Page 96 of Killing Mind

‘Nah, not right now, Tiff. I’m not in the mood. I think, right now, I just wanna go home.’

Seventy-Eight

‘Hey, Keats, shall I save these for the next one?’ Penn asked, holding up his protective suit for the second time in as many days.

‘Yes, you do appear to have moved in,’ Keats answered. ‘Although I’m not sure your presence here today was warranted.’

Penn had been thinking the same throughout the post-mortem of the victim retrieved from the lake the previous day.

The procedure had been completely different to the examination of Tyler Short. There had been much more of Tyler to examine.

Today there had been no removal or weighing of organs, no sawing of bones to access the inner workings of the human body. There had been no stomach contents to analyse. Instead, Keats had laboured silently and diligently to work around the tissue-paper-skin to find clues underneath. He had been advised from the outset that given the condition of the body many of his findings would be approximate.

That hadn’t stopped the pathologist examining every inch of what he had available to make determinations.

‘So, there you have it,’ Keats said, consulting his clipboard. ‘We have a male victim aged between twenty-five and fifty who has been submerged anywhere from three months to three years. He was below average height at five feet four, with an old fracture to his right femur. There are no other obvious fractures, broken bones or serious injuries and in the absence of any soft tissue, no obvious cause of death.’ He paused and looked over his notes once more. He frowned and Penn took a step closer. Had he missed something?

Keats shook his head. ‘No. That’s definitely it.’

‘So, this death could have been accidental?’ Penn confirmed.

Keats nodded. ‘Or he could have been stabbed forty times, but if the knife didn’t hit one bone I wouldn’t know it. And when your boss makes that face she does when she’s dissatisfied with the results please tell her that’s all she’s going to get.’

‘Oh yeah, I’ll be sure to pass that along,’ he replied, drily.

‘Joking aside, Penn. There is nothing more I can tell you about this poor fellow.’

Penn nodded and reached for his jacket. He understood. Sometimes the crime scene of the body yielded a plethora of clues and leads, but what amassed to little more than a bag of bones had very little left to say.

‘Well, thanks for the…’

‘Ah, Penn, just the man,’ Mitch said, stepping into the morgue. ‘The divers did one last sweep of the area. They found this.’

Mitch held out a plastic evidence bag.

Penn took it and turned it around. It was a burgundy velvet jewellery gift box.

‘Not sure if it means anything.’

Penn was reminded of something his boss often said when it came to things uncovered at a crime scene.

Everything meant something.

Seventy-Nine

‘Want me to stay in the car again?’ Bryant asked, pulling up outside the Brierley Hill café.

‘No, you’re coming in,’ she said, getting out of the car.

This time it was her rules and if Kane Devlin didn’t like it he could walk right back out again.

‘Looks like he beat you to it,’ Bryant said, as they approached the door.

Kane sat in the far corner. Only one other table was occupied by a woman with a pushchair.

Kim noted there were two cups already on the table.

‘I got you a latte,’ he said, coolly, glancing at Bryant. ‘I didn’t realise we were going to have company.’