‘No, just bigger boobs,’ the pathologist said. ‘Which is good news for us.’
George frowned.
‘All silicone breast implants have their manufacturer’s batch numbers stamped on them,’ the pathologist explained. ‘And each implant has a serial number that would be kept in the hospital register against the recipient’s name.’ He held the implant a little closer to George, until he could see a tiny row of embossed numbers. ‘That’ll take us to the manufacturer. Should be a shoo-in for you to find her identity.’
George returned to his phone calls. He made a quick one to Janet, to tell her he loved her. He had always called her, at least once a day from work, from almost their first date. And he meant what he said. He still loved her just as much all these years on. His mood had improved with the pathologist’s discovery. The paracetamols were kicking in nicely. He was even starting to think about lunch.
Then suddenly the pathologist called out, ‘George, this might be of real significance!’
He hurried back over to the table.
‘The uterus wall is thick,’ the pathologist said. ‘With a body that’s been immersed for a length of time like this, the uterus is one of the parts that degrades the slowest. And we’ve just got really lucky!’
‘We have?’ George said.
The pathologist nodded. ‘We’ll get our DNA now!’ He pointed down at the dissecting board that stood, on its steel legs, above the dead woman’s remains.
There was a mess of body fluids on it. In the midst sat a cream, internal organ, like a U-shaped sausage that had been sliced open. George could not identify it. But it was the object that lay in the middle that instantly drew his eye. For a moment he thought it was an undigested prawn in her intestine. But then, peering closer, he realized what it actually was.
And he lost all his appetite for lunch.
42
The first, and most welcome, sign that there had been a regime change at Sussex House was that senior CID officers here now actually had a parking bay of their own, and in the best position, outside the front of the building. Which meant that Roy Grace no longer had to drive around trying to find a space out on the street, or furtively leave his car in the ASDA supermarket car park across the street, like most of his colleagues, and then trudge back through the pissing rain, or take the muddy short cut through the bushes, followed by a death-defying leap off a brick wall.
Situated on a hill in what had been open countryside, a safe distance from Brighton and Hove, the Art Deco-influenced low-rise had originally been built as a hospital for contagious diseases. There had been several changes of use before the CID had taken it over, and at some point in its history the urban sprawl had caught up with it. It now sat rather incongruously in an industrial estate, directly opposite the ASDA which served as the building’s unofficial but handy canteen and parking overflow.
Since the very recent departure of the amiable but lax Detective Chief Superintendent Gary Weston, who had been promoted to Assistant Chief Constable in the Midlands, tough, no-nonsense, pipe-smoking Jack Skerritt was making his presence felt throughout the place. Skerritt, the former Commander of Brighton and Hove Uniform, who was fifty-two, combined old-school toughness with modern thinking, and was one of the most universally liked – and respected – police officers in the force. The return of this weekly meeting was his biggest innovation so far.
Another instantly noticeable change, Grace reflected, as he entered the front door and exchanged a cheery greeting with the two security guards, was that Skerritt had imposed a modern stamp on the entrance staircase. The displays of antique truncheons had been dispatched to a museum. The cream walls had been freshly painted and there was now a new, wide blue felt board containing photographs of all the senior personnel currently manning HQ CID.
Most prominent was the photograph of Jack Skerritt himself. He was a lean, square-jawed man, good-looking in a slightly old-fashioned Hollywood matinée-idol way. He had a stern expression, a slick of tidy brown hair, and was wearing a dark suit jacket and a muted, chequerboard tie. He exuded a commanding presence which seemed to be saying, Don’t fuck with me and I’ll be fair to you. Which was in fact the essence of the man.
Grace respected and admired him. He was the kind of policeman he would like to be. With three years to go before retirement, Skerritt didn’t give a stuff for political correctness, nor was he too concerned about directives from above. He saw his role as being to make the streets and homes and businesses of Sussex safe places for law-abiding citizens, and how he did it was his business. And in his past two years as Commander of Brighton and Hove, before this new posting here, he had made a considerable impact on crime levels across the city.
At the top of the stairs was a broad, carpeted landing, with a rubber plant that looked as if it was on growth hormones and a potted palm that looked as if it should have been in a hospice.
Grace pressed his card against the door security pad and entered the rarefied atmosphere of the command floor. Thisfirst sectionwas a large, open-plan area, with a dark orange carpet down the centre, with clusters of desks on either side for the support staff.
Senior departmental heads had their own offices. The door to one was open and Grace exchanged a nod with his friend Brian Cook, the Scientific Support Branch Manager, who was on his feet, finishing a call. He then hurried past the large, glassed-in office of Jack Skerritt, wanting a quick word with Eleanor Hodgson, his Management Support Assistant, as his PA was called these days in this bonkers, politically correct world.
Posters were stuck up all over the walls. A big red and orange one stood out the loudest:
RAT ON A RAT.
DRUG DEALERS RUIN LIVES.
TELL CRIMESTOPPERS WHO THEY ARE.
He hurried past his office and one marked ‘Detective Superintendent Gaynor Allen, Operations and Intelligence Branch’, and went over to where Eleanor was sitting.
It was a cluttered area of desks stacked with over-full red and black in-trays and littered with keypads, phones, file folders, writing pads and Post-it notes. A car ‘L’ plate had been stuck to the rear of one flat computer screen by some joker.
Eleanor’s was the only orderly desk. A rather prim, quietly efficient if nervy middle-aged woman with neat black hair and a plain, slightly old-fashioned face, she ran much of Roy Grace’s life for him. She was looking nervous now as he approached her, as if he was about to shout at her for some balls-up, although he had never once raised his voice at her in the eighteen months she had worked for him. It was just the way she was.
He asked her to check with the Thistle Hotel on the size of the tables for the Rugby Club Dinner for this December, and quickly ran through some urgent emails she drew to his attention, then, glancing at his watch and seeing it was two minutes after 10.30, he entered Skerritt’s spacious, impressive domain.
Like his own new office – he had recently been moved from one side of the building to the other – it had a view over the road towards ASDA. But that was where the similarity ended. While his just had room for his desk and a small round table, Skerritt’s cavernous room accommodated, as well as his large desk, a rectangular conference table.
There were changes in here too. Gone were the framed photographs of racehorses and greyhounds that had dominated the walls in Gary Weston’s day, showing his priorities in life. They had been replaced by a single framed photograph of two teenage boys, and several of Labrador dogs and puppies. Skerritt’s wife bred them, but they were also the police officer’s own passion – on his rare moments away from work.