Page 19 of The Condemned (Echoes from the Past #6)
THIRTEEN
London, England
Quinn pushed open the door to the mortuary and the familiar smells of carbolic, formaldehyde, and death assaulted her.
Through the Plexiglas window on her right, she saw a body covered with a green hospital sheet lying on the slab, awaiting its appointment with Dr. Scott’s scalpel.
Neither Colin nor his assistant, Dr. Dhawan, were in the lab.
Quinn walked down the corridor until she reached Colin’s office. He was at his desk, his gaze fixed on the computer screen as he typed rapidly. His hair was gathered into a messy man-bun and a surgical mask hung around his neck, like a droopy necklace.
He glanced up and smiled. “Quinn, come in. Lovely to see you. How’s the family?”
“They’re well, thank you. It’s been some time since we’ve seen you and Logan.”
“Logan’s been taking extra shifts at the hospital,” Colin replied as he finished what he was doing and turned to face Quinn.
“Why?”
“He wants to keep an eye on Jude.”
“Is Jude not doing a satisfactory job?” Quinn asked.
It didn’t require much skill or effort to do the job of a hospital porter, but Jude was a musician and the dull, often-unpleasant job wasn’t one he aspired to keep, despite his brother’s best efforts at keeping him in line.
Jude missed his music and his vagabond lifestyle, two things that inevitably got him into trouble .
“Once an addict, always an addict,” Colin replied matter-of-factly.
“Jude has been on the straight and narrow for several months now. He’s attending his methadone program and keeping clear of his friends, who are enablers one and all, but Logan’s afraid he’ll slip up if left on his own for too long. ”
“Do you think he will?” Quinn asked.
“I very much hope he doesn’t, but the stats are not in his favor.
Most users relapse; it’s a sad fact. Jude is too talented, too artistic.
He won’t last long emptying bedpans and taking out the rubbish.
He longs for the adrenaline-fueled high of performing, and he misses his girlfriend.
Bridget is not making things easy for him. ”
“No, I didn’t think she would. She does love him, I think,” Quinn said. She felt sad for the young couple. They were so attractive, so bright, but neither had been strong enough to turn their back on the seductive embrace of heroine for long.
“She does, but she’s not good for him.”
Quinn nodded. She wished she could help Jude in some way, but he didn’t want her help.
Their complicated relationship was made more fragile by the fact that they hadn’t shared a childhood as Logan and Jude had done.
Jude still saw Quinn as an interloper, someone who didn’t quite belong in his family, but he seemed to be coming around to the idea of having a sister.
“Have you seen Sylvia recently? How is she?” Quinn asked. She hadn’t seen her birth mother in several weeks, but they’d exchanged a few text messages and phone calls, their conversations centering on safe subjects, such as Alex and Emma, and Quinn’s decorating ideas for the new house.
“As well as can be expected,” Colin replied. “She’s glad Jude is back, and she has him to fuss over. She’s driving him mad, of course, but I think he secretly likes it.”
Colin reached for the box of latex gloves on his desk and handed Quinn a pair before pulling on his own.
“Shall we?” he said as he rose to his feet and led her toward the lab at the end of the corridor.
“I must admit, this case has absolutely fascinated me, Quinn. I don’t often get emotional over people who died hundreds of year ago, but this poor lass has managed to break through my shield of indifference. ”
“Yes, I feel the same way.”
The two skeletons were laid out on a metal slab, the tiny baby next to its mother. Colin flipped on a switch, and fluorescent light flooded the slab, turning the bones from gray to gleaming white.
“Good morning, Dr. Allenby,” Dr. Sarita Dhawan called out as she walked into the lab, a file folder in her hands.
Despite her cheerful greeting, she looked upset and tossed down the folder with some force.
“I’m afraid I have some bad news, Dr. Scott.
The Hawthorne lab’s been closed down due to cross-contamination.
It might take more than a week for it to reopen,” she said with obvious disgust. “I’m sorry, Dr. Allenby, but I don’t have the results for you.
We’ll have to send new samples once the lab reopens, since the ones we sent already are no longer viable. ”
“It’s all right. I can wait,” Quinn replied, trying to hide her disappointment.
She’d hoped to learn more about Mary and her child, since scientific information went a long way to fleshing out the narrative about the lives of the subjects of Echoes from the Past .
Quinn could hardly reveal to the world that she saw Mary in her visions.
She needed cold, hard facts to validate her story.
“No matter,” Colin said as he approached the skeleton. “I can still give you something to go on.”
Quinn looked down at the female skeleton.
Dr. Dhawan had reconstructed it on the slab, so it was no longer in the position Quinn had found it in upon entering the cave.
Looking at it now, she couldn’t see any trace of agony in the skeleton’s posture or skull.
The bones had been cleaned, the blood washed away, and the jaw, which had been opened as if in a scream, had been closed.
The skeleton of the baby now rested next to its mother’s arm rather than just below her pelvis, behind her legs.
“So, what can you tell me about her, Colin?” Quinn asked as she reached out and gingerly touched the skeleton’s hand.
“We performed all the usual tests, except for DNA sequencing. Since we have viable hair follicles, there’s no sense incurring additional expense unless we require more in-depth information.
We’ve also been able to obtain a blood sample from the wood, which should tell us more.
I’ll have those results for you once the lab is fully operational again,” Colin said, smiling apologetically.
