The Cutting Place (Maeve Kerrigan #9) - Jane Casey Page 0,4

be average for an adult female. The muscle development and fat ratio suggests a reasonably fit, relatively young woman. The body hair was removed from the legs at the root – waxed, epilated, something like that. She had very fine light brown body hair on her hand and shoulder. And the fingernails were painted at some stage because I can see tiny traces of dark polish around the cuticles. It is still possible that it was a man, but I think it more likely we’re looking at a woman. No tattoos, no scars, no distinguishing marks so far.’

‘Any idea when she died?’ Derwent asked.

‘I’d guess she’s been in the water for a couple of days. Do you want me to talk you through her piece by piece?’

‘No, but you probably should.’ Even with the mask obscuring most of his face, I could tell Derwent wasn’t enjoying himself.

Dr Early pointed. ‘This is an easy one. It’s a right hand.’

‘That’s what our mudlarker found.’ I leaned in to see it, trying to imagine how it might have looked on the shingle. ‘She didn’t know what it was at first.’

‘It’s out of context, isn’t it? We don’t expect to see something like that without the rest of the body to go with it.’

‘What other bits have we got?’ Derwent was peering at the three other pieces of flesh on the table. The way they were laid out reminded me of a butcher’s window.

‘We have one part of a thigh, one part of a lower leg and a left shoulder joint. We won’t get all of her but it would be very helpful if your lot could track down a few more pieces. Currently this doesn’t tell me very much at all. The rest of the torso would be a great help. And the head would be the best thing of all to find, if we’re going to identify her. Unless her DNA is in the database, of course. Then it’ll be straightforward. I’ve submitted a sample already so cross your fingers.’

‘Is there anything to suggest how she died?’ I asked.

‘Not so far. All I can tell you is that she was already dead when she was cut up.’

‘That’s something,’ I said, and the pathologist nodded.

‘They did a very thorough job on her, I have to say.’

‘Was she cut up deliberately? Could it have been an accident? A propeller, something like that?’ Derwent asked.

‘Definitely not a propeller.’ Dr Early turned one of the leg pieces so we could see the end of the bone. ‘When you cut into a bone like this, the marks you leave are called kerfs and they can tell us a huge amount of information about the instrument that made the cut. See this notch here, about a centimetre from the end? It’s a false-start kerf, where whoever dismembered her started cutting into the bone, stopped, and moved down to begin a new kerf. Second time, he managed to cut through the fibia. The first cut is precisely parallel to the second. He didn’t move between the two attempts and her body wasn’t moving as it would have been if the cuts had been made in water by something like a boat’s propeller. This was deliberate dismemberment, not an accident.’

‘Can you tell us anything about what they used to cut her up?’

Dr Early frowned, her forehead puckering. ‘I knew you’d ask that. I’m not an expert in this but I’ve been reading up on it. I’m going to get one of my colleagues to take a much closer look once we’ve cleaned the bones up, so again, this is preliminary information. I can’t give you a detailed description of a cutting tool that you can use to eliminate suspects. But if you look up close at this cut, you can see lines running horizontally across it. They’re called striae and they’re made by the teeth of a saw cutting back and forth. It tells me this wasn’t done with a knife or an axe. They use a chopping motion, not a sawing one.’

‘Could it have been a handsaw?’ I asked.

‘That’s what I think it was, but that would be a long, slow process, especially given the size of the pieces.’ She leaned forward again, beckoning us in for an even closer look. ‘Then this part here – the small step at the bottom? That’s called a breakaway spur, where the bone finally fractured and gave way. The saw didn’t cut cleanly through the entire bone because it didn’t need to