Read the opening chapters of Huber's Tattoo
One
*
London, August 2011
It should have been a straightforward murder case for any
senior CID officer worthy of his stripes. After all, how could
Senior Investigating Officer Henry Webber ever have known
that the victim, a greying man in his late forties, neatly dressed
in a blue, crushed velvet jacket with contrasting bow tie, found
in Greenwich Park with a single gunshot wound to his
forehead, would expose the Nazi blood that flowed unwillingly
through his own veins.
The unfortunate victim, discovered barely thirty yards
away from the Greenwich Meridian beneath a towering old
Turkey oak tree would ultimately reveal one of the best kept
and darkest secrets of the twentieth century; something that
would have made Charles Darwin turn in his grave; something
that would change Henry’s life irrevocably.
“Don’t you think he looks… different?” Henry Webber
said, inclining his head slightly to one side as he studied the
body’s pose against the gnarled trunk of the mighty tree
through narrowed eyes.
Henry stood over six feet tall and wore his tousled mane
of dark brown hair long and bushy on his prominent head,
though it was now stuffed into the constraints of a hooded
1
forensic suit. His peacock-blue eyes darted about within a
sharply-hewn face.
“Do you mean the velvet jacket, the orange bow tie, or the
hole in his head?” Natasha Keeler asked.
Natasha’s elegant frame craned over the victim, studying
him closely with her gloved hands clasped behind her slim
waist, ensuring that she did not touch anything. Even in a
bloated, pale blue forensic suit, Natasha managed to look
alluring.
“Watch where you stand, Sergeant, you’re straying off the
CAP!” the duty crime scene manager said sharply, watching
protectively over his crime scene as Natasha bobbed around
the body. “Get back!”
Natasha spun round to face him, embarrassed.
“I’m sorry, it’s my first murder scene,” she said.
“I know,” Henry said, leaning towards her discreetly. “We
must all tread the exact same common approach path to the
body, as described by the person who found it, to minimize
forensic contamination of the scene, you see.”
Natasha was Henry’s first female Sergeant, something he
was still adjusting to, perhaps evoking within him the urge to
shield her from CSM Danny Burman’s brusqueness. Together,
they retreated to the edge of the taped cordon.
Natasha glanced around at the feverish activity of the bluesuited
SOCOs. One was crouched over a tripod, like a
hunchback, diligently photographing and videoing the entire
crime scene. Others brushed for trace evidence, searching
every square inch around the body. Burman, still glaring
malevolently at Natasha, turned and approached Henry.
“The cordon is now enforced and the entire park is closed,”
he said, his jowly, pock-marked cheeks wobbling like jelly
2
behind the surgical face mask within his hooded suit. He
turned back to face the body. “Looks like the shot was fired at
close range.”
“Yep,” Henry agreed. “Gunpowder and scorch marks
clearly visible on his skin. Ballistics coming?”
Burman nodded. Overhead, singing skylarks frolicked in
an almost faultless blue sky as the spicy scent emanating from
a nearby hedge of Honey Perfume roses freshened the crisp
morning air. Trudging up slowly from the Naval College was
the blue, forensic-suited figure of a short, dumpy person,
gender indeterminate from such a distance, carrying an
aluminium flight case that reflected the sunlight rhythmically
with each laboured footstep.
“DCI Webber?” said the man once he had arrived, his eyes
flitting uncertainly from Burman’s pocked face to the wrinkled,
textured skin that Henry wore. “Are you the SIO?”
“That would be me,” Henry said extending a hand. The two
men shook hands through double layers of squeaking latex
gloves.
“I’m Dr Longstaff, Home Office pathologist. We’ve not met
before. May I?”
Henry held his arms out wide in a welcoming gesture and
nodded. Natasha backed away slightly as she watched Longstaff
approach the body.
“Why isn’t the forensic tent up yet?” Longstaff barked, his
accusatory eyes seeking out the crime scene manager.
“They’re coming,” Burman said, contrite.
In contrast to his name, Longstaff was short and stocky
with a round, marshmallow face that peered out from within
the forensic hood.
“I would hazard that, given the poor man’s great big beard
3
and velvet jacket, we should have a good chance of finding
some trace evidence left behind by his assailant. I believe
passionately in Locard,” Longstaff said, without looking up.
Natasha glanced at Henry.
“Locard was a French forensic scientist who elegantly
described the principle that everyone entering a crime scene will
both leave something incriminating behind, and take something
incriminating away with them. It is simply up to forensics to find
that evidence,” Henry explained. “Which is why Burman doesn’t
want you anywhere near the body,” he whispered in her ear.
“What do we know?” Longstaff said, diligently taking
samples for DNA analysis from the victim’s neck before
combing the beard.
Henry drew a deep breath, uncomfortable in the hot,
plasticized paper suit.
“He was found at six am by a passer-by walking a dog,
slumped as you see him against the trunk of this oak. Presence
of dew on clothing and beard suggests he has been here since
yesterday evening, probably not earlier than eleven, though, as
it rained before that and his clothing is not soaking wet
through,” Henry replied, rubbing his nose through the mask.
Longstaff nodded as he worked.
“Very good, Inspector,” he said looking up at the tree. “My
goodness, did you know that this is a Turkish and not an
English oak? Give me a hand here, please.”
Longstaff was trying to manoeuvre the body so that he could
measure the temperature of the liver, a reliable way of determining
core temperature in a recently dead body. Henry stepped forward
and with his large muscular hands helped Longstaff and Burman
to roll the body onto its back. The initial stiffness of rigor mortis
was already setting in, making the body feel wooden beneath
4
Henry’s hands as it turned over awkwardly, like a mannequin,
arms and legs splayed at hideous angles. Bits of bark and grass
dripped off the velvet jacket as a crusted mass of blood, hair and
brain revealed a gaping hole at the rear of the victim’s head.
“You are correct, Doctor: Quercus cerris is actually native
to southern Europe and Asia, but also happens to be plentiful
here at Greenwich,” Henry said. He glanced at the tree’s languid
branches extending high above him.
Longstaff said nothing, registering only unexpected
surprise in his eyes, and inserted the thermometer through the
victim’s skin, like pushing a skewer into a leg of pork.
“Have you established his identity yet?” Longstaff asked.
“No,” Henry said.
“Here you go then,” Longstaff said triumphantly, as he
produced a brown leather wallet from within the victim’s
jacket.
Natasha took it in her gloved hands and opened it, flicking
through the compartments.
“Sixty-odd pounds in cash, three credit cards, a return tube
ticket for zones one and two, dated yesterday, and a driver’s
licence. Professor Jeremy Haysbrook, forty-nine… no eight.”
Henry shifted his weight to one leg, bending the other
slightly at the knee.
“So, it wasn’t a mugging. Professor of what?”
Longstaff provided the answer as he held aloft a staff card
found in another pocket.
“London School of Economics.”
It was nearing nine and the park was getting warmer. Flies
began to buzz around the body, attracted by the ripe odours of
death.
“I think we should get the forensic tent up and lock down
5
the scene now, don’t you?” Longstaff muttered irritably, flicking
away a fly which had settled on his brow.
“What do you think is different about him?” Natasha asked.
“Don’t you see it?” Henry pointed towards the dead man.
“Look at the size of his head.”
Longstaff straightened and looked at the victim’s head.
Burman, too, studied Professor Haysbrook’s broken skull.
Natasha knitted her eyebrows.
“It’s a pretty big head,” Burman grunted.
“That is an above average-sized cranium all right,”
Longstaff said, nodding in agreement, “Probably why he is a
Professor at LSE.”
