“Oh God…” I whispered, still contemplating my lifeless form with tear-blurred eyes. I shuddered at the damage done to my chest and stomach, where blood had poured copiously, even now small bubbles forming every few seconds or so, as though pockets of air were escaping the wound. I noticed something protruding from below my left ribcage, blood almost covering it. It was small and round, but before I could inspect it, something else distracted me. The zip of my trousers was open. Because of the thickness of blood that had welled there, I could not tell—nor did I honestly want to know—exactly what damage had been done. In fact, I didn’t even have to guess, because something lay between my outstretched legs, a mound of bloody meat that had been removed from my groin and slapped down on the soft bedcover, an abstract genital pile, the sight of which now had me retching again.
As I bent over my knees I heard heavy footsteps hurrying along the hall outside my room. Still retching, pointlessly because I had nothing to bring up, I retreated into the corner of the room.
Oh, it was a long day. A terribly long day. And I stuck around for most of it.
Where else would I go? What else could I do?
I hunkered down in the corner in abject misery and watched the comings and goings, the shock and utter dismay of the hotel’s under-manager and concierge, who had rushed to the room after the room-service waitress’s hysterical alert, then the horror of the manager himself and the small posse of staff he’d brought with him, later the calm reaction of the first uniformed police officer to arrive. By the time two plain-clothed detectives bustled in I was just a traumatized wreck.
“Help me,” I croaked pitifully, not even bothering to rise to my feet because I knew there was no chance of being seen, let alone heard.
Eventually the room was cleared of everybody save the detectives, who reprimanded the first cop for not having cleared the crime scene immediately. The professionals soon arrived and took over. Some wore all-in-one white shell suits and I assumed they were the forensic scientists. The police surgeon, careful not to get blood on his civilian clothes and shoes, examined my body. With an ironic grin he pronounced me dead. One of the guys in white took photographs before another one took measurements of blood splatters and drifts. Yet another used a camcorder, and all the while the two detectives conferred in hushed tones, as if they didn’t want the corpse to overhear.
An extremely tall grey-haired man with a jet-black moustache and matching eyebrows entered and the two detectives acknowledged him with respectful nods. The uniformed policeman at the door saluted him.
His stature was impressive, his back ramrod straight, his charcoal-grey suit immaculately pressed. He went immediately over to the police surgeon, who was making notes on a pad.
“Detective Superintendent Sadler,” the newcomer announced without extending a hand to shake.
The medic just gave him a curt nod. “Dr Breen,” he said, looking back at his notes. “Too early to give you anything.”
“Hazard a guess at time of death?” Sadler asked, his tone implying little hope.
“You’ll need a proper autopsy for that.”
“Do your best.”
“Well, the body—what’s left of it—is still warmish, but then the room temperature is quite high. I could take a quick rectal reading, but I imagine you don’t want anything disturbed at this stage.”
The policeman grunted something that must have been agreement and the police surgeon went on.
“Lividity is underway as far as I can tell—and the state of the body itself doesn’t help—but the pathologist will have a clearer time of death after the post-mortem.”
“But rigor mortis…?”
“Oh yes, that’s certainly begun, but you’re aware of how unreliable that can be when determining these things.”
The detective superintendent’s impatience was made apparent. “Good God, man, I only asked for a rough estimation,” he said gruffly.
“Eyelids frozen, muscles of what’s left of the jaw stiff. Same with neck and upper chest, but the corpse’s disarray and loss of blood make it difficult to assess.”
Dr Breen caught the grimness and steely-eyed severity of the tall policeman’s gaze and hurriedly proffered his informal judgement.
“Death definitely occurred more than three hours ago and I’d guess it was closer to six, maybe a bit more than that.”
DS Sadler wasn’t quite finished with him yet.
“And…?” he demanded brusquely.
“And? And what?” The police surgeon obviously wasn’t used to blunt interrogation and it showed in his irritated frown.
“Is it another one?” asked Sadler.
“We think it is, Sir,” Simmons, one of the detectives, put in, stepping forward and carefully avoiding a glob of thick blood on the carpet as he did so.
“Through the heart?” queried the detective superintendent.
“Yep. You can just see it under the ribs if you look closely.”
The senior policeman took his detective’s word for it.
“So we have yet another victim.”
“Could be a copycat,” suggested the second detective.
“Don’t be bloody daft, Coates,” Sadler said crossly. “Actual cause of death is not public knowledge.”
Coates’s face reddened. “Yes, Sir.”
I looked up and stared at them all, almost but not quite shaken out of my torpor. What did he mean, “Actual cause of death is not public knowledge”? I was confused for a moment, but then it began to come together. The tall man had asked if it—it being me, my stone-dead corpse—was another one, obviously meaning another victim. And one of the detectives, the one called Coates, had suggested it could be a copycat murder implying I was one of a series. I might be dead, but I was still alert.
What was it that the public didn’t know, though? I began to pay even more attention.
“It’s there all right.” It was the police surgeon, Breen, who spoke up.
All eyes, including mine, turned towards him.
“Hole through the heart?” said Sadler.
A grave nod of the doctor’s head. “Yes. Underneath the left side of the ribcage and straight up. As in all the other cases. Hard to find at first, with all the blood. But the flat end of the needle is there all right.”
I remembered the blood-covered bump I’d noticed earlier.
“And that’s what killed him?”
“Well, I hope the mutilation came afterwards, for the victim’s sake, but I don’t think so. The pathologist will let you know for sure. If already dead, the blood flow would have been heavy, but not as fierce as it would have been if the victim were still alive.
“Look.” He pointed with his pen. “The thigh’s femoral artery has been cut through. If the victim had still been alive at the time, the blood would have escaped in a spurt that might even have reached the ceiling.” The three men looked up: the high ceiling was pure white. “But, as you can see, it gushed in a great arc that reached well beyond the bed, almost as far as the wall, which suggests to me the victim’s face was cleaved first, killing him instantly, the other weapon used afterwards. The main flows have soaked the carpet, and there are splatters everywhere, some quite a distance from the general spillage, although they were probably caused by the action of the first weapon itself, sinking into the body and jerked out again with considerable force. Looks to me as if the instrument used, by the way, was a butcher’s chopper, or something similar. I’ve seen their kind of deep wounds before. Forensics will let you know for sure.”
“Whoever did this must also be covered in blood. Surely someone on the staff had to see the killer leave.”
Simmons shook his head resignedly. “Night porter and the lobby reception guy, who were still on duty, spent most of the time in the office behind the counter, saw no one suspicious and certainly no one with blood on their clothes. In fact, not one guest arrived or left.”