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a line of cars and vans was racing across another road in the
direction the helicopter had taken. Terry gave a grunt of satisfaction.
        'Good
riddance.' He glanced at his watch. 'Come on. The real thing should be here
soon.'
        
        
        It
had taken two days to finalize all the necessary paperwork and arrangements for
Monk's temporary release. I'd spent most of that time in the mortuary. Cleaned
of the thick coating of peat, the full extent of the young woman's injuries was
shockingly apparent. There seemed hardly any part of her skeleton that wasn't
damaged: in places only the decaying tendons and soft tissue held the bones
together. It was the sort of trauma you'd expect from a car crash, not
something inflicted by a human being.
        'The
post-mortem wasn't able to establish a definitive cause of death,' Pirie told
me, apparently unperturbed. 'There are any number of injuries that could have been
responsible. Many of the internal organs and soft tissues are ruptured, the
hyoid bone is broken and there are fractures to several cervical vertebrae. The
damage to the thoracic cavity would almost certainly have proved fatal, as the
splintered ribs penetrated the heart and lungs. In fact, the injuries suffered
by this young lady are so severe that shock alone would probably have killed
her.'
         Young
lady sounded curiously old-fashioned. Prim, almost. For some reason it made
me warm to the odd pathologist. 'But. . . ?' I prompted.
        I was
rewarded with a thin smile. 'As I said yesterday, skeletal trauma is more your
field than mine, Dr Hunter. I can't rule out strangulation, but the blows to
her head were so forceful that her vertebrae and hyoid would probably have
broken anyway. The attack must have been quite frenzied.'
        'How
do the injuries compare with Angela Carson's?'
        I'd
only been given a copy of the earlier post-mortem report that morning. I hadn't
had a chance to read it fully, but the similarity of their injuries seemed
undeniable.
        'The
soft tissue was too degraded to distinguish any signs of sexual assault,
unfortunately. I'd hoped the peat might have preserved it adequately, but the
physical trauma and shallowness of the grave worked against us. A pity.' He
sniffed regretfully. 'The Carson girl also suffered mainly facial and cranial
trauma, although nowhere near so severe as this. But as I understand it in that
instance Monk was interrupted by the police, which perhaps explains why these
injuries are so much more . . . pronounced.'
        They
were that, all right. Against the dull silver backdrop of the examination
table, the features barely looked human. The front of her skull had been
crushed in like a dropped egg, while the remaining skin and soft tissue of the
face were pulped into the fragmented bones of the cheeks and nasal cavity.
        'I
believe psychologists claim this sort of facial disfigurement is an expression
of the killer's sense of guilt. Eradicating their victim's accusing gaze. Isn't
that the accepted explanation?'
        'Something
like that,' I agreed. 'But I can't see Jerome Monk as the remorseful type.'
        'Quite.
In which case he either has a truly terrifying temper, or he disfigures his
victims for pleasure.' He looked at me over the tops of his half-moon glasses.
'Frankly, I'm not sure which is the most disturbing.'
        Neither
was I. A fraction of the force used would still have been fatal. Whoever this
was, she hadn't just been beaten to death: she'd been pulverized. It was
overkill in a very literal sense.
        I'd
expected the pathologist to leave me to work with an assistant, but he stayed
to help with the grisly task of cleaning the remains: first cutting away the
soft tissue then helping me disarticulate the skeleton so it could be soaked in
detergent. It was a necessary part of my work but not one I enjoyed. Especially
not when the victim was little more than a girl, and I'd a daughter