Read Secret of the Dead for Free Online

wrist.” She pointed out a series of deep purple patterns, which stood out because of the paleness of the flesh around the left wrist.
    “Looks as though he put up a hell of a struggle?” Hunter said.
    “I thought that myself at first, but these contusions are ever more evident because this man was taking Warfarin. I saw in his notes that he had a heart condition, which was controlled by the drug. The least little knock can look as though he’s been in a bar-room brawl. These marks, exaggerated though they may be, look like finger grip marks. He has definitely had his wrists pressed down hard probably against the arms of the chair he was sitting in.”
    She picked up another two swabs and washed them over the bruised areas.
    “There might be trace evidence of DNA if the offender wasn’t wearing gloves,” she announced, sealing the swabs and handing them over to Duncan Wroe.
    For the next hour and forty minutes Hunter watched Lizzie methodically going about her job. Firstly, with a precision steel scalpel, making the standard Y shaped incision into the cadaver’s chest, down through the stomach and finishing in the pubic bone region, this enabled her to crack apart the rib cage, providing access to the internal organs. She removed and inspected the heart and lungs carefully, weighed them, sliced into them and examined them again before dropping them into a bucket for a final analysis later. Throughout this, in her soft Scottish voice, she continued with her autopsy dictation.
    Part-way into the dissection the removal and the cutting opening of the stomach provided a surprise and significant revelation.
    Initially the vile stench caught them unawares and caused each of them to take a hurried step back.
    It was some moments before Professor McCormack looked into the contents, but then she cried out, “My my, what have we got here?” Between thumb and forefinger she brought out an inch-long object. It looked to be metal, but was covered in sticky yellow globules of slime. She wiped it into the palm of her gloved hand and then held the object up to the light.
    It was a small brass key.
    “This was something he didn’t want anyone to find.”
    She passed it to Duncan.
    Her blue-grey eyes shifted between Hunter and the Detective Superintendent. “Now if I was a detective, I would be thinking that key had something significant to do with his death,” she added, flashing them a smile.
    She completed the autopsy at the head, slicing into the lower part of the neck and removing the trachea, before finally removing and examining the brain.
    Hunter had watched this so many times over the years and yet he still got a sense of morbid fascination.
    Two and a quarter hours had passed before the pathologist set the scalpel back down onto her tool trolley and snapped off one of her surgical gloves.
    “To sum up gentlemen, the post-mortem has uncovered petechial haemorrhaging to the eyes and there is determined damage to the external airways around the mouth and nose. Fibres removed from the nasal passages and from the victim’s mouth leave me to conclude that asphyxiation is the cause of death, as a result of him being smothered with a cloth covered article. And the injuries to the wrists lead me into believing that you are looking for at least two killers. He was definitely held down while being smothered.”
    Lizzie McCormack turned, peeled off her other latex glove and dropped the pair into a yellow biohazard bin as she retreated to her office.
    Hunter looked at Detective Superintendent Michael Robshaw.
    He guessed that right now their thoughts were similar. Some cruel bastard had pressed a cushion over Jeffery Howson’s face until he’d stopped breathing.
    Why was the retired detective killed? What is the significance of the key found in his stomach, why would he swallow it? Hunter guessed there was an inextricable link between these three questions.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Looking at his reflection in the bathroom mirror,