‘Do you have any idea who did this to you, Eve?’ Dr Margot Alexander asked, meeting her gaze with penetrating eyes, her pencilled brows arching a fraction over the rim of her glasses.
Eve shook her head. ‘No. And, as I said, I don’t want the police involved, at least not yet. But I do need the results back as soon as possible. I’m happy to pay whatever it costs myself.’
Margot pursed her plum-coloured lips and gave a precise, little nod. ‘Understood.’
They were in her office in the basement of one of London’s vast teaching hospitals, where she worked as a pathologist. She had examined Eve and taken all the necessary swabs and samples, including blood, all of which would be sent off to an independent lab for analysis. With her dark hair neatly pinned up in a bun, she looked bright and fresh in her white lab coat. Her rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the linoleum as she moved quickly around the small room, bagging up samples, filling out the necessary forms and tidying up. They had known each other professionally for the best part of ten years, since the first murder case they had worked on together, and occasionally met for a drink outside work. Margot could be trusted to be discreet, as well as very thorough. Although horrified at what had happened, and possibly even more shocked that Eve appeared to be so outwardly calm, she had finally accepted that Eve didn’t want to go into any of the details or involve the police. But she kept darting Eve little concerned looks from time to time, as though she expected her to fall to pieces at any moment and must be ready in an instant to pick them up. Thankfully, whatever her views, she had the sensitivity to keep her mouth shut. Eve had no wish to discuss how she was feeling. She didn’t even really understand it herself. She had worked for a while in one of the Met’s Sapphire Units, dealing on a daily basis with crimes of a sexual nature, the victims both male and female. Each crime, each circumstance, each reaction was unique. It was impossible to generalize. Yet still she felt completely inadequate in her response. Maybe it had been easier for her to distance herself from what had happened, as she hadn’t been fully awake. The vague memories were like fleeting dreams, melded with nightmares from the past and she wasn’t sure what was real and what was not. She hadn’t known terror, or desperation, or humiliation, or had feared for her life and there had been little physical violence other than the act itself. Moments of blind, senseless fury and a desire for revenge were the only emotions that punctuated the drifting fog of numbness that had set in. The distancing, the feeling of being an observer was her ‘coping mechanism’, according to one of her psychotherapists. ‘It’s how you survive, Eve. It’s how you deal with the bad stuff.’ How bad did it have to get, for her to rage and scream and cry like a normal person about what had been done to her? Maybe she was still in shock. Maybe at some point the full horror of what had happened would suddenly come crashing down over her. In the meantime, she had to keep going as best she could.
‘When can I expect the results back?’ she asked.
‘I’ll fast track them. The semen analysis will take a couple of days but, as you know, the tox results could be weeks. I’ll also write an official report. As and when you need it for evidence, everything will be properly documented.’
‘I’ve got a few more things that need testing, both for prints and DNA.’
She handed Margot a shopping bag, which contained, separately bagged, the mug and glass Harry had used the night he took her out for dinner, which she had retrieved, still unwashed, from the dishwasher, as well as his many cigarette butts from the kitchen bin.
‘I can get the DNA profiles back in twenty-four hours.’
‘Good. It may be a long shot – a precaution, really. But I need to know as soon as possible if there’s a match with the samples you took from me.’ She still couldn’t quite believe that Harry was responsible, although there was often no rhyme or reason to rape and she barely knew him. But if her instincts were right and there was a link to the samples taken from Jane McNeil’s body, Harry had an alibi, which had satisfied the police. If not Harry, it could have been anybody at the party. It was a shame she couldn’t get hold of Stuart Wade’s glass too. He looked like a man with attitude and enough pent-up aggression to carry out a rape. ‘This piece of paper also needs testing, both for prints and DNA.’ She handed Margot the envelope that Dan had given her in the car, containing the slip of paper dropped by the intruder in his office the night before. ‘It relates to a break-in. I’ve no idea if there’s a connection to what happened to me, or if you’ll find anything. The man who dropped it was wearing gloves. But whoever gave it to him may have been less careful. I just want to be on the safe side.’
