Page 16 of Murder in Shades of Fire and Ash

Charlie looked away as Hector and Sasha removed the sheet, turned the body and replaced the sheet. Hector returned to his probing and measuring, murmuring to Sasha, and occasionally asking her to help. After some minutes, Hector stood back, and Sasha replaced the sheet.

“I want to see inside the skull, to be one hundred percent certain,” Hector said, “but for now, I can confidently say that your colleague died from these wounds, probably from the very first blow. I’m also convinced that the hammer found with the body was the implement that delivered those wounds.”

There was some comfort in the thought that Unwin had died from the first blow. Not much, but some.

“The other thing I can be confident about is that the first blow was delivered by someone standing behind and to the right-hand side of the victim, and from the angle, I would saythat the attacker was smaller than him. The other blows indicate that the victim was on the ground when they were struck.”

Charlie felt sick. An image of someone striking the fallen Unwin repeatedly came into his head and refused to leave.

“How much smaller?” he croaked.

“Hard to say,” Hector replied. “I’ll measure the angle more accurately later, but the blow was not from above, but rather from below and to the side.” He mimed blows to Sasha’s head by way of illustration.

“It could be someone not used to using a hammer as a weapon,” Sasha chimed in, and then said, “Sorry. I’ll shut up.”

“It’s a reasonable observation,” Hector said. “Though we usually leave that kind of speculation to the police.”

“OK, here’s another one,” Sasha said, apparently forgetting that she had promised to be quiet. “When I was at school, we had self-defence classes from this policewoman. She showed us how to do that thing where you poke your keys between your fingers, told us to go for the eyes and the balls and not to carry a knife. She said most people have no idea how to use a knife, but that almost everyone knows how to use a hammer.”

The words hung in the empty air around Charlie. He could hear the background hum of the refrigerated cabinets, the sound of birds outside the high windows, people shouting in the street and the squeak of Sasha’s trainers on the tiled floor. The stink of formaldehyde, or whatever other chemicals were in use, filled his nose and mouth. His throat seemed constricted again, so he cleared it.

“Can you get us any closer to the time of death?” he asked. At the scene, Hector hadn’t wanted to be drawn about when Unwin died, though he had taken the usual measurements of body and ambient temperature. “Sometime last night, or possibly earlier,” had been as far as he was prepared to go.

“That depends,” Hector said. “Do you know when he last ate? And what he ate?”

“I can find out, if I can get hold of the guy he was with in the afternoon,” Charlie said. He knew about the role of stomach contents in determining the time of death, but that was something else he didn’t want to think about.

“Why don’t you go and sit in my office and make your calls? The coffee machine is easy to use. Biscuits in the bottom drawer of the desk. I’ll come and get you if I find anything you need to see. Otherwise, we’ll be about an hour.”

Charlie’s legs had seized up, so that he struggled to bend his knees enough to walk, but he made it to Hector’s office, and onto Hector’s desk chair. He closed his eyes, feeling his skin tingle with the anticipation of a few moments’ sleep. Instead of succumbing, he stood up and pulled out his phone to ring Dylan.

“I said dinner,” Dylan replied, after Charlie had explained what information he needed. “But it was quite early, maybe sixish? And it was just a big salad with lots of cheese and some prawns. No booze. I wanted to work, and Unwin had his car.”

“So, Unwin left you, what, about seven?”

“Earlier. I heard the seven o’clock news on the radio, and he’d gone by then.”

That meant Unwin could have been in Llanfair long before Charlie, Eddy and Patsy took up their stations in the town centre.

“Have you found out what happened to him yet?”

Charlie said they hadn’t, and once again, promised to stay in touch. Then he ended the call and let the phone drop onto the desk in front of him. None of it proved anything. Plenty of people were shorter than Unwin. Hell,hewas shorter than Unwin. Just because Unwincouldhave been in Llanfair while Patsy was out of the police station, didn’t mean hewas.Just because Patsy’s time was unaccounted for now, didn’t mean it wouldn’t beaccounted for later. But if anyone knew how to use a hammer, Patsy would. It would be yet another of her skills. It wasn’t her. Surely, it wasn’t her.

Charlie fell asleep.

13

Sunday late afternoon

The smell of coffee brought Charlie out of his slumber. For a moment he thought he was at home, waking up next to Tom, and it was morning. The reality was an aching neck, and Sasha staring at him with a concerned expression. Hector stood behind her, with a mug of coffee. Two other steaming mugs stood on the desk.

“You had us worried there for a minute,” Hector said. “Do you want milk in this?” He held the coffee mug towards Charlie, who shook his head.

“Sorry,” he said, “I haven’t had much sleep over the last few days.”

“Then drink up, while I’ll tell you what we found. Then you can go home and hit the sack,” Hector said, putting the mug down in front of Charlie.

Charlie ran his fingers through his hair, wiped the sleep from his eyes and tried to concentrate.

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