fractures, as you’d expect. This gentleman landed flat on his back. His spine is severed in four different places, his liver burst and both lungs were punctured by broken ribs.’
‘Did he suffer?’
‘Not physically, I can say that with a high level of certainty. We know from high-fall victims who survive that their brain protects them immediately prior to impact. They pass out or go into a sort of impending trauma fugue. Very few have any memory of impact at all. In this man’s case, I can tell you death was so instantaneous that he wouldn’t have had time to have registered the pain. The back of his head hit the concrete hard enough to flatten a section of his skull. Shall I turn him over for you to see?’
‘No need. I’ll take your word for it,’ Ava murmured.
‘Very wise, but I’m afraid I have a caveat to your question about his having suffered, and it’s linked to why you’re here at all.’ The door opened and a white-suited figure entered. ‘Luc! Come and join us. We were just getting to the heart of the matter.’
‘Hey.’ Ava smiled at him. ‘Sorry to deny you your final few hours of leave. Were you doing anything fun?’
Luc shook his head. ‘I was at the gym. I ate too much in Paris. Got to get back in shape.’
It was a lie, but Ava let him get away with it. Callanach had the sort of slim build and washboard stomach that most men could only dream of.
‘Didn’t have gyms when I was your age,’ Ailsa grumbled as she pulled over a mobile light with a magnifying glass on a flexible arm. ‘We went for good long walks, didn’t sit in front of screens for hours at a time and we certainly didn’t spend all our spare cash on food that was more saturated fat than protein.’
Callanach grinned at Ava. Ailsa was an outstanding pathologist, but she didn’t mince her words on any subject.
‘Now, with any high-fall victim, we have accidental fall, suicide or criminal event. Look here.’ She picked up the corpse’s right hand, flattening his fingers out on her own palm. ‘There’s a substantial amount of debris under his fingernails – three out of five were broken off during the fall as there’s fresh blood dried in with the debris. That debris is comprised of brick dust and dirt.’
‘He clung on then,’ Callanach said.
‘He most certainly did,’ Ailsa responded. ‘Which is why I’m ruling out suicide.’
‘You don’t think he changed his mind? I mean, climbed to jump, started to fall and grabbed at the wall, or it just happened as a matter of instinct?’ Callanach asked.
‘Not a normal pattern. Suicides usually jump a distance when they’ve decided to go and he’d have had to jump backwards to have grabbed the wall. If that was the case, gravity would probably have tipped him onto his back very high up, making it impossible for him to have got a hold on the wall with his fingertips.’
‘If I decided to commit suicide out at Tantallon, I’d jump off the cliffs into the sea, not from the castle walls to the ground. Too messy,’ Ava added.
‘So, not suicide. Accident, then?’ Callanach asked.
‘A much more likely prospect,’ Ava said, ‘and one I’m still seriously contemplating. It’s possible he slipped, managed to get a hold for a while but couldn’t pull himself back up, particularly given the ripping of the fingernails. Only, it’s not that easy to fall off the walls at Tantallon. If it was, they wouldn’t let anyone onto any part of the castle. He had to have climbed onto the outer aspect of the wall.’
‘Misadventure?’ Callanach queried. ‘Being a bit brave, climbs up, slips, grabs hold and it all goes wrong. Any sign of drink or drugs?’
‘No odour when I opened the stomach or brain to suggest serious alcohol intake, and I usually know pretty quickly if that’s an issue. As far as drugs go, I’ve taken samples for a tox screen and put those on a high-priority request. What I wanted to show you is this …’
Ailsa put the man’s hand back down on the metal pallet and positioned the magnifying glass over his middle finger, adjusting the light so it was flat over the top.
‘Look here,’ she said.
Ava and Callanach leaned in for a closer look, turning their heads to check from different angles.
‘I give up,’ Ava said eventually. ‘The hand’s badly bruised, with substantial grazing. I can see the three ripped nails. It’s all what I’d expect.’
‘All right, what you don’t know is that only one of these fingers is fractured. Middle finger, right at the top, in the distal phalange near the base of the nail.’
Callanach slipped his gloved finger underneath the area and felt the bone.
‘I can’t feel anything,’ he said.
‘The break isn’t displaced, so I wouldn’t expect you to. It only showed up on the X-ray, but there’s no healing at all, and fingers heal quickly, so it’s a new break but not caused by the force of the fall. It’s distinct from the other fractures.’
‘Caused when he was gripping the rock?’ Ava asked.
‘I thought so, then I saw this …’ Ailsa brought the magnifying glass even closer to the end of the middle finger and pointed at a tiny purple V-shape, just visible against the paler flesh of the hand. ‘That mark wasn’t caused by the rock. It’s the wrong side of his hand for a start. When he hit the ground, his palm was facing the floor, I know that from the impact pattern. This bruise is deep and fresh. I’ve excised the skin and looked underneath. Recent trauma, hard. It’s probably also what caused the fracture beneath.’
‘Your best guess as to cause?’ Ava asked.
Ailsa folded her arms and tipped her head to one side. ‘I’m hesitant,’ she said. ‘This is a bit of a reach.’
‘But it’s the reason we’re here, right?’ Ava raised her eyebrows.
‘Indeed. This definition and shape is unusual. Without the fracture, I’d have been less positive, but a substantial amount of force was applied, so weight was put onto the finger. It looks to me like the tip of a boot’s tread mark. That would explain the fracture, too. As I say, that’s not backed up by anything else. There are no other injuries that can’t be explained by the fall. No other defensive wounds. In these circumstances, without witnesses or a clearer picture of what happened, I wouldn’t be able to base a legal case on it.’
‘Well, let’s hope there’s an innocent explanation. We haven’t had a murder in Edinburgh since that gang retribution killing in Braidburn Valley Park at Christmas. I was hoping we’d manage to go more than a couple of months without another murder investigation.’
‘I’m just telling you what I see,’ Ailsa muttered. ‘Maintaining law and order’s your area of expertise.’
‘Not really. My squad just gets to clean up after societal norms have been decimated. Anyway, standing here won’t provide answers,’ Ava said. ‘Perhaps when we’ve identified him, we’ll get a clearer picture. Send me your report. I’ll open an enquiry but keep an open mind for other possibilities. Does that sound reasonable?’
‘It
