Autographs In The Rain Part 18

'Maybe not,' said Bob, thoughtfully. 'But maybe it should have been.'

She grinned at him as she laid the folder on the kitchen work surface. 'I will read this later, once the kids are in bed.' She handed him a china bowl with Beatrix Potter rabbits around the edge. 'Meantime, take this and feed your younger daughter.'

He took the dish and pulled up a chair, beside the high seat in which Seonaid, the newest member of Clan Skinner, bounced up and down in antic.i.p.ation. She was a sparkling, st.u.r.dy baby, and a fast developer like her brother James Andrew had been in his infant days, before he grew into a rough and ready three-year-old.

'Okay, Junior Miss,' her father murmured, spooning up some of the blended food. 'What the h.e.l.l's this gunge I've been asked to give you?'

'Beef and vegetable,' Sarah called across; her accent was still upstate New York for all her years in Scotland. 'And before you knock it, it ain't out of no jar. I made that myself. It's not unlike what the rest of us are going to have once you've put Tootsie to bed. I've just mashed it down with the hand blender, that's all.'

Whatever it was, the baby demolished it with impressive concentration as her mother headed upstairs to round up Jazz, and their adopted son,Mark, who were along the corridor in their playroom, engrossed in Deep s.p.a.ce Nine.

Bob Skinner was an enthusiastic parent; he had been left to bring up Alex alone for most of her young life. He reckoned that he had done a pretty fair job, but it gave him a secret inner delight that he had been given a second opportunity to share the experience with someone else.

He made a point, whenever the job permitted, of being home early enough in the evening to be able to feed Seonaid, bath her and put her to bed, then to spend time with the boys before their curfew.

i That evening was typical of the domestic regime which he and Sarah had established; they were both pleasurably tired by 9 p.m., when Mark and Jazz went upstairs for the night.

'Okay,' said Sarah at last, as she slumped down on to the sofa in their living room. 'Let's see that report.'

Obediently, Bob walked back through to the kitchen and brought the folder to her. Making herself comfortable in her seat she opened it, counted the pages briefly, then turned to the colour photographs which were appended to them. 'Did you get these by e-mail too?' she asked.

'Yes. They were sent through as files. I had our IT people print them out as clean as they could.'

'Very impressive. If only they could e-mail autopsy subjects to me, I'd never have to leave Gullane.'

Bob scratched his stubbly chin. 'If we had the garage converted to a mortuary, I could arrange to have them brought to you. I doubt if the boys would fancy Mum nipping out twice a day to carve up a cadaver.'

'You kidding? They'd love it. We'd be the talk of the village, though.'

'I've got news for you, kid. We're that already.'

She smiled, then turned her full attention to the photographs. This was taken in situ?' she asked, looking at the first.

'There's an index at the back, but yes, it was. It was shot as soon as they'd drained the water from the bath.'

'I wish they had taken one before they did that.'

'Why?'

'See those patches discolouring the white enamel?' She pointed to marks on the photograph. 'They could be strips of skin.'

'What would that tell you?'

'Nothing for sure, but . . .' She hesitated, frowning. 'Suppose the old man was suffering from rapidly developing dementia. If, in his confused82.AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN.

state he ran himself a bath straight from the hot tap, then climbed in, in his senile condition the scalding effect could have induced shock causing him to faint and slip below the surface, absorbing a lungful of water which would have killed him immediately.

'The body would have blistered, causing those strips of skin to detach themselves post mortem. If I were you

He held up a hand. 'Not me. Detective Inspector Bandit Mackenzie, Strathclyde CID.'

'Bandit?!'

'Aye. The lad believes in his own legend just a bit too much. He's proud of his nickname.'

'Well in that case, if I was Bandit I'd go back to the house and see if there's anything still clinging to the inside of that bath.'

'What might that tell him?'

'That this isn't a homicide at all. On the basis of this photograph alone, the Strathclyde police have been precipitate here. Their investigation is based purely on this woman who looks like Ruth being seen going into the house on the day Mr McConnell probably died.'

'Probably?' interjected Bob.

'Yes, probably. I'm sure the estimate of time of death was scientifically based, but there's always a margin for error. Stop right here; find the mystery woman, charge her, and I'll give evidence for the defence.

'She walks in ten minutes. The Crown Office wouldn't let it anywhere near court.'

'I see. Yet. . . my gut feeling is that Mackenzie's right. Read on, and let's see if we can help him prove it.' He pointed to the photograph. 'Why's the body in that condition?'

That's called saponification. It can be caused by burying a body in very damp conditions ... or in this case, immersing it in water. Essentially it means that the corpse is turned, or largely turned, into something akin to soap. That might have helped Dr McCallum establish time of death, but it could have given her other problems; for example the process might have destroyed major organs.

'Let's find out.' Sarah turned back to the narrative of the e-mailed report, and began to read.

As she did so, Bob went into the kitchen, took two bottles of Sol from the fridge, uncapped them, and carried them back to the lounge.

Thanks,' said his wife, without looking up, as she took one from him.She finished the beer before she finished her study. She thanked him again as he gave her another, and as she laid down the report.

'Weird,' she p.r.o.nounced. 'There's no evidence of cerebral degeneration at all. Dr McCallum notes that the brain is the healthiest she'd ever seen in an eighty-year-old man. This doesn't preclude mental illness, of course, or severe depression. Yet...

"Think of one of the senior section of our own golf club; you know the people I mean, there are plenty of them in their late seventies or into their eighties, playing every day and looking ten, sometimes fifteen years younger jthan they really are. Imagine if one of them suddenly withdrew from the world for no obvious reason, and degenerated physically over a period of weeks to the point of pouring himself a scalding bath by mistake and dying in it.

'You can't, can you?'

'Only with difficulty,' Bob admitted.

'Well, from what you've told me and from what I've read, that seems to be what happened here. Dr McCallum reports some degeneration of vital organs, but she was able to record that they were all in excellent condition.

a.n.a.lysis of the liver showed that Mr McConnell had never been an excessive drinker, his kidneys were almost donor cla.s.s, the alimentary system was clear.

'The muscles, particularly those of the arms and legs, appeared to be wasted, but there was sufficient bulk to indicate that this process had begun recently.

'There was clear evidence of cardiac seizure, but this is consistent with my supposition that the old man might have been immersed in a scalding bath. It might have rendered him unconscious, but it didn't kill him. He drowned all right.'

'So are you saying that Mackenzie should scale down his investigation, even though the whole thing screams "Suspicious death" at both of us?'

She smiled at him. One of those specials which, as he knew so well, always preceded a metaphorical rabbit appearing from an imaginary top hat.

'I would, save for one thing. a.n.a.lysis showed bloodstream traces of temazepam - significant traces, I'd say, given the man's age and rapidly deteriorating physical condition. You told me earlier that Mr McConnell hadn't been under any form of medical supervision or treatment.'

'That's Mackenzie's information.'84.AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN.