GRAVE MATTER

THIRTEEN

My answering machine is flashing. There are two messages.

The first is from Blanche Bradbury:

Hi Justin, it's Blanche. I'm at the mortuary. Can you meet me there?

Clunk!

Detective Inspector Brooks.

Mr. Grave, I need to speak to you. Would you mind giving me a call?

Just after eight, I dress in casual clothes and make my way to the mortuary. Someone followed me.

I didn't know by whom, but I just sensed it. Unrecognizable faces in everyday places.

Blanche Bradbury wore a dark-blue jumpsuit beneath a surgical gown and a bright yellow face mask covering her mouth and nose. Without any apparent awareness of how lovely she looked, she moved nimbly around the table, taking measurements, her white tennis shoes protected by green plastic covers.

She crosses to the whiteboard to scribble up the initial statistics, talking all the time above the squeak of her felt pen. "Alexi Zelenyy weighs one hundred-fifty kilograms. Far too much for a man of 173 centimetres in height." She smiled at me.

"That's just over five feet eight to you, but there is something else."

"Go on?"

"Zelenyy told his family he felt unwell and went upstairs to his bedroom, where he was found unconscious after a heart attack. Ambulance crew members tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate him, and he was pronounced dead at 10.52 pm. According to the paramedics, the death of Zelenyy appears to have been from natural cardiac-related causes."

"But do you think someone murdered him?"

"I could identify a severity that could have resulted in a sudden and unexplained collapse and death at any time. He also concluded that the chest pain that Zelenyy had, and a sudden collapse, were consistent with death due to coronary heart diseases."

"Any history of illness?"

Blanche shook her head thoughtfully. "He led an unhealthy lifestyle. There is clear evidence he smoked excessively and took little or no exercise, and he also looks ten years older than he is."

Blanche returned to an examination of the head, and she poked about in the nostrils. "This is interesting." She examined her latex fingertips.

"What is it?"

"It looks like salt, but if I didn't know better, I think it might be sodium fluoroacetate."

I had heard of it.

"That is quite a common compound known to be used by the FSB, that can induce heart failure, but leave virtually no trace."

"Sodium fluoroacetate is a chemical compound, a highly toxic metabolic poison, easily digested through food contamination. Both sodium and potassium salts are derivatives of fluoroacetic acid." Blanche sounds almost excited. "In humans, the symptoms of poisoning normally appear between thirty minutes and three hours after exposure. Initial symptoms typically include nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain; sweating, confusion, and agitation follow. Then, insignificant poisoning, cardiac abnormalities including tachycardia or bradycardia, hypotension, and ECG changes develop. Neurological effects include muscle twitching and seizures; consciousness becomes progressively impaired after a few hours, leading to coma. Death is normally due to ventricular arrhythmias, progressive hypotension unresponsive to treatment, and aspiration pneumonia."

"The British Army found this to be part of Iraqi Intelligence Service covert laboratories, which developed chemical materials for assassination," I told her, "could that have killed him?"

"It is impossible for me to determine the cause of death until I have opened him up. And even then, I can't guarantee it. In any event, it is too early to be submitting theories on the cause of death. There are multiple possibilities."

"But you wouldn't have called me here to tell me that Zelenyy could have died in many ways."

"No, I didn't," she said proudly. "I asked you here so that I can confirm my initial theory that someone murdered Alexi Zelenyy."

Blanche took almost two hours to complete the autopsy after breaking for lunch, lamb bhuna with garlic fried rice, and kulfi ice cream. I had a cheese sandwich in her office and was having trouble keeping it down.

When I rejoined Blanche, the body lay opened up, as something found hanging from a butcher's hook, internal organs removed, and bread loafed. Blanche found nothing internally detracted from the notion that Zelenyy's death had been anything other than murder. A murder perpetrated by someone who might, just conceivably, have been sharing dinner with the victim.

"Interesting corpse, Justin." Beads of sweat had gathered in the creases on her eyebrows, but Blanche Bradbury was enjoying herself. "Didn't have quite as interesting a last meal as I did. Flakes of soft meat and a minute translucent fibre-like material resembling fish bones. Fish and potatoes, probably." She grinned. "Anyway, happy to give you a hypothesis now on how he might have died."

I was mildly surprised.

From everything, I had experienced before, pathologists were almost invariably reluctant to commit themselves to anything. But I knew that Blanche was a woman supremely confident of her abilities. She closed up the ribcage, folded the skin and tissue back across the chest towards her initial incision.

"I collected blood from the descending aorta and placed it in an untreated collection tube. Analysed it an automated haematology analyser. I observed no changes in blood cell parameters but saw significant decreases in albumin, alkaline phosphatase, chloride, potassium, and total protein. Significant increases in aspartate transaminase, creatinine, and blood urea nitrogen. I discovered reduced levels of both cardiac and systemic glutathione found to be related to the functional status of, and structural abnormalities in, both symptomatic and asymptomatic heart disease."

"Okay, Blanche," I say, holding up a hand to interrupt her, "what does all that mean in English?"

She smiled. "Alexi Zelenyy died of a 2 mg-oral dose of sodium fluoroacetate, which is sufficient to be lethal."