorrhagic area measures approximately two centimetres and there is also a tear in the cervix measuring three centimetres in length.’

Brady stared at the mutilated body, wondering what kind of short life she had lived.

‘See this scarring on the cervix here?’ questioned Wolfe as he looked up at Brady.

Brady nodded.

‘Caused by an abortion – a bad one at that. She would have had extensive bleeding afterwards. Still evidence of haemorrhaging pooling by the cervix, as I already pointed out. In all honesty I’m surprised she survived. I’ve had autopsies where women have died from botched abortion jobs like this one. She would never have been able to have children after that.’

Brady looked closely at the scarring from the botched abortion. It was bad. Even to his untrained eye.

‘And you see this trauma here?’ Wolfe pointed out.

‘These internal and external wounds were carried out when she was alive and are indicative of her being raped. Gang-raped and violently might I add to cause that kind of damage.’

Brady looked across and caught Conrad’s eye. He looked equally as uncomfortable with the finding.

‘When you get the autopsy report you’ll see that I’ve established numerous finger marks on her lower and upper legs and her hips and back from where she has been forcibly held down. I’ve checked them and there is a consistency which shows that three different people held her down.’

‘What about any traces of DNA evidence? Sperm? Pubic hair?’ Brady asked.

‘Bleach has been inserted into her vagina and rectum, no doubt to cover the DNA evidence. But it appears that they wore protection as I’ve found nothing. And then we have to add in that she’s been in the sea for approximately two hours.’

Brady sighed. He had been hoping that Wolfe would have been able to find some trace of forensic evidence left behind.

‘What about the victim’s age?’

‘Approximately 16 to 18 years of age; body length 65 inches and weight 90 pounds which suggests she’s malnourished.’

Wolfe paused.

Brady followed his gaze to the sagging flaps of skin that had once been her breasts.

‘As you can see the victim had breast implants which I have removed. The serial number on the implants might be of some use to you,’ Wolfe said. ‘Harold will give you a copy of it.’

‘At least that’s something,’ Brady conceded as he caught Conrad’s eye.

Brady didn’t know whether Conrad’s silence was because he was fighting the urge to puke, or whether he was keeping quiet to avoid Wolfe’s acerbic tongue.

But he looked as hopeful as Brady felt at the possibility of being able to identify the victim from the serial number.

‘Cause of death?’ asked Brady.

‘Well … this is the interesting part. You would think asphyxiation because of the damage to her neck externally and internally,’ Wolfe explained as he pointed to the mottled bruising around what was left of her neck. ‘But that wasn’t the cause of death. She was strangled but whoever did this stopped before she actually asphyxiated. The hyoid bone, the thyroid and the cricoid cartilages are fractured, and there is pulmonary edema, with froth in the trachea and bronchi. The lungs are bulky, crepitant and over-distended and there is right ventricular dilatation. But …’ Wolfe paused, ‘the damage isn’t significant enough for her to have suffocated.’

Brady nodded.

‘Cause of death was definitely cardio-respiratory arrest due to shock,’ added Wolfe.

‘Was she alive when they started to decapitate her?’ asked Brady, hoping that for her sake that wasn’t the case.

He saw Conrad shift uncomfortably at the question.