Natural Causes Read Online Free PDF Page B

pathologist looked at it, then at McLean, sniffed, and put the jar back in his pocket.
    ‘Don’t suppose we’ll be needing that today.’
    McLean had witnessed too many autopsies over the course of his career. He wasn’t comfortable with them, but neither did they sicken him in quite the way they used to. Of all the murder victims, hapless accidents and just plain unlucky people he had seen on this table, the mummified corpse of the young girl was perhaps the strangest.For starters, she had already been cut open, but Cadwallader still examined every inch of her slight frame, muttering observations into a microphone hanging from above. Finally, when he was satisfied her skin would yield no more clues as to her cause of death, he got to the part McLean hated most. The high-pitched whine of the bone-saw always set his teeth on edge, like fingernails scraped down a blackboard. It went on far too long, and ended with the horrible sound of the top of the skull being cracked off like a boiled egg.
    ‘Interesting. The brain appears to have been removed. Here, Tony. Look.’
    Steeling himself, McLean moved around. Seeing the dead girl’s head opened up only made her look smaller, younger. The cavity inside her skull was dull, lined with dried blood and flecks of bone from the saw, but it was plainly empty.
    ‘Could it have rotted?’
    ‘Not really, no. Not given the state of everything else. I’d have expected it to have shrivelled up a bit, but it’s been removed. Probably through the nose; that’s how the ancient Egyptians used to do it.’
    ‘Where is it then?’
    ‘Well, we’ve these samples, but none of them looks like a brain to me.’ Cadwallader pointed at a stainless-steel trolley upon which sat four specimen jars. McLean recognised the heart he’d seen the day before, but didn’t want to hazard a guess as to the other organs. Two more jars stood in white plastic containers to prevent their desiccated contents leaking from large cracks that split the glass. All had been uncovered in hidden alcoves, arrangedsymmetrically around the dead girl’s body. There had been other items in each of the alcoves too, yet another piece of the puzzle still needing to be put together.
    ‘What about the broken ones?’ McLean peered at some browny-grey sludge smeared on the inside of a jar. ‘That could be brain, couldn’t it?’
    ‘It’s difficult to tell, given the state of them. But I’d hazard a guess that was one of her kidneys and the other one a lung. I’ll run some tests to be sure. Whatever it was, the jar’s the wrong shape for it to have been her brain. You should know that, Tony. I’ve shown you enough. And besides, if it did come out through her nose, it would have been pretty well mushed up. No point sticking that in a preserving jar.’
    ‘Good point. How long ago do you reckon she died?’
    ‘That’s a difficult one. The mummification shouldn’t have happened at all; the city’s too humid, even in a walled-up basement. She should have rotted away. Or at least been eaten by rats. But she’s perfectly preserved, and I’ll be damned if I can find any trace of the chemicals you’d need to do that. Tracy can run some more tests, and we’ll send a sample off to be carbon dated; we might get lucky with that. Otherwise, judging by her dress, I’d say at least fifty, sixty years. Any better than that’s up to you.’
    McLean picked up the thin fabric that was laid out on the trolley along with the sample jars, holding it up to the light. Brown stains smeared the lower half, and the delicate lace around the neck and sleeves had frayed into gossamer strips trailing in the air. It was a skimpy thing, a cocktail dress rather than something a young womanmight wear every day. The faded floral pattern looked cheap; he turned it around and saw a couple of neatly hand-sewn patches around the hem. No manufacturer’s label. It was the dress of a poor girl trying to impress. But as he looked back at her twisted,