‘No problem,’ Margot said. ‘We’ll process it as quickly as possible. We can sort out the finances later. But, as I said, the tox results will take a while. Any ideas what we should be looking for?’
‘One of the dissociatives, like Ketamine. I was hallucinating and had a strange, out-of-body experience.’
Ketamine also seemed a likely candidate for so-called date rape on a racing yard, since its primary use was as a horse anaesthetic and it was easy to get hold of. She wondered if it had been used to knock out Jane McNeil too, although there had been no mention in the pathologist’s report summary of any drugs being found in her system. Either the time elapsed was too long and the body was too badly decomposed, or they hadn’t checked for it. It was equally likely that she had gone willingly with her killer.
Margot peered at her again questioningly over her glasses. ‘You say you think this might be related to a cold case?’
‘It’s not just cold, it’s dead and buried and someone’s doing time for the murder.’
‘But you think the real killer’s still on the loose?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Can’t you retest the exhibits?’
‘The local police won’t cooperate. There’s a review of the case pending with the CCRC, but it’s looking as though they may throw it out. The autopsy report was inconclusive, but sperm were found on the victim’s thigh. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough biological material to develop a full DNA profile ten years ago. To give you the background, it had been raining heavily for many days at the time and the body had been partially set on fire, then half buried beside a brook, or a gulley, so probably exposed to more water. The man who’s in jail had a vasectomy, so the prosecution case centred on the sperm having got there by secondary transfer, such as a towel at the gym, or some such ludicrous means. Unfortunately, the jury believed them. Much more likely, she had sex with somebody else, who then killed her.’
‘Sometimes the science is too complicated for the man in the street …’
‘Or the expert witnesses think they’re talking to a load of academics and no normal person can understand them, particularly if the defence is not up to paraphrasing and giving a clear explanation.’
‘Very true. You said that the sperm were deformed?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, you can discount the rain or water as a factor. Spermatozoa resist, even submerged in water, very well; better than blood, in fact. One of my students recently presented an interesting paper on the subject. She had to use pigskin as a proxy for human skin, but the results are compelling. If the sperm were abnormal, it’s likely to be for another reason. I know you’re wondering if there’s a link to what happened to you and the old murder.’
Eve nodded.
‘Let’s see what we have here.’
She took one of the slides she had prepared and added some liquid with a pipette. ‘We call this Christmas Tree stain and you’ll see why, in a minute. Very apt for this time of year, I think, and it’s one of my favourites.’ She placed the glass cover slip on the slide, slotted it into the tray of the microscope and peered down the eyepieces.
‘Hmm. Very interesting,’ she said, after a moment. ‘You’d better come and look at this.’
She stepped aside and Eve put her eyes to the lenses, adjusting the focus until the image was clear. The background was a greenish colour and it was speckled with little red dots, which at first glance did look remarkably like Christmas tree baubles.
‘The red bits are the spermatozoa,’ Margot said. ‘If you look closely, you’ll see they are all irregular in size and shape. Some have deformed heads, or twin heads, some have twin tails, but the majority have no tails at all.’
Eve felt her stomach lurch and shuddered. It was exactly as the biologist giving evidence at Sean Farrell’s trial had described. What were the odds? Blinking, she peered up at Margot. ‘What causes sperm to be abnormal?’
‘A variety of things. You’ll find abnormal sperm in most samples, but it’s the percentage that matters in terms of fertility. There’s no way any of those are going to swim far enough to fertilize an egg.’
‘How common is something like this?’
‘I’m not an expert, but it’s commoner than you’d think.’
Eve took a deep breath. What were the odds, she asked herself again. She didn’t believe in coincidence. ‘Going back to the man in jail, how would his sample differ?’
‘With somebody who’s had a vasectomy, you’ll still have seminal fluid, and you might just possibly see a few red dots, depending on how well the operation was performed. But nothing like the number you’d expect in a healthy sample, or a sample like this one. Whoever he is, the man who attacked you certainly couldn’t father any children.’