‘He’s been dead about six months,’ Jim Grieves began. ‘It’s hard to be precise. The vermin in that place have had a fine time. They’ve picked off his skin and most of his internal organs, but by dating the dried blood in his mouth cavity and nasal passage… six months is a reasonable guess.’
‘Was he murdered?’
‘Absolutely. Your man suffered before he died. Both ankles were broken, kneecaps and elbows too. And his windpipe was cut deep – the blade edge severing his vertebrae. Whoever did this virtually cut his head off.’
‘Was he killed on site?’
‘Doesn’t look like it. The lack of blood at the scene, the absence of any clothes and the small hole that the body was forced into suggest that he was killed elsewhere then hidden there. Before rigor mortis set in, your killer or killers scrunched him up and buried him – his bones were already broken so he would have been more easy to manipulate.’
‘What about his heart?’
Jim paused, aware of the importance of the question.
‘Still there. Or fragments of it. And what’s left is still attached. It’s been eaten by the rats – you can see the teeth marks if you look close.’
Helen peered down at the interior of the dead man’s chest.
‘Like I say, we’ve found blood under the fingernails, in his nasal passage and in his mouth. Two blood types so far, so if you’re lucky your killer’s blood might be in there. Should have DNA for you in a few hours.’
Helen nodded but her attention remained fixed on what had once been Anton’s beating heart. So much seemed to fit with the killer’s MO, but the heart hadn’t been removed. Was Anton a nursery slope for Lyra? Did she graduate from torture to mutilation with her later victims? Was Anton Gardiner the spark that set the blaze burning in her mind?
It was time to find out more about the life and times of the murdered pimp. Helen thanked Jim and headed for the exit, leaving the unusually taciturn pathologist alone with the man who had been eaten by rats.
‘So what do we know about this guy?’
Helen was addressing the team, who were now crowded round her in the incident room.
‘Anton Gardiner, small-time pimp and drug dealer,’ DC Grounds began. ‘Born 1988 to Shallene Gardiner, a single mum with numerous convictions for shoplifting. No father on his birth certificate and we’re unlikely to make any headway on that score. We don’t know much about Shallene, but we do know she was generous with her favours.’
Despite the subject matter, a few female members of the team suppressed smiles. There was something endearingly old-fashioned about DC Grounds.
