Dead in the Dog

Taking off his uniform jacket, Tom hung the red rubber apron around his neck and hooked the chains around his waist, then put on some thick rubber gloves. The corporal did the same and by then, the clump of boots in the outer room heralded the arrival of the military men, Sergeant Markham from the SIB and Major Enderby from the provost marshal’s department. They had brought a photographer with them, a sergeant from the Intelligence Corps, who proceeded to take a series of pictures of the body with a rather large and clumsy MPP Press camera. The pathologist wisely got him to take some of the bullet entry wound from as close as he could possibly get the lens.

‘No burning, smoke or powder marks on the skin around it,’ he pointed out to the spectators, carefully checking all the points he had mugged up in ‘Glaister’ that morning. ‘Nor were there any on the shirt, so it wasn’t a close discharge.’

The two civilian police seemed immune to the proximity of a corpse, having seen plenty during the years of the ‘Emergency’, as it was euphemistically called. The SIB sergeant seemed to have a similar indifference, but the major, who had been a lawyer before entering the service, and the photographer, were looking rather pale about the lips.

‘You’ve got the clothing safe, superintendent?’ asked the sergeant.

‘All packed up, though I can’t see it’ll be of much use. The lab in KL isn’t all that hot on some aspects, they’re really a chemical analysis outfit rather than forensic, though they’re trying to expand. We may have to send the shirt down to Singapore if necessary, but it’s the bullet that really interests us.’

While they were talking, Tom got on with his examination, examining every square inch of the body, though he found nothing out of the ordinary apart from the small hole in the chest. He helped Cropper to lift the shoulders while they slipped a thick block of wood under them, then opened the body with one of the murderous-looking knives. He had to admit that his technician had done a good job of sharpening them and the dissection went ahead with no hitches.

‘What about the size of the gunshot wound, doc? Can you tell what weapon was used?’ asked Blackwell.

Tom shook his head. ‘I’m not even going to guess, superintendent. I’ve read that the skin can stretch and shrink, so that the diameter is not the same as the bullet. The hole is seven millimetres across, that’s all I can say.’

‘What the hell is that in English, captain?’ asked the major, a khaki handkerchief close to his mouth. Enderby was a burly, red-faced man in middle-age, with a large walrus moustache stained with nicotine. He had trained as a solicitor but on being called for wartime National Service, had stayed on as a Regular in the provost marshal’s department.

‘Just over a quarter of an inch,’ grunted Howden, forgetting to say ‘sir’.

The bloody part of the autopsy began and the three army men abruptly decided to go outside for a smoke.

‘No exit wound, so thankfully the bullet must still be inside him, Tom,’ said the superintendent, now putting them on first-name terms.

‘If it was a rifle, then it must have hit bone, as far as I can understand from the textbooks,’ agreed Howden. ‘Unless it was fired from a great distance, when it may have lost much of its punch.’

‘If it was a military weapon, like a three-oh-three or an FN, it could still kill someone a mile away,’ said Inspector Tan primly, speaking for the first time. He was a mild, reticent man, speaking only when he had something worthwhile to say. Steven had considerable respect for Tan’s intelligence and always listened carefully to his ideas.

A few minutes later, the question of the calibre of the fatal missile was solved, as Tom finally held it in his hand. Mindful of Professor Glaister’s admonition not to damage the rifling marks, he carefully groped around inside the chest with his fingers, to avoid using hard tools which could scratch the missile. He found the front of the spinal column shattered in the middle of the chest and lying alongside was a deformed metallic lump, which he carefully drew out and placed in the palm of his other hand. Going across to the sink, he washed the blood away and with Cropper peering over his shoulder, he offered it to the two police officers. ‘Here we are! One bullet, distorted to blazes.’

They all looked at it as if it was the Holy Grail, a dull metal nodule about the size of a hazelnut. The base was still circular, but the upper part was crumpled, like a witch’s hat that had been folded back, then stamped on.

‘Looks like a standard .303 rifle to me,’ observed Steven Blackwell.

His inspector nodded agreement, but Tom took up a small plastic ruler that he had brought from the laboratory and carefully put it across the base of the bullet. Though slightly out of shape, he could see that it was about a third of an inch across.

‘Better give the army chaps a shout,’ he suggested. ‘That sergeant probably knows most about firearms.’