River Deep Read Online Free PDF Page A

fingers touching the small, round contusion in the centre of the chest that she had noticed. “I wonder what caused this,” he mused.
    Randall leaned forward. “I don’t know. We couldn’t see anything in the house that would have caused it.”
    “Well – whatever it was – there’s very little bruising. It was inflicted within a very short time of his death.”
    “Is there nothing in the cellar that could have caused this wound?” Martha looked at them both.
    Randall answered. “Not that I’ve seen.”
    “I’ll need to study the underlying tissues. It looks superficial but inflicted with some force. Now – let’s look at this.”
    Sullivan’s index finger stroked the injury in the chest now, which gaped and smiled like a baby’s mouth. Gently he brought the edges back together. Peter handed him a ruler and he measured the wound very carefully.
Two
cen
timetres . They all marked the number and knew its significance.
The width of the blade of the causative instrument cannot be larger than the size of the wound. But because a man may move either to defend himself or to try and escape when he feels the first prick of the knife a small knife may make a big wound.
    Sullivan frowned and pointed out more detail. The wound was asymmetric, tapering thinly at one end, blunt at the other. “Fish-tailing,” he murmured then smiled at the policeman and Martha knew he relished this Sherlock Holmes touch.
    “So, Alex,” Sullivan said. “You’re looking for a single-edged instrument, with a blade narrower than two centimetres.”
    “Well we haven’t found it yet,” Alex answered grumpily, as though he imagined the pathologist thought he was handing him a solution on a plate. “But we’ll get a team to search the area – as well as we can,” he said. “The cellar’s still half underwater.” His eyes clouded. They all fell silent and Martha knew what they were thinking. The Severn, snaking round the town, no more than four steps from the front door of Marine Terrace. Expected to peak some time on Thursday and they would all have to wait.
    “We may never find it,” the policeman finished.
It could be washing along the bottom of the river. Embedding in the mud or shifting with the ebb and flow of the water.
    But at least they had a description of a knife and the width of a blade. Which led to the next question: how long was that blade? Knife wounds could be surprisingly deceptive. On the surface there might be little to see. But even a wound of two centimetres wide could be lethal. If it had penetrated a vital part of a vital organ. Such as one of the two ventricles of the heart.
    Now they were all curious to know what else Sullivanwould discover. But he was acting cautious and slow, still studying the skin. Once he had investigated the wound he would have destroyed this untouched witness. Again the police photographer flashed some close-ups.
    “There’s no damage on the skin,” he mused. “No marks of a hilt – which makes me think it didn’t go all the way in. Although the clothes would have protected it to some extent.”
    Already Martha was hearing a defence.
Accident. Fell
against the knife. No clear intent.
From her point of view this was still not a clear case of homicide. It was
possible
that Humphreys had
fallen
down the cellar steps, a knife in his hand. Nothing but an unfortunate and terrible accident. The lights had been off because of the flooding. There had been intermittent interruption of the supply for some of Sunday and most of Monday before it had been completely switched off on Tuesday as the water level had risen. Humphreys was in a strange house – not his own. He may well have been drinking. Sullivan would certainly be sending serum samples for blood alcohol as well as other mind-altering substances. If such a knife was found in the cellar accidental death was still a possible verdict.
    Sullivan gently threaded a blunt-ended probe into the wound and when it met resistance he read