Читать книгу The Girl Who Broke the Rules - Marnie Riches, Marnie Riches - Страница 11

‘Her vital organs are all but gone. Can you believe it? Kidneys, bladder, pancreas, liver… you name it,’ Strietman said. ‘Everything except the two biggies – her brain and heart. Hard to tell with so much of her missing what the actual cause of death was. I’d put my money on cardiac arrest. I’ll need more time to examine her brain properly.’ He gestured towards the girl’s groin area with his pen. ‘She shows signs of having had rough sexual intercourse either just before death or shortly afterwards. Difficult to tell. No semen, but we lifted a couple of pubic hairs that didn’t belong to her. There are some signs of a struggle – thumb prints to her wrists. Bruising to the left side of her face, as though she’s been struck, but not trauma like you’d expect from a blunt instrument. Maybe a fist. Beaten, then raped, I guess.’

‘Don’t guess,’ van den Bergen said. ‘The sex may have been consensual and the bruising part of rough play.’

Daan Strietman shook his head. ‘She’s been murdered! It’s got to be rape, hasn’t it?’

‘Has it? That’s for me to discern. Continue.’

‘Well, I’ve really never seen anything like it.’ The pathologist was smiling again. Almost feverishly. ‘I think we’ve got some kind of ritual sex murder on our hands, here.’

Van den Bergen peered inside the girl’s chest cavity where the ribs had been peeled back to reveal black, coagulated blood and a rag-tag confusion of muscle and sinew. ‘Have we, indeed? Ritual sex murder. Why do you say that?’

‘Well, her uterus is gone.’

‘Yes, along with pretty much everything else, you’re telling me. Any trauma to the genitals other than what you’d normally expect from intercourse?’

The sombre proceedings were interrupted by a woman, knocking at the door.

‘Knock, knock! Can I come in?’ she asked. A cheerful voice. Searching eyes. Looked over at Strietman and smiled. ‘Hello, Daan. They said it would be okay for me to come straight down here.’

‘Sabine!’ Strietman beckoned the woman inside. ‘Perfect timing! Paul, this a good friend of Marianne’s – a very well-respected paediatrician.’

Van den Bergen moved away from the slab and was leaned against a tall storage cabinet. Arms folded; long legs entwined around each other. Wasn’t sure about this interloper.

Strietman offered the woman a typing chair to sit on. ‘I felt I needed a second opinion from someone who knows more about children’s physiology than me, since our Jane Doe shows signs of aggravated sexual assault and has given birth underage.’

Sabine perched elegantly, with the perfect posture of a yoga enthusiast on the edge of her chair. Ran a manicured hand through her long, thick chestnut-coloured hair. Van den Bergen assessed she was in her early forties, but she had that youthful glow to her skin that said this was a woman who looked after herself. Expensive-looking clothes. Nothing flashy. Pale grey co-ordinated knitwear. Leggings that emphasised her long, slender legs.

‘Anyway. Formal introductions,’ Strietman said, clapping his hands together. ‘Paul, this is Dr Sabine Schalks. Sabine, this is Chief Inspector Paul van den Bergen. There. Now we all know one another.’

Sabine examined the Jane Doe. ‘Interesting,’ she said. ‘There are signs of partial female genital mutilation, but the scar tissue is old, indicating that it was performed years ago and not related to this girl’s death. Your Jane Doe must come from an Islamic country. Possibly East African.’

Van den Bergen nodded. ‘Anything else?’

Sabine Schalks backed away from the body and sighed. ‘She’s definitely a victim of sexual abuse. She could only have been about thirteen when she was carrying her child. Tragic. Absolutely tragic. Worse still that she’s ended up in here.’ She turned to Strietman, eyebrows raised. ‘What are the other circumstances of her death, in your opinion?’

