EPISODE SIX
687 Words
SIX
Being the last to arrive I could tell by the faces of the others gathered they were yet to be told about the murder.
Doctor Walton came over and took me by the elbow.
"Glad you could make it. What would you like a drink?"
"Have you any tea?"
I asked, remembering the doctor saved his two-ounce weekly rationing for occasions like this.
When he came back and handed it to me, he wasted no time, drawing me aside immediately.
"I'd like your help in the murder case."
I halted the mug on its way to my lips in mock surprise. My time-travelling superior had known this would happen, and therefore I had been sent back in time. But I still needed no play hard to get.
"Me? What can I do?"
Walton's eyes twinkled.
"There is something about you. Mysterious. Intelligent. There is a war on, and yet you choose to come and live here on Onehouse Island. Why, I ask myself?"
My reply, guarded.
"Go on."
Walton chuckled, enjoying my discomfort to the full and added: "I want you to help me with some forensic odontology."
"You've got some next bite marks you want me to help you take an impression of?"
Walton lost his smile.
"Yes, and I've told Roome, and he agrees."
Further discussion interrupted as when we stopped to have some lunch. I had little appetite. As though there is never going to be any escape from that terrible butchered woman -- ever.
We took our leave as early as we could without anyone passing comment. I went back with Walton to his surgery where we collected the required material and bowls.
We used the back lane to return to the small hospital, where the mortuary being housed in a separate building at the rear. I put my wristwatch on silent, as it was set to pick up radiation this happened to be the only item, I could be permitted bring with me from the future. Geiger counters had only been invented in 1929. The version that I owned was from the 29th century.
We descended the short flight of steps that led to the entrance and opened the door into the small anteroom.
We passed through to the changing rooms where we kitted up into surgical green and white boots. Once ready we entered the post-mortem.
"Have they any idea who she is?"
Walton shook his head.
"If Inspector Roome has found out, he's not said anything."
The room surprisingly bright, the lighting blazing down from the old-vaulted roof and reflecting off the white-tiled walls. In the middle, on a trolley, lay the body, half-covered by a white sheet, dazzlingly bright under the low-slung operating light.
I walked over with Walton, and the awful reads, blues, and greens of the insides of the corpse came into view, contrasting sickeningly with the whiteness all around.
Walton leaned over the woman’s chest.
"This is what I want you to get a model of."
I followed the pointing pencil as it indicated some torn areas on the torso and arm. I stared more closely at the bruised, blackened flesh, and saw for the first time the indentations that the keen-eyed old doctor with his trained forensic eye had seen straight away under the bright lights.
"f**k me. Its huge bite marks all right." I moved in closer. "They're distorted with the tissue bruising, but the pressure might help to form the original marks."
Walton nodded and sat down on a mobile stool.
"I'll leave you to it."
He carried on doing his work in silence, as I busied myself mixing the material special trays and applying it to the areas. Three minutes elapsed, both of us absorbed in our work.
Suddenly, the doctor's shocked voice rang out, exploding the silence.
"Jesus Christ, I don't believe it!"
The unease hit me like a kick in the stomach.
"What's up?"
Walton's face turned white, his shaking hand holding a long-handled spoon-shaped spatula.
His voice sank almost to a whisper.
"Something I would never have believed under the circumstances, but this woman has been sexually assaulted."
- Writer
