"The hair's on the long side for a man. Unless it grew significantly after death."
"Where have you been living, George? Even if it were down to the waist, it wouldn't tell you anything about the sex. And hair growth after death is minimal. No," continued Webster, "all things considered, I'd say we're dealing with a man, subject to confirmation, of course."
"Any idea of age?"
"None, except that he's probably over twenty-one and even that's not certain. Some people go grey in their teens. I'll have to X-ray the skull for fusion between the plates."
"How long has he been dead?"
Webster pursed his lips. "That's going to be a bugger to decide. Old Fred out there said there was a bit of a stink when he stepped on it which would indicate a comparatively recent demise." He sucked his teeth thoughtfully for some minutes, then shook his head and examined the floor carefully, using a spatula to loosen some dark material near the door. He sniffed the spatula. "Excreta," he announced, "fairly recent, probably animal. You'd better take a cast of that to see if it's got Fred's boot prints. How long's he been dead?" He shivered suddenly. "This is an ice house and several degrees cooler than it is outside. No obvious maggot infestation which implies the blowflies weren't attracted. If they had been, there'd be even less of it left. Frankly, George, your guess is as good as mine how long dead flesh would keep in this temperature. There is also the small matter of decomposition being hastened by consumption. We could be talking weeks, we could be talking months. I just don't know. I'll need to consult on this one."
"Years?"
"No," Webster said firmly. "You'd be looking at a skeleton."
"Supposing he was frozen when he came in. Would that make a difference?"
The pathologist snorted. "You mean frozen as in fish fingers?" Walsh nodded. "That's really too fantastic, George. You'd need a commercial freezer to freeze a man this size, and how would you transport him here? And why freeze him in the first place?" Webster frowned. "It wouldn't make much difference as far as your investigation goes either. An ice house only keeps things frozen when it's full of ice. A frozen man would defrost in here just like a turkey in a larder. No, that's got to be out of the question."
Walsh was staring thoughtfully at the severed arm. "Has it? Odder things have happened. Perhaps he's been in cold storage for ten years and was left here recently for someone to find."
Webster whistled. "David Maybury?"
"It's a possibility." He squatted down and gestured to the distorted and tattered hand. "What do you make of this? Looks to me as if the last two fingers are missing."
Webster joined him. "It's difficult to say," he said doubtfully. "Something's had a damn good go at it." He glanced about the floor. "You'll have to sweep up very thoroughly, make sure you don't miss anything. It's certainly odd. Could be coincidence, I suppose."
Walsh stood up. "I don't believe in coincidences. Any idea what he died of?"
"A first guess, George. Massive bleeding from a wound or wounds in his abdomen."
Walsh glanced at him in surprise. "You're very positive."
"A guess, I said. You'll have to find his clothes to be sure. But look at him. The area from the abdomen down has been completely devoured, except for the lower halves of the legs. Imagine him sitting up, legs out in front of him, with blood pouring out of his belly. It would be seeping over precisely those parts which have been eaten."
Inspector Walsh felt suddenly faint. "Are you saying whatever it was ate him while he was still alive?"
"Well, don't have nightmares about it, old chap. If he was alive, he'd have been in a coma and wouldn't have known anything about it, otherwise he'd have scared the scavengers off. Stands to reason. Of course," he continued thoughtfully, "if he was defrosting slowly, the blood and water would liquefy to achieve the same result."
Walsh performed the laborious ritual of lighting his pipe again, billowing clouds of blue smoke from the side of his mouth. Webster's mention of smell had made him aware of an underlying odour which he hadn't previously noticed. For some minutes he watched the doctor making a close examination of the head and chest, at one point taking some measurements. "What sort of scavengers are we talking about? Foxes, rats?"
"Difficult to say." He peered closely at one of the eye sockets, before indicating the fractured thigh bones. "Something with strong jaws, I would guess. One thing's for certain, two of them have had a fight over him. Look at the way the legs are lying and that arm, pulled apart at the elbow. I'd say there's been a tug-of-war here." He pursed his lip's again. "Badgers possibly. More likely dogs."
Walsh thought of the yellow Labradors lying on the warm flagstones, remembered how one of them had nuzzled the palm of his hand. With an abrupt movement, he wiped the hand down his trouser leg. He puffed smoke relentlessly into the atmosphere. "I follow your reasoning about why the animals should have gone for the abdomen and thighs, but they seem to have done a pretty good job on the top half as well. Why is that? Is it normal?"
Webster stood up and wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. "God knows, George. About the only thing I'm sure of is that this whole thing is abnormal. I'll hazard a guess that the poor sod pressed his left hand to his belly to try to stop the blood running out or hold his guts in, whichever you prefer, then did what I just did- wiped the sweat off his face and smeared himself with blood. That would have attracted rats or whatever to his left hand and arm and the upper half of his body."
"You said he'd have been in a coma." Walsh's tone was accusing,
"Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. How the hell should I know? Anyway, people move in comas."
Walsh took his pipe out of his mouth and used its stem to point at the chest. "Shall I tell you what that looks like to me?"
"Go on."
"The bones on a breast of lamb after my wife's skinned the meat off it with a sharp knife."
Webster looked tired. "I know. I'm hoping it's deceptive. If it's not-well, you don't need me to spell out what it means."
"The villagers say the women here are witches."
Webster peeled off his gloves. "Let's get out of here-unless there's anything else you think I can tell you. My own view is I'll find out more when I've got him on the slab."
"Just one thing. Do you reckon he got his abdominal wound here or somewhere else?"
Webster picked up his case and led the way out. "Don't ask me, George. The only thing I'm sure of is that he was alive when he got here. Whether he was already bleeding, I wouldn't know." He paused in the doorway. "Unless there's anything in this freezer theory, of course. Then he'd have been good and dead."
4
Three hours later, after the remains had been painstakingly removed under the direction of Dr. Webster, and a laborious investigation of the ice-house interior had revealed little of note beyond a pile of dead bracken in one corner, the door was sealed and Walsh and McLoughlin returned to Streech Grange. Phoebe offered them the library to work in and, with a remarkable lack of curiosity, left them to their deliberations.
A team of policemen remained behind to comb the area in expanding circles round the ice house. Privately, Walsh thought this a wasted exercise-if too much time had elapsed between the body's arrival and its discovery, the surrounding area would tell them nothing. However, routine work had produced unlikely evidence before, and now various samples from the ice house were awaiting dispatch to the forensic labs. These included brick dust, tufts of fur, some discoloured mud off the floor and what Dr. Webster asserted were the splintered remains of a lamb bone which McLoughlin had found amongst the brambles outside the door. Young Constable Williams, still ignorant of exactly what had been in the ice house, was summoned to the library.