Page 6 of Glasshouses

He remained rock like. “I’ll see what Ste can do and send them over to Nate.”

“Thank you.” I backed away before he could change his mind.

Dr Nathaniel Venn was already prepped and on with the post-mortem when I got there, our first victim on his mortuary slab, his expression – what I could see of it through the PPE – solemn.

“Afternoon,” he looked over at me, his voice coming through the speakers into the viewing gallery, thick glass separating us. “I believe I’ve got a second body coming in.”

“When they can get them out. Horrible way to go.” I peered at the remains of what had once been a living, breathing human being with loved ones and friends and a life.

“It was, but she didn’t die because of the fire, and I can confirm our first victim is female, probably around fifty-five to sixty-five. I’ve already run some tests and there was no sign of smoke inhalations – I’ll save you the scientific details.” He gave me a quick smile, knowing that I didn’t revel in the sorts of science mumbo-jumbo that he and Jenna did.

“Appreciated. So how did she die?”

“Impatient, aren’t you? There’s trauma to the neck. I’m seeing underlying haemorrhage in the soft tissues, which is significant. I’ll need to complete the examination, but this is unlikely to be fire-related.” He issued instructions to his assistant about what tools he needed to hand.

I braced myself, distracting my thoughts away from what I was about to witness with what Nate had just told me. “How can we identify her?”

“Dental records, but she’s had a hip replacement and we’ll be able to get an identification from that. I X-rayed her as soon as she arrived. There’s also been a few bones broken, so I’m confident we can get an ID quick.” He looked around at his assistant. “I’m going to start the external examination.”

I wasn’t ambitious. My goal was to keep going and keep busy, not rise the ranks, but detective inspectors didn’t usually attend post-mortems. For the first time in years, promotion briefly appealed.

Nate started to describe what he could see; charred, split skin; clothing fragments that had adhered to what had been flesh. He checked under her nails, taking samples in case there was any useful DNA, and looked under her chin, where evidence might have been preserved. There wasn’t.

“Any idea on cause of death so far?” I pushed, needing to break the strange silence if nothing else.

“No. But the fire will have erased any obvious clues. We’ll find out more when we get inside.” He stretched out his back. “I let the plasterer in this morning.”

“Oh crap, I forgot about him.” Despite a shaky relationship with my half-brother, I’d bought a house across the road from him. He had his own fixer upper, which was a lot more fixed that mine, and I’d ended up moving in with him temporarily after I’d found out my housemate was sleeping with my boyfriend. Mine and Nate’s relationship was something a therapist could write a book about and still have material for a sequel. We were trauma-bonded, despite having not known of each other for the majority of our lives.

“He assumed that. It’s something when your builders are more reliable than you.” He was chuckling as he said it, not serious at all. “You want to eat at mine tonight?”

“Please.” This was the usual state of affairs. “Shall I get take out?”

“Probably. If Paul manages to recover the second set of remains I’ll stay back to see if we can get an ID.” He snapped on a new pair of gloves and then picked up an implement I did not like the look of.

“It’ll be a vegetarian take out.”

“Any particular reason for that?” He started the first incision.

“You need to ask.” I looked away. I didn’t need to see this part. Listening to Nate narrate what he was doing would be enough.

It only took a few minutes for him to confirm that there was no inhalation injury; her lungs were free of soot which confirmed the bloods that had already come back. She hadn’t died because of the fire; she’d died before it. His next step was to look at the hips to get a number off the prothesis which we could use to identify her. I forced myself to watch this, the procedure being videoed which would potentially be used in court to illustrate the chain of evidence.

He read out an identifier, one of the techs who’d joined us entering it into a database. My heart rate sped up, the possibility of the first break through on the horizon.

“Earlier X-Rays showed no signs of blunt force trauma into the body, ruling out stabbing or something of that ilk. There were no injuries to the bone that would suggest this either.” He paused for a moment, looking over at the tech who’d inputted the identifier for the hip replacement. “Anything?”

“Not yet. Give it another five minutes.” She turned her head back to the screen.

“Okay. Let’s carry on.” He continued, speaking clearly about what he was doing for the recording. Some of the terminology I was familiar with, having been present at more than enough post-mortems. I knew enough to be able to follow along and not enough to know too much.

My phone vibrated and I answered it quickly, glad of the distraction. Verity’s name was on the screen, which meant she was either on her way to the house or there already.

“Is everything okay?” Fear briefly gripped my stomach.

“All fine. The fire team are bringing something that looks like scaffolding in and there’s a lot of swearing. The dogs have picked up a trail across the fields into an old one-room building; Jenna thinks it’s where the petrol was stored,” Verity said. “But it ends there and there are multiple tracks from it to exits around the field.”

“Fuck.” I’d been too hopeful that we’d have a lead from the entrance point to the property. “That’s not what I’d hoped for.”