“In the meantime, I can share my own findings with you, which I stand by one hundred percent.”
“I’ve never questioned your expertise, Colin,” Quinn said. “You’re the best in your field.”
Colin colored with pleasure at the compliment.
“Maybe not the best, but I do know my skellies, and this one has lots to tell. Carbon-14 dating shows that she lived in the sixteen hundreds. Early to mid-sixteen hundreds, I think. If you look at the skull, you’ll see that the sagittal suture is not fully fused, so she was definitely under the age of thirty-five, and judging by where the ribs join the sternum, I’d put her in her early twenties. ”
“How can you tell from the sternum?” Quinn asked.
“The sternum is not a weight-bearing bone and is unaffected by childbearing, so it’s a fairly accurate marker for age.
My estimation is supported by the state of the pelvis.
The pubic symphysis is not severely pitted or craggy, confirming that she was fairly young, but there are soft marks on the cartilage that suggest she had given birth.
Now, whether she gave birth only to this baby or had experienced birth before is impossible to tell.
Given her approximate age and the time she lived in, it’s very possible she’d had other children before this one. ”
Quinn tore her gaze away from the tiny skeleton of the baby.
Every time she looked at it, she thought of Alex and how lucky she was to have a healthy baby.
Had she lived in an earlier era, Alex surviving the birth or the first year of his life would not be a given.
Even during the reign of Queen Victoria, which wasn’t all that long ago, only half the babies born made it to their first birthday, but that didn’t guarantee they’d survive into adulthood or even reach the tender age of five.
Oblivious to Quinn’s melancholy, Colin went on. “Since there was no cloth to sample or any other material objects, we have to rely on other clues to tell us something of her social background,” he said, moving his hand to the skull. He ran his latex-covered finger along the skeleton’s teeth.
“Her teeth are somewhat worn, but not enough to suggest she suffered long periods of hunger. I do believe her diet wasn’t extremely varied, which suggests that she didn’t come from the upper classes.
That theory is supported by the ridges on her wrists.
This woman worked with her hands. These types of ridges can be found in most women of that historical period, since everything was done by hand, from kneading dough to sewing to milking cows.
Even fetching water from the well would leave its mark. ”
“So, she fell somewhere between a beggar and a lady,” Quinn concluded.
“Exactly so. Now for the baby.” Colin sighed, betraying his own sadness.
“I can’t say with any certainty if the child was alive at the time of the birth, but the mother definitely was.
Given the amount of blood and her position in the coffin, I’d say this poor woman went into labor after being interred.
I’ve seen coffin births where the mother died while heavily pregnant and the gasses that built up during decomposition forced out the lifeless child, but this is not one of those cases.
She definitely lived through all or part of the labor.
Poor soul,” Colin said. He patted her skull affectionately, as if the gesture could somehow soothe her.
“Is there anything you can tell me about the baby?” Quinn asked.
“I’ve compared the length of the bones to markers for the sixteen hundreds, and I believe the child was full term.
I can’t determine its gender just by examining the skeleton, but I think we’ll get more information from the DNA results.
Believe it or not, I was able to collect a few hairs that must have belonged to the baby.
Had the coffin been buried in earth, the fine baby hair wouldn’t have survived, but because the coffin was in the cave, which had its own microclimate, some DNA information survived.
It’s fascinating, really,” Colin exclaimed as he looked down at mother and child.
“I wonder why her coffin was left in that cave. Doesn’t make any sense. ”
“No, it doesn’t,” Quinn agreed. “If someone laid her in a coffin, it stands to reason they meant to bury her. If she’d been marked as a suicide or a heretic, she would have been buried at the crossroads with a stake through her heart.
It’s almost as if someone wished to hide the fact that she died. ”
“I think that might have something to do with the gaping hole in her head,” Colin said. “There are some who would view what was done to this woman as murder. Not only had someone trepanned her, but they sealed her in a coffin while she still lived, condemning mother and child to death.”
“It’s savage,” Quinn said. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the hole in the top of the skull. “Are you sure this was done intentionally?”
“Oh yes. The edges are too smooth to be the result of an accident or an attack. Had she been bashed over the head, her skull would be cracked, the opening jagged. This is a perfect circle, the result of using a medical tool,” Colin said, running his fingers along the edges of the hole. “This was very much intentional.”
“Thank you, Colin. Please let me know when you have the DNA results.”
“I’ll ring you. Quinn, would you and Gabe like to come for dinner one night?” Colin asked. He blushed prettily. “I’ve been taking French cookery lessons. To relieve stress,” he explained. “Dealing with dead people can be murder. ”
Quinn laughed. “Will you spoil us with escargot and foie gras?”
“I’m not that advanced, but I can offer you onion soup and duck breast in a cherry glaze with rosemary roasted potatoes.”
“I’m salivating already,” Quinn confessed.
“Good. I’ll check with Logan to see when he has a free evening and we’ll put something on the calendar.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
Quinn accepted a file folder with a copy of Colin’s findings from Sarita and made for the door.
She was grateful Colin hadn’t asked about Jo.
She hadn’t heard from Rhys, and although she knew it was too soon to expect any answers, her heart did a flip every time her mobile rang.
The best way to distract herself from worrying about Rhys would be to spend an hour in the seventeenth century, and if she managed to get Alex down for a nap when she got home, that was exactly what she’d do.