AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The pathologist shook his head. ‘No amount of alcohol will mask life signs.’
‘What will?’ Kim asked, wondering briefly if Keats was going to try and find an excuse to cover his tracks.
‘Therearedrugs that can mimic death.’
‘Yeah, in the movies,’ Kim argued, wondering why she was still here, staring at an empty space that had once held a not-dead body.
‘We’d started taking photos and everything,’ Keats said, rubbing his bald head as though still trying to understand what had happened.
‘To be fair, he did look proper dead,’ Mitch said, supporting his colleague.
‘Overdose?’ Bryant asked, returning to her side and matching her thoughts, even though there was no evidence of any drug-taking paraphernalia.
Drugs could have been ingested elsewhere and he’d staggered here to die, she supposed.
Keats shook his head. ‘You’ll soon realise that’s unlikely.’
‘Well, did he say anything at all?’ she asked, looking back along the path. Right now, she was looking at someone who had either taken a few too many drugs or was possibly suffering the effects of a sex game gone wrong.
‘Inspector, I don’t think you’re getting it,’ Keats said. ‘The man did not move one muscle. He didn’t budge an inch. There was no flicker, no twitch, no blink, and when the paramedics moved him, they were lifting a dead weight.’
‘Not seeing a crime here yet, Keats,’ she said, taking a step away. It didn’t currently look like a case for CID.
‘Show her,’ Keats said, nodding at Mitch.
Mitch approached her with his digital camera. An image lit up the screen.
‘What the…?’ Her words trailed away as she took the camera from his hands.
Initially, her gaze went to the man’s face. She zoomed in and there was no question that he looked dead. She almost couldn’t compute that this man had been alive in this photo. There was a slackness to his flesh that only came when every single muscle had been relieved of its duty. The gaze was unseeing and vacant, glazed and lifeless.
‘Okay, Keats, I can forgive the visual error,’ she said as Bryant took a look over her shoulder.
She zoomed back out and guessed she was looking at a male in his late twenties with dark hair and a bit of stubble.
She zoomed out further to take a better look at the photo. The man was wearing tracksuit bottoms and a beer-logo tee shirt. His arms had been stretched up either side of his head so that they were flat against his ears. His fingers rose to a point as though about to perform a pirouette. From the waist down, his legs were spread apart with a good three-foot gap between his feet.
‘Not your normal overdose position,’ Mitch noted as she handed the camera back.
‘Not at all,’ she said, fighting the curiosity that was growing inside her. She’d attended many overdose scenes and the one thing they all had in common was the distinct lack of positioning: their bodies had fallen haphazardly into disuse as the muscles relaxed. This man had not got into this state on his own.
‘Can you get anything forensically?’ she asked Mitch.
‘Nothing that’s gonna stand up against a decent defence lawyer,’ Mitch said as Keats’s phone began to ring.
Kim understood the problem. The scene had been trampled by paramedics who had only one priority – to save lives. Forensics and evidence were not their concern.
Okay, maybe she’d take a trip to the hospital to question this guy when he came out of his stupor. Just to satisfy her own curiosity.
‘Thanks for letting me know,’ Keats said, ending the call.
She waited.
‘He didn’t make it. Declared dead on arrival at the hospital.’
‘They’re sure?’ she asked, even though she’d never had cause to question a DOA assessment before.
‘Oh yeah, they’re sure he’s gone.’
