It is a sad truth that politicians, privilege and perfidy are rarely found apart. While some may begin their political path with an urge to serve, that resolve is inevitably worn away with every passing day, every deal struck, every favour curried. And many who climb the mountain of public service carry corruption with them from the very beginning.
Many, not all, I reminded myself as I looked clinically at the ruined body of Lord Theodore Marlow.
I was rarely called to a scene when someone had passed away peacefully, but this was certainly the grimmest. The posh, refined room stank worse than a public urinal. Death was a great leveller, and no matter how refined he had been in life, Marlow had still shat himself in death.
‘Talk me through it,’ I ordered Channing.
‘Lord Theodore Marlow, aged forty-six, air elemental and representative of the same at the Symposium. He was found dead by his cleaner at 8am today upon her entry into the premises. According to the cleaner, Marlow was estranged fromhis wife, Ada Marlow, and they have one dependent, Frankie Marlow, who is four years of age. Mrs Marlow maintains a separate residence in the Home Counties and runs her own successful wind farm.’
‘Has she been notified?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Continue.’
‘Frost and McCaffrey secured the scene, and Medical Examiner Kate Potter is en route. McCaffrey is canvassing the local area to see if anyone saw or heard anything.’ He gestured loosely at Ed, his comment there implied. No need to spell out that the Scene of Crime Officers (SOCO) were in attendance when we could clearly see Ed whistling to himself as he photographed the scene.
‘Tell me about your actions since you arrived,’ I instructed.
Channing wet his lips. ‘When I arrived at the scene, I verified death as per your previous instructions.’
‘Good.’
‘Then I took some photographs of the body and the crime scene. I examined the body, which was cool to the touch.’
‘He was eviscerated,’ I pointed out. ‘Having a huge cavity open like that cools the body far faster than if the body is left intact, so you can’t use temperature alone as a means of estimating the time of death. What else can we check?’
‘Lividity,’ Channing said confidently. ‘Because the deceased is secured to the chair, the blood has pooled primarily in the lower extremities.’ He gestured to the body’s calves. ‘The hue is mottled and a light purplish red, not the deep maroon you get once the lividity is fixed, so death is likely to have been within a couple of hours.’
‘Not bad.’
He smiled a little at the faint praise, but then I continued. ‘Once he’s peeled away from the chair, his buttocks shouldalso be examined. Lividity would be prominent then. What else should we consider?’
Channing looked slightly panicked, like he was dreaming he’d turned up at school nude.
Taking pity on him, I continued the lesson. ‘We need to factor the catastrophic blood loss into the lividity. Marlow lost a lot of blood, so there was less of it to pool in the limbs. With the blood loss factored in, the lividity won’t become so extreme as quickly.’
I knelt, careful to avoid the pool of blood soaking into the carpet. I pressed a gloved finger to the victim’s calf. The mottled skin blanched under the pressure before returning to its previous shade. ‘The lividity here isn’t fixed, so that tells us the time of death is definitely less than eight hours ago,’ I confirmed. ‘Smell the air.’
Channing baulked at the instruction. ‘What?’
‘Take a deep inhale,’ I said impatiently.
‘I really don’t want to,’ he muttered.
I got that. It smelled bad enough in here without having to intentionally inhale. A scene like this created the worst kind of smell. Everyone hated a disembowelment, not just the victim.
‘What do you smell?’ I pressed.
With a grimace, Channing did as instructed and inhaled deeply. He gagged, and I waited for him to sift through the stenches to identify what stood out.
‘That’s the most rancid thing I’ve ever smelt,’ he said, still gagging.
‘It’s not nice,’ I conceded. ‘If you’re going to be sick, do it over there, far from the scene.’
‘I’m okay,’ he said, but I didn’t quite buy it. My inexperienced rookie was green on any day of the week, but now he looked it too.
‘When you’re ready, take another breath – maybe go for a shallower one this time – and then parse the scents. What canwe learn about the scene from the smell alone? You need to learn to rely on more than just your eyes.’
