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from last night and the lack of any real insect succession enabled Ben to calculate a time between three and four in the morning.” Mal scribbled some notes in his pad as Anders called Helen over.
    “Take a look at this,” she said and bade Helen to look at the stab wound. “It looks like one deep cut, followed by another into the same area but shallower and at a steeper angle.” Helen peered at the wound and lifted the ruined flesh with the tip of a tweezer before grunting her assent.
    “Is this important?” asked Mal. Anders nodded and showed them the nails.
    “This one has been hit right through the bone and oak in one hammer blow, maybe two. The head is straight and flatter than the others. This one,” she said, moving round to the other side of the cross. “Is sloped. Less flat and the wood below shows scratches where the nail didn’t go through first time but needed several attempts. The stab wound has a shallower cut inside at a narrower angle. The fingerprints have the odd smudge going across them. It could be a cloth he was carrying or simply smudges from what he was doing. Or it could be someone wearing gloves. I think we’re looking at two people.”
    Mal gazed at the body thoughtfully, one arm folded over his broad chest and the other resting on it, one hand idly scratching his beard.
    “Abi, do you think this could be two people or hesitancy?” She considered it carefully.
    “There are several factors that can account for it. The perpetrator may have been hesitant with the nail if it was the first one, or could have been at an awkward angle when hammering it in. We can’t be sure of that unless Ben finds something up at the Common to support it. The wound is more compelling, but it could be that the person changed position, or slipped. This killing feels personal. It’s rare for two people to have such a deep grudge as to willingly commit this kind of atrocity.” Mal gazed at Anders thoughtfully before nodding.
    “We’ll put it out there for the time being, keep an open mind,” he said. “Now, let’s get him off the cross. Abi, I insist that you are not part of this.” She gratefully left while Helen cut the heads from the nails and the three of them lifted the corpse from the cross. Rigor mortis had set in and the blood had congealed to the wood. During the first stage of decomposition, the body’s digestive enzymes start to destroy its own cells until they become too inactive from the colder body temperature. This created a layer of liquid between the muscle and skin, which now peeled off as it was lifted from the oak, the liquid draining off into steel containers below the table. Mal flinched at the tearing, sloppy sound.
    Placing the corpse on one table, they were able to wheel the cross to the side. They would examine that later once the autopsy was finished. Helen and Mal lifted the corpse while Anders slid a body block under the spine so that the arms and neck fell back making it easier to make the Y-shaped incision.
    The next task would be to cut from the top of each shoulder, down the chest and meet at the sternum, where the incision would continue as one down to the pubic bone. Often, there would be very little blood unless the victim had drowned. Sheers would be used to cut open the chest and a saw run through the ribs on the lateral sides of the cavity to pull up the sternum and attached ribs as one piece.
    The organs would then be removed en mass and the pericardial sac of the heart would be opened and blood taken from here for toxicology and chemical analysis. The spectrometer would help with that. The stomach and intestines would be sliced open and examined before moving the thick rubber body block under the head so that the cap could be removed and the brain extracted.
    Knowing what was about to happen, Mal went to leave. He’d seen enough autopsies and it wasn’t something he could get used to. As he stood at the door and removed his coverall, his phone went and he