In the Woods полностью

"Post-mortem?" I said. "You're sure?" This was a relief in the obvious way, eliminating some of the most excruciating mental images; but, at the same time, it did imply a special level of wacko. Sam's face was pulled into an unconscious grimace.

"There are fresh abrasions to the exterior of the vagina and to the first three inches of the interior, and a fresh tear in the hymen, but there was no bleeding and no inflammation. Post-mortem, beyond a doubt." I felt the collective, panicky flinch-none of us wanted to see this, the thought was obscene-but Cooper gave us a tiny amused glance and stayed where he was, at the head of the table.

"What kind of implement," Cassie said. She was staring at the mark on Katy's throat, intent and expressionless.

"Inside the vagina we found particles of earth and two minute splinters of wood, one severely charred, the other overlaid with what appears to be thin, clear varnish. I would postulate something at least four inches in length and approximately one to two inches in diameter, made of lightly varnished wood, with considerable wear, a burn mark of some kind and no sharp edges-a broom handle, something along those lines. The abrasions were discrete and well defined, implying a single insertion. I found nothing to suggest that there was also penile penetration. The rectum and mouth showed no signs of any sexual assault."

"So no body fluids," I said grimly.

"And there appeared to be no blood or skin beneath her fingernails," said Cooper, with faint, pessimistic satisfaction. "The tests are incomplete, of course, but I feel I should warn you not to place too much hope in the possibility of DNA samples."

"You checked the rest of the body for semen, too, right?" Cassie said.

Cooper gave her an austere look and didn't bother answering. "After death," he said, "she was placed in much the same position in which we found her, lying on her left side. There was no secondary lividity, indicating that she remained in this pose for at least twelve hours. The relative lack of insect activity leads me to believe that she was in an enclosed space, or possibly wrapped tightly in some material, for a considerable proportion of the time before discovery of the body. All this will be included in my notes, of course, but for now…Do you have any questions?"

The dismissal was delicate but clear. "Anything new on time of death?" I asked.

"The gastrointestinal contents allow me to be a little more precise than I was at the scene-if, that is, you can determine the time of her last meal. She had eaten a chocolate biscuit only a few minutes before her death, and a full meal-the digestive process was fairly advanced, but beans appear to have been a component-approximately four to six hours earlier."

Baked beans on toast, at around eight. She had died somewhere between midnight and two o'clock, give or take. The biscuit must have come either from the Devlins' kitchen, sneaked on her way out of the house, or from her killer.

"My team should have her cleaned up within a few minutes," Cooper said. He straightened Katy's head with a precise, satisfied flourish. "If you'd like to notify the family."

We stood outside the hospital and looked at one another. "Haven't been to one of those in a while," Sam said softly.

"And now you remember why," I said.

"Post-mortem," Cassie said, frowning absently back at the building. "What the hell was this guy doing?"

Sam went off to find out more about the motorway, and I phoned the incident room and told two of the floaters to take the Devlins to the hospital. Cassie and I had already seen their first, crucial reaction to the news, we neither needed nor wanted to see it again; and we did need, urgently, to talk to Mark Hanly.

"Want to bring him in?" I said, in the car. There was no reason why we couldn't interrogate Mark in the finds shed, but I wanted him off his territory and on ours, partly as a form of unreasonable revenge for my ruined shoes.

"Oh yeah," said Cassie. "He said they only have a few weeks left, didn't he? If I've got Mark right, the fastest way to get him talking is to waste his workday."

We used the drive to make O'Kelly a nice long list of reasons why we did not feel that Knocknaree For Satan had been responsible for Katy Devlin's death. "Don't forget 'no ritual positioning,'" I said. I was driving again; I was still edgy enough that, without something to do, I would have chain-smoked all the way to Knocknaree.

"And no…slaughtered…livestock," Cassie said, writing.

"He is not going to say that at the press conference. 'We didn't find a dead chicken'?"

"Bet you a fiver he does. He won't even miss a beat."