“Was,” Henry said, turning away from the body and
Longstaff ’s hunched blue profile. He stroked his chin, thinking
aloud. “He met someone here last night. Look how much closer
to the Royal Observatory he is than the Naval College down
below. They were probably walking through the park together.
He could not have felt threatened, so he most likely either
knew, or certainly trusted, his killer.”
“Could he have been killed elsewhere and moved here?”
Natasha suggested.
Henry pursed his lips thoughtfully.
“Possibly, and cannot be excluded until we see the pattern
of lividity on his body, though there is quite a lot of blood on
the grass around the tree, suggesting he was shot here, plus I
see no drag marks on his shoes or trousers that might indicate
the body had been moved.”
Henry craned his neck to look past Longstaff, doublechecking
the points he was making.
“I see no sign of the bullet on the bark of the tree, though,”
he added.
6
“Me neither,” Burman concurred as he closely examined
the gnarled bark of the Turkey oak. “SOCOs will continue to
search.”
Longstaff extracted the thermometer that he had inserted
into Haysbrook’s liver. He stared at it and made mental
calculations wordlessly, his round face framed like a nun’s by
the forensic suit.
“A rough approximation, assuming last night was not any
colder than ten degrees and calculating loss of core
temperature at one degree per hour, would put time of death
at eight to ten hours ago. Picking up on your last point,
Inspector, from what I can see of his post mortem lividity, I
would say he died pretty much in the position in which we
found him.”
“Suicide?” Natasha ventured.
“Without a note, or a weapon, with an entrance wound
smack bang in the middle of his forehead – you try that with
your hand holding a pistol,” Henry said.
Natasha strained her wrist around to the front of her head,
allowing space to accommodate a weapon. It was very
awkward, but just possible.
“In any case, why come out here with a return tube ticket?”
Henry said, looking into the distance. “Dr Longstaff will check
his hands for gunpowder residue anyway, standard procedure,
just to be sure.”
He placed his hands on his hips and looked about the park
from the Royal Observatory up on the hill down to the Thames
end where Christopher Wren’s imposing white Naval College
buildings flanked the great expanse of green. Trees lined every
pathway and both The Avenue and Croom’s Hill Road, just
beyond the park boundary, would have offered sanctuary for
7
Haysbrook’s killer. Henry’s keen eyes missed little as his gaze
flicked from one point of focus to another.
“I’ll see you at the post mortem, Doc, if I may?” Henry said.
“Yes, you’re welcome. Tomorrow morning. King’s College.”
Henry peeled the forensic hood off his head as he and
Natasha walked away.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking,” Henry said, glancing
at her.
She looked up at him.
“I hear that you’re recently divorced.”
Natasha flushed and looked away momentarily.
“Yes.”
He hesitated, meeting the determined look in her
disarming eyes. “All I need to know… is your mind firmly on
the job?”
She frowned. “Of course, sir.”
Henry seemed satisfied and smiled warmly while Natasha
squirmed.
“Good, because your first task as my new Detective
Sergeant is to track down every bit of CCTV footage you can
find. Then I want you to come to the post mortem with me.
I’m really intrigued to know what’s inside that great big head
of his.”
8
Two
*
South Bank Genealogy Services
Bevington Street
Bermondsey
London
Henry Webber
Flat 352, Howland Quay
Salter Road
Docklands
Dear Mr Webber,
According to your instructions, we have been
researching your lineage using both the information
which you provided and our own investigative work. We
pride ourselves in being able, in most cases, to trace the
ancestry of individuals back at least three to four
generations, often considerably more.
Therefore it is most frustrating to report that we
have been unable to trace even one generation of your
ancestry. We have tried using several variations of your
surname ‘Webber’: the English derivatives are ‘Webb’,
9
‘Webster’ and ‘Weaver’. Though English Webbers can
be traced back on these isles to the thirteenth century,
we are unable to make any connections in this regard
for you. Other variations of Webber include ‘Weber’,
‘Webar’, ‘Webor’ and ‘Webermann’ – which, as you
may know, are German in origin.
You had indicated that you believe your childhood
days to have been spent around London, with your
earliest memory being a visit to Brighton Pier when you
were about six years old. Despite this we have been
unable to trace your parents, foster parents, or
guardians, whose records appear to have been erased.
This is most unusual.
The first record we have found of your existence is
enrolment in a primary school in Hammersmith under
the name ‘Heinrich Weber’, which does lend some
weight to the possibility of German origins, as
mentioned above. After two terms your name was
changed to ‘Henry Webber’, when you were moved to
a small and exclusive school in Durham, some two
hundred miles north. I don’t mind admitting that we
are extremely proud to have uncovered that
information, Mr Webber, as your past is more than a
little shrouded in mystery.
As you are in possession of a British passport, which
was obtained for you when you were only five years old,
you will be aware of the formal entries detailing date
and place of birth, et cetera. We have tried to trace your
records back to your registered birth town but without
success. Many births registered between 1935 and 1946
in that area were either destroyed or lost at the end of
10
the war. Even though you were born in 1961, that
regional birth registry took some time to recover,
making it difficult for us to interpret our failure to
locate evidence of your birth and registering parents.
As we are in the business of uncovering people’s
ancestral backgrounds, we understand how distressing
and unsettling this unsatisfactory outcome must be for
you. Please rest assured that we will continue to be on
the lookout for clues and, should anything come to
light, we will be in contact immediately.
I can only wish you the best of luck in finding what
you are looking for.
Yours sincerely,
AR Duckworth (Director)
Henry cast his mind back to Brighton Pier, willing back that
distant memory that had become for him one of those awful
uncertainties: did he remember it because it was his earliest
memory, or simply because it had become ingrained in him as
his first memory?
What he could recollect was the warm sun on his face, the
pebbled beach underfoot, laughter, happiness in the company
of adults whose faces and identities he could no longer recall.
A mother figure, no, not clearly. A father figure, again no. Ice
cream, yes, he recalled ice cream, dripping down his hands
beside the twinkling bells and organ music of brightly lit
fairground rides on the pier, stretching out, it seemed to him,
an awfully long way into the sea. He almost imagined he could
smell candy floss and something smoky, rubbery.
Then, something unpleasant happened. He could see two
11
men, smiling, jovial. He remembered them holding hands,
approaching him and offering a napkin to wipe the ice cream
that dripped off his elbow on to his knees and sandaled feet.
They seemed friendly, kind, yet he recalled the adults who were
with him yelling at them and chasing them away, then pulling
the ice cream off him roughly and telling him how bad those
men were.
Men do not hold hands, he was told.
He did not understand. He wanted his ice cream back.
What had he done? What had the two friendly men done?
12
T h r e e
*
Henry delegated the LSE enquiries to Natasha while he spent
the afternoon at Scotland Yard attending strategic planning
meetings for the security of the forthcoming London
Olympics. Finished by five, he managed to make the monthly
Mensa Club meeting at Marylebone, before arriving home at
his Docklands flat at seven.
To his surprise, when he opened the door, the lights were on
and both the sound of Katie Melua and the smell of Thai green
curry warmed his senses. On the coffee table a laptop, displaying
its screen saver, awaited further attention beside an empty mug
and loose papers strewn untidily across the glass surface.
“I hope it’s you in here, George,” Henry said as he removed
his jacket and loosened the red tie, draping them casually over
the back of a suede recliner that faced a wall-mounted plasma
screen TV.
The flat was minimally furnished with suede leather
furniture on biscuit-coloured carpeting, box-shaped reclaimed
oak tables and reproduction canvas-print Andy Warhol on the
walls. A slender woman wrapped in a black bath towel emerged
barefoot from the passage, drying her short, dark hair with
another black towel.
