Body Politic by Paul Johnston Read Free Book Online Page B

incisions, forming a flap of skin six and a quarter inches by eleven inches by five and a half inches; said flap was pulled down to allow access to the liver, which was then removed.”
    â€œWhat kind of blade?” I asked.
    â€œNon-serrated, single-edged, extremely sharp.” The medical guardian shrugged. “As to length and thickness, I can’t be sure.”
    I looked into the blood-encrusted hole. “Any evidence of medical knowledge?”
    â€œNot a great deal. The killer knew where to locate the liver, but he could have found that out in any encyclopaedia.”
    â€œWhat about bloodstains? Surely he would have been soaked.”
    Yellowlees nodded. “I would have thought so, though bear in mind that the victim was already dead when mutilation took place. There wouldn’t have been any spurting.”
    Hamilton came closer. It looked like he was only just winning the battle against vomiting. “We found all her clothing apart from the tunic in a neat pile under the washbasin nearest the door. Her equipment was laid on top. There were no stains on any of it.”
    I looked at him. “And there were no traces of blood anywhere except in the immediate vicinity of the body.”
    â€œThat’s right,” said Yellowlees. “What are you getting at?”
    â€œI’ll tell you what I’m getting at. I think the killer took off his own clothes as well as the victim’s. I think he cut her open when he was stark naked, then washed the blood off in one of the basins. He’s some sort of cleanliness freak.”
    Simpson 134, the nurse, was staring at me, her eyelids so wide apart that I felt my own straining in sympathy. After a few seconds the medical guardian moved to her and put his hand on her arm briefly.
    â€œI’d expect there to be traces of blood on the basin he used,” he said.
    â€œNot after the Council’s decision to send in the city’s number one cleaner.”
    Yellowlees ignored the sarcasm. “As I remember, the otolaryngologist didn’t use to mind if he left bloodstains.” That was a typical guardian understatement. The ENT Man treated his victims’ blood like it was paint and he was Jackson Pollock.
    â€œWhat are you saying?” demanded Hamilton. “That this isn’t the same killer? The victim was strangled by ligature, sodomised and had an organ removed. That was the pattern in the past. What more do you want?”
    I wanted an explanation of a lot more: like why the ears weren’t cut off, why the nose wasn’t blocked with earth, why the face hadn’t been beaten till it was more black than blue, why a condom had been used and why the scene of the crime hadn’t been left like a room in some late twentieth-century slasher film. And that was just for starters.
    Yellowlees looked like he was thinking along the same lines. He glanced at Hamilton doubtfully, then turned back to the body. His assistant had finished shaving the head and groin.
    â€œLet’s get on,” said the medical guardian. He picked up a dissecting knife and made a large Y-shaped incision from neck to pubis, leaving the larynx intact for further examination. The sternum was then split and the dead woman’s chest prised apart. That was when the public order guardian left.
    â€œThere’s more to this than meets the eye,” Yellowlees said. Even guardians sometimes speak in clichés.
    â€œI’d go along with that,” I said, suddenly noticing that the statuesque nurse was following the surgeon’s every movement like she had been hypnotised. Not even auxiliaries are that brainwashed usually.
    I left them to it. I’d attended too many post-mortems in the past. Perhaps a five-year lay-off had turned me into a sensitive soul; perhaps there’s just a limit to how much of the human body’s interior you can take. Unless you’re a medic. Or a serial killer. I had a nasty feeling that