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 does indeed,’ Ailsa smiled. ‘This man’s only in his early thirties. I think we owe him this much at least. It’s no age to die, under any circumstances.’
‘It certainly isn’t,’ Ava agreed, walking to the postmortem suite door before removing her cap and gloves and depositing them in the bin. She reached out to hug Ailsa. ‘How are you keeping?’ she asked, stepping out of the sterile suit.
‘You mean for an old person?’ Ailsa grinned.
Ava tutted at her.
‘I’m fine. Less stressed than either of you, I’m guessing. I’m glad to hear Luc’s taken some time off. When did you last get a holiday, girl?’
Ava laughed. Ailsa, a friend of her parents from years back, would never cease to refer to her as a child no matter how old she got or what rank she was.
‘I’ll take a break soon, I promise. We’ve finally appointed a new detective inspector, so that should ease things a bit. We’ll head out to Tantallon now. Anything in particular we should be searching for?’
‘It’s a needle in a haystack, but I’d like to get a look at the missing fingernails. They might just be harbouring a few cells that’ll paint a fuller picture,’ Ailsa said.
‘Don’t hold your breath,’ Ava warned. ‘It hasn’t been treated as an active crime scene by forensics. What do you say, Luc? Are you up for a night-time stroll along the castle walls?’
‘Perfect end to a perfect holiday,’ Callanach smiled. ‘I’ll get my coat.’
Stopping off at the police station, Ava and Callanach grabbed wet-weather gear, more substantial flashlights than were in the boots of their cars, and notified the control room of their plans. By the time they’d driven the thirty-odd miles east from the city centre towards North Berwick, taking the winding lanes from the main road to the tip of the coast with due respect for the rain and wind, it was just past midnight.
They sat quietly in Luc’s car, having bypassed the car park at the end of the lane in preference for parking directly outside the entry booth-cum-gift shop. Looking across at the vast curtain wall that had once shielded the inner grounds of the castle from marauders, they listened to the increasingly thunderous rain.
‘I came here for a weekend to do an archery course as a child,’ Ava smiled. ‘By the end of the first day, I thought I’d fallen in love with the instructor.’
‘What happened?’ Luc asked.
‘Oh, you know, like most crushes you have when you’re ten and your instructor’s twenty-five, it ended when he patted me on the head and said I’d tried really hard, then his bleach blonde girlfriend turned up in her miniskirt and my heart broke into a thousand pieces.’
‘Are you over it yet?’
‘Well, I still feel butterflies in my stomach when I see a man holding a longbow but other than that, I think I’m through the worst. Do you believe in ghosts?’ she asked.
‘No. It’s simple statistics. How many people have inhabited this earth and died? Surely we’d be overrun with restless spirits if that was the case.’
‘Cynic,’ she replied. ‘I thought Frenchmen were supposed to be romantic.’
‘Is that what you brought me here for? Romance? I’m not sure looking for a recently deceased man’s nails in a wall qualifies as a date.’
‘Idiot. If this were a date, I’d be wearing my good socks,’ she grinned, leaning forwards to look to the top of the castle walls. ‘But for what it’s worth, I agree with you. William Wordsworth wrote, “I look for ghosts; but none will force their way to me; ’t is falsely said that there was ever intercourse between the living and the dead.” Isn’t that beautiful?’
‘I’m sure it is, but I may be having trouble directly translating it. My English is still pretty literal and most words only have one meaning.’
Ava frowned in confusion momentarily, then closed her eyes and shook her head in mock disgust.
‘Forget it, Romeo. If that’s the best you can do when I’m providing a backdrop of poetry, you should probably just keep quiet.’ She zipped up her waterproof and tried to open the door, the wind slamming it back hard against her shin as she went to exit. ‘Ow! For fuck’s sake!’ she growled.
‘Yup, you’ve got all the poetry tonight,’ Callanach said. ‘Let me get that door for you.’ He exited and jogged round to offer her a hand up as she rubbed her bruised leg. ‘Are