Dead in the Dog

Opening the file, Howden looked down at the two sheets of lined quarto paper, with the government crest at the top. He had no need to read it, as he already knew every word.

‘James Robertson was perfectly healthy, so death was entirely due to a gunshot wound,’ he began. ‘There was a single entrance wound to the left of centre in the front of his chest. The bullet, which you saw was a .303, was still in the back of his chest cavity, so there was no exit wound.’

Sergeant Markham looked up at this. ‘Thinking about it, sir, isn’t that a bit unusual for a service rifle? I’ve seen a few in my time and most them went in one side and out the other.’

Tom nodded his agreement. ‘From what the books say, it’s very common for a high-velocity projectile from a military weapon to make a through-and-through wound. But here the bullet happened to hit the spine at the back of the chest. It made a hell of a mess of it, completely disintegrated one of the vertebrae, but the thick, hard bone must have stopped the bullet.’

A sudden thought occurred to him and by the look on Blackwell’s face, it must also have dawned simultaneously on him. The pathologist beat him to it in stating the obvious.

‘Hang on a minute, there’s something wrong here! Though he may not have died instantaneously, he must have been totally disabled and almost certainly unconscious from the moment the bullet hit him!’

The three other Army men looked mystified, but Inspector Tan was quickest off the mark.

‘So how could he drive his car to the Sussex Club from wherever he was shot?’

‘Which now seems to be a few miles up the road towards Gunong Besar,’ added Steven Blackwell.

‘Are you sure about this?’ demanded Enderby, leaning forward. Tom was confident about this aspect, however little he knew about firearm wounds.

‘His spinal column was smashed through. There’s a condition called “spinal shock” which even apart from his other internal injuries, would almost certainly make him lose consciousness instantly. And apart from that, he wouldn’t be able to sit up to drive, with a broken back – though that would soon be impossible anyway, with massive bleeding inside his chest from the big arteries and veins ripped in the root of his lung.’

Tom looked a little crestfallen after giving this lecture. ‘I should have thought of this earlier, but I had just accepted the business about Daniel finding him in the driving seat of his car.’

There was a tense silence for a moment.

‘This puts a whole new complexion on the matter,’ snapped Blackwell. ‘There are only two explanations. One is that he was shot in the car park of The Dog – which is patently impossible, as no one there heard a shot. And you can’t shoot a man in the front of the chest when he’s sitting in the driving seat, unless there’s bullet hole in the windscreen, especially in a car with armoured side windows!’

‘And the other explanation?’ asked Alf Morris, though he guessed the answer.

‘Is that someone drove the car there from the murder scene, then buggered off before Daniel appeared!’ completed the major from the garrison. After another brief silence while they digested this, Blackwell spoke again.

‘Whatever else this tells us, it means one thing is definite – this was no terrorist shooting! Killing one man with one shot is damned unusual for them anyway, but it’s ludicrous to imagine a CT driving his victim away!’

There were murmurs of agreement, then the Chinese police inspector voiced the next question.

‘Why would the killer do such a thing? It must have greatly increased the risk of him being seen.’

Steven Blackwell shook his head. ‘Not necessarily. If we’re right in thinking that the blood found near that cutting was where the shooting occurred, he might have wanted to shift both the car and the body well away, to delay discovery.’

‘Because of the increased patrols up and down that road, you mean?’ asked Alf Morris.

‘Exactly! If he could have quietly left the car in a corner of the car park, then it could have been some time before the body was found – perhaps not until the next morning.’

‘But he goes and bashes into the back of a truck and brings poor old Daniel out to investigate,’ said Enderby.

‘Bloody lucky he missed seeing the killer, or he might have collected a bullet as well!’ added the SIB man.

‘Where’s the car now, Tan?’ asked the senior policeman.

‘In the garage down below, sir,’ replied the Chinese inspector.

‘Better check the wheel for fingerprints, though both Daniel and presumably a police officer have driven it since the shooting.’ Blackwell drummed his fingers on the table. ‘I wish we had proper forensic laboratory facilities up here. They can do all sorts of things back home now, looking at the soil from shoes and God knows what.’

‘I doubt if that would help much here – everyone has red laterite on their boots. I don’t think any laboratory is going to crack this one for you, Steven,’ said Enderby.

‘Talking of that, Captain Howden, can you do tests for blood in your lab over at BMH?’ asked Blackwell.