Cold as Ice (4 page)

Harding moved to the side of the table and picked up the woman’s hand. ‘All but two of the fingers are missing on her right hand; they were probably lost while she was in the
canal.’ She looked at the two ragged ends to the fingers and nodded to Mark, who had already anticipated her needs and handed her a scalpel and specimen tray. ‘We’ve already taken
fingerprints.’ She began to cut away each of the nail beds from the two fingers, and deposited them onto the tray. She turned the woman’s arms over.

‘No obvious signs of the use of needles.’ Harding stopped dictating. She looked across at Carter.

‘Any luck with the jewellery or the tattoo?’

‘Not yet.’

‘What about the heroin?’

‘No reports of any problems on the streets, Doctor.’

‘Maybe she came from abroad and brought it with her,’ answered Harding.

‘If she did we might never find out about it – or her,’ replied Carter.

‘Really?’ Harding said sarcastically. ‘You surprise me, Inspector. So defeatist.’

Carter glanced Ebony’s way. They both knew what the sharp end of Harding’s tongue felt like. She rarely thought before she spoke. She didn’t see that she needed to. She was
cocooned in the mortuary world where she was queen and reigned supreme.

She continued her examination: ‘Overall, the body is in a very poor state. I count . . . three infected ulcerated sites on her torso, a further six on her limbs. The largest of the wounds
is on her left thigh.’

Mark followed her silent instruction as he moved into place and laid a paper tape measure down the length of the wound. ‘Twenty-four centimetres top to bottom, width sixteen point five.
Depth . . .’ he said as he placed a Q-tip into the wound and gently prodded the base until he found the lowest point then he slid his fingers down level with the surface and took a reading
– ‘seven centimetres deep in the centre.’ He slid the Q-tip around, prodding the sides of the wound. ‘Underpinning of the wound at ten o’clock, depth of . . .’
he measured it the same way as before – ‘five centimetres.’

Harding handed him a pair of tweezers. ‘Any debris inside there?’

He took the tweezers from her and got down level with the wound to have a look. His fingers disappeared inside the tunnel and re-emerged with the remains of a small eel.

‘Must have been having his breakfast when she was pulled out,’ Carter said.

Harding proceeded to cut away a section at the side of the wound and place it into a specimen tray. ‘She would have been in huge pain from these wounds,’ she said. ‘Some of
them are showing signs of trying to heal. I can’t imagine she could have carried on normal life with these. We’ll have to wait until we have the blood results back to know what she had
in her system but it will take longer to find out about these infected sites. It’s not a quick process; it involves growing a culture to identify it. The only time I’ve seen this amount
of ulceration in random sites like this is in cases of MRSA, the flesh-eating bug. But, without doubt, left untreated like this, this many infected wounds would have led quickly to organ failure
and death: I’m not quite sure why they didn’t.’

Harding moved down to the woman’s abdomen. ‘Skin slack – a child maybe? Rapid weight loss evident. There is bruising around the pelvis area.’ She lifted the woman’s
right knee up and outwards. She began a detailed examination of the genital area. She opened the entrance to the vagina and examined a short thick scar.

‘She’s had a child within the last few years. She was given an episiotomy.’ Harding waited whilst Ebony photographed. ‘We’ll turn her over now.’

Carter helped Mark turn the body over.

‘We have one ulcerated site on her lower back section which is similar to the wounds on her front,’ said Harding. ‘But we also have deep grazing on the pressure points:
shoulder blades, buttocks and calves.’ Mark handed her a scalpel. She cut down the centre of the back and across to free the area of skin over each shoulder blade and then lifted the flaps
and cut them free to examine them. ‘Some sort of organic material, splinters or fibres of some kind, are growing into the flesh. She must have rubbed against something over a long period of
time and it’s implanted and taken root in her flesh.’ She placed the skin on trays before lifting the victim’s right knee upwards and parting the buttocks.

‘There is tearing of the tissue around the anus and bruising around the inner thigh and leading up to the vagina, but this has also become the entry point into the body for the feeders in
the canal.’ Harding inserted the end of a swab into the anus and looked at the end of it – minute particles of decomposing flesh mixed with a grey sludge from the canal were clinging to
it.

