It was found that Stonor had toxins in his body from a saw-scaled viper snake, as well as complications from septicaemia. What had at first been mistaken for needle puncture marks had been established as a snake bite. The septicaemia was probably due to the bite causing contaminated clothing fibres to be injected into his leg, enabling bacteria to enter the bloodstream.
Norman Potting raised his hand.
‘Yes, Norman?’
‘In case it’s of interest, chief, I read that tens of thousands of people die annually in India from snake bites. Quite a high percentage from this particular creature.’ He pointed at the whiteboard.
‘Thanks for sharing that, Norman,’ Grace said.
‘Shows how deadly the thing is,’ Potting grumbled.
‘Perhaps you’d like to find out if Stonor had been to India recently,’ Grace suggested.
‘The little shit,’ Potting said. ‘I imagine the nearest he got to India was a takeaway that he didn’t pay for.’
There was muted laughter from the assembled team.
Potting’s fiancée had died tragically some months ago, and Grace was still treating him gently whilst he was going through the grieving process. ‘Quite,’ he said, and looked back down at his notes. ‘The initial purpose of this enquiry is to ascertain how and where Stonor came into contact with this reptile. Was it accidental or did someone use it to kill him? We’ve established there were no snakes kept at the home of his girlfriend, Angi Bunsen, where he’d been living. According to her, Stonor had been working a late shift stacking pallets at the Sussex Autospares warehouse on the Davigdor Industrial Estate. We’ve checked with them and they have no record of any such employee. Stonor’s mobile phone and laptop computer have been sent to the High Tech Crime Unit for fast-track analysis, and we’ll see what they reveal. There is one photograph on his phone that could be of immediate interest to us.’
Grace pointed at the whiteboard containing the photographs of Stonor and the association chart. ‘That weird blurry one. I’ll come back to its relevance shortly. Hopefully we’ll get a plot of Stonor’s recent movements from triangulation of his phone. Shame he didn’t have a more sophisticated one, we could have got the exact address from geo-mapping. Let’s not forget Stonor was a key target in a Brighton operation relating to the thefts of high-value motor vehicles. We need to establish whether his death has more suspicious connotations and is connected to that; has he fallen out with anyone from that team? Do we know if any of them keep snakes? In the meantime we need the following intelligence.’
He sipped his coffee and went on, giving actions to members of his team in turn. ‘We need a search of the police data systems to update all Stonor’s associates. Who he’s linked to. Who has been in cars with him when he’s been stopped. What speeding tickets and parking fines he’s had recently. We need a full ANPR on his car, to see where he had been in the days before his death.’
ANPR — automatic numberplate recognition cameras — covered many of the roads throughout Sussex, and the UK. During the past few years it had become increasingly possible to plot the movements, sometimes on a minute-by-minute basis, of all vehicles in many parts of the country.
Grace continued. ‘We have searched the property he shares with his girlfriend, Angi Bunsen.’
‘She sounds hot,’ Potting said.
‘Hot?’ Grace quizzed him.
‘Bunsen burner!’ Potting chortled at his joke, then looked around, but was greeted only with silent stares and, on Guy Batchelor’s face, a hint of a smile.
‘Thank you, Norman,’ Grace said. ‘I’m tasking you with obtaining a list of all poisonous reptile dealers in Sussex, Surrey, Kent and Hampshire. Also check out all internet trading sources. I’m informed you have to have a Department of the Environment licence to keep venomous creatures in this country. See if Stonor kept any poisonous creatures.’
‘Other than being one himself?’ Potting could not resist.
‘And find out, urgently, who in this city keeps venomous snakes, Norman. If one has escaped, we need to find out fast.’ Grace turned to DC Alexander. ‘Jack, I’d like you to obtain a list of all licences for dangerous animals held in these same counties. Also see if there are any reptile associations or clubs in the area — they might be a useful source of information.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Then he turned to DS Cale. ‘Tanja, I’m giving you the action of talking to the source handlers, see what you can find out about Shelby Stonor’s movements in the past couple of months, particularly the last two weeks.’
‘Yes, sir.’
All of the team kept glancing, in a mixture of horror and curiosity, at the first whiteboard. Graphic photographs from the post-mortem which Grace and Branson had attended, earlier that day, were pinned to it. In the central one was a close-up of Stonor’s face, coagulated blood rimming his horrifically bulging eyes. In another close-up, of his hands, there was more coagulated blood that had leaked beneath each of his fingernails.
Grace turned the page of his CSA’s notes, then looked up, briefly. ‘For those of you interested in the toxicology of a saw-scaled viper bite, this is the pathologist’s report.’
He studied the page in front of him briefly, before reading slowly, stumbling over some of the words. ‘Haematological abnormalities are the most common effects of snake envenoming globally. Venom-induced consumption coagulopathy (VICC) is the commonest and most important. Other haematological abnormalities are an anticoagulant coagulopathy and thrombotic microangiopathy. Venom-induced consumption coagulopathy is an activation of the clotting pathway by procoagulant toxins, resulting in clotting factor consumption and coagulopathy. The type of procoagulant toxin differs between snakes and can activate prothrombin, factor X and factor V or consume fibrinogen. The major complication of VICC is haemorrhage, including intracranial haemorrhage which is often fatal. With Echis carinatus — the saw-scaled viper — the duration of abnormal clotting can be reduced from more than a week to twenty-four to forty-eight hours.’ He looked up and smiled. ‘Everyone still with me?’
Guy Batchelor shook his head. ‘You lost me in the first sentence.’
Potting piped up again. ‘If I understand it correctly, from these toxins, under some circumstances Stonor might have been slightly dead — but now he’s actually very seriously dead?’
‘Couldn’t have put it better myself, Norman,’ Grace replied. ‘To cut through all the complex medical jargon, the saw-scaled viper kills its victims by turning them into haemophiliacs. Its venom causes the blood’s coagulation system, which is our defence against bleeding to death when we have a cut, to go into overdrive. Once all the coagulant has been used up, the body starts to haemorrhage. If you cut yourself shaving you’re likely to just bleed out.’
‘Sounds to me like he’s been bitten by one of his friends,’ Guy Batchelor said.
There were several nods around the table.
‘But why would any snake want to be friends with Shelby Stonor?’ Jack Alexander asked.
‘All right!’ Grace said. ‘Enough of that!’ Then, studying his policy book for a moment, he said, ‘This is my hypothesis. It would appear that Stonor has died from snake venom poisoning, and that could have occurred accidentally, but could also be linked to his current criminal activity. It may be that someone wanted to get rid of him. That’s why we’re looking into the death, we need to try to establish the facts. It is also possible he may have been attempting to steal these creatures — either for himself or perhaps to order for someone. My reason for thinking this is that photograph.’