Stop Dead (DI Geraldine Steel)

even met Apsley, and they had found nothing to suggest he was having an affair with Amy Henshaw. She hoped the investigation wouldn’t be led astray by fanciful speculation. As her mentor, Geraldine had already warned the sergeant against unsubstantiated speculation. She had another go at impressing on Sam the importance of resisting committing to a theory without any evidence.
    ‘So you think I’ve got it all wrong, is that what you’re trying to tell me?’
    ‘I’m just saying we need to keep an open mind. Cases can throw up all sorts of surprises.’
    ‘I have got an open mind,’ Sam replied crossly and they drove the rest of the way to the morgue in silence.

     
    Geraldine arrived at the morgue irritated with Sam, and even more annoyed with herself for handling the situation so clumsily. The pathologist met them with a smile. He had clear hazel eyes and light brown hair tinged with red. Although he must have been older, he looked about twenty.
    ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ he said with a hint of impatience in his voice.
    He introduced himself as Miles Fellows. While Geraldine responded to the friendly greeting, Sam stepped forward for a sight of the body. She flinched and Geraldine threw the sergeant a sympathetic glance, aware that Sam felt queasy around corpses.

     
    ‘I’m afraid he was a bit of a mess when he was brought in,’ the pathologist began, sounding apologetic, as though he was somehow responsible for the victim’s injuries. Horrified, Geraldine and Sam studied the cadaver. The dead man’s face was bloodless, the effect emphasised by his dark staring eyes and gaping mouth. From one side his face was white and intact. With curiously angular features, he looked like an android. As Geraldine approached she saw a deep weal on his left temple surrounded by a bruise that extended from the edge of his straight eyebrow to disappear beneath his hair. But that wasn’t what held her attention.

     
    ‘Oh my God, what happened to him?’ Sam asked.
    ‘This was a vicious attack,’ Miles replied quietly. ‘The attack began with an injury to the side of the head.’
    He pointed to the gash on the victim’s temple.
    ‘It may appear superficial, but the internal damage is considerable, a single blow inflicted with considerable force at close range. It would probably have been enough to stun the victim, if not knock him unconscious. And after that – as you can see – the victim was severely battered.’
    No one spoke for a few seconds as they stared at the dead man’s pulverised genitals, a mess of bloody flesh.

     
    ‘That’s disgusting,’ Sam muttered at last.
    Her voice sounded thick and slurred, as though it was an effort for her to move her lips.
    ‘There was a hell of a lot of blood in the car where he was found,’ Geraldine said. ‘Would it all have been the victim’s or –’
    It seemed too much to hope the killer might have left his DNA at the scene.
    ‘The blow to his head might well have knocked him out, or at least it would have dazed him for a few seconds, but he was still alive when the other injuries were inflicted. I can’t imagine he would have remained conscious for long and the shock and blood loss would have finished him off pretty quickly even if he’d weathered the blow to his temple. But between the two injuries that could well account for very extensive bleeding,’ Miles told them.

     
    There was another pause.
    ‘I daresay you already know a great deal about the victim. He was well nourished, worked out or exercised regularly, and looked after himself. My first impression was that we were looking at a man in his mid-fifties, but closer examination suggests he was past sixty.’
    Geraldine said Henshaw was sixty-five when he died.
    ‘Can you give us an estimated time of death?’
    ‘Sunday night between ten thirty and eleven thirty.’

     
    Sam had been staring in horror at the victim’s injuries.
    ‘Why on earth would anyone do that? The killer must’ve really hated the victim, so he must’ve known him.’
    ‘Some hatred,’ Geraldine muttered.
    ‘At any rate, the killer must have known him,’ Sam insisted. ‘If you ask me it was a jealous rival who did this. Either Henshaw was sleeping with the killer’s wife, or the killer was sleeping with Henshaw’s wife. Nothing else explains this.’
    She pointed at the victim’s mutilated genitals.
    ‘It’s an act of revenge. And if it’s Henshaw’s wife they were fighting over, there’s