Flush. Jane Clifton
Hopefully a quick chat to his shrink would put the sealer on it. The Polish prick was going down for it. No question.
Number 6, Lanark Apartments had been crawling with incriminating evidence: prints, DNA, her blood, his blood, her hair. Not that the bastard had much of his own to contribute. Not from his head anyway. A number one, buzz-cut did nothing to pretty up his ugly chops. As for the rest of his body? A wall-to-wall shagpile, according to Morecroft.
What was a bloke like Kransky doing with a piece of work like the victim? Archie imagined it was something the poor cow asked herself every day. Until it was too late. He exchanged a casual word with the duty sergeant about suicide watch then ambled back to the squad room to collect Davey. Carmen MacBride had summoned him to the morgue for a chat about the victim. He'd tried to put her off but she was so insistent that his curiosity was piqued. He caved in to her request on the proviso that it wouldn't take forever. The day was getting longer by the minute. So much for mulching, and saving the hydrangeas.
It wasn't far from police headquarters to the institute and, bearing in mind his doctor's continual doom-and-glooming about the dire consequences of a chronic lack of exercise, Archie decided they would walk.
Davey was waiting for him by the lift, shouting into his mobile phone. `Hello! Hello! You're dropping out!'
He caught sight of Archie and stuffed the phone into his pocket.
`Telstra,' he muttered. `Hopeless.'
Less than halfway along Sturt Street Archie realised his decision to walk had been ill-considered. The air-conditioning had obviously numbed his memory of how hot it was outside. Davey set a cracking pace and strode along chain-smoking, seemingly unaffected by the smouldering afternoon heat. Staggering through the door of the institute, Archie gulped down a chilled sigh of relief and mopped his dripping, liver-spotted forehead with the back of his sleeve.
They shuffled in to Carmen MacBride's office to find the doctor seated not at her desk but on it, legs swinging, red Birkenstock clogs resting on the carpet a good twenty centimetres below her bare feet.
`Hello, Archie,' she sang out in her rich Glaswegian lilt that almost added an extra syllable to his name. `How're y'doin' pal?'
`Carmen,' he exclaimed. `Always a pleasure.'
`Well, I wouldn't go so far as all that Arch,' she said with a grin.
Anyone seeing dumpy, middle-aged Carmen MacBride on the street would be surprised to discover what it was she did for a living. She favoured clothes of the brightest, most eccentric combinations that were at odds with the sombre nature of her work. On this warm February evening Carmen sported a baggy t-shirt covered in beaded elephants, over tie-dyed culottes. A crocheted, string bag-like construction did its best to keep her mop of steely grey curls in check. During autopsies she liked to have music playing in the background. Georgie Fame mostly, sometimes Vince Jones or Donnie Hathaway.
She eased her ample buttocks off the desk, and slid into the clogs.
`Are you okay, Archie? You look like death warmed up,' she said with a cackle. `And I should know.'
`Bloody hot out there,' Archie grumbled.
`Now then,' she said, handing two folders across the desk. `Have a wee skim through my preliminary report.'
Archie took his glasses case from his breast pocket and Davey reached for a pencil.
`So, time of death Wednesday, Feb 2 between two and four a.m.?' Davey asked.
`Aye. But she was a long time on the way to it,' said Carmen taking another sip.
`Death by suffocation,' Archie said. `You guessed right. As usual'
`Ligature mark on the side of the neck but no bruising to the throat,' the doctor continued. `Most likely a plastic bag over the head. Whoever did this was having some kind of party with her, for sure.'
`What about the cigarette burns?' Archie asked.
`Upper body mostly.'
`Any indication of rape or sexual assault?'
`No evidence of semen or bruising. This was a slow methodical beating that went too far, I'd say,' Carmen said. `There are marks on her wrists and ankles that indicate they were bound with rope. She was tied to a chair, and that's where she expired. The pooling of blood post-mortem indicates that she was left in that position for some time.'
Both men continued to read while Carmen drank her water and absent-mindedly wound a curl around her finger.
`Okay!' Davey flashed a look at Archie. `Breast implants.'
`Oh, aye,' Carmen said. `Whoppers! And this was a woman who started out in life looking like Pamela Anderson.'
Both men buried their noses further into the paperwork.
`It's a mystery to me the way some women will slice themselves into shape, like so many pieces of KFC. That's not all she had done, by the way,' Carmen continued. `Her lips were pumped with collagen and she was a regular botox abuser. The green eyes were contact lenses — prescription. Her eyes were naturally blue.'
`The complete Barbie doll,' Archie said. `Still, she didn't deserve to die like this.'
`She was going to die anyway,' Carmen said.
`Aren't we all,' Archie replied wearily.
`True, true, Arch. But she was going to die sooner than any of us, unless there's something neither of you are telling me.'
The two men stopped reading and looked across at her.
`That was what I wanted to explain,' Carmen said. `The victim was in the terminal stage of ovarian cancer. I'd say she had less than three months to live.'
`Jesus,' Archie hissed.
`In no way did it directly contribute to her death,' Carmen said. `She doesn't appear to have been taking medication or have undergone any chemotherapy or radiotherapy, but I thought it might be worth noting.'
`Weird,' Davey said. `I mean, apart from the fatal attack, she looks in good nick.'
`Unfortunately, that's how this bugger works, Detective Sergeant. Ovarian is one of the most deadly cancers because it's often asymptomatic. Or the symptoms are not unlike symptoms a woman might have for any number of other reasons. Bloating, fatigue, backache, mood swings — there isn't a woman alive who isn't suffering from one or all of those symptoms at any one time of her life.'
`Could she have known she had it?' Davey asked.
`It's possible. One of the other symptoms is amenorrhea.'
`What's that when it's at home?'
`That's rather the point, Arch — it's not at home. Amenorrhea means an absence of menstruation. Now, it may be that this woman had missed a few periods and suspected a rather more cheery prospect. It's a common mistake with this disease. Especially at her age. And, if the missing periods were accompanied by some of the other symptoms I mentioned — the bloating, fatigue, etcetera — even the canniest of GPs could have missed it.'
`The only way we'll be able to find out for sure is from medical records,' Archie said with a sigh, `and until that piece of garbage, her husband, quits his Marcel-bloody-Marceau impersonation we're not going to be getting much help.'
`But,' Davey said, `does it really make any difference?'
`What?' Archie asked.
`Whether she knew or not?'
`Course it bloody matters!' Archie snapped. `If this bird thought she was pregnant, Davey, who would be the first person she'd tell?'
`Her husband, right?' Davey shifted in his chair.
`Maybe,' Archie said. `In the usual scheme of things, yes. What could be more joyful information to deliver than, "Guess what, darl? We've got a little bubba on the way!" I mean both the victim and the perp are young enough, they're married, they live in a halfway decent place — what