Imperfect Killing (2 page)

‘Can I help you with something?’ he asked impatiently.

Sean scanned the other stretcher trolleys in the mortuary, wondering under which green sheet Sue Evans’ body lay. ‘Doctor Canning, isn’t it?’ he asked as he walked towards him uninvited, pulling his warrant card free as he approached.

‘Do I know you?’ Canning demanded.

‘We’ve met before,’ Sean told him, standing on the opposite side of the operating table that looked more like a giant shallow sink, ‘although perhaps you don’t remember. DS Sean Corrigan. The last time we met I was a DC assisting the OIC at one of your post-mortems.’

‘You’re right,’ Canning agreed. ‘I don’t remember you, but I take it you’re here for a reason.’

‘Female gunshot victim,’ Sean explained. ‘Brought here this morning. Died in the Critical Care Unit after attempts to keep her alive failed.’

‘You mean the television presenter.’

‘Yes,’ Sean confirmed. ‘Her name was Sue Evans.’

‘Then I’m a little confused as to why you’re here,’ Canning frowned. ‘I haven’t scheduled her post-mortem yet and it almost certainly won’t be today. I have this unfortunate fellow to deal with first,’ Canning swept his hand across the corpse in front of him, ‘and then at least one more before I can get to your victim.’

‘I’m not here for the post-mortem,’ Sean assured him.

‘Then why
are
you here?’ Canning asked.

‘I wanted to see her,’ Sean explained. ‘Seemed the right thing to do.’

Canning sighed. ‘Maybe I can let you see her for a moment,’ he conceded, ‘but I need to finish here first.’

‘What happened to him?’ Sean asked, looking down at the severely injured body of a white man in his mid-thirties.

‘Fell from a twenty-second floor balcony of a local tower block,’ Canning answered. ‘Question is – did he jump or was he pushed?’

‘Drunk?’ Sean questioned.

‘By the look and smell of him when they brought him in, I’d say so.’

From the state of the corpse Sean could tell the man had probably been a semi-vagrant wanderer, housed in an unwanted council flat in a soon-to-be-demolished tower block. His death would be mourned by few.

‘He can wait,’ Sean told the pathologist coldly.

Again Canning sighed and began to pull his soiled latex gloves from his hands. ‘Very well,’ he relented, removing his surgical apron. ‘I’ll have to scrub up and put some new kit on. We wouldn’t want any cross-contamination, would we?’

‘No,’ Sean agreed, ‘and I appreciate you doing this.’

After several minutes Canning was washed, re-equipped and ready to show Sean the body. ‘I believe she’s over here,’ he said and headed towards the stretcher trolley in the far corner of the mortuary. Sean followed, standing on the opposite side of the covered body to Canning, who pulled the green sheet down just enough to reveal her head and upper shoulders. Sean could immediately see the extent of her injuries: severe burns covered her face, neck and the exposed areas of her shoulders – her eyelashes and brows had been burnt away, as had part of her fringe, and her entire face was a waxy red colour. Both of her partly opened eyes were weepy and haemorrhaged and her mouth was slightly open, as if she was still trying to speak. The ten-pence-piece-sized hole under her right eye was unmistakable, but it was the smaller black holes in her skin that really caught Sean’s attention.

‘Our information is that she was shot once,’ he explained, ‘with a bullet fired from a handgun. But these wounds look more like she was shot with a mixed round from a shotgun – one larger projectile packed into a cartridge with standard buckshot. The burn marks mean she was shot at very close range, so again it looks more like the weapon was a shotgun. Probably a sawn-off one at that judging by the spread of her injuries.’

‘It’s the first chance I’ve had to take a look at her,’ Canning nodded, ‘but I tend to agree with your hypothesis. Are you sure the weapon was a handgun?’

‘I’ve not seen the CCTV footage myself,’ he admitted, ‘but the security guard is apparently adamant it shows the suspect firing a handgun, not a shotgun.’

‘Then perhaps the gun misfired,’ Canning suggested, ‘or perhaps the bullet was a faulty dum-dum bullet – only instead of exploding inside the body, this one exploded inside the gun’s chamber, sending these tiny pieces of lead flying through the air and into the victim’s face.’

‘Or maybe it was a badly prepared homemade bullet that started to disintegrate as soon as it was fired,’ Sean countered.

‘Also a possibility,’ Canning agreed, warming to the young detective sergeant the more they discussed the dead woman’s injuries.