“Hello, lover, I’m home!” George said, enormous smile
13
across her square face. The cropped hair looked masculine but
suited her shapely facial structure perfectly. “Who else would
it be? Natasha?” she teased.
Henry embraced her warmly. She stood on tip-toe to bury
her head into his shoulder and dig her fingertips into his back.
“I didn’t expect you back yet,” he said.
“Well, I’m here and I’m only wearing a towel,” she
whispered into his ear, a sparkle dancing in her hazelnut eyes.
The towel fell to the carpeted floor between them.
He gazed into her inviting eyes, alive, almost like
gemstones.
“How are your headaches?” George asked, touching his
temple.
“Even if I had one now, I wouldn’t let on.”
They reached the bedroom in a few hasty strides and
devoured each other hungrily, making love with a passion that
demanded a period of recuperation. Lying side by side beneath
a single sheet drawn up only as far as their waists, Henry and
George nibbled on wasabi-coated nuts and sipped chilled
Picpoul de Pinet from the Languedoc. Henry ate his nuts with
a teaspoon, never touching the food.
“How was Afghanistan?” he asked.
George was silent for a moment, pushing the same wasabi
nut around in her mouth with her tongue.
“Words cannot describe the wretchedness of it. I have over
a thousand photographs on my laptop. They reveal more than
any words could ever hope to do.”
“Show me?”
She shook her head.
“I need time away from it, time with you,” she said, turning
towards him and hugging him tightly.
14
“You could have called to chat,” he said.
She met his eyes and they looked deep into each other.
“So could you.”
Unspoken words filled the silence as their gaze drifted
apart. Henry sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I see you got a letter from the genealogy services,” George
said eventually.
“Did you read it?” Henry shot a look at her.
“Would you not want me to?”
He looked away, unsure how to react.
“It’s addressed to you. Of course I wouldn’t,” George said.
Henry relaxed, taking a deep breath.
“I don’t know what the big deal is. In any case,” she
hesitated, “the envelope was empty.”
“You…” Henry began, lifting a pillow to strike at George
playfully.
“Come on, I’m starving,” she said, whipping back the sheet
and taking evasive action.
“Do I smell your famous Thai curry?” Henry sniffed the
air.
He climbed out of the bed, pulling a red and navy striped
dressing-gown around himself and ruffled his hands through
his profusion of hair such that it stood up even more, making
him resemble Beethoven on a particularly windy day.
They ate eagerly, George wrapped in a white dressinggown.
She watched with curiosity as he handled the roti, a kind
of paratha bread, with his knife and fork, turning it, buttering
it, and placing portions in his mouth using only the cutlery.
Though she was accustomed to his eating habits, his reluctance
to touch his food always intrigued her.
15
“Why do you never handle food with your fingers?” she
asked.
Henry shrugged as he picked up another roti with his knife
and fork.
“Why do you eat with your fingers?”
“Everyone eats bread with their fingers,” she replied.
“Everyone?”
Soon the bottle of Picpoul was exhausted. Henry spoke of
the cases he’d been involved with, the seedy murders in
London’s underworld, developments surrounding security for
the Olympics, and as always, affairs at the Mensa Club. She
talked about the incessant loss of life, the hopelessness and the
damage in Afghanistan, the orphans and the lost generation
that was growing. It made Henry sad, but not for the same
reasons as George. Afghanistan saddened him because it took
George away from him.
“Why don’t you take a break from it for a while?” he
suggested. “We could go back to France again for a few weeks,
like we did last year.”
George leaned back and folded her arms across her chest,
keeping her eyes on Henry’s face.
“It’s what I do, Henry. I chase the story, like you exercise
that great big brain of yours.”
He was silent for a moment, knowing full well what this
meant.
“How long this time?”
“A few days,” she said softly, almost apologetically.
Henry made a pained face.
“I don’t like you being in Afghanistan.”
“I’m not going back there.”
He raised his eyebrows enquiringly.
16
“It’ll be either Libya or Egypt this time,” she said. “The Arab
spring, as they’re calling it, is an opportunity I cannot miss,
Henry.” Slowly, a little smile crept across her face. “But I don’t
leave until Saturday.”
Henry knew he would never change her mind. He had
tried before, he had failed before.
“Well, we’d better make the most of our time then.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” she said.
He extended a hand to stroke her cheek and, taking it in
both her hands, she kissed it, then led him back to the
bedroom.
17
Four
*
Custom dictated that the Sergeant drove and the DCI reclined,
so Natasha struggled through the traffic while Henry sat in the
passenger seat and listened to the story about Professor
Haysbrook from her visit to the LSE.
Natasha was wearing a summery linen dress in emerald
green that crept halfway up her shapely thighs as she drove.
“They were, of course, horrified to hear about his death,
lots of tears and emotion. I got the feeling that he was a well
liked and respected staff member. He is, or was, a senior
lecturer in macro economics at LSE and a government
adviser to the Exchequer. By all accounts, a very intelligent
man.”
The car stopped at traffic lights and Natasha switched her
gaze from the road to meet Henry’s eyes.
“You would probably have understood him,” she said with
a naughty smile.
“When did he leave the campus? Was he alone?” Henry
said, understanding the inference, but ignoring it.
The lights changed and Natasha accelerated sharply.
“He worked late, was still there when his secretary left for
home and nobody saw him leaving. Campus security helpfully
came up with the CCTV which times his departure, alone, at
9.35pm.”
18
She turned the car into a small courtyard flanked by
dingy grey stucco buildings and a sign that read ‘Mortuary
Parking’.
“He took the underground?”
Natasha turned off the engine.
“From Covent Garden, which is odd, as both Holborn and
Chancery Lane stations are closer to the LSE.”
“He might have met someone.”
“His killer?”
Henry nodded.
“We should check through Covent Garden CCTV to see if
Haysbrook met anyone on the tube.”
“O.K” Natasha undid her seatbelt.
“Did you check his appointments?” Henry asked.
“Nothing for Monday or Tuesday night, but for last night
it simply said ‘MC 5pm’.”
Henry stared out of the window and sighed before opening
his door and jumping energetically out of the car.
“Let’s see what Dr Longstaff found at autopsy.”
They moved towards a solid blue steel door marked ‘Staff
Entrance’ and Natasha pressed the call button on an adjacent
wall-mounted keypad.
“How did you know about the Turkish oak tree?” she said
as they waited.
Henry smiled.
“You’d be amazed what we discuss at the Mensa Club. Of
course, I am forbidden to divulge any of it to you.”
“Bunch of…”
“That’s it!” he said suddenly. “I went to Mensa Club last
night at five. Haysbrook is probably a member, too.”
“What?” Natasha pressed the call button again.
19
“MC 5pm – the appointment in Haysbrook’s diary. I should
probably have recognised his face. ”
“You’re guessing, Henry. It could mean anything.”
“Do you not think a professor of macro economics could
be a member of Mensa?”
Natasha blew a raspberry and shook her head. After
identifying themselves over the intercom, the steel door
opened and they entered the building. The atmosphere inside
changed immediately as the cool, cloying vapours of air
freshener and formaldehyde enveloped them like a thick fog.
They clipped their way down a dimly lit tiled corridor. On
the ceiling, one mesh-covered light shone brightly, the second
was not lit and the third flickered incessantly. A pale green
door on the left with a large central pane of privacy glass,
cracked down the centre, brought their walk to an end beneath
a sign stating: ‘Mortuary – Staff Only’.