‘Can there be many fish living in the canal?’ Willis asked

‘Carp, eels, perch, pike even.’ Carter answered. ‘Someone caught a seventeen-pound carp in the Regent’s Canal just near here a while ago. I used to fish there with my
dad.’

‘Don’t they all die if the canal freezes over? asked Willis.

‘Survival of the fittest, Ebb,’ answered Carter.

Harding discarded the swab into the specimen tray. ‘I’m going to take a biopsy of the rectum via the anus. It tears easily and there might be something embedded inside.’ She
took a scalpel from Mark and cut into the side wall of the anus and took a sample of tissue.

When she had finished, Harding changed her gloves and indicated that Ebony should come across to stand where she was for a moment, level with the woman’s head, to photograph as she cut
into the flesh of the neck.

‘I’m now going to make a detailed examination of the injuries that led to her death.’ She pulled the magnifying lens and spotlight down over the victim’s neck and
carefully cut into the crushed trachea with a scalpel. She opened up the neck and exposed the splintered bones, then turned the woman’s head and examined the neck closely. ‘All seven
cervical vertebrae are broken. The discs and ligaments are crushed, compressed. The large muscles of the neck are torn. To do this much damage it would take continued and immense pressure. There
are no signs of a tourniquet, which would show where the initial pressure emanated from, where the screw was turned, so to speak.’

‘Maybe the killer used a length of something smooth, rubber tubing perhaps,’ said Carter.

‘Yes, perhaps,’ Harding answered. ‘It would have to be wrapped several times around the neck and then squeezed slowly to achieve this kind of result. Almost like a blood
pressure monitor when it squeezes your arm – even, strong pressure all round.’ She spoke as she worked at opening up the neck and separating the fused bones. ‘Even her collarbone
is broken, snapped under the weight of whatever it was that crushed her slowly, cutting off oxygen to the brain simultaneously.’

Ebony looked up at Carter from behind her visor.

‘Not done by the canal’s edge then, Guv? He couldn’t have done this there and taken the time he needed. What about the make-up?’

Mark answered: ‘I took a photo of her face and then I removed what was left of the make-up and I’ve bagged up the swabs to send to pathology to analyze, but I’m sure it’s
what we used in the funeral home. It’s semi-permanent, waterproof. It’s really thick and the pigments are much stronger than normal make-up.’

‘So the person who killed her wanted it to be seen,’ said Carter. ‘Why else would he go to the trouble of preserving the head in a watertight bag?’

‘And he didn’t choose to weight her down, either,’ added Ebony. ‘She was always going to rise to the surface.’

‘But then we are crediting him with a lot of planning,’ said Carter.

Harding looked down the body of the woman with the Titian hair.

‘None of this happened overnight. Wherever she’s been, she’s been through immense pain and suffering in the last few months of her life – she’s been to
hell.’

The icy wind blew down Blackstock Road in Finsbury Park. It was three-thirty and dusk. Danielle pulled up her fur-trimmed collar against it as she stood waiting for a number
four bus to take her to Holloway Road. She bent over the pushchair and checked Jackson’s gloves were still on. She pulled them up and tucked them inside the cuffs of his coat. She knew he was
watching her. She looked at him when she finished and kissed his cold cheek.

‘Who’s going to see Father Christmas?’ Jackson grinned, his eyes watering from the cold. She tickled him through his padded all-in-one suit. He squirmed and giggled. Danielle
looked up to see a woman who had come to stand at the bus stop. She was watching them, pity in her eyes. Danielle scowled at the woman as she bent back down to Jackson and pulled his hat further
down over his ears. Danielle had Jackson out of the buggy, and the buggy folded in an instant, as soon as the bus arrived. She held his hand and pulled him up onto the bus.

The driver winked at Jackson. Danielle swiped her oyster card and deftly made her way through the vehicle, leaving the buggy in the luggage rack. She sat Jackson on her lap and pulled out a
tissue. He squirmed as she wiped his nose. He watched her. She mouthed the words ‘good boy.’