‘I need the bullet,’ Sean blurted out. ‘I need to take it with me today – now.’

‘That’s impossible,’ Canning laughed. ‘You’ll get the bullet at the post-mortem. You’ll have to wait until then.’

‘It can’t wait,’ Sean insisted. ‘I need the bullet now.’

‘I understand the bullet is important,’ Canning sympathized, ‘as it would be to any murder investigation, but why can’t it wait?’

‘Because if it’s a dum-dum bullet gone wrong then I’m probably looking for a professional hit-man, and every second I waste is another second for him to make good his escape back to wherever it is he came from.’

‘And if it’s a homemade bullet gone wrong?’ Canning asked.

‘Then maybe we’re looking for a boyfriend we don’t know about yet – one who as we speak is scrubbing the firearms residue from the exposed parts of his face and burning the boiler suit and balaclava. This is going to be a very high-profile case, doctor. If the news media find out we wasted a day at the most critical stage of the investigation they’ll be like a dog with a bone. It won’t reflect well on any of us.’

Canning blew out deeply through pursed lips. ‘Very well, if you insist. But this is most certainly not the usual procedure.’

‘I understand,’ Sean assured him, ‘but I don’t need a full post-mortem – I just need the bullet.’

‘So be it.’ Canning called across the large clinical room to his assistant. ‘Justin, can you prepare the operating table for a new cadaver, please. I need to examine Miss Evans here.’ Justin just shrugged and set about removing the body already on the operating table and preparing it for the next – his well-practiced hands working quickly and efficiently.

‘He shan’t be long,’ Canning promised. ‘He doesn’t say much, but he knows his job inside out.’

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ Sean answered.

‘I think we’re about ready,’ Canning said after a few minutes. ‘Justin, if you could grab the digital camera, please. We’re not performing a complete post-mortem, but I still need to have everything documented. Just photograph what I tell you to.’ Justin nodded without speaking. ‘Very well,’ Canning told the room, turning on his trusty Dictaphone before taking a new scalpel from the tray of surgical tools and leaning over the body. ‘Take a photo of her face before my initial incision please, Justin.’ He duly obliged, the camera flashing and whirring twice, after which Canning took hold of the victim’s forehead with one hand and cut through the skin in two directions across where the main bullet had entered, forming a cross pattern. Very little blood seeped from the wound – her heart having long since stopped pumping it around her body. Next he used the scalpel to separate the skin from the facial muscles and peeled it back with a pair of surgical tweezers to reveal the damage underneath. Sean could see that the muscle around the entry wound had been turned to pulp and knew from previous cases that the deeper the bullet travelled, the worse the damage to the muscle would be.

‘Another photograph, please,’ Canning asked, Justin following his commands without question. After the camera’s flash Canning cut deeper with his scalpel until he hit bone and began to shake his head. He swapped the tweezers for a long, thin pair of forceps, using them to extract pieces of bone that had shattered and splintered as the bullet had passed through the upper part of the victim’s maxillary bone before travelling under the orbital socket and sending out shock waves that ruptured the blood vessels in both eyes, causing the haemorrhaging that had turned them a dark maroon colour.

Canning pushed the forceps through the pulped muscle and bone deeper inside the skull into the brain, trying to follow the path of the bullet as best as he could. ‘Dear oh dear,’ he shook his head. ‘The damage to the skeletal structure of the victim’s face is significant, as is the damage to soft tissue surrounding the entry point.’ He pushed the forceps still deeper. ‘The bullet I suspect was a fairly large calibre to have caused so much damage – .38 inch at least.’ Again he shook his head. ‘The damage to the right side of the brain is also very significant. On first examination I would estimate at least one quarter of it has been totally destroyed, with further significant damage being caused by the shock waves that would have been emitted by the projectile. Death would have been almost instantaneous. Even if the Critical Care Team had been able to keep her body alive, her brain was already dead. She couldn’t possibly have survived long term.’

‘Then we should thank God for small mercies,’ Sean told him.

‘Indeed we should,’ Canning replied.

‘And the bullet?’ Sean asked.

‘Give me a minute,’ Canning insisted. ‘With this amount of damage to the soft tissue the bullet could have moved significantly from where one might expect it to be.’

