Fatal Act Read Online Free PDF Page B

mischievous sixth former than a qualified doctor. There would have been something macabre in his enjoyment of his work, had his enthusiasm not been so engaging. Like Geraldine, he was keen to press on. He turned to the body without pausing to greet the detectives, and launched straight into his commentary.
    ‘T his is an undernourished female in her early twenties. She’s thin, borderline anorexic, but otherwise healthy. Reasonable muscle tone suggests she probably worked out, or at least took regular exercise. Now, to the effects of her fatal accident. Most obvious are the superficial injuries.’
    He pointed to the scratches on the victim’s face.
    ‘There are multiple minor shallow incisions caused by broken glass from the side window of the car. Bruising to the thorax,’ he gestured at a large dark area on the dead woman’s chest and shoulder, ‘and head trauma, all of which might have killed her, in conjunction with the shock of the impact, if she’d been left unattended for long enough.’
    ‘He sounds as though he’s reeling off a shopping list,’ Sam grumbled.
    Geraldine frowned at her and looked back at the body.
    ‘W hat was the cause of death? We need to be specific.’
    ‘Oh, we can be specific all right. The actual cause of death was this.’
    He pointed to the back of the victim’s neck and nodded to his assistant. Together they shifted the body onto its front. He pointed with one gloved finger to a deep gash on the nape of the victim’s neck. The skin around the wound was bloodless, white.
    ‘A sharp instrument passed through her neck, severing the spinal cord. That was what killed her. I mean, she would have died anyway, but this made certain.’
    He grinned, as if to say, ‘I’ve got your attention now, haven’t I?’
    G eraldine waited for him to continue.
    ‘Yes, she would most probably have died from her other injuries – blood loss, head trauma – but that was what killed her all right.’
    ‘It was bad luck that the glass happened to strike her in the back of the neck like that,’ Geraldine said.
    The pathologist gave a curious smile. ‘It certainly would have been, if it had happened by chance.’
    ‘Is there something you’re not telling us?’
    ‘Well,’ he hesitated. ‘The injury was inflicted with some force.’ He paused. ‘To the back of her neck.’
    Geraldine frowned. She wasn’t sure she understood the implication.
    ‘A piece of flying glass?’ she suggested.
    ‘Coming from behind her, passing right through her head rest?’
    T hey gazed at the wound in silence for a moment.
    ‘The cut was effected with some force,’ the pathologist repeated. ‘It almost severed her head from her neck.’
    ‘What are you telling us?’
    ‘I’m not telling you anything. I’m just pointing out that it doesn’t seem possible an injury like this was inflicted by a stray piece of glass. All the other lacerations make sense. They are what you’d expect from shattered bits of glass flying around, but this – this is different. How did a shard of glass find its way past her head rest to penetrate her flesh, cutting between the vertebrae? And –’ he paused dramatically, ‘where is it now? Having penetrated so deeply, it would have remained embedded in her neck. Even if it had somehow been dislodged, it would have fallen nearby. Yet scene of crime officers have found no trace of anything remotely in keeping with this wound. Whatever caused the injury seems to have vanished.’
    ‘Along with the driver of the van,’ Sam said.
    G eraldine and Sam went straight from the mortuary to Zak Trevelyan’s address in central London. He was studying set design at Central, the prestigious drama school in London that Anna had attended. They stopped outside a smart block of flats round the corner from Kings Cross station, just a few minutes’ walk from his college.
    Sam whistled. ‘This must cost enough. I wonder who’s paying the rent?’
    ‘No one. Piers bought the flat, and his