They alighted halfway along Holloway Road and Jackson stood on the pavement waiting as Danielle took one seamless kick and flex of the buggy to make it ready for him. Jackson was slow getting
into it; he was straining to look past Danielle and pointing to the window display across the road in the department store where a massive animated Father Christmas was waving at him. Jackson waved
back, star-struck. Danielle looked at her watch. She had a half hour to kill. She crossed the road and stopped outside Simmons department store. Danielle pretended to look at the window display as
Jackson sat watching Father Christmas wave his arm and mouth the words ‘Ho ho ho’. But her eyes went beyond the display and she searched the cosmetics counter. She watched a woman
working on one of the counters that she just knew was Tracy; she felt it inside. She’d stopped at the window many times in the last two weeks. Now she felt a flutter in her stomach. She
didn’t want to be spotted too soon. She wanted things to go as she had imagined, and so she kept her head down and pushed the buggy on, steering it through the street towards the Christmas
market.

The cosmetics department of Simmons was hectic in the build-up to Christmas. The atmosphere was good. Tracy loved coming into work to be rushed off her feet. With so much talk
of hardship and recession, takings had been down all year. This was her chance to try and prove to herself and to her bosses that, given the opportunity, Tracy Collins could sell ice to
Eskimos.

She looked at her watch. It was ten minutes to four. She looked across anxiously at her colleague Jazmina on the other side of the make-up counter.
They were both so busy; how could she
possibly leave?
Tracy had watched the shoppers pour in through Simmons’ doors – all day it had been a steady stream. She had kept her eyes open for someone who might be Danielle.
Once she could have sworn that it must be her when she saw a blonde woman who looked like a younger version of herself, immaculately turned out, bubbly, pretty, a little overweight, pushing the
cutest-looking child: all golden curls, immaculately dressed – and Tracy imagined that could be her daughter and grandchild. But no, they had bought their special Christmas purchases of
perfume and make-up and they had disappeared from her counter.

‘You go . . .’ her colleague Jazmina said as she wrapped a package for a customer, pulling the ribbon into swirls with the blade of some scissors. ‘It’s five to four
– you said you had an appointment?’

‘You sure?’

Jazmina nodded – she looked as excited about it as Tracy.

Tracy had not told Jazmina exactly who she was meeting but she knew it was important and Tracy wanted to look nice for it. Jazmina had jumped to her own conclusions and believed that Tracy had
finally decided to ditch boring Steve and find herself a new man and was about to embark on a steamy affair.

Tracy turned the mirror round on the counter and checked herself: her lippy was still intact. She looked at Jazmina one last time to make sure. Jazmina nodded eagerly.

‘You look great – just go for it . . .’

‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ said Tracy with a frown. She wondered if she’d missed something with Jazmina.

‘You take an hour; you’re entitled,’ Jazmina replied, giving Tracy the ‘don’t think for one moment I won’t cope’ look. ‘Just enjoy yourself
– you only live once.’

‘I couldn’t possibly. I’ll be back in half an hour – promise.’

Tracy grabbed her coat and bag and slipped out from behind the counter. She left the shop, turned right then right again and onto the busy crossroads that marked the start of the German
Christmas Market. She walked past the sweet counters and the mulled wine and looked around her. The place was heaving with mums pushing prams. She passed a stall selling Christmas-themed jewellery
next to Santa’s Grotto. The sound of Bavarian carol music pervaded in the air, along with the smell of burnt caramel, mulled wine and Bratwurst sausage. At the exit from Santa’s Grotto
she found her way suddenly blocked by a young mum pushing a little boy with Down’s syndrome. In his hand he had a pink pig. His face was flushed. Tracy looked back up from him to the young
woman, who was staring at her, waiting. Tracy smiled, tried to pass. The young woman moved the buggy to block her again.

‘Tracy?’

Tracy’s heart stopped. Was this the daughter she’d given up when she was fifteen? Was this the little girl whose existence had haunted her for twenty-one years?
‘Danielle?’ Tracy did her best not to look shocked. ‘And this must be Jackson?’ She recovered fast, bent down to talk to Jackson, who stared up at her in awe, fascinated by
her bright red lips and her inch-long eyelashes. ‘Who have we got here?’ Tracy tapped her fingernail on the pink pig.

Jackson held it aloft for her to see. ‘Peppa Pig,’ he said, turning back towards the Grotto and pointing, struggling to sit up and turn around to show Tracy where he’d been and
where the pig came from. ‘Father Christmas give it to me.’ He held the toy up in front of her face.