Read Tooth for a Tooth (Di Gilchrist 3) for Free Online

fragrance thick enough to taste. He slipped an elasticated mask over his lower face as he approached the table.
    Mackie glanced up. ‘Been expecting you, Andy. Come see our lady.’
    In front of him lay a disconnected skeleton, bones washed clean and tinged red from soil that now lay like mud in a bucket on the tiled floor. Gilchrist tried to picture the skeleton covered with skin and, in doing so, imagined the woman to be slim.
    ‘What do we have?’ he asked Mackie.
    ‘The thirty-plus-year-old skeleton of a young woman. More than likely killed by a blow to the head. See here?’ Mackie ran a finger around the cracked indentation in the skull. ‘No new bone growth of any kind, which suggests she died immediately, or shortly after, assuming of course that she was alive at the time of the blow.’
    Gilchrist leaned closer.
    ‘Slightly taller than average. Five-ten,’ went on Mackie. ‘Slight in build. No fractures, no broken bones of any kind. Except this.’
    He ran his hand down the skeleton’s lower left leg and stopped at the ankle. ‘See here?’ He removed a bone from the foot. ‘This has been cracked and healed, somewhat poorly, I have to say. See this ridge? The fracture is an injury normally associated with a sprain. She could have twisted her foot stepping off the pavement. It’s impossible to determine exactly how long before death the fracture occurred, but I’d say no more than a year, maybe less.’
    ‘Anything else?’ Gilchrist asked.
    ‘Teeth.’ Mackie returned to the top of the table and picked up the skull. ‘All thirty-one of them are perfect,’ he said. ‘Not a single filling. The top right wisdom tooth never came through.’
    ‘Could she be coloured?’
    ‘The shape of the skull suggests Caucasian.’ Mackie held the skull in profile, staring at it with almost morbid fascination, before returning it to the head of the skeleton. ‘I’d say she was a common-or-garden white woman.’
    Gilchrist felt his body give an involuntary shiver. When she had been killed, she had been younger than his daughter, Maureen. And something in that thought sent a cold frisson the length of his spine.
    He turned away.
    On the other table, a white sheet bulged in the shape of a bloated belly. Was the body simply fat, or swollen by the gases of putrefaction? A set of scales stood nearby, their trays glistening wet with slime, and Gilchrist marvelled at Mackie’s apparent resilience to the daily revulsion of his profession – skin that glistened black and blistered like overcooked meat, or peeled from the bone at the touch of a finger, or burst open like ripened fruit.
    He forced his attention back to the skull.
    He stared at it, trying to imagine skin, nose, lips, eyes, hair, all the superficial tissue that forms the human face. He found his gaze pulled to the eye sockets, and wondered what her eyes had last seen. Had she watched her killer strike? Or had she been taken by surprise? Was her last living image that of a word in a book, or a view from her window?
    And her perfect teeth. What had her mouth been like? Had her lips been full or thin? What words had passed between them? Had she called out the name of her killer? Had she screamed? Was that the last sound she made?
    Someone must have known her. Someone must have missed her.
    ‘Anyone from the science lab expected over?’ he asked.
    ‘Later, they tell me.’
    Gilchrist eyed the skeleton. The Police Forensic Science Lab Dundee – PFSLD – had specialists expert in skeletal examination. But
later
was not fast enough. Besides, he needed to ID the woman, and knew someone who might be able to help.
    ‘Is Heather Black still one of the best?’ he asked Mackie.
    ‘Glasgow University?’
    ‘That’s the one.’
    ‘Last I heard.’
    ‘Overnight the skull to her, would you?’
    While Mackie returned his attention to the ankle bone, Gilchrist stared at the skull. If anyone could put a face to this missing woman, Dr Heather Black could. Until then,