Body Harvest (2 page)

Analysing the fluid leaking from the corpse first, Lexi was looking at the peaks and troughs on the chromatogram. ‘I don’t need to wait for the DNA result,’ she announced. ‘This is the normal profile of decay products from an outer.’ She tapped out a few instructions on the keypad and added, ‘The computer says it’s a ninety-seven per cent match.’

On the other side of the large glass panel, forensic scientists were working on several different cases in a totally clean environment. One of them was measuring the maggots that Lexi had plucked from
the body. Two were staring at paint flakes and fibres through microscopes. Others were preparing samples for various chemical analysers. Some were comparing fingerprints or examining handwriting. Each of them was dressed in an all-over white lab coat. Troy and Lexi were sitting in the attached computer room.

‘A bit depressing really,’ Troy said.

‘What is?’

‘One day, we all decompose to smelly goo and seep into the ground.’

‘That’s nature for you,’ Lexi said cheerfully. ‘It’s beautiful. But don’t you believe there’s a mysterious spirit that leaves the body before rot sets in? The essence of major’s gone before nature starts to recycle the body.’

Troy nodded. ‘There’s got to be more than feeding flies and bacteria.’

‘Has there?’ Lexi said with a twisted smile. ‘I don’t know why. There’s life and there’s death. I’ve never seen anything in-between. No sign of life after death. And no body scanner’s ever found a soul – or whatever you want to call it.’

Troy took a swig of blueberry juice and said, ‘I don’t think we’re going to settle this right now.’

‘You’re scared of losing the argument.’

‘I’ve just got other things on my mind,’ Troy replied.
‘Like a murder.’ Knowing that Lexi’s life-logger would have many images of the victim, he asked, ‘Have you uploaded a picture of him?’

She nodded. ‘I had to clean up the ones of his face for ID purposes. The computer still doesn’t recognize him. And he doesn’t match anyone on the missing persons’ list either. We’re going to have to work harder to find out who he is.’

Lexi’s drink was different. It was mulled wine and Troy could smell the warm alcoholic vapour. Outers drank beer, wine and cider from an early age because alcohol nourished them like any other food. Unlike majors, their bodies lacked the metabolic pathway that caused intoxication, so alcohol didn’t damage their organs and they never got drunk.

‘Maybe his DNA will be in the database,’ Troy said before hesitating and adding, ‘Or is that too easy as well?’

‘We’ll find out tomorrow.’

Troy typed a few commands on the keypad until the screen showed him a satellite image of the area where the body had been found. He cocked his head on one side and murmured, ‘Why here?’

Lexi shrugged. ‘Because it’s remote? Not many people go there.’

‘Our bad guy knows all about it, though.’

‘Maybe he collects logs as well.’

‘So he’d have a wood-burning stove.’

‘Or he’s into wood-carving,’ Lexi replied with a smirk.

‘My point exactly,’ said Troy. ‘Place always tells a story. In this case, we just don’t know what it is yet.’ Examining the map again, he said, ‘Could be a lot of deer roaming around, so maybe he’s into hunting. Maybe he – or
she
– goes sailing on the reservoir. Maybe he’s a tree surgeon. I don’t know, but there’ll be a connection for sure.’

‘We’ll probably pin it down after forensics have solved the case.’

Troy frowned and turned back to the monitor. He zoomed out to get an overall view of the area. ‘I’ll run a check on every building within ten kilometres.’

Lexi peered at the map. ‘Won’t take long. Probably a few farms, a yachting club and the waterworks. That’s the lot, isn’t it?’

‘Maybe one of the farmers is a mad, tree-felling, wood-carving murderer.’

Lexi laughed. ‘No chance. Anyone like that would use an axe or a chainsaw. Ours is nowhere near as messy.’

All murder detectives laughed a lot. Troy knew why. It was the way they protected themselves from
the awful things they saw. They had to cleanse themselves of the violence committed by both human races and they did it with dark humour. If they didn’t laugh, they’d probably cry.

‘What are those maggots telling you?’

‘At this time of year, flies would have found the body within an hour and laid eggs on the moist bits – the mouth, eyes, armpits and open wounds. The maggots would have hatched in twelve to
twenty-four
hours and started munching straightaway. The ones I sampled were under a centimetre long. That’s two days’ growth or thereabouts, but it depends a lot on temperature. I’m still waiting for those readings.’

Troy looked down at his life-logger. ‘They want us back at the field,’ he announced.

Lexi nodded and stood up. ‘That means you were right. More bodies.’