Sean waited impatiently as he watched the pathologist nimbly and diligently working the forceps inside the victim’s skull. ‘Ah ha,’ Canning suddenly smiled. ‘Be ready with the camera,’ he warned Justin, before slowly pulling the forceps clear and holding them closer to the lights. He spoke to Sean without looking away from the small, bloody object held firm in the tiny teeth of the surgical instrument. ‘I believe this is what your heart desires, Sergeant.’

Sean leaned in for a closer look, but the bullet was still in too much of a mess to see anything clearly. ‘Can you clean it?’ he asked.

‘Of course.’ Canning carefully dipped it into a small stainless steel bowl of water – very gently moving it back and forth until he was satisfied it was clean enough to be examined and then placed in an evidence bag. He lifted it from the bowl and again held it to the light. ‘Not much to see,’ he declared, twisting the shapeless metal object so he could see it from all angles. ‘Looks like lead.’

‘A manufactured bullet wouldn’t lose its shape that badly,’ Sean told him, ‘and it’s definitely no dum-dum bullet.’

‘Homemade then,’ Canning deduced.

‘That would be my guess,’ Sean agreed.

‘If the bullet was made,’ Canning surmised, ‘then the gun probably was too – a re-commissioned replica no doubt.’

‘Most guns out there are,’ Sean explained, ‘but we won’t know for sure until ballistic forensics examine it. I need to take it with me.’

‘Of course. Do you have an evidence bag?’ Sean produced a small plastic bag from his pocket and handed it to Canning. ‘I see you came prepared.’ The pathologist took the bag and filled in the required details with a pen he’d pulled from underneath his apron as if it was a magic trick. He used his initials and the fact it was his first exhibit to label the bag: RC/1. He signed it, sealed it and handed it to Sean. ‘Good luck,’ he told him with a slight raising of his eyebrows. ‘I think you’re going to need it.’

‘Thanks,’ Sean told him and headed towards the exit without ceremony. ‘I’ll let you know what ballistics find.’

Canning watched him disappear through the plastic swing doors. ‘An interesting fellow, don’t you think?’ he said to Justin, who just pulled a face of disinterest and shrugged. ‘I’ve got a strange feeling we’ll be seeing a lot more of DS Corrigan.’

***

When Sean arrived back at the Murder Investigation Team’s office, Featherstone was already briefing the rest of the unit as to what they’d discovered so far. Images of the CCTV covering the car park played on a large roll-down screen behind Featherstone, who provided a commentary of the events that led to the death of Sue Evans. Sean used the relative darkness of the room to approach unnoticed and stand at the back of the gathered detectives. Featherstone used a long wooden ruler to point at the things he wanted his audience to pay attention to.

‘Now we see the victim’s car approaching the entrance,’ he continued. ‘She swipes her ID card to raise the barrier and drives in. Here we can see she drives around to her named bay and parks up. There’s a delay for a few seconds while she does something inside the car – we don’t know what – probably gathering up her bits and pieces.’ He swept the ruler to the top of the screen. ‘While she’s still in the car the suspect appears from around the side of the studio building and jogs across the car park.’ Sean watched the small figure of the man dressed all in black as he headed towards the victim’s car.
Where had he been hiding before he appeared from the corner? Or had he simply walked along the Southbank in the boiler suit, putting the balaclava on just before he came into view?

‘He stands slightly to the rear of the car,’ Featherstone explained, ‘presumably so the victim can’t spot him and waits a few seconds until she climbs out and sees him, by which time he’s already pointing the handgun at her head …’

‘She says something,’ Sean found himself saying too loudly before he could stop himself.

Featherstone hit pause and searched in the dark for the source of the question until he squinted in Sean’s direction. ‘Excuse me?’

‘I think she says something,’ Sean repeated sheepishly.

Featherstone looked at the screen and then back to Sean. ‘And if she did?’

‘Must have been a hell of a shock – to step out of your car and see a man pointing a gun at your face. Yet she still managed to say something. As if she …’

‘As if she what?’ Featherstone pushed him.

‘As if she knew him,’ Sean finished. ‘If she knew him, maybe she tried to appeal to him – asked him not to pull the trigger. I don’t think she would have spoken if she didn’t know him.’

‘Interesting,’ Featherstone tried to play along, ‘but how could she have recognized him? He was completely covered.’

‘Not his eyes and mouth,’ Sean pointed out. ‘She recognized his eyes. She recognized his lips. Maybe she said his name.’