Henry turned the handle and they entered a cold,
expansive area, brightly lit by about a dozen fluorescent tubes.
A small huddle of people dressed in green surgical scrubs and
white gumboots, gathered around a stainless steel dissecting
table on which a naked cadaver was being explored, parted
slightly to reveal Longstaff ’s balding head. The smell of stale,
dead humans and air freshener was overpowering.
“Inspector!” Longstaff peered over the stooped heads of his
two protégés. “Come and join us,” he said loudly.
Henry and Natasha drew closer. Though Henry had been
to mortuaries many times before, it never failed to unsettle him.
Standing beside the stainless steel table, upon which
running water mixed with streaks of blood swirled around the
cadaver, he saw that the body was that of the victim from
Greenwich Park.
20
“We’re just discussing the unfortunate Professor
Haysbrook,” Longstaff said, gesticulating at the body.
Haysbrook was split open from chin to pubis, his skull wide
open, with scalp peeled down over his face.
“Interesting autopsy for a straightforward murder, I must
say,” Longstaff said, surveying the body.
“How so?” Henry said.
“Well, cause of death is not contentious: single, close range,
low velocity gunshot wound, entrance through the forehead
and exit through the occiput.” Longstaff poked a gloved finger
through the relevant holes in Haysbrook’s skull as he spoke.
“Time of death I estimate around midnight.”
Henry nodded; nothing new or controversial so far.
“Anything else on the body: defensive injuries, bruises,
signs of a struggle, traces under the fingernails?”
Longstaff shook his head slowly. Then he raised his index
finger.
“No, Inspector. But that’s not to say there weren’t any
unusual and even, shall we say, inexplicable findings.”
Henry raised an eyebrow.
“Firstly, for a man of forty-eight, his genitals are
completely shaved.” Longstaff paused. “What do we make of
that, Alistair?”
Longstaff directed his question to the taller of the young
men beside him. Alistair, of stocky build and imbued with a
ruddy complexion, cleared his throat.
“Well, it could simply be personal, er, taste, but it might
also suggest homosexuality. In a man of his age, well, I don’t
know his personal circumstances.” He coughed nervously.
Longstaff leaned back and looked at Henry.
“Well, Inspector?”
21
“Very interesting. I don’t know his personal circumstances
either, but I soon shall.” Henry smiled grimly.
“Ah.” Longstaff returned his attention to the body.
“Next thing, his head was most certainly, as you observed
at the scene, Inspector, well above average in size.”
Henry looked at a pallid Natasha and smiled reassuringly.
“Much of the brain was destroyed by the track of the bullet, but
even allowing for this, brain size was substantial and I estimate
it to be around fifty per cent greater than normal.”
Henry’s eyes narrowed.
“What is normal brain size, or cranial capacity, Gregory?”
Longstaff asked the other student.
“Ummm, cranial capacity is usually larger than brain size
and a normal human brain is about, er, 1200 grams, or so…”
he said.
“Depends on height, weight, and gender, but 1400 grams
is average,” Henry said matter-of-factly, studying his feet.
Longstaff and his two protégés turned simultaneously and
stared at Henry.
“Very impressive, Inspector.” Longstaff smiled.
“You’re suggesting Haysbrook’s brain was in excess of two
thousand grams?” Henry said.
“Indeed. I estimate his brain weight to have been about
2250 grams. Could this be a variation of normal, gentlemen?”
Longstaff asked his trainees.
“Ninety per cent of humans,” he went on without giving
them time to reply, “will have brain sizes between 1000 and
1500 grams, and even extremes of normality will still be
contained within the range of 900 to 2000 grams.”
“So, 2250 grams is… definitely abnormal?” Natasha said.
Longstaff nodded.
22
“Highly, it could even be more than I have suggested.
Haybrook’s cranial capacity could accommodate a brain up to
2500 grams… I estimate.”
“Was the brain composition normal?” Henry asked.
“Yes, entirely.”
“What does this mean?” Natasha asked.
Henry shrugged. “Perhaps nothing. He was an intelligent
man, a leader in his field. Could it just be an extreme, supranormal
variation?”
“I have never seen anything like it in all my years,
Inspector,” Longstaff said, clearly puzzled. “I suppose extremes
of normality must be a possibility, of course, but there is one
more thing, found quite by accident actually. At the back of the
head, beneath the hairline and, for all intents and purposes,
invisible to the world, we found a tattoo.”
“How so?” Henry said, his curiosity piqued.
“I have a new technician who began the scalp incision for
craniectomy way too low, perhaps fortuitously, as it turns out.
Have a look.”
He invited Henry and Natasha closer as he stooped over
the body and inverted the large skin flap that was folded down
off the dome of the skull to cover the face.
“I’ve shaved the hair off it now so you can see the tattoo
clearly.”
Henry leaned over the table and stared at the faded,
turquoise tattoo, visible in the centre of an area of shaved scalp
the size of a postage stamp.
“G3? What does that mean?”
“Don’t ask me,” Longstaff said.
“Can we have a photograph of that?” Henry said, still
staring at the tattoo.
23
“Of course. What is also of significance is that I believe this
tattoo to be very old, Inspector,” Longstaff said.
“How old?” Natasha said, leaning forward but recoiling at
the distinctive smell of dissected human remains.
“You can see that the colour is faded, really faded. This
happens as tattoo ink ages. But notice also how the lines have
widened and become distorted, fuzzy almost.” Longstaff
gestured with his gloved finger just above the tattoo.
Henry peered again at the tattoo.
“We call that feathering, or bleeding of the tattoo. This
takes many years to develop, even with poor quality inks or
needle techniques.”
“So you think Haysbrook had this done as a young man,
perhaps?” Natasha asked.
Longstaff squinted his eyes as he drew breath.
“This is not exact science, you understand, but the
placement of this tattoo right up in the nuchal fold of the neck,
this is a very unusual and awkward place for an adult to be
tattooed.”
There was something singularly bizarre about this skin
marking, something that would prove extremely unsettling
when fully understood, Henry thought.
“What are you saying?” he asked.
“The irregular way in which the tattoo has stretched as the
skin has grown is the final factor that makes me wonder if this
tattoo might date right back… to infancy.”
Henry felt a chill crawl over his skin.
“Infancy?” he said incredulously.
Longstaff nodded.
“I cannot be sure, obviously, but I believe my reasoning is
sound. Perhaps your enquiries can shed more light on this.”
24
Henry stepped away, feeling a rush of adrenaline-fuelled
energy surging through him. Natasha quickly followed him
away from the dissecting table.
“Thank you, Doctor, that is all most interesting. I think we
have plenty of work to do. Would you please send the report
and photographs of the tattoo to me as soon as you can?”
Once outside the mortuary, Natasha leaned against their
car and breathed heavily, her face turned to the sky. Henry
extracted a blister pack of tablets from his jacket and popped
two out before swallowing them.
“Another headache?” Natasha said.
Henry nodded, wincing.
“Get in the car and I’ll give you a scalp massage,” she said.
“You really ought to see a doctor about these headaches.”
“I have,” Henry said, slumping into the passenger seat.
“And…?”
He shrugged. “I’ve had them for years. Histamine
cephalalgia, they tell me.”
Natasha sat behind him in the car.
“What?”
“It’s a form of cluster headache.”
“Is there no cure?”
“You think I haven’t tried everything?”
They sat in silence for a while. Henry closed his eyes as he
felt the welcome, soothing pressure from Natasha’s fingers.
“What did you make of the post mortem findings?” she
said.
“I told you there was something different about
Haysbrook,” Henry replied.
