The partial denture was a mess. Heat from the fire and subsequent rough handling as the remains were removed from the boiler had melted the acrylic and deformed the metal. And although the flames hadn’t been hot enough to shatter the porcelain teeth, something — presumably a blow or impact of some kind — had snapped them off close to the gum line. Since we hadn’t found the broken-off false teeth among the ashes, it must have happened before the body was put in the boiler. It meant that, even if the police could track down Wayne Booth’s dentist and establish that he wore a denture, matching it to the melted one might not be so straightforward. I wasn’t sure it would even be possible.
A forensic dentist might have better luck with that. Even so, the prosthesis still told me a few things. The badly melted palate would have fitted to the roof of someone’s mouth, making it an upper denture. And the shape of the broken stubs told me they would have been the front four incisors and the right canine. That would have left quite a gap. While one or two could have been due to decay or gum disease, a row of five missing teeth — including the front ones — suggested another cause.
They’d been knocked out.
That didn’t necessarily mean from an assault. I’d once known someone who’d lost most of their front teeth when they came off a bike. He’d chosen to have implants rather than dentures but, since it involved extensive and expensive surgery, that option wasn’t suitable for everyone.
Evidently not this individual, I thought. The denture was a very basic type, consisting of a rudimentary acrylic plate that covered the real palate and was held in place by metal clips. Although probably not immediately obvious, these might have been visible as tiny silver claws clamped around the adjacent teeth. It was a common enough design, with the emphasis on functionality rather than comfort or aesthetics. That suggested the owner either hadn’t cared how it looked or couldn’t afford anything more sophisticated.
My guess was the latter.
I’d planned to examine the foetal skeleton after that, having left it soaking in fresh water. But the palate’s tangle of metal and plastic took longer than I’d expected, and I’d arranged to meet Oduya at seven. Another night’s immersion wouldn’t harm the tiny bones, though, and there was no real urgency. With a guilty sense of relief at being able to put off the unhappy task for a little longer, I decided to leave them till morning.
I stretched, wincing as my joints popped stiffly, then packed everything away. Switching off the examination-room lights, I went to change and then headed for the foyer. There was someone in front of me in the corridor, and I felt a by now familiar weariness when I saw Mears.
He was on his way out as well, wearing a waterproof jacket and carrying his shiny new flight case. He looked tired and slump-shouldered, his forehead furrowed as though he was deep in thought. When he saw me his eyes darted away, almost furtive. Then his chin came up and he straightened his shoulders, giving me a terse nod.
I’d been considering making one last effort but, seeing that, I decided there was no point. I returned his nod, waiting in silence while he signed out at reception. At the front door he stopped to pull up his hood. I hung back, taking my time signing out so we wouldn’t have to leave together.
And with such small moments are lives changed.
A gust of damp wind blew into the foyer as Mears went out. It was dark outside, the rain bouncing down. Hunched against it, Mears started to cross the road as I went through the doors. I paused under the entrance canopy to fasten my own coat, and as I did someone called out.
‘Dr Hunter!’
I looked up to see Oduya on the other side of the street. He had an umbrella and was heading from the direction of the Tube station. As he stepped off the pavement to come over, ahead of me I saw Mears glance towards him to see who was calling. In my mind the moment seems frozen: two figures crossing the rain-drenched road in opposite directions, the streetlight capturing them like a flash photograph.
I heard the car before I saw it. From off down the road there was a squeal of rubber. A car accelerated directly at Oduya, framing him in its lights. Even as his head snapped towards it, he was already starting to throw himself out of the way. But there was no time. With a sickening thump the car ploughed into him, slamming him against the bonnet and then back over its roof. As his umbrella was crumpled under its wheels, he spun through the air in a tangle of limbs, before smacking down on to the tarmac behind it.
The car weaved but didn’t slow. Stranded in the middle of the road, Mears finally moved. Dropping his flight case, he tried to jump aside but the car’s wing clipped him. It batted him to the ground, and I saw the rear wheel go over his lower body. For a second, the driver seemed to lose control, sideswiping a parked van in a cacophony of breaking glass and scraped metal before roaring away.
It was all over in a matter of seconds. Overcoming my shock, as the van’s alarm wailed I ran into the street. Oduya was nearest. He lay motionless, limbs twisted at unnatural angles like those of a discarded doll. Blood had pooled around his head, glistening blackly under the streetlights as it mingled with rain. The slit of one eye stared unseeing at the rough tarmac, and as I knelt by him I could see that the shape of his skull was wrong. There was an utter stillness about him, an obscene contrast to the activist’s energy and charisma. It was that as much as his injuries that told me there was nothing I could do.
Other people were appearing now, rushing into the road with exclamations of shock. Leaving Oduya, I hurried over to Mears. Covered with blood, he was sprawled near his flight case, the once shiny metal now battered and dented. He was alive but unconscious, breathing in wet, shallow gasps. One arm was obviously broken, but it was his lower body that had suffered the most. His right leg looked as though it had been caught up in a machine where the car wheel had gone over it, shards of white bone visible through the torn flesh and blood-soaked fabric.
I tried to throw off the numbing effects of shock and focus. Mears’s injuries were far more severe than Conrad’s had been, and I felt a sense of helplessness as I stared at the crushed leg. Blood was pumping from numerous wounds, too copious to simply staunch.
‘Let me see. I’m a nurse.’
Slipping a sports bag from her shoulder, a young woman knelt down beside Mears. Her face was intent as she took in his injuries.
‘Just hold on, love, ambulance is on its way,’ she told him. He gave no sign of hearing or understanding. She glanced at me, peeling off her thin paisley scarf. ‘Have you got a pen?’
My mind was beginning to function. Knowing what she had in mind, I took a pen from my pocket as she deftly wrapped her scarf around Mears’s thigh. He groaned as she tightened it, but it was more a physical reflex than awareness. Sliding the pen under the scarf, she began to turn it, twisting to increase the pressure. It was called a Spanish windlass, basic but effective at restricting the flow of blood. I’d seen one used before, but in very different circumstances to this.
‘Here, I’ll do that. I’m a doctor,’ I added, when she glanced at me uncertainly. ‘See if you can stop the rest of the bleeding.’
I kept hold of the pen, maintaining the pressure while the young woman delved in her sports bag for a towel. ‘It’s clean,’ she told me as she began binding it around a wound on Mears’s other leg. ‘I’d just finished a shift and was on my way to the gym. I didn’t see it happen, I only heard it. Was it a hit-and-run?’
I nodded, turning to look at where Oduya was lying. People had gathered round him, the glow from phone screens casting a blue-white illumination. Someone had covered his head with a coat, and sirens were already sounding in the distance.
‘Did you know him?’ the young woman asked, seeing me looking over.