Chapter 17 Seventh day, Monday

He lay curled up in the darkness, filled with fear.A flickering night light at the far end of the room cast strange moving shadows on the ceiling.From the other side of the orphanage's dormitory came the sleepy murmurs of other boys and the occasional whimper of nightmares.Now that his parents are gone, he doesn't know where he will go, nor what he will do in the future.All he knew was that in this new environment, he was lonely and frightened. He was about to fall asleep, but when the door opened, he woke up again.An oval of light casts in from the corridor outside.Then she bent over him and tucked the sheets and blankets around him tightly with her soft hands, brushing his sweat-drenched hair from his face.

"Young man, haven't you fallen asleep yet? Sleep like a good boy, God and the angels will take care of you, and Aunt May will come tomorrow morning." He felt comfortable and slipped slowly into the long, warm darkness of endless nights. It was the nurse on duty in the Intensive Care Unit of the Royal London Hospital who made the discovery.She had already called Dover Prison, but fortunately Burns had left her home phone number in the intensive care unit in case of an emergency. "Detective Inspector Burns? I am from the Royal London Hospital. I regret to inform you that the wounded man under your care, the unidentified man who was in intensive care, passed away at ten past six this morning."

Jack Burns put the phone down, another day was coming.The case in his hands was now a murder case, and at least it deserved priority.There was going to be an autopsy, and he had to attend.The two brutes in Pentonville Gaol must be returned to Highbury Court to re-charge. That meant the magistrate's clerk had to be notified, as did defense attorney Lou Slade.Procedures, more procedures, but these must be done, and no mistakes can be made.It's not out of the question that clever lawyers can play around with technicalities to acquit Price and Cornish.Burns wanted them to suffer long prison terms.

The Royal London Hospital has a small mortuary and a pathology department.It was here that the autopsy took place at noon, under the direction of Mr Lawrence Hamilton, the Home Office pathologist. Privately, Burns thought forensic pathologists were oddballs.The work they were doing disgusted him.Some were in high spirits, cracking jokes lightheartedly as they cut the corpses into pieces.Others appear more pedantic, with a childlike enthusiasm for their discovery, like an entomologist discovering a novel butterfly.Others were sullen and serious, speaking in a monotone and indifferent manner.Mr. Hamilton falls into the first category.For him, life couldn't be better, and his work couldn't be better.

During his career as a criminal police officer, Jack Burns participated in several autopsies, but the smell of ether and formalin often made him almost breathless.As the circular saw penetrated the skull, he turned to look at the diagram on the wall. "My God, he's been beaten," Hamilton said.They examined the pale, bruised corpse lying supine on the dissecting table. "Kicked to death last Tuesday," Burns said, "lay in the hospital for six days before dying." "However, 'kicked to death' will not be the conclusion I want to make." Hamilton said kindly.He began the dissection, dictating his findings to a female assistant, who handed a microphone to a tape recorder in front of Hamilton as he moved around the dissecting table.

The autopsy took a full hour.There were many wounds on the body.Mr Hamilton examined old injuries, the comminuted fracture of the right femur and hip many years ago, and rods attached, which caused the man to be crippled for the rest of his life. "It looked like he'd been hit by a truck," Hamilton said. "Badly injured." He pointed to the scars where the bone had penetrated the part of the muscle where surgeons had cut to treat the trauma. There were a host of other injuries from last Tuesday: a comminuted fracture of his left hand, a fall on the pavement, a missing front tooth, three cracked ribs, and a cracked cheekbone.Burns checked his right hand. Dr. Carl Bateman was right.The right hand was not injured, which is strange.

"And the cause of death?" he asked finally. "Well, Mr. Burns, all this will be written in my official report." Of course, he will also appear as a key witness for the prosecution. "But let me tell you, the cause of death was a massive axonal injury in the brain. The neurosurgeon had done his best, but he couldn't have found this. It wouldn't be visible on a scan. Although a single injury wouldn't be enough Fatal, but due to the multiple wounds, when taken together they have an additive effect. I will sew the body up and hand it over to relatives. Does he have any relatives?"

