To Cast a Shadow Chapter Three #2
The apartment block went from desolated and still, to beating with the pulse of people on a mission.
I directed two of the CSIs up to Chloe’s apartment, my brother’s girlfriend, Jenna Osei, and the crime scene manager still talking to Taz.
I wondered if she’d recognise him from when he’d been at my house, which was just over the road from Nate’s.
I made a note to avoid her for the next couple of days.
The mortuary wasn’t far from Chloe’s apartment, but we detoured back to the Fishbowl on the way so Taz could lead a quick briefing and allocate jobs for the afternoon, and Carly, one of our recently acquired DCs, could start the murder board.
It also meant I could pick up the sandwich that Vinny had actually remembered.
I was touched, maybe by madness, definitely by Vinny’s occasional thoughtfulness, although I did wonder what he was after. The was even a can of fizzy mango juice, one of my favourites. I eyed Vinny across the office while he was talking to one of the other DCs. He pretended not to notice me.
Definitely after something.
“Have you been in here before?” I asked Taz as we entered the morgue.
“I came last week to introduce myself and so I didn’t feel like a pillock when I turned up for a postmortem not knowing where to go.
” He ruffled his hair and looked rather boyish.
I was still getting used to the new hair style and shaven jawline.
He didn’t look like the man who’d spent several hours on my roof stopping rain from pouring in.
That already seemed like a lifetime ago.
“It isn’t a place where you want to get lost.” I’d had nightmares about being locked in, especially when I’d been there in a winter evening when it was already dark.
We signed in and headed through to the area at the back of the building where the autopsies took place.
It was a new building, opened about four years ago, and the base for forensics in Greater Manchester.
It’d never had an official opening, being one of those places that people didn’t really want to acknowledge existed.
Saira Mizra’s den, as she liked to call it, was the at the end of the corridor, the walls bare of any decoration and the lights dim.
Even at the height of summer when we were having a heatwave, it still felt like the middle of the night.
We went into the viewing area, a partitioned room from the mortuary area, with a TV that would show close ups if the pathologist thought it appropriate.
Chloe Bennett was already on the metal table, a white sheet covering her body up to her neck, the whiteness contrasting with the bruising around her neck.
She looked young and fragile, her face still displaying the remainders of her make up and false eyelashes.
She hadn’t expected to die twenty-four hours ago.
Then she’d been excited about her social media blowing up, the attention she was getting, the sponsorships and brand deals she was being asked for.
I’d noticed on her social media that she was now represented by an agency.
The texts she’d exchanged with an aging boyband member had served her well, and I did wonder whether she and Scarlett had a master plan to be catapulted into the stratosphere of fame. I doubted Chloe had planned to end up dead.
Dr Miz was checking her phone, already dressed for the postmortem.
She’d worked in the area for ten years and had carried out the very first postmortem I’d been witness to.
Tall, with long, thick black hair, she was striking in more ways than one, having no fear of any police officer, no matter what the rank.
“Good afternoon, both of you.” She sounded like a primary school teacher in a classroom for the children of vampires. “I’m just about to start; I haven’t even gotten round to the preliminaries yet, so you’ll have to bear with.”
I tried to stop my face showing how not delighted I was. Taz didn’t try at all.
“I take it this isn’t what you choose for your viewing pleasure?” I spoke quietly, hoping Dr Miz wouldn’t hear.
He swallowed, maybe more of a gulp. “I was never into science.”
“Even biology?” I tried to lighten the atmosphere, which was pretty difficult when Dr Miz was getting underway, removing the sheet and starting to dictate her observations.
Taz gave me a look that managed to silence me, but not without a smirk.
“We have a female who has been preliminarily identified as Chloe Neveah Bennett, aged eighteen. She is five foot six and is underweight for her height at forty-eight kilograms. She’s wearing a sleeveless top, cut off denim shorts with a belt and a G-string.
Clothing is intact and has no signs of damage, apart from dirt.
” Dr Miz and her assistant who I recognised as Jenny, removed the clothing, bagging it so it could be stored if we needed further analysis.