Strietman thumbed his chin. ‘She’s suffered what we call a catecholamine “storm”.’ The pathologist made exclamation marks in the air with his blue, gloved fingers. ‘Her body’s been flooded by catecholamines – hormones made by the adrenal glands – and that’s caused ventricular damage to the heart. It’s often related to an overdose of cocaine or psychedelic drugs. There are MAOIs in her blood.’ He turned to van den Bergen. ‘Know what those are?’

‘Monoamine oxidase inhibitors,’ van den Bergen offered. ‘Used to treat depression.’

‘How do you know that?’ Strietman’s eyebrows shot up. He studied the chief inspector with something bordering on fascination. As though van den Bergen himself was a subject to be dissected, weighed and pronounced upon.

Van den Bergen wasn’t giving this over-enthusiastic dipshit anything. He remained silent. Peered down his nose at the younger man. Shot a furtive glance at the paediatrician. ‘What the hell have anti-depressants got to do with ritual murder?’

The feverish grinning continued.

Did this asshole think he was putting forward a case for winning the Nobel Prize? Or did he aspire to swap careers, trading his coroner’s stink and the solitude of the morgue for the lingering, heady musk of IT Marie’s three-day-old BO when they were pulling overnighters on a big case? Van den Bergen longed for the familiar sparring he enjoyed with the entirely sober Marianne. Wondered if George had read his text. He’d heard nothing. Yet.

Strietman expanded: ‘Well, Paul, MAOIs are used by spiritual drug users to increase the bioavailability of the hallucinogenic, DMT. In other words, MAOIs help them get a better psychedelic high. And this girl…guess what else she has in her blood!’

Van den Bergen swallowed down a fireball of gastric discomfort. ‘Tomato ketchup? Coriander? Anti-bacterial gel? I don’t know. Just tell me.’

‘MDMA.’ Strietman punched the air triumphantly with his pen. ‘Ecstasy.’

Groaning, van den Bergen removed his glasses and cleaned them on the bottom of his shirt. Replaced them and almost glimpsed a younger Elvis in this interloping pathologist. ‘The girl lives in Amsterdam, Daan. We’re at the European epicentre of ecstasy production. It’s entirely possible she went out and got bombed the night before this…’ he described the girl’s remains with a wave of his large hand ‘…happened to her.’

‘Daan might have a point,’ Sabine interjected. ‘Child abuse victims are often drugged by their attackers.’

‘No, Paul,’ Strietman went on. ‘She’s definitely been drugged, and that’s ultimately caused her heart to fail. There’s a puncture wound from a cannula in her arm.’ He lifted a grey/brown arm and displayed a tiny black mark, the top of which was encrusted with a small, dried bead of blood. ‘Abrasion up her nostril and the remnants of surgical tape, which suggested a tube has been put down her nose. Think about it! The missing organs. The sexual intercourse. The fact that she’s maybe of Eastern African origin, given the presentation of her genitals. Voodoo ritual killing. Ever hear about the torso of the African boy they found in the UK in the River Thames?’

‘Please stick to the medical facts and stop trying to play detective. That’s my job. What else have you got?’ van den Bergen asked, impatient now. Wishing he could somehow turn back time. That Marianne would get better and come back into work with her nice neck and strong runner’s physique. Wishing he didn’t find this new woman so attractive. This was neither the time nor the place to be checking out women. Keep your dick under control, you moron.

‘We’re waiting for more refined information to come back from the path lab regarding her blood,’ Daan continued. ‘But initial tests show hypernatraemia. Electrolyte imbalance. Dehydration. Consistent with ecstasy misuse. She’s undergone a caesarean delivery within the last twelve to eighteen months,’ Daan said. ‘The suturing style is unusual. Unidirectional barbed suture instead of bidirectional or traditional knots.’

Studying what was still evident of the scarring to the girl’s abdomen, van den Bergen grimaced. ‘That means nothing to me. Explain!’

‘She’s been delivered of a baby and sewn up by someone who clearly knew the theory of what they were doing. But I guess they weren’t very good with a needle and thread. The lumpy scar tissue’s a giveaway. I don’t think a qualified surgeon would do a bodge job like that in the Netherlands.’