"I don't know," Burns said. "I don't even know who he is." All afternoon Burns went through all the formalities necessary for the next day's work: for the magistrate's clerk, and for Pentonville Jail.Lou Slade expressed his regret at the right time.His legal assistance had been agreed, and he had spent the morning trying to find a lawyer who could take on the case.Like Burns, he suffered from August Syndrome; half the people he called were away on vacation.But he thought that some young man from the Inner Temple would take up the case.At the very least, the murders would interest him more.Everything has pros and cons... "I still have to defend them," he said.

"Don't try too hard, Mr. Slade," Burns said and put the phone down. There was bad news that afternoon, only to be replaced by good news later.Urged by Detective Superintendent Parfitt to speed up the process, the forensics team reported the results of the inspection. There were no blood or fiber samples on Price and Cornish's clothing to prove that they had physical contact with the deceased. The blood on the T-shirt has only one source, and that is Price, the owner of the clothes. Burns sees things with a rational eye.If they had had a physical fight, there would have been fibers of clothing getting from one to the other.Price and Cornish are too dumb to know how much forensic technology has advanced in the past two decades.Burns, who was a film policeman in Paignton when he was young, could not have expected modern investigative techniques.

But the lame man was knocked down by a punch and a kick in the hollow of the leg.On the ground, the only contact with his body was the tip of his toes, and after twenty-four hours, the boots from Price and Cornish, another day of walking and wear, could not Traces are detected that can serve as strong evidence. But the call from the fingerprint technologist was heartening.The purse contained the dog's saliva and three sets of fingerprints.One group belonged to the deceased, who undoubtedly belonged to the purse.One group matched Mr. Whitaker, who obediently gave his fingerprints after his statement was taken.The third group was left by Harry Cornish.Burns jumped up with excitement, the receiver clutched in his hand.

"Are you sure? You can't make a mistake, right?" "Jack, I need sixteen identities for a perfect match. I've got twenty-one identities now. That's over a hundred percent." The expert in the fingerprint technology room will also be an important witness at the trial.Burns thanked him and put the phone down. "Got you, bastard," he said to a potted plant. There was one more question that still haunted him.Who is the deceased?Why did he come to Edmonton?Just to put cheap flowers on the grave of a long-dead woman?Does he have a family?Did the family also go to the beach for vacation like his own wife Jenny did?Does he have a job and colleagues?Why didn't anyone notice that he was missing?How did he break Price's nose in one punch without leaving a single bruise on his knuckles?And why should he resist?Just to protect that crappy wallet with only a few notes in it? Luke Skinner had an idea. "The first police officer on the scene. As he bent over the man, he got a good view of his face before it started to swell. And the first responder, who attended to him on the pavement and in the ambulance First responders. If we bring them in, and a police portrait specialist..." Burns tracked down the paramedic at the London Ambulance Service.After learning that the injured man had passed away, the man agreed to help.He had an early shift the next day, but was free after two o'clock in the afternoon, and he was happy to come by then. The policeman was at the Dover Street Police Station, and he was also found through the duty records and case records.An experienced police sketch artist at Scotland Yard in London agreed to come over at two o'clock the next afternoon. Burns wraps up the day after a detailed discussion with Alan Parfit.The Detective Superintendent checked every piece of evidence Burns presented to him, and finally he agreed. "We'll have an outcome of this case, sir. We have Mr. Patel's testimony, Patel's identification of them, the wound on the bridge of the nose, the treatment of the nose by Dr. Melrose three hours later, and the purse. We can put them in jail for life." "Yes, I think so too," said Parfit. "I'll support you. Tomorrow I'm going to the Crown Prosecution Service to see someone above me and I think I can persuade him to let the case go." Testimonies, testimonies, more testimonies.The file was already two inches thick.The detailed reports from the autopsy department and the fingerprint technology room will be added after they are delivered.But both officers agreed to the prosecution of the case, and Parfit believes he will be able to convince the Crown Prosecution Service of the case.