Taz had turned away and I wondered if I’d found his weak spot.
“These not your thing?”
He shook his head, delving into his pocket for a piece of chewing gum, offering me one.
I shook my head. “Have you attended many?”
“Too fucking many. I was on the murder investigation team in Liverpool before I went under. My boss, the DI, hated them and hated me, so he’d always send me.
I don’t know how she does it.” He glanced at Dr Miz, who was detailing her observations, Chloe’s body now bare and awaiting the pathologist’s scalpel.
“We have significant bruising around the neck, consistent with compression. There’s petechial haemorrhages too.
” Dr Miz peered into her eyes. “I’m confident that cause of death is manual strangulation.
We have no significant decomposition either.
” She stood up and looked over at us. “You both look far too pale, especially you, Mia, when you’ve just had a week in the sun. ”
“It’s funny how long ago that seems,” I mused.
“Anyway, I’ll continue.” She carried on going through the oddly reassuring list of things to check, which blurred in my head like the remnants of a nightmare. Taz shifted from foot to foot, hands in pockets, chewing gum and the quietest I’d known him.
“So, livor mortis is inconsistent with her final recovery position. Translated, in case your brain has seized up, that suggests she was killed elsewhere and moved. There are also possibly creasing marks from confinement in a restricted space. Do you see these scratches?” She used the camera so we could see up close on the screen.
“These are superficial and carried out post-mortem. None of these scratches penetrated beyond superficial skin layers, however, these,” she moved the body, her assistant redirecting the camera, “these have been caused by something sharp such as glass. I can see remnants still in the wound. They’re around her knees and the backs of her legs, so it could be that she’s collapsed onto the floor where there’s shattered glass—I’ll be able to let you know more, but the pattern suggests accidental rather than deliberate for those. Curious.”
“That matches the area where we think she was killed. A camera was knocked over and smashed, so the glass could be from that or a wine glass that was also broken.” I thought back to the scene; it now felt like days ago since we’d been there but was still just a few hours.
“We’ll be able to compare anything we find in the cuts to what you have at the apartment but falling on a floor where there’s broken glass would account for what I’m seeing for some of the cuts.
The scratches on her front aren’t deep enough to be from that, and they could be a deliberate pattern.
” She looked over the body as if she was a sculptor admiring her work.
“Why would he scratch her afterwards?” I muttered, mainly to myself. “Saira, are those scratches post or peri mortem?”
“The scratches appear superficial and dry. There’s no bruising that I can see around them, but I’ll be able to tell you more later. You can hang around, if you like, but I wouldn’t if I was you. I need to weigh organs and that part, which I know you love, Mia.” Her smile was pure malignance.
I glanced at Taz who had headed closer to the door.
“Time of death—which you know I won’t give you more than a window.
She wasn’t in the park overnight. The insect activity was early, so I guess she’d been there four or five hours.
Given how rigor had set in, she was moved an hour or so after death.
The details will be in my report if you want the scientific stuff.
” Dr Miz had taken off her gloves and was helping herself to a drink from a water bottle.
Taz had relaxed now she wasn’t holding any sharp implements. “That’s helpful. Thank you.”
“That’s my job. To be helpful.” She eyed him through the glass.
I put my hand on his back to get him moving. Dr Miz was spinning a web she was hoping he’d get caught it. If it had been Vinny, I’d have left him tangled in it. I wasn’t feeling quite the same about my new boss.
“We’ll catch you later, Saira.” I opened the door and led the way to the light.
Taz frowned. “What don’t I know?”
“I don’t know what your relationship status is, but Dr Miz probably already does and is planning on temporarily changing it. Emphasis on temporarily.”
“Oh. I thought—Vinny?” He gestured behind him.
“You don’t need to hear that story. No one did. We’re still having nightmares because of it. Move on.”
His eyes flickered with infuriation. “Don’t boss me about, Mia.”
I shrugged. “It was for the best.” I paused; we carried on walking. “There’s something that’s struck me though. Why did our killer spend so much time with the victim after he’d killed her?”
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