Читать книгу Sanctus - Simon Toyne, Simon Toyne - Страница 31

It took Reis several minutes to slice through the saturated material of the monk’s cassock. He cut from collar to hem, then down each arm, careful not to disturb the body beneath. Rolling the corpse slightly, he then removed the garment and placed it in a steel tray ready for separate analysis.

The guy was in pretty good shape.

At least he would have been before he fell a thousand feet on to solid rock.

Reis tapped the red square on the computer screen with his knuckle and restarted the recording.

‘First impressions of the subject’s body match what one would expect to see following a fall from a great height: massive trauma to the torso, shards of fractured rib jutting out through several places on both sides of the thorax, totally in keeping with the types of compression fracture caused by the extraordinary deceleration of a body in freefall coming into contact with the ground.

‘The body is covered in thick, dark, coagulated blood from numerous puncture wounds. Both clavicles are fractured in several places, and the right one protrudes through the skin at the base of the neck. There also appears to be …’

He looked more closely.

‘… some kind of historical, uniform incision running horizontally across the neck from shoulder to shoulder.’

He took hold of the retractable hose arching over the examination table and squeezed the handle, directing a jet of water on to the neck and chest of the corpse. The sticky, dark film began to wash away.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Reis muttered.

He moved the spray across the rest of the body: first the chest, then the arms, then the legs. He paused the recording once more.

‘Hey, Arkadian,’ he called over his shoulder, still transfixed by the livid body on the slab. ‘You said you wanted a clue. How does this grab you?’