Cambridge Blue - Alison Bruce [28]
Marks finished the sentence for him: ‘. . . she may well have known her attacker.’
‘Or been drugged,’ Goodhew added.
‘Or already been unconscious,’ Sykes finished. He paused for a few seconds, making sure their attention reverted to the corpse. He then took a series of swabs from her mouth and nose, ears and eyes. ‘Suffocation,’ he muttered, almost to himself. After that, he plucked a few hairs from her head, identifying each by its precise location on her scalp.
Without asking for assistance, he rolled the corpse over on to its belly. It was a practised move that left her symmetrically arranged. Her mouth was partially open and Goodhew had to remind himself that nothing would come dribbling out past her swollen lips; even her tongue would now be powder dry.
‘Time to find out about her private life,’ Sykes announced in a matter-of-fact voice. He flicked a switch on the inspection light and a second bulb lit up.
‘What’s that for?’ Goodhew asked.
‘It’s a Wood’s lamp, fluorescent, used to identify the presence of semen,’ Sykes explained, before producing a fresh clutch of cotton buds and swabbing the entrance to her anus. Then he reached to his array of sterilized equipment, selected a speculum and obtained internal swabs. ‘You haven’t seen one before then?’
Goodhew shook his head.
Sykes rolled her on to her back again. ‘We’re more likely to pick up something around the vagina.’ He parted her legs and swung the light lower, inspecting her labia and clitoris. ‘Bingo, likely presence of semen.’ He switched back to the normal light and reverted to studying her skin, working his way up the inside of her legs. ‘A few minor contusions on each inner thigh, some recent, some less so,’ he reported.
He took more swabs and examined the vagina and perineal skin for injuries. With a small metal comb from his instrument tray, he combed through her pubic hair and collected the loose ones, then plucked several further hairs for comparison.
Goodhew’s gaze wandered back to the instrument tray. The scalpels, saws and drill were lined up ready on the cold stainless steel. Their turn had almost come.
He knew what was coming next, and knew it didn’t bother him. Or, at least, it never had in the past. He saw it merely as an evidence collection process, a key tool for helping the victim and the victim’s relatives.
So far, Goodhew had attended few post-mortems, only during training and, like now, simply for the experience. He had never seen a body dissected that was so close to his own age. Perhaps she had been one of the girls he had seen lounging on Parker’s Piece just a few days earlier. He glanced at the corpse and looked away again, then stared at the clock, concentrating on the second hand slowly stepping around the dial and waiting for his sense of detachment to return.
Then he heard Marks speaking to him. ‘Gary?’
‘Sir?’
‘I said, any questions before we go for the internal?’
‘Sorry. No.’
‘Everything all right?’
‘Fine.’
Marks nodded to Sykes. ‘Let’s get on with it, then.’
Sykes picked up a scalpel. Goodhew always found the first cut the hardest to watch, and so pinned his attention on the soft skin near the girl’s right shoulder. He needed to know whether he could handle this. His stomach tightened with apprehension.
With firm pressure Sykes made the blade break the skin and drew it across the top of the chest, dipping in the middle to make the cut form a low wide V, like the neckline of a ball gown. The skin parted like silently ripping silk.
He made a second incision, slitting her from