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They move to the side as two SOCOs enter the crime scene.
“Pretty boy, takes pride in his appearance—” Jamie says.
“I’m offended.”
“—polite, nice. Has the sort of job he walks away from at the end of the day.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s a physiotherapist. They met at the hospital. And he’s buff as fuck. Makes me feel very inadequate.” Jamie pats his rotund belly under his protective suit.
“You seem to know him well?”
“Yeah, a bit. They’ve been around for dinner.”
“Once?”
A pause. “A few times,” Jamie mutters reluctantly.
The two men stand in silence. Adam thinks about this guy. He wouldn’t have pitched Romilly as the sort of woman who went for looks, but maybe he was wrong about her. He’d been wrong about so much else, after all.
Adam pulls his hood up and heads back inside. The SOCOs have finished photographing the scene; Ross has resumed his inspection. The body is now laid out on white plastic, showing the large bloody gashes up the inside of the man’s forearms. He doesn’t need Ross to tell him cause of death: it’s obvious.
“How long would it have taken him to bleed out in that way?” Adam asks.
“A while,” Ross replies without looking up. He prods at the laceration with a gloved finger. “Despite how it looks, the wounds weren’t deep. I’d have expected clotting. I wonder …” His voice trails off as he starts to work his way up the man’s arms, pushing his T-shirt higher. “Yes, here it is.”
He sits back on his haunches and points; Adam leans down to where the pathologist is indicating. It’s a small red mark, almost imperceptible.
“My guess is toxicology will show large amounts of an anticoagulant. Something like heparin or warfarin.”
“Rat poison?”
The pathologist chuckles. “How do you think it kills the rats, DCI Bishop? It’s a blood thinner. No chance for him then, even without the head wound.” He continues his survey of the man’s arm. “Another one here, and here.”
“Another what?”
“Needle mark,” Ross replies. “Although these are a bigger gauge.”
Adam feels his vision swim and stands up quickly, averting his gaze. He closes his eyes for a second, then opens them again, noticing Jamie’s quizzical look.
The pathologist is still talking. “… more pronounced. Directly into the vein. Odd. I wonder …” He pauses, still prodding around in the bloody flesh. “Why would someone insert a needle like that?” he murmurs to himself.
Adam clears his throat. “And how severe is the head wound?” he asks, trying to divert Ross’s attention from the needle marks.
“Caved his skull in. I’ll take a proper look at the mortuary but I don’t think there was much brain function by the time he was put in the chair.”
Adam mutters his thanks, then steps away from the body. He gestures to Jamie as he walks out of the house and back to the street; his DS follows him. He ducks under the cordon and lights a cigarette immediately.
The niggle persists. Another man is dead. He can’t ignore any possible route of inquiry, however ridiculous he believes it is.
“Let’s pretend Romilly is right,” he begins. He sees Jamie give a small smile, then quickly hide it. “Yeah, yeah, you smug git. You’re right. Maybe I don’t give Romilly enough benefit of the doubt.”
“I wouldn’t like to say, Boss,” Jamie says, smirking.
Adam ignores him. “So. If the murders in the outhouse in 1995 are linked, then it all began there, with number twenty. Then we had sixteen through to twelve on Saturday night, possibly one more today, although I can’t see it.” He sees Jamie about to talk again. “And I know what you’re thinking. Why twenty? Why not start from fifteen, or ten, or some other random number?”
“It’s significant somehow,” Jamie says slowly.