25
One
*
London, August 2011
It should have been a straightforward murder case for any
senior CID officer worthy of his stripes. After all, how could
Senior Investigating Officer Henry Webber ever have known
that the victim, a greying man in his late forties, neatly dressed
in a blue, crushed velvet jacket with contrasting bow tie, found
in Greenwich Park with a single gunshot wound to his
forehead, would expose the Nazi blood that flowed unwillingly
through his own veins.
The unfortunate victim, discovered barely thirty yards
away from the Greenwich Meridian beneath a towering old
Turkey oak tree would ultimately reveal one of the best kept
and darkest secrets of the twentieth century; something that
would have made Charles Darwin turn in his grave; something
that would change Henry’s life irrevocably.
“Don’t you think he looks… different?” Henry Webber
said, inclining his head slightly to one side as he studied the
body’s pose against the gnarled trunk of the mighty tree
through narrowed eyes.
Henry stood over six feet tall and wore his tousled mane
of dark brown hair long and bushy on his prominent head,
though it was now stuffed into the constraints of a hooded
1
forensic suit. His peacock-blue eyes darted about within a
sharply-hewn face.
“Do you mean the velvet jacket, the orange bow tie, or the
hole in his head?” Natasha Keeler asked.
Natasha’s elegant frame craned over the victim, studying
him closely with her gloved hands clasped behind her slim
waist, ensuring that she did not touch anything. Even in a
bloated, pale blue forensic suit, Natasha managed to look
alluring.
“Watch where you stand, Sergeant, you’re straying off the
CAP!” the duty crime scene manager said sharply, watching
protectively over his crime scene as Natasha bobbed around
the body. “Get back!”
Natasha spun round to face him, embarrassed.
“I’m sorry, it’s my first murder scene,” she said.
“I know,” Henry said, leaning towards her discreetly. “We
must all tread the exact same common approach path to the
body, as described by the person who found it, to minimize
forensic contamination of the scene, you see.”
Natasha was Henry’s first female Sergeant, something he
was still adjusting to, perhaps evoking within him the urge to
shield her from CSM Danny Burman’s brusqueness. Together,
they retreated to the edge of the taped cordon.
Natasha glanced around at the feverish activity of the bluesuited
SOCOs. One was crouched over a tripod, like a
hunchback, diligently photographing and videoing the entire
crime scene. Others brushed for trace evidence, searching
every square inch around the body. Burman, still glaring
malevolently at Natasha, turned and approached Henry.
“The cordon is now enforced and the entire park is closed,”
he said, his jowly, pock-marked cheeks wobbling like jelly
2
behind the surgical face mask within his hooded suit. He
turned back to face the body. “Looks like the shot was fired at
close range.”
“Yep,” Henry agreed. “Gunpowder and scorch marks
clearly visible on his skin. Ballistics coming?”
Burman nodded. Overhead, singing skylarks frolicked in
an almost faultless blue sky as the spicy scent emanating from
a nearby hedge of Honey Perfume roses freshened the crisp
morning air. Trudging up slowly from the Naval College was
the blue, forensic-suited figure of a short, dumpy person,
gender indeterminate from such a distance, carrying an
aluminium flight case that reflected the sunlight rhythmically
with each laboured footstep.
“DCI Webber?” said the man once he had arrived, his eyes
flitting uncertainly from Burman’s pocked face to the wrinkled,
textured skin that Henry wore. “Are you the SIO?”
“That would be me,” Henry said extending a hand. The two
men shook hands through double layers of squeaking latex
gloves.
“I’m Dr Longstaff, Home Office pathologist. We’ve not met
before. May I?”
Henry held his arms out wide in a welcoming gesture and
nodded. Natasha backed away slightly as she watched Longstaff
approach the body.
“Why isn’t the forensic tent up yet?” Longstaff barked, his
accusatory eyes seeking out the crime scene manager.
“They’re coming,” Burman said, contrite.
In contrast to his name, Longstaff was short and stocky
with a round, marshmallow face that peered out from within
the forensic hood.
“I would hazard that, given the poor man’s great big beard
3
and velvet jacket, we should have a good chance of finding
some trace evidence left behind by his assailant. I believe
passionately in Locard,” Longstaff said, without looking up.
Natasha glanced at Henry.
“Locard was a French forensic scientist who elegantly
described the principle that everyone entering a crime scene will
both leave something incriminating behind, and take something
incriminating away with them. It is simply up to forensics to find
that evidence,” Henry explained. “Which is why Burman doesn’t
want you anywhere near the body,” he whispered in her ear.
“What do we know?” Longstaff said, diligently taking
samples for DNA analysis from the victim’s neck before
combing the beard.
Henry drew a deep breath, uncomfortable in the hot,
plasticized paper suit.
“He was found at six am by a passer-by walking a dog,
slumped as you see him against the trunk of this oak. Presence
of dew on clothing and beard suggests he has been here since
yesterday evening, probably not earlier than eleven, though, as
it rained before that and his clothing is not soaking wet
through,” Henry replied, rubbing his nose through the mask.
Longstaff nodded as he worked.
“Very good, Inspector,” he said looking up at the tree. “My
goodness, did you know that this is a Turkish and not an
English oak? Give me a hand here, please.”
Longstaff was trying to manoeuvre the body so that he could
measure the temperature of the liver, a reliable way of determining
core temperature in a recently dead body. Henry stepped forward
and with his large muscular hands helped Longstaff and Burman
to roll the body onto its back. The initial stiffness of rigor mortis
was already setting in, making the body feel wooden beneath
4
Henry’s hands as it turned over awkwardly, like a mannequin,
arms and legs splayed at hideous angles. Bits of bark and grass
dripped off the velvet jacket as a crusted mass of blood, hair and
brain revealed a gaping hole at the rear of the victim’s head.
“You are correct, Doctor: Quercus cerris is actually native
to southern Europe and Asia, but also happens to be plentiful
here at Greenwich,” Henry said. He glanced at the tree’s languid
branches extending high above him.
Longstaff said nothing, registering only unexpected
surprise in his eyes, and inserted the thermometer through the
victim’s skin, like pushing a skewer into a leg of pork.
“Have you established his identity yet?” Longstaff asked.
“No,” Henry said.
“Here you go then,” Longstaff said triumphantly, as he
produced a brown leather wallet from within the victim’s
jacket.
Natasha took it in her gloved hands and opened it, flicking
through the compartments.
“Sixty-odd pounds in cash, three credit cards, a return tube
ticket for zones one and two, dated yesterday, and a driver’s
licence. Professor Jeremy Haysbrook, forty-nine… no eight.”
Henry shifted his weight to one leg, bending the other
slightly at the knee.
“So, it wasn’t a mugging. Professor of what?”
Longstaff provided the answer as he held aloft a staff card
found in another pocket.
“London School of Economics.”
It was nearing nine and the park was getting warmer. Flies
began to buzz around the body, attracted by the ripe odours of
death.
“I think we should get the forensic tent up and lock down
5
the scene now, don’t you?” Longstaff muttered irritably, flicking
away a fly which had settled on his brow.
“What do you think is different about him?” Natasha asked.
“Don’t you see it?” Henry pointed towards the dead man.
“Look at the size of his head.”
Longstaff straightened and looked at the victim’s head.
Burman, too, studied Professor Haysbrook’s broken skull.
Natasha knitted her eyebrows.
“It’s a pretty big head,” Burman grunted.
“That is an above average-sized cranium all right,”
Longstaff said, nodding in agreement, “Probably why he is a
Professor at LSE.”
