LAID OUT ON A STEEL TABLE, the corpse was a quiet atrocity, its reality almost impossible to comprehend: a once vital, noisy adolescent human stripped down to meat and mess. No amount of disinfectant could disguise its reek.
Yet the face was somehow recognisably Mickey Grant. Detective Sergeant Seth Delahaye presumed this was how the finder knew for sure it was Mickey Grant and not some other, random, corpse dumped in a place nobody knew about. Delahaye had worked homicide cases before, and he’d seen dead children, but he knew this was different. An implacable intuition bled dread.
The chief scene-of-crime officer, a forensic scientist who was only ever known as Mr Trent, had collected the clothing remnants carefully removed from the corpse. The rest of the SOCO team were still at the site. Delahaye left to cadge a cup of tea as the body was prepared for the autopsy. He needed respite, even if it was only to be found in a mug of weak Typhoo. His immediate superior, Detective Inspector Perrin, was with Mickey’s parents. Delahaye preferred the morgue.
Time was a vital ally if evidence was gathered early but quickly became enemy when not.
Michael Anthony Grant was cut open and perused: samples then taken, bottled, labelled and stored to be sent on for analysis. Most of his organs had been pierced by the sharp points of his splintered ribs. His forearms were bent at oblique, unnatural angles, the skin punctured by fracture shards and circular marks. His face was pulled over his skull and his brain was removed, weighed, placed on a tray. A Y-shaped autopsy wound tracked raggedly down his torso. Much of the skin had sloughed away during the washing process. Delahaye swallowed down revulsion along with pity: neither helped.
The pathologist, Professor Simmons, was a tall woman, a little older than Delahaye, with eyes as blue as her face mask. She was accompanied by autopsy assistants: a slender young man called Hickman and a stocky powerhouse named Towler. Delahaye asked the relevant questions and received answers as close to the scientific truth as could be gleaned from disintegrating chaos. Time of death could not be accurately determined but the evidence suggested he was killed soon after going missing.
‘Judging by hypostasis, he was in a seated position for a time,’ Simmons said, her gloved hands and apron smeared with gorestains. She indicated the areas of darker discolouration. ‘And he was kept in a relatively cool, dry place because decay would’ve been more advanced if he’d been left in the discovery site. The type of fly larva informs us he hadn’t been there for long: those warmer days last week accelerated decomposition.’
‘Rape?’ Delahaye asked, because it always had to be asked.
‘We can’t tell,’ said the pathologist. ‘Bruising can be obscured by the discolouration. Semen degrades quickly, and a prolonged period outdoors with such robust decay ensures inability to detect it. Cause of death was a stab to the heart. The chest cavity appears smashed in by a large, heavy object, very likely before death but possibly after.’ Simmons put her hands on her hips. ‘There isn’t very much blood left in him. And we can’t tell how many wounds were pre- and post-mortem because of the state he’s in.’ Her eyes sparkled above the rim of her mask. ‘Look at these . . .’ She pointed out smaller wounds on the boy’s arms, hands and shoulders – broken circles and crescents with uneven, almost serrated edges.
Delahaye looked then came closer. He frowned. ‘Bite marks?’
‘He’s been mauled.’
‘Mauled?’
‘If you look here . . . and here, he has bites along his jaw, and the deeper ones on his neck are possibly an attempt to tear his throat. The injuries on his hands and forearms fit typical defence wound patterns – his hands in particular,’ said Simmons. She indicated the more complete oval wounds. ‘These holes are where flesh was pulled back as if the attacker was biting a moving victim, as if the victim was dragging himself away from the attacker. From the discernible marks, the perpetrator seems to have bitten in, tugged down, shook then pulled out.’
‘Like an attack dog,’ said Delahaye.
‘Yes, exactly like an attack dog,’ said Simmons. ‘It could’ve been torture before he died or else part of the perpetrator’s fight pattern.’
‘Fight pattern?’
Simmons’ eyes crinkled at the corners. ‘Yes, DS Delahaye. Human teeth are still in our arsenal of physical weapons.’
‘I suppose there isn’t the possibility they could be animal?’
‘No, the bites are very human,’ said the pathologist. ‘There’s no deep upper and lower canine indentations and no carnassial impressions – humans don’t have carnassials or long, curved canines like dogs. A forensic odontologist will take casts of the bites to see if we can get an imprint you could match to dental records but with the slippage so extensive, we’ll be lucky to get a good cast.’
‘Cannibalism?’ Delahaye preferred the old-fashioned term: anthropophagi. Mention the word cannibalism and everyone panicked, then denied.
The pathologist and assistants glanced at each other. ‘No flesh was removed. The typical areas of flesh usually found in historic cannibal cases are intact,’ said Simmons. She pointed at the triceps, biceps, buttocks, calves and thighs as well as the back muscles – the usual areas taken for consumption in homicides where cannibalism was motive. She nodded to another table on which a sheet had been thrown. ‘We also had this brought in with the boy.’ She pulled off the cover.
It was a fox: its shrunken shell a russet outrage on the shining steel surface. Delahaye recalled seeing it when he’d shone a torch into the fetid den. It was the perfect place to hide a body in a built-up area: a person would have to be very familiar with the neighbourhood to know the sheltered enclave existed. It was, however, only the disposal site. Rubery was tucked beside a green belt, and the murder site could be anywhere.
‘Roadkill,’ said Simmons. ‘Poor thing.’
Seth Delahaye stared at the animal. Two dead things found in the same spot. Mickey was also a poor thing, of course, even though he’d been a nasty little bastard by most accounts. But he’d been a nasty little bastard who’d had friends and potential. He’d been loved, he’d always be loved but he’d never learn how to be more of a good bloke, and it was a dreadful waste. Poor thing didn’t even begin to cover it.