Innocent Graves by Peter Robinson Read Free Book Online Page B

belistening to Wogan now. People who aren’t just about to cut open the body of a sixteen-year-old girl. I suppose you’d like some fancy classical concert on Radio 3, wouldn’t you? I can’t say that the thought of performing a post-mortem to Elgar’s Enigma Variations would do a hell of a lot for me.” Glendenning stuck a cigarette in the corner of his mouth and pulled on his surgical gloves.
    Susan smiled. Banks looked at her and shrugged.
    The girl on the slab wasn’t a human being, Susan kept telling herself. She was just a piece of dead meat, like at the butcher’s. She remembered June Walker, the butcher’s daughter, from school in Sheffield, and recalled the peculiar smell that always seemed to emanate from her. Odd, she hadn’t thought of June Walker in years.
    The smell—stale and sharp, but sweet, too—was here, all right, but it was buried under layers of formaldehyde and cigarette smoke, for both Glendenning and Banks were smoking furiously. She didn’t blame them. She had once seen a film on television in which an American woman cop rubbed some Vick’s or something under her nose to mask the smell of a decomposing body. Susan didn’t dare do such a thing herself for fear the others would laugh at her. After all, this was Yorkshire, not America.
    Still, as she watched Glendenning cut and probe at the girl’s clothing, then remove it for air-drying and storage, she almost wished she were a smoker. At least that smell was easier to wash away than the smell of death; that seemed to linger in her clothes and hair for days after.
    Deborah’s panties lay in a plastic bag on the lab bench. They weren’t at all like the navy-blue knickers, the “passion-killers,” that Susan had worn at school, but expensive, silky and rather sexy black panties. Maybe such things were de rigueur for St Mary’s girls, Susan thought. Or had Deborah been hoping to impress someone? They still didn’t know if she’d had a boyfriend.
    Her school blazer lay next to the panties in a separate bag, and beside that lay her satchel. Vic Manson, the fingerprints expert, had sent it back early that morning, saying he had found clear prints on one of the vodka bottles but only blurred partials on the smooth leather surface of the satchel. DI Stott had been throughDeborah’s blazer pockets and found only a purse with six pounds thirty-three pence in it, an old chewing-gum wrapper, her house keys, a cinema ticket stub and a half-eaten roll of Polo mints.
    After one of his assistants had taken photographs, Glendenning examined the face, noting the pinpoint haemorrhages in the whites of the eyes, eyelids and skin of the cheeks. Then he examined the weal on the neck.
    “As I said last night,” he began, “it looks like a clear case of asphyxia by ligature strangulation. Look here.”
    Banks and Susan bent over the body. Susan tried not to look into the eyes. Glendenning’s probe indicated the discoloured weal around the front of the throat. “Whoever did this was pretty strong,” he said. “You can see how deeply the strap bit into the flesh. And I’d say our chappie was a good few inches taller than his victim. And she was tall for her age. Five foot six.” He turned to Susan. “That’s almost 168 centimetres, to the younger generation. See how the wound is deeper at the bottom, the way it would be if you were pulling a leather strap upwards?” He moved away and demonstrated on one of the assistants. “See?” Banks and Susan nodded.
    “Are you sure the satchel strap was the weapon?” Banks asked.
    Glendenning nodded. He picked it up and held it out. “You can see traces of blood on the edge here, where it broke the skin. We’re having it typed, of course, but I’d put money on this being your weapon.”
    Next, he set about removing the plastic bags that covered the hands. Gently—almost, Susan thought, like a manicurist—he held up each hand and peered at the fingernails. Deborah’s nails had been quite long,