“Was,” Henry said, turning away from the body and
Longstaff ’s hunched blue profile. He stroked his chin, thinking
aloud. “He met someone here last night. Look how much closer
to the Royal Observatory he is than the Naval College down
below. They were probably walking through the park together.
He could not have felt threatened, so he most likely either
knew, or certainly trusted, his killer.”
“Could he have been killed elsewhere and moved here?”
Natasha suggested.
Henry pursed his lips thoughtfully.
“Possibly, and cannot be excluded until we see the pattern
of lividity on his body, though there is quite a lot of blood on
the grass around the tree, suggesting he was shot here, plus I
see no drag marks on his shoes or trousers that might indicate
the body had been moved.”
Henry craned his neck to look past Longstaff, doublechecking
the points he was making.
“I see no sign of the bullet on the bark of the tree, though,”
he added.
6
“Me neither,” Burman concurred as he closely examined
the gnarled bark of the Turkey oak. “SOCOs will continue to
search.”
Longstaff extracted the thermometer that he had inserted
into Haysbrook’s liver. He stared at it and made mental
calculations wordlessly, his round face framed like a nun’s by
the forensic suit.
“A rough approximation, assuming last night was not any
colder than ten degrees and calculating loss of core
temperature at one degree per hour, would put time of death
at eight to ten hours ago. Picking up on your last point,
Inspector, from what I can see of his post mortem lividity, I
would say he died pretty much in the position in which we
found him.”
“Suicide?” Natasha ventured.
“Without a note, or a weapon, with an entrance wound
smack bang in the middle of his forehead – you try that with
your hand holding a pistol,” Henry said.
Natasha strained her wrist around to the front of her head,
allowing space to accommodate a weapon. It was very
awkward, but just possible.
“In any case, why come out here with a return tube ticket?”
Henry said, looking into the distance. “Dr Longstaff will check
his hands for gunpowder residue anyway, standard procedure,
just to be sure.”
He placed his hands on his hips and looked about the park
from the Royal Observatory up on the hill down to the Thames
end where Christopher Wren’s imposing white Naval College
buildings flanked the great expanse of green. Trees lined every
pathway and both The Avenue and Croom’s Hill Road, just
beyond the park boundary, would have offered sanctuary for
7
Haysbrook’s killer. Henry’s keen eyes missed little as his gaze
flicked from one point of focus to another.
“I’ll see you at the post mortem, Doc, if I may?” Henry said.
“Yes, you’re welcome. Tomorrow morning. King’s College.”
Henry peeled the forensic hood off his head as he and
Natasha walked away.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking,” Henry said, glancing
at her.
She looked up at him.
“I hear that you’re recently divorced.”
Natasha flushed and looked away momentarily.
“Yes.”
He hesitated, meeting the determined look in her
disarming eyes. “All I need to know… is your mind firmly on
the job?”
She frowned. “Of course, sir.”
Henry seemed satisfied and smiled warmly while Natasha
squirmed.
“Good, because your first task as my new Detective
Sergeant is to track down every bit of CCTV footage you can
find. Then I want you to come to the post mortem with me.
I’m really intrigued to know what’s inside that great big head
of his.”
8
Two
*
South Bank Genealogy Services
Bevington Street
Bermondsey
London
Henry Webber
Flat 352, Howland Quay
Salter Road
Docklands
Dear Mr Webber,
According to your instructions, we have been
researching your lineage using both the information
which you provided and our own investigative work. We
pride ourselves in being able, in most cases, to trace the
ancestry of individuals back at least three to four
generations, often considerably more.
Therefore it is most frustrating to report that we
have been unable to trace even one generation of your
ancestry. We have tried using several variations of your
surname ‘Webber’: the English derivatives are ‘Webb’,
9
‘Webster’ and ‘Weaver’. Though English Webbers can
be traced back on these isles to the thirteenth century,
we are unable to make any connections in this regard
for you. Other variations of Webber include ‘Weber’,
‘Webar’, ‘Webor’ and ‘Webermann’ – which, as you
may know, are German in origin.
You had indicated that you believe your childhood
days to have been spent around London, with your
earliest memory being a visit to Brighton Pier when you
were about six years old. Despite this we have been
unable to trace your parents, foster parents, or
guardians, whose records appear to have been erased.
This is most unusual.
The first record we have found of your existence is
enrolment in a primary school in Hammersmith under
the name ‘Heinrich Weber’, which does lend some
weight to the possibility of German origins, as
mentioned above. After two terms your name was
changed to ‘Henry Webber’, when you were moved to
a small and exclusive school in Durham, some two
hundred miles north. I don’t mind admitting that we
are extremely proud to have uncovered that
information, Mr Webber, as your past is more than a
little shrouded in mystery.
As you are in possession of a British passport, which
was obtained for you when you were only five years old,
you will be aware of the formal entries detailing date
and place of birth, et cetera. We have tried to trace your
records back to your registered birth town but without
success. Many births registered between 1935 and 1946
in that area were either destroyed or lost at the end of
10
the war. Even though you were born in 1961, that
regional birth registry took some time to recover,
making it difficult for us to interpret our failure to
locate evidence of your birth and registering parents.
As we are in the business of uncovering people’s
ancestral backgrounds, we understand how distressing
and unsettling this unsatisfactory outcome must be for
you. Please rest assured that we will continue to be on
the lookout for clues and, should anything come to
light, we will be in contact immediately.
I can only wish you the best of luck in finding what
you are looking for.
Yours sincerely,
AR Duckworth (Director)
Henry cast his mind back to Brighton Pier, willing back that
distant memory that had become for him one of those awful
uncertainties: did he remember it because it was his earliest
memory, or simply because it had become ingrained in him as
his first memory?
What he could recollect was the warm sun on his face, the
pebbled beach underfoot, laughter, happiness in the company
of adults whose faces and identities he could no longer recall.
A mother figure, no, not clearly. A father figure, again no. Ice
cream, yes, he recalled ice cream, dripping down his hands
beside the twinkling bells and organ music of brightly lit
fairground rides on the pier, stretching out, it seemed to him,
an awfully long way into the sea. He almost imagined he could
smell candy floss and something smoky, rubbery.
Then, something unpleasant happened. He could see two
11
men, smiling, jovial. He remembered them holding hands,
approaching him and offering a napkin to wipe the ice cream
that dripped off his elbow on to his knees and sandaled feet.
They seemed friendly, kind, yet he recalled the adults who were
with him yelling at them and chasing them away, then pulling
the ice cream off him roughly and telling him how bad those
men were.
Men do not hold hands, he was told.
He did not understand. He wanted his ice cream back.
What had he done? What had the two friendly men done?
12
T h r e e
*
Henry delegated the LSE enquiries to Natasha while he spent
the afternoon at Scotland Yard attending strategic planning
meetings for the security of the forthcoming London
Olympics. Finished by five, he managed to make the monthly
Mensa Club meeting at Marylebone, before arriving home at
his Docklands flat at seven.
To his surprise, when he opened the door, the lights were on
and both the sound of Katie Melua and the smell of Thai green
curry warmed his senses. On the coffee table a laptop, displaying
its screen saver, awaited further attention beside an empty mug
and loose papers strewn untidily across the glass surface.
“I hope it’s you in here, George,” Henry said as he removed
his jacket and loosened the red tie, draping them casually over
the back of a suede recliner that faced a wall-mounted plasma
screen TV.
The flat was minimally furnished with suede leather
furniture on biscuit-coloured carpeting, box-shaped reclaimed
oak tables and reproduction canvas-print Andy Warhol on the
walls. A slender woman wrapped in a black bath towel emerged
barefoot from the passage, drying her short, dark hair with
another black towel.
