"Dying light" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacBride Stuart)

I
7

There was silence in the tent, broken only by the buzzing of flies. Thick, fat bluebottles that settled on the decomposing torso. Feeding. It was Logan who asked the obvious question, 'What do you mean, "It's not human"?'

'Well, for a start it's completely covered with hair.'

Logan peered into the stinking suitcase. Isobel was right: what he'd taken for black, furry mould, was, in fact, fur.

Genuine, bona ride fur. 'If it's not human, what is it?'

Isobel prodded the torso, less careful with it than she would have been with human remains. 'Has to be a dog. Maybe a Labrador? Whatever it is, the SSPCA can deal with it.' She stood, wiping twin trails of slime down the front of her boiler suit.

'But why is it here? Why go to all this trouble to hide a dead dog?'

'You're the detectives, you tell me. Whatever the motivation, these remains aren't human. Now if you'll excuse me I have real work to do.' She swept out.

Logan watched her go, bemused. 'When did this become my fault?' he asked Steel. The inspector just shrugged and buggered off outside for a cigarette, closely followed by the Procurator Fiscal. Logan shook his head. 'Doc? You want to hazard a guess?'

Doc Wilson scowled. 'Oh, I see,' he said, 'it's beneath the great pathologist to examine a dead dog, but it's OK for me to do it, is it? I'm a doctor, no' a sodding vet!'

Logan gritted his teeth. 'I just want someone to tell me what the hell is going on! Do you think you could get off your prima donna horse for five bloody minutes and actually help for a change?'

Everyone else in the tent suddenly took an all-consuming interest in their shoes as Logan and the duty doctor scowled at each other. It was Logan who folded first. 'Sorry Doc'

Dr Wilson sighed, shrugged, then hunched down in front of the suitcase, beckoning Logan over to join him. As it was no longer a murder enquiry, they didn't have to pussyfoot about with the evidence. Grunting, the doctor dragged the suitcase free from its prison of roots and dumped it on the forest floor, the foul-smelling liquid slopping out onto the fallen needles.

Coughing and spluttering against the stink, Doc Wilson prodded at the hairy torso, turning it over in the suitcase.

The underside was saturated with liquid decay. The head, legs and tail had all been cut away, leaving dark purple, swollen flesh behind. 'I'm no pathologist, mind,' he said, 'but it looks like these cuts have been made by some sort of very sharp, medium-length blade. Could be a kitchen knife? Cuts are fairly solid, not a lot of hacking going on. So whoever it was knew what they were doing: slice around the joint then separate the limb from the socket. Very economical.' He turned the body over onto its back again. 'Cut marks around the head are a bit more muddled. No' an easy thing to do, get a head off a body. Tail's just been chopped off…' Doc Wilson frowned.

'What?'

He pointed at the base of the torso, where the fur was a