Page 32 of Her Last Breath

Jane checked her phone as it buzzed, giving her discarded gloves to Pawel. It was a message from Dr Lydia.

Hospital. Mortuary. Now.

Chapter 19

Jane practically ran through the basement corridor to the mortuary, flustered by the time she had pulled on PPE and was let into the post-mortem suite by Dr Lydia’s team.

‘He’s already dead, you know this,’ the doctor remarked wryly, raising an eyebrow.

‘Tell me.’

They had known each other long enough to do away with pleasantries, both women understanding the pressures their jobs entailed.

‘Come.’

The two women crossed to the body. Mark Burrows had been stocky in life, handsome even. In death he looked like alabaster, his thick, reddish-brown hair incongruous with his very pale skin.

‘See here,’ Dr Lydia pointed towards Mark’s neck, the clavicle bones at the base of his throat pronounced and sharp under his skin. She then pointed towards his hands, the insides of his wrists, right up to his elbow. ‘You see?’

Jane looked at the red patches on Mark’s skin, as though a supermarket shopping bag had left ink imprints over it. Dr Lydia picked up a picture for Jane, showed her Mark’s body in situ.

‘He wore a t-shirt when he was found. Our lovely Doctor Nina wrote these marks off as being sunburn in the post-mortem she carried out.’ Jane had thought the same only moments before. ‘Easy enough to mistake, unless like me you have the memory of an elephant and have seen this before.’

‘What is it?’

Dr Lydia gave Jane a magnifying glass to inspect Mark’s collarbone. As she leant in closer, Jane gasped. Under the intense magnification, the red patterned marks separated into the faint outline of two fingers. No fingerprints, but definitely the shape of two fingers. She repeated her question to the doctor.

‘Latex allergy.’ Dr Lydia smiled. ‘Very rare, but I recognised it immediately. And yes, I checked his medical records to confirm.’

Picking up the picture of Mark Burrows taken when his body had been found, Jane confirmed to herself that his hands were bare when he died. It made sense, he wouldn’t have risked giving himself this reaction.

‘We didn’t find latex gloves in the lock-up,’ Jane asserted. ‘Someone held him down, not knowing that the gloves they used to conceal their fingerprints were the very thing that would give them away. Doctor Lydia, I bloody love you.’

Dr Lydia shrugged as if to say this was just part of what she did.

‘There is more.’

The forensic pathologist gave Jane a printout, talking over it to her.

‘Mr Burrows used a crude method to end his life: two plastic bags over his head, the tube connected to the helium canister inserted under them. All held in place using industrial Sellotape. Analysis showed zero fingerprints on the tape, or the bags. He then released the valve on the helium canister, the gas killing him. Again, no prints on the canister. Odd as you can see his fingers were definitely uncovered and would have left a mark.’

Jane could picture it more clearly now, an unknown assailant bagging Mark’s head, taping it up tightly to hold the pipe in place, switching on the gas. Watching him die, his face clearly visible through the clear plastic bags. Only they messed up, wearing latex gloves to disguise their fingerprints, accidentally leaving their trace on him.

‘The only imprint we find is on the bag. Mr Burrows scratched at it, very faintly, when he was close to suffocation I believe.’

Last attempt to stay alive. But why didn’t he try and fight off this person who was gassing him?

‘You found nothing under his fingernails? No trace evidence?’

The doctor shook her head. That didn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t Mark fight back? From what DS Johnson said he had spent a life living in the shadows of Burnley’s crime world; he wasn’t going to be an easy person to subdue like that.

‘He was pliable then,’ Jane queried. ‘Perhaps under the influence of some type of drug?’

‘Toxicology will confirm. No obvious needle marks.’

‘Taken orally then.’ Jane was silent for a moment. ‘The coincidence though, Dr Lydia?’

‘You know me, lovely. I believe in logic and facts. Between us, however, yes. These victims did not fight their killer.’