“Hello, lover, I’m home!” George said, enormous smile
13
across her square face. The cropped hair looked masculine but
suited her shapely facial structure perfectly. “Who else would
it be? Natasha?” she teased.
Henry embraced her warmly. She stood on tip-toe to bury
her head into his shoulder and dig her fingertips into his back.
“I didn’t expect you back yet,” he said.
“Well, I’m here and I’m only wearing a towel,” she
whispered into his ear, a sparkle dancing in her hazelnut eyes.
The towel fell to the carpeted floor between them.
He gazed into her inviting eyes, alive, almost like
gemstones.
“How are your headaches?” George asked, touching his
temple.
“Even if I had one now, I wouldn’t let on.”
They reached the bedroom in a few hasty strides and
devoured each other hungrily, making love with a passion that
demanded a period of recuperation. Lying side by side beneath
a single sheet drawn up only as far as their waists, Henry and
George nibbled on wasabi-coated nuts and sipped chilled
Picpoul de Pinet from the Languedoc. Henry ate his nuts with
a teaspoon, never touching the food.
“How was Afghanistan?” he asked.
George was silent for a moment, pushing the same wasabi
nut around in her mouth with her tongue.
“Words cannot describe the wretchedness of it. I have over
a thousand photographs on my laptop. They reveal more than
any words could ever hope to do.”
“Show me?”
She shook her head.
“I need time away from it, time with you,” she said, turning
towards him and hugging him tightly.
14
“You could have called to chat,” he said.
She met his eyes and they looked deep into each other.
“So could you.”
Unspoken words filled the silence as their gaze drifted
apart. Henry sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I see you got a letter from the genealogy services,” George
said eventually.
“Did you read it?” Henry shot a look at her.
“Would you not want me to?”
He looked away, unsure how to react.
“It’s addressed to you. Of course I wouldn’t,” George said.
Henry relaxed, taking a deep breath.
“I don’t know what the big deal is. In any case,” she
hesitated, “the envelope was empty.”
“You…” Henry began, lifting a pillow to strike at George
playfully.
“Come on, I’m starving,” she said, whipping back the sheet
and taking evasive action.
“Do I smell your famous Thai curry?” Henry sniffed the
air.
He climbed out of the bed, pulling a red and navy striped
dressing-gown around himself and ruffled his hands through
his profusion of hair such that it stood up even more, making
him resemble Beethoven on a particularly windy day.
They ate eagerly, George wrapped in a white dressinggown.
She watched with curiosity as he handled the roti, a kind
of paratha bread, with his knife and fork, turning it, buttering
it, and placing portions in his mouth using only the cutlery.
Though she was accustomed to his eating habits, his reluctance
to touch his food always intrigued her.
15
“Why do you never handle food with your fingers?” she
asked.
Henry shrugged as he picked up another roti with his knife
and fork.
“Why do you eat with your fingers?”
“Everyone eats bread with their fingers,” she replied.
“Everyone?”
Soon the bottle of Picpoul was exhausted. Henry spoke of
the cases he’d been involved with, the seedy murders in
London’s underworld, developments surrounding security for
the Olympics, and as always, affairs at the Mensa Club. She
talked about the incessant loss of life, the hopelessness and the
damage in Afghanistan, the orphans and the lost generation
that was growing. It made Henry sad, but not for the same
reasons as George. Afghanistan saddened him because it took
George away from him.
“Why don’t you take a break from it for a while?” he
suggested. “We could go back to France again for a few weeks,
like we did last year.”
George leaned back and folded her arms across her chest,
keeping her eyes on Henry’s face.
“It’s what I do, Henry. I chase the story, like you exercise
that great big brain of yours.”
He was silent for a moment, knowing full well what this
meant.
“How long this time?”
“A few days,” she said softly, almost apologetically.
Henry made a pained face.
“I don’t like you being in Afghanistan.”
“I’m not going back there.”
He raised his eyebrows enquiringly.
16
“It’ll be either Libya or Egypt this time,” she said. “The Arab
spring, as they’re calling it, is an opportunity I cannot miss,
Henry.” Slowly, a little smile crept across her face. “But I don’t
leave until Saturday.”
Henry knew he would never change her mind. He had
tried before, he had failed before.
“Well, we’d better make the most of our time then.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” she said.
He extended a hand to stroke her cheek and, taking it in
both her hands, she kissed it, then led him back to the
bedroom.
17
Four
*
Custom dictated that the Sergeant drove and the DCI reclined,
so Natasha struggled through the traffic while Henry sat in the
passenger seat and listened to the story about Professor
Haysbrook from her visit to the LSE.
Natasha was wearing a summery linen dress in emerald
green that crept halfway up her shapely thighs as she drove.
“They were, of course, horrified to hear about his death,
lots of tears and emotion. I got the feeling that he was a well
liked and respected staff member. He is, or was, a senior
lecturer in macro economics at LSE and a government
adviser to the Exchequer. By all accounts, a very intelligent
man.”
The car stopped at traffic lights and Natasha switched her
gaze from the road to meet Henry’s eyes.
“You would probably have understood him,” she said with
a naughty smile.
“When did he leave the campus? Was he alone?” Henry
said, understanding the inference, but ignoring it.
The lights changed and Natasha accelerated sharply.
“He worked late, was still there when his secretary left for
home and nobody saw him leaving. Campus security helpfully
came up with the CCTV which times his departure, alone, at
9.35pm.”
18
She turned the car into a small courtyard flanked by
dingy grey stucco buildings and a sign that read ‘Mortuary
Parking’.
“He took the underground?”
Natasha turned off the engine.
“From Covent Garden, which is odd, as both Holborn and
Chancery Lane stations are closer to the LSE.”
“He might have met someone.”
“His killer?”
Henry nodded.
“We should check through Covent Garden CCTV to see if
Haysbrook met anyone on the tube.”
“O.K” Natasha undid her seatbelt.
“Did you check his appointments?” Henry asked.
“Nothing for Monday or Tuesday night, but for last night
it simply said ‘MC 5pm’.”
Henry stared out of the window and sighed before opening
his door and jumping energetically out of the car.
“Let’s see what Dr Longstaff found at autopsy.”
They moved towards a solid blue steel door marked ‘Staff
Entrance’ and Natasha pressed the call button on an adjacent
wall-mounted keypad.
“How did you know about the Turkish oak tree?” she said
as they waited.
Henry smiled.
“You’d be amazed what we discuss at the Mensa Club. Of
course, I am forbidden to divulge any of it to you.”
“Bunch of…”
“That’s it!” he said suddenly. “I went to Mensa Club last
night at five. Haysbrook is probably a member, too.”
“What?” Natasha pressed the call button again.
19
“MC 5pm – the appointment in Haysbrook’s diary. I should
probably have recognised his face. ”
“You’re guessing, Henry. It could mean anything.”
“Do you not think a professor of macro economics could
be a member of Mensa?”
Natasha blew a raspberry and shook her head. After
identifying themselves over the intercom, the steel door
opened and they entered the building. The atmosphere inside
changed immediately as the cool, cloying vapours of air
freshener and formaldehyde enveloped them like a thick fog.
They clipped their way down a dimly lit tiled corridor. On
the ceiling, one mesh-covered light shone brightly, the second
was not lit and the third flickered incessantly. A pale green
door on the left with a large central pane of privacy glass,
cracked down the centre, brought their walk to an end beneath
a sign stating: ‘Mortuary – Staff Only’.
