A June of Ordinary Murders by Conor Brady Page B

the details he needed.
    â€˜I’ve swabbed the wound and I’ve tested the swab for the main kinds of gunpowder or ballistic propellant. It’s a simple alkali test. After three tests without a reaction, I got this. The colour confirms the presence of nitro-cordite.’
    â€˜Nitro-cordite?’ Mossop repeated. ‘Didn’t they use it for muskets?’
    â€˜Yes. And it’s still used today, but only in low-charge ammunition where the bullet isn’t intended to travel very far. Nitro-cellulose is used nowadays for longer range and greater force.’
    â€˜I don’t understand,’ Swallow interjected. ‘Who would use that sort of ammunition and why?’
    â€˜I think I know of some uses for it,’ Pat Mossop said. ‘It’s sometimes used in shooting ranges for target practice, for example. There’d be a danger if the bullets carried too far so the manufacturers reduce the amount of propellant.’
    â€˜That would tally with the use of flat-pointed slugs,’ Lafeyre agreed. ‘They make for a neatly punched hole in the target, plainly visible.’
    Lafeyre replaced the bottle on the shelf. ‘It makes sense of what we’re looking at here. There’s no exit wound on either victim, yet the presence of nitro-cordite on the skin tells us the shots were fired at very close range, maybe even with the weapon pressed up against the victim’s temple. The nitro-cordite powder is actually burned into the skin. A standard .32 or .38 bullet fired into human tissue, even bone, would usually go straight through and out the other side. That hasn’t happened here.’
    Swallow absorbed the information, framing immediate questions in his own mind. ‘What about the other wounds? What do we know about the injuries to the face apart from the bullet wound?’
    Lafeyre turned back to the woman’s corpse and worked with his magnifying glass, peering at the wounds from different angles.
    â€˜I looked at these earlier with the microscope. It was done with a middle-sized knife, maybe 5 or 6 inches long, smooth-edged rather than serrated. Not too sharp, either. The cutting pattern was rough, almost random.’
    Swallow was silent for a moment, staring at the blue sky through the morgue’s paned windows. ‘Brutal,’ he said quietly.
    â€˜That’s a fair enough description. But if you’re looking for any mercy here it’s the fact that they were killed before they were mutilated. There was very little post-mortem bleeding in spite of the repeated stabbing or slashing with the knife. And there are no defensive wounds on the hands that you’ll generally get if someone is attacked with a knife.’
    Lafeyre signalled to Scollan, who took a heavy brace from the shelf. Lafeyre expertly slipped the knife under the breast bone, then the assistant inserted the brace. The ribcage came apart with a harsh snapping sound to reveal dark lungs and a red-yellow cardiac sac.
    Lafeyre probed the lungs and the area around the heart for a few minutes. He took a scalpel and, in one swift, slicing movement, opened the woman’s stomach. A hiss of foul gases floated across the room, making Swallow and Mossop blanch.
    Lafeyre plunged his spatula into the stomach and started probing and testing. He took small samples and placed them in various glass tubes, adding chemicals and noting reactions. Then he laid down his implements.
    â€˜The heart and lungs look healthy. There’s nothing out of the ordinary in the stomach or other visible organs. If there was anything like a poison ingested it would show up. I think I can say with certainty that she died of the gunshot and that alone.’
    â€˜Anything else that might be helpful?’ Swallow asked.
    â€˜Well, there’s one possibility that might help in identification,’ Lafeyre said.
    â€˜There’s a tumour or cyst under the skin behind the right eye and a smaller one near