Читать книгу Woman in the Water - Katerina Diamond, Katerina Diamond - Страница 20

Dr Forrester was placing an eyeball in the socket of a plaster mould of a skull when Adrian and Imogen entered his office on the Streatham Campus of Exeter University. The office was a cornucopia of dusty old books and curios, the way you imagine a professor’s office to look. There were several clay skulls at various stages of development around the room. Adrian had seen plenty of dramatisations of this kind of thing on the TV, but it was fascinating to see in person.

Gary stood up excitedly as they approached. ‘Imogen, Adrian, this is Dr Carl Forrester.’

Dr Forrester nodded hello to them. ‘I would shake your hands, but I’m a bit mucky at present.’

‘The doctor is reconstructing our John Doe’s face,’ Gary said.

‘Already?’ Imogen asked.

‘What is it you’re doing? How do you do that? How do you know what his eyes were like?’

Adrian fired a series of questions at the professor. This kind of thing seemed like magic to Adrian and yet he had seen the results with his own eyes before. It worked. What was it they said? Magic was just science we don’t understand yet, which, in Adrian’s case, was almost all science.

‘I spoke to your pathologist last night and she sent me photos and measurements. From the body, I would say that we are looking at a Caucasian male in his late twenties. He has brown hair and brown eyes, and would have stood around five foot eleven, which we know because the pathologist told us; that’s not information we normally have when reconstructing.’

‘How did you get the skull so quickly? Is pathology done with it?’ Adrian asked.

‘We did an MRI of the head and then used a program to create a 3D image of the skull from the source material. We were then able to print a 3D replica of it, so we didn’t need the actual skull,’ Gary said excitedly.

‘When that was ready, I began to attach the markers and the eyeballs. Next, I will start to build muscle up to the marker lines,’ Dr Forrester said.

‘How do you know where the marker lines are?’ Adrian said.

‘There’s a lot of measuring and maths involved, plus decades of research and other people’s work to pull from. We measure the skull and construct markers of varying depths, which we place in specific points on the skull that will in turn guide us when creating the flesh and muscles out of clay.

‘We already have more to work on than usual, because the actual skull is still … well, fleshy. The eyeball that I have just inserted is on a bed of clay to bring it to the right depth, which is where the flat part of the front of the eye is flush with the socket around it. Next, I will be adding clay to the chin and jaw. Then I fill the spaces in between the markers and smooth it all out until we have a face. You are welcome to stay and watch.’

‘Thanks, Doc,’ Adrian said. ‘When do you think he will be ready?’

‘Give me ’til the end of the day. If I work through, I should have it done.’

Adrian and Imogen stood and watched as Dr Forrester rolled the clay carefully into tiny balls and placed each one in between the markers on the face – small foam tubes of varying lengths. He started on the jawbone, filling the space slowly with the small lumps of clay until they reached the required height, then he smoothed it over until you could barely see the markers anymore.

Adrian would have loved to stay and watch the man work all day, but they had to go and speak to the woman again. All this could be completely unnecessary. She might change her mind and give them the name of the man whose body they found floating in the River Exe. Even as he thought it to himself, he knew it wouldn’t be that easy. Whoever had hurt the woman had scared her enough to keep her mouth shut. Nothing they could say would change that. They had to keep trying, though. Someone was missing this man and they deserved to know the truth.