The wood was no longer empty and peaceful. It was heaving with crime scene officers in white overalls. To Troy’s left, a line of policemen and women on their hands and knees stretched across the clearing. They were inching forward slowly, conducting a fingertip search for a weapon – or anything else that might be relevant. Two officers were coming to the end of their zigzag inspection of the area with ground-penetrating radar. Forensic scientists were carrying sealed bags back to the vehicles parked in the narrow lane beyond the trees. The team had found two more bodies,
exactly where Troy had predicted. A small digger was parked between two new holes and four small mounds of soil. The pathologist – an outer called Kofi Seven – had removed the body that Lexi and Troy had already seen. Now he was examining another in a makeshift grave.

Walking beside Troy, Lexi said, ‘If there was a god, he’d have put a stop to stuff like this.’

‘It doesn’t work like that,’ Troy retorted. ‘Majors and outers have free will.’

‘Huh.’

They stopped and looked down into the first freshly dug hollow. This time, it was a woman. The corpse was too dirty and rotten to reveal much.

Kofi shook his head. ‘Don’t ask. I’ve got to get this one back to the lab before I can tell you anything. No obvious wounds, though.’

‘What about …?’ Troy waved his arm towards the second hole.

‘A male in an advanced state of decay, missing his right hand.’

Troy walked to the hollow, glanced down and shuddered. From head to stomach, the man was soiled but apparently whole. Below his waist, he was incredibly thin, as if the bottom part of his body had rotted much quicker than the top. Troy looked away.

‘The body’s very fragile,’ the pathologist said. ‘I’m still figuring out how to take it away in one piece.’

‘Cause of death?’ Lexi asked.

‘To be decided, but his throat’s been slit.’

Troy flinched but kept his distaste to himself. Lexi did not react.

‘Come and see me in the morning,’ Kofi said. ‘I’ll have a good picture by then.’

Signalling to the crime scene supervisor, Lexi asked, ‘Have you found a weapon?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’

‘That fits – if the killing was done somewhere else,’ Troy said.

The supervisor told them, ‘We’ve bagged a lot of stuff, but I’m not sure we’ve got anything worthwhile.’

‘Tyre impressions or footprints?’

‘Possible faint trolley or cart tracks. It’s hard to say. But maybe that’s how the bodies got here. At least three sets of shoeprints so far. One probably belongs to the woman who found the first body.’

Lexi nodded. ‘Keep looking.’

The bright white pathology laboratory was not Troy’s favourite place. Laid out on plinths, human bodies were objects for undignified exploration. To Troy, pathologists resembled customs officers who opened up suspicious suitcases and delved inside, putting aside clothes and possessions to uncover hidden evidence. They went to great lengths to discover the causes of death, apparently able to detach themselves from a person whose internal organs they lifted out, whose brain they accessed with a saw.

Kofi was tall and lean with a shaved head and
large blue trainers. His feet had to be enormous. He towered over the three bodies that he’d labelled L4G#1, L4G#2 and L4G#3. L4G stood for Lexi Four/Goodhart. He would not understand Troy’s distress that, in the absence of real names, the victims had been given heartless codes.

‘You’ll recognize L4G#1,’ Kofi said. ‘A male outer, about thirty years of age. No ID of any sort.’

Lexi nodded. The result of the DNA test that she’d requested yesterday had come in. The victim was definitely an outer, but his profile was not in the DNA database so his identity remained a mystery.

Kofi glanced at Lexi and said, ‘With all this hair he’s got, I’m not surprised you missed a blow to the back of the head with a heavy, blunt object.’

Lexi asked, ‘Was it lethal?’

‘No. It would just have knocked him out.’

‘So, what killed him?’ said Troy

‘Prepare yourselves.’

‘What?’ Troy prompted.

‘He has no heart, liver or kidneys.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Cause of death: removal of heart, liver and kidneys. That’s why he’s lying here. It’s hard to regain consciousness without a heart.’

‘That’s …’ Troy was lost for words.

‘Unusual?’ Kofi suggested. ‘And rather intriguing.’

Finding his voice again, Troy asked, ‘Was it done … professionally? Can you tell?’

‘It wasn’t someone hacking away in a frenzied attack. It was done with a very sharp knife or a scalpel – and with care. But, no, it wasn’t up to operating theatre standard. And no one bothered to sew up the wounds afterwards.’

Lexi seemed to be suppressing anger. ‘What’s your estimate for when he died?’

‘He’s cold and rigor mortis has come and gone.’ He lifted the left arm by the wrist and the hand flopped. ‘Totally flaccid. That tells me he died more than thirty-six hours ago. The entomologist says there were no beetles, mites, ants or wasps, so he’s fairly fresh. Two or three days. You’ll be able to pin it down yourself, won’t you?’

