The image on the screen got unpleasantly large, more like venetian blinds than ribs.
‘I want to speak about the phenomenon known as green bone response, green bone being living bone still mostly covered with soft tissue. Do you notice the shape of the left fifth rib compared to its counterpart on the right side? Compared also to the other ribs? Green bone when damaged perimortem can react to trauma by bending or twisting in a characteristic way that you wouldn’t observe if the injury were inflicted after death, when the flesh has deteriorated. Look.’ He used the pointer again.
Diamond sat forward, prompted by the mention of injury. He was close enough to the skeleton almost to touch the rib, but it was clearer to see magnified on screen, and if there was a difference it was easy to miss. He still wasn’t certain he could see it.
If Waghorn had found something of importance, all the posturing could be forgiven. He was in full flow again. ‘The bending of the green bone may not be obvious to most of you. When you get a full incision it shows better by curling inwards and if the cut is made in a way that exposes only a thin slice of bone then that piece will usually bend outwards. However, that hasn’t happened here. To the trained eye there is evidence of a thrust with a sharp instrument.’ His pointer showed a tiny chip in the bone. ‘An instrument that damaged the rib as well as penetrating the soft tissue and inflicting a fatal injury. However...’ He let the word stand on its own for a few dramatic seconds before adding, ‘It is not impossible that a separate thrust did the serious damage to vital cardiovascular structures.’
Diamond couldn’t contain himself. ‘Are you saying he was stabbed?’
‘Did someone speak?’
Reproach spread through the room like gas.
Everyone waited, expecting the autopsy to be suspended.
Waghorn stood transparently deciding how to deal with the offence. He took a deep breath, tilted his chin and announced to the room in general, ‘I had better explain that it is customary for the police to send a representative to witness a postmortem where foul play is suspected. The interruption came from... Would you remind me of your name, officer?’
Bloody insulting. He was well aware of the name.
The obvious response was to counterpunch. ‘Diamond, Detective Superintendent Diamond. You’re seriously suggesting one small blemish on a rib shows he was murdered? I’ve cracked my own ribs several times over playing rugby.’
‘Other people’s ribs, too, by the size of you.’
There was amusement.
‘It doesn’t mean I died.’
‘We’ll take your word for that, Mr. Diamond.’ Waghorn’s tongue was as sharp as any stand-up comedian’s.
‘I’m making a serious point. I’m saying the injury could have happened earlier in the man’s life.’
‘And I can say what I wish in my own lecture theatre unless you propose to take over. I gave my expert opinion, subject to the limitations I am working under. If you were listening, I spoke of a probability, not a certainty.’
‘All on the basis of a chipped rib?’
‘On the basis of severe blood loss. Haven’t you seen the staining on the clothes?’ Waghorn beckoned to the assistant who had been standing beside the clothes rack looking bored.
She unzipped the plastic cover to reveal a few garments looking as sad as the unsold remnants of a sale. They were in large transparent evidence bags on hangers. She lifted off the almost threadbare eighteenth-century frock coat and displayed it to the students like an item up for auction, followed by the waistcoat in slightly better condition and, finally, the remains of the shirt. Each had a plate-sized brown stain on the left side. None of this had been visible at the scene, where dust had covered everything.
‘I took the precaution of sending some threads for testing,’ Waghorn said. ‘Definitely blood.’
Diamond let fly. ‘Why didn’t you inform me at once?’
‘What’s the hurry?’ came back the response.
It broke the tension and earned a cheap laugh.
Waghorn rubbed it in. ‘Anthropologists are used to working with a timescale of centuries or millennia, not what happened yesterday or the day before.’
Diamond had heard enough from this wannabe comic and was out of his seat looking at the clothing. There were stains in plenty caused by putrefaction, but the large dark patch from blood loss was unmistakable. He searched for the point of entry. Unfortunately the fabric was so tattered he couldn’t tell where the knife had penetrated.
‘May I resume, or am I under arrest for failing to report a crime?’ Waghorn asked, still playing to his audience.
‘Were there any defensive wounds?’ Diamond asked.
‘I was coming to that. Would you care to return to your seat? Everything comes to him who waits.’
Diamond remained where he was.
But Waghorn had the advantage and knew it. ‘Is this harassment, or what? I can’t be comfortable with you so close, as if at any minute you’ll be feeling my collar.’
More laughter.
Only in the interest of getting more information, Diamond returned to his seat.
‘Thank you.’ Waghorn turned back to face his audience. ‘I was about to examine the vertebrae, another source of useful information about age, but perhaps I may be excused for pandering to the police and dealing first with the arms or, to be precise, the hands.’
The camera zoomed in and the pointer came into play again, indicating the finger bones of the right hand. They were clearly incomplete. The forefinger ended at the knuckle.
Was this the defensive wound Waghorn had said he was coming to — an entire joint severed? Picturing the struggle, Diamond was finding it difficult to contain himself. But he was glad he’d kept silent when Waghorn resumed.
‘Don’t be deceived by the absence of the top two sections of phalanx from the forefinger. The recovery of the skeleton from a partly demolished building was, to say the least, a difficult operation. Ideally I would have supervised the attachment of the sling we used to lift out the remains, but I was compelled to hand over to a team said to be experienced in such things. In consequence, several small bones were dislodged. The majority were recovered from the sling. Not all, unfortunately. Although I personally searched the loft space and the sling I didn’t find these tiny pieces of bone. All things considered, we were fortunate that this was the only loss. But the left hand is far more interesting.’
To Diamond’s eye, the image that now flashed on screen was less interesting than what they had just seen. The bones appeared to be complete.
Waghorn said, ‘Observe the middle phalanx of the little finger, or pinky, as our American cousins term it.’
The camera operator zoomed in on the piece of bone between joints.
‘Can you see a tiny nick?’
The magnified end of the pointer looked the size of an ingot as it hovered over the bone. The indentation Waghorn was talking about was clear.
‘This, I suggest, is evidence of what interests Mr. Diamond, an apparent attempt to parry an attack.’ He took a few steps away and punctuated his remarks by improvising a reconstruction of the scene with the pointer in his right hand jabbing at his left. ‘So we can posit a sequence of events. Our man is under threat from somebody with a sharp instrument. He raises his left arm to ward off the attack and is cut on the finger. A second thrust hits him in the chest, splintering bone, penetrates the flesh and ruptures a vital organ.’
Diamond hadn’t needed the histrionics from the pathologist. He’d pictured the attack as soon as the damage to the finger was shown. Conflicting emotions gripped him: contempt for Waghorn’s behaviour and excitement at being presented with what promised to be the most sensational murder case of his career. Nobody else in the room knew that the victim could actually be Beau Nash and he had no intention of telling them his theory as to how and why the body had been removed to Twerton.