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Forensics lab. They’d commandeered a large van to transport the corpse still attached to the cross and Mal had ordered a squad of MET officers to help get it to the lab from the parking bay. They’d grumbled and complained, but Helen charmed the surliness from them. She spoke incessantly and flirted with everyone. Her manner hid an astuteness though, and Anders had been impressed with her work. As the cross was placed over two of the metal tables in the lab, Anders scrubbed up for the autopsy while Helen took pictures and recorded her observations. Mal and Abi came down to witness the preliminary work and Abi paled as she saw the body.
    “Good heavens,” she said, hand reaching to her mouth in horror.
    “You don’t need to see this,” said Mal and she brushed him off.
    “Don’t be daft, I’m here to help.” They stood back as Helen finished her photography and Anders wheeled over a cart of equipment. Helen, clearly nervous to be working with Mal in the room, chattered away rapidly, the words spilling out in a rush.
    “Did you know, Herophilus was the first physician to dissect bodies back in three hundred BC and that….”
“Helen,” said Mal, his tone soft but firm. “Your initial findings please.” She clamped her mouth shut and nodded an apology before stepping to the body.
    “Matthews was alive when he was nailed to the cross. Whoever did this tied him to the cross first and you can see he struggled with his bonds as the nails went in. There are perimortem burn like marks along the wrists where the bindings dug in. The nails used are six inches long, steel, generic. Thick though. Thick enough to get through the bone and the hard oak beneath.” Anders switched on a UV lamp and, with a visor over her eyes, examined the nails, scraping off debris and placing them in a labelled vial.
    “Torn and ripped,” she said. “But pulled upwards as if he was dragging his hands down something, maybe the back of a vehicle. Plenty of blood, so I’ll run it through the PCR, make a plate and see if we have more than one sample. We may get lucky.” Helen moved to the mouth of the victim and clipped off one of the thorns.
    “Barry says it’s Buckthorn, but I’ll check that out.” Abi stepped closer, having placed a mask over her mouth and a coverall over her expensive clothes. Matthew Peters had been left for many hours after his death and the skin to the upper body was pale as the blood had drained downwards, making the lower limbs bloated and red. He had been handsome once, but death had robbed him of such things. She looked at the torn flesh of his mouth intently.
    “Why a gag of thorns?” she muttered. “There’s a practicality to the act. He put so much in there it would have muffled his screams, but there’s a sadism to it that is cruel beyond the act of crucifixion.”
    “He wanted to replicate crucifying Jesus, right down to the stab wound to the right sternum, but there’s a reluctance to putting a crown on his head. It’s not just sadism,” replied Anders. Abi nodded her agreement.
    “It’s contempt. There’s a personal motive to this, but it goes beyond anger.”
    “There are fingerprints everywhere,” said Anders. “I don’t think he’s worried about getting caught. Either that or he intends to reveal himself. Something this public? I’m guessing this guy wants his credit.” Abi grimaced in agreement and started to speak.
    “How long has he been up there?” asked Mal curtly. He was keen to move on to more practical matters. Helen had taken a buzz saw from the tray as Anders pushed down slightly on the arm so that the top of the nail could be removed. She peered closely at it and moved to the other nail to confirm her suspicions. As Anders moved, Helen turned to Mal.
    “There’s little putrefaction and relatively few eggs laid in the wounds or blood. Nothing more than you’d associate with this type of warm weather. The temperature of the torso, combined with the weather reports