Lexi nodded again. ‘I’m collecting temperature evidence right now. As long as the weather doesn’t change … Hey presto.’

Knowing that Kofi will have examined the man’s stomach contents during the post-mortem, she asked, ‘What was his last meal?’

‘Bug burger and chips. Mostly locusts.’

Troy turned up his nose.

‘Huh. You eat cow, don’t you?’ Lexi snapped at him.

‘Beef, yes,’ Troy replied.

‘Well, insects and arachnids are twelve times more efficient than cows at turning plants into edible protein. And they taste better.’

Kofi smiled at their bickering. ‘Do either of you want to hear about your second corpse? She’s fascinating as well. Maybe more so.’

‘Yes.’

Kofi turned towards the plump body that had a tag dangling from the left big toe. It labelled her as L4G#2. ‘She’s a major but an overnight DNA test tells me she’s got an outer heart.’

‘What?’ Troy exclaimed. ‘How’s that possible?’

Major and outer body parts looked much the same but their chemistry was different. They were completely incompatible.

‘Surgery. A bizarre – and very cruel – experiment or a transplant that went wrong because of an organ mix-up.’

Troy and Lexi exchanged a glance. Last night, when Troy had researched all of the buildings near the clearing, he’d found a reference to the Rural Retreat Transplant Clinic, situated at the far end of the reservoir.

Lexi asked, ‘How long would she survive with the wrong heart?’

‘A few hours at most. Her immune system would have rejected it pretty quickly.’

‘I don’t suppose it’s the first body’s heart, is it?’ Troy asked.

‘No. You can’t link them like that, I’m afraid. She died maybe a week before him.’ Kofi hesitated and then said, ‘Of course, despite appearances, it means you’ve really got four victims. The only thing we’ve got of L4G#4 is a heart. The DNA doesn’t match any database, so all we know is that he or she’s an outer.’

‘Here’s something easier. Have you identified her – L4G#2?’ Lexi asked.

‘No,’ Kofi answered. ‘But it’s interesting that there’s an illegal trade in body parts. Do you know? There’s a lot of money to be made, trading organs like hearts and lungs. The displaced and bodies stolen from mortuaries are prime sources. Look at L4G#1. Unshaven and unkempt, missing some valuable organs. There’s a possible connection. Which brings me nicely to L4G#3. He’s not one of the displaced, but he’s your most extreme victim.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s a major and he’s missing a heart, lungs, eyes,
liver and kidneys. On top of that …’ Theatrically, he waved an arm over the lower part of the body. From the withered stomach, L4G#3 was nearly flat. ‘Almost all the bones below his waist have been harvested. That’s why he’s two-dimensional down there.’

‘You mean,’ Troy struggled to say, ‘someone’s taken his bones out? Why …?’

‘Bones are useful for making dental implants. He’s been fairly thoroughly ransacked for anything useful. Note the missing right hand. And there’s no skin on his back. I imagine that went to a burns victim.’

‘But all this … surgery would have been done after he died, wouldn’t it?’ Troy said. ‘I hope so.’

Kofi nodded. ‘The police were wrong about the cause of death.’

Troy was puzzled. ‘The police know about him?’

‘Yes. We’ve identified him …’

Troy interrupted. ‘Let’s drop the code, then. Show him some respect and use his name.’

Taken aback by Troy’s vehemence, Kofi replied, ‘Er … Sure. He’s Dmitri Backhouse – thirty-eight years old – and he went missing six weeks ago, presumed suicide …’

‘Suicide?’ Lexi exclaimed.

‘According to his medical notes, he’d tried twice before and failed. He’d visited lots of suicide chat
rooms. The police assumed he’d succeeded on the third attempt.’

‘But …’

With a grin, Kofi said, ‘I know. He’s the first suicide I’ve come across who’s slit his own throat – that’s how he died – and afterwards removed various body parts before burying himself.’

‘So,’ Troy replied, ‘we’re talking assisted suicide or something more …’

‘Murderous?’ Lexi offered.

‘Assisted suicide’s murder. No, I meant, a more ordinary killing.’

‘I’ll upload everything for you,’ Kofi told them. ‘You know, I envy you two, in a way.’

‘How come?’ Lexi asked.

‘It’s a remarkable case. You’re lucky to get it.’

‘We’ll see,’ Lexi muttered.

On the way out, Troy asked Kofi, ‘Have you ever had any bodies stolen from here? I’m thinking about stuff being bought and sold for transplants. Have you got first-hand experience?’

The pathologist shook his head. ‘I know about it, but I’m not part of it.’