Henry turned the handle and they entered a cold,
expansive area, brightly lit by about a dozen fluorescent tubes.
A small huddle of people dressed in green surgical scrubs and
white gumboots, gathered around a stainless steel dissecting
table on which a naked cadaver was being explored, parted
slightly to reveal Longstaff ’s balding head. The smell of stale,
dead humans and air freshener was overpowering.
“Inspector!” Longstaff peered over the stooped heads of his
two protégés. “Come and join us,” he said loudly.
Henry and Natasha drew closer. Though Henry had been
to mortuaries many times before, it never failed to unsettle him.
Standing beside the stainless steel table, upon which
running water mixed with streaks of blood swirled around the
cadaver, he saw that the body was that of the victim from
Greenwich Park.
20
“We’re just discussing the unfortunate Professor
Haysbrook,” Longstaff said, gesticulating at the body.
Haysbrook was split open from chin to pubis, his skull wide
open, with scalp peeled down over his face.
“Interesting autopsy for a straightforward murder, I must
say,” Longstaff said, surveying the body.
“How so?” Henry said.
“Well, cause of death is not contentious: single, close range,
low velocity gunshot wound, entrance through the forehead
and exit through the occiput.” Longstaff poked a gloved finger
through the relevant holes in Haysbrook’s skull as he spoke.
“Time of death I estimate around midnight.”
Henry nodded; nothing new or controversial so far.
“Anything else on the body: defensive injuries, bruises,
signs of a struggle, traces under the fingernails?”
Longstaff shook his head slowly. Then he raised his index
finger.
“No, Inspector. But that’s not to say there weren’t any
unusual and even, shall we say, inexplicable findings.”
Henry raised an eyebrow.
“Firstly, for a man of forty-eight, his genitals are
completely shaved.” Longstaff paused. “What do we make of
that, Alistair?”
Longstaff directed his question to the taller of the young
men beside him. Alistair, of stocky build and imbued with a
ruddy complexion, cleared his throat.
“Well, it could simply be personal, er, taste, but it might
also suggest homosexuality. In a man of his age, well, I don’t
know his personal circumstances.” He coughed nervously.
Longstaff leaned back and looked at Henry.
“Well, Inspector?”
21
“Very interesting. I don’t know his personal circumstances
either, but I soon shall.” Henry smiled grimly.
“Ah.” Longstaff returned his attention to the body.
“Next thing, his head was most certainly, as you observed
at the scene, Inspector, well above average in size.”
Henry looked at a pallid Natasha and smiled reassuringly.
“Much of the brain was destroyed by the track of the bullet, but
even allowing for this, brain size was substantial and I estimate
it to be around fifty per cent greater than normal.”
Henry’s eyes narrowed.
“What is normal brain size, or cranial capacity, Gregory?”
Longstaff asked the other student.
“Ummm, cranial capacity is usually larger than brain size
and a normal human brain is about, er, 1200 grams, or so…”
he said.
“Depends on height, weight, and gender, but 1400 grams
is average,” Henry said matter-of-factly, studying his feet.
Longstaff and his two protégés turned simultaneously and
stared at Henry.
“Very impressive, Inspector.” Longstaff smiled.
“You’re suggesting Haysbrook’s brain was in excess of two
thousand grams?” Henry said.
“Indeed. I estimate his brain weight to have been about
2250 grams. Could this be a variation of normal, gentlemen?”
Longstaff asked his trainees.
“Ninety per cent of humans,” he went on without giving
them time to reply, “will have brain sizes between 1000 and
1500 grams, and even extremes of normality will still be
contained within the range of 900 to 2000 grams.”
“So, 2250 grams is… definitely abnormal?” Natasha said.
Longstaff nodded.
22
“Highly, it could even be more than I have suggested.
Haybrook’s cranial capacity could accommodate a brain up to
2500 grams… I estimate.”
“Was the brain composition normal?” Henry asked.
“Yes, entirely.”
“What does this mean?” Natasha asked.
Henry shrugged. “Perhaps nothing. He was an intelligent
man, a leader in his field. Could it just be an extreme, supranormal
variation?”
“I have never seen anything like it in all my years,
Inspector,” Longstaff said, clearly puzzled. “I suppose extremes
of normality must be a possibility, of course, but there is one
more thing, found quite by accident actually. At the back of the
head, beneath the hairline and, for all intents and purposes,
invisible to the world, we found a tattoo.”
“How so?” Henry said, his curiosity piqued.
“I have a new technician who began the scalp incision for
craniectomy way too low, perhaps fortuitously, as it turns out.
Have a look.”
He invited Henry and Natasha closer as he stooped over
the body and inverted the large skin flap that was folded down
off the dome of the skull to cover the face.
“I’ve shaved the hair off it now so you can see the tattoo
clearly.”
Henry leaned over the table and stared at the faded,
turquoise tattoo, visible in the centre of an area of shaved scalp
the size of a postage stamp.
“G3? What does that mean?”
“Don’t ask me,” Longstaff said.
“Can we have a photograph of that?” Henry said, still
staring at the tattoo.
23
“Of course. What is also of significance is that I believe this
tattoo to be very old, Inspector,” Longstaff said.
“How old?” Natasha said, leaning forward but recoiling at
the distinctive smell of dissected human remains.
“You can see that the colour is faded, really faded. This
happens as tattoo ink ages. But notice also how the lines have
widened and become distorted, fuzzy almost.” Longstaff
gestured with his gloved finger just above the tattoo.
Henry peered again at the tattoo.
“We call that feathering, or bleeding of the tattoo. This
takes many years to develop, even with poor quality inks or
needle techniques.”
“So you think Haysbrook had this done as a young man,
perhaps?” Natasha asked.
Longstaff squinted his eyes as he drew breath.
“This is not exact science, you understand, but the
placement of this tattoo right up in the nuchal fold of the neck,
this is a very unusual and awkward place for an adult to be
tattooed.”
There was something singularly bizarre about this skin
marking, something that would prove extremely unsettling
when fully understood, Henry thought.
“What are you saying?” he asked.
“The irregular way in which the tattoo has stretched as the
skin has grown is the final factor that makes me wonder if this
tattoo might date right back… to infancy.”
Henry felt a chill crawl over his skin.
“Infancy?” he said incredulously.
Longstaff nodded.
“I cannot be sure, obviously, but I believe my reasoning is
sound. Perhaps your enquiries can shed more light on this.”
24
Henry stepped away, feeling a rush of adrenaline-fuelled
energy surging through him. Natasha quickly followed him
away from the dissecting table.
“Thank you, Doctor, that is all most interesting. I think we
have plenty of work to do. Would you please send the report
and photographs of the tattoo to me as soon as you can?”
Once outside the mortuary, Natasha leaned against their
car and breathed heavily, her face turned to the sky. Henry
extracted a blister pack of tablets from his jacket and popped
two out before swallowing them.
“Another headache?” Natasha said.
Henry nodded, wincing.
“Get in the car and I’ll give you a scalp massage,” she said.
“You really ought to see a doctor about these headaches.”
“I have,” Henry said, slumping into the passenger seat.
“And…?”
He shrugged. “I’ve had them for years. Histamine
cephalalgia, they tell me.”
Natasha sat behind him in the car.
“What?”
“It’s a form of cluster headache.”
“Is there no cure?”
“You think I haven’t tried everything?”
They sat in silence for a while. Henry closed his eyes as he
felt the welcome, soothing pressure from Natasha’s fingers.
“What did you make of the post mortem findings?” she
said.
“I told you there was something different about
Haysbrook,” Henry replied.
25
