Chapter 16
Brendan Keane washed his hands at the large stainless steel sink in the side room of the mortuary. The DCI stood at the furthest point from the main door, a look of distaste on his face.
“Sorry about the smell, Thurstan. GMP dug her up yesterday. They’ve got her husband on a timer so I haven’t got long to spare.” He began drying his hands and arms on long sheets of blue paper yanked from a dispenser.
An assistant walked past. “Jenny, can you sort those samples out for me please and we’ll start again in five minutes.” He dumped the towels in the foot-operated bin. “Right, your chap, Buchanan, though I doubt that was his original name judging by the tattoo on his left forearm. You’ve read my report I take it, so, what do you want me to tell you?” He picked up a can of air freshener and sprayed the front of Thurstan with it. “There, that might help,” he grinned.
A thin smile was returned. “I’ll get to the point. Is it at all possible he could have been manually asphyxiated?”
“Yes, it is but as the report says, there was no evidence to support the theory. The pillows were examined and proved to be entirely consistent with accidental asphyxiation. He was found face down in two of them and part of the duvet.” He noted slight disappointment on Thurstan’s face.
“Look, he was taking prescription sleeping pills and, without something to indicate to the contrary, I think he either meant to take more tablets than he should because of lack of sleep issues, people do that sometimes, or he was confused at some point in the night and forgot he’d already taken his dose. Now, I was told the empty packet found at the side of his bed indicated it was a repeat prescription of a seven-pack of Zolpidem, five-milligram tabs, in his name. Four of them should be enough to put most people into a very, very deep sleep. Bear in mind he wasn’t found until Friday afternoon, the tests showed he still had the equivalent of two tabs in his body. If he’d taken four or more then given his age and mobility, I think, lying on his front with one arm extended along his side and the other tucked under him, had he started to come to it would have probably been extremely difficult for him to remedy the situation. He’d have probably been very groggy, neither here nor there. Alternatively, it wouldn’t have taken much effort to smother him either.”
The air freshener was wearing off. Thurstan didn’t want to hang around. “Do you think he meant to kill himself? There’s some witness evidence that tends to show he’d been depressed in the days leading up to his death.”
Brendan smiled and shook his head. “I wasn’t being kind when I said maybe he took more than he should have. No, he’d have had to have taken a lot more than he did for the drug to have been the cause of death. An awful lot more. And to take enough to put oneself into a deep sleep with the hope that you may, possibly, asphyxiate yourself during the night is a bit like standing on a wide empty beach in the hope that a rampaging horse comes along and knocks you over.”
“Could it be possible that someone swapped his tablets then? Put some stronger ones in the usual box?” The thought had just occurred to him.
Brendan nodded. “It’s possible. I looked this up when I was doing the report. There’s no difference in size between the five-milligram tabs and the ten. Different colour, same size. If you weren’t aware of the colour significance then ...”
Jenny appeared in the doorway and tapped her wrist. He nodded and began donning a Tyvek gown and plastic disposable apron over his scrubs as he spoke. “I’m afraid, Thurstan, I’m going to have to leave you to it. Provide some evidence and it’s all a different matter. You up for a game of golf sometime?”
“Yeah, but I still haven’t got any sticks.”
Brendan dragged a pair of forensic gloves over his neoprene cut-resistant ones. “No problem, you can borrow mine again.”
“Is it not a struggle walking around the course watching me destroy the grass and dig up sand bunkers, Brendan?”
The pathologist pulled up his mask and laughed. “You’re kidding? Light entertainment at its best, Thurstan. Give us bell when you’re ready.”