‘Torture,’ Garcia stated rather than asked.

‘No doubt,’ Doctor Hove replied.

‘You said that they were a combination of two types of wounds,’ Hunter queried. ‘What do you mean, Doc?’

Doctor Hove shrugged and tilted her head to her left. ‘To be more precise, not two types of wounds, but wounds inflicted by two different instruments.’

Garcia repositioned himself by the foot of the examination table.

‘Some, like this one for example,’ she indicated a diagonal wound just above the body’s right nipple, which looked to be about three inches long, ‘were made by a laser-sharp instrument. Maybe a kitchen knife, or perhaps a surgical scalpel. Very clean. No serrated edges. Further analyses showed that some of the cuts created by such an instrument were made from right to left, some from left to right. The ones that aren’t horizontal in orientation also vary. Some were made starting at the highest point and moving down. Some, the exact opposite.’ Doctor Hove moved her index finger from the lowest point of the wound to the highest. ‘That makes it impossible for us to tell if the assailant was right or left-handed. To me, it looks like the killer was having fun. He enjoyed torturing her.’

Hunter and Garcia kept their full attention on the body.

‘He took his time,’ Hunter added, his eyes tracing the cuts. ‘To him it was almost like putting brush strokes on to a canvas.’

‘There’s no doubt that he took his time,’ the doctor confirmed. ‘As I’ve said, some of the cuts were made by a very sharp instrument, but not all of them.’ She directed their attention to the lower half of the body. ‘Like most of the wounds inflicted on her legs and back.’

Hunter took a step closer to examine the wounds to her thighs. Neither detective was surprised to hear that the victim also had lacerations to her back.

‘These cuts weren’t created by a sharp instrument,’ Doctor Hove continued.

‘So what was used?’ Garcia asked.

‘A whip.’ The answer came from Hunter. He had seen similar injuries before.

‘That’s correct,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘But not the kind used for sexual play, or what have you. What was used here was a proper leather bullwhip. The kind used to tame animals. I counted and recounted them. She received sixty lashes. But they were expertly controlled. Hard enough to break the skin and cause extreme pain, but light enough so it wouldn’t cut too deep into her flesh and cause excessive bleeding. That would’ve no doubt driven the victim into unconsciousness too often. He didn’t want that to happen. The same level of control was applied to the laser-sharp cuts which, by the way, also amount to sixty – hard enough to break the skin and rupture flesh to cause pain, but light enough to not cause excessive bleeding.’ Doctor Hove lifted her finger to emphasize her next point. ‘The interesting thing here is, healing progress differs slightly from one batch of wounds to another.’

‘Batch of wounds? What do you mean, Doc?’ Garcia asked.

‘Front of the torso, back of the torso, front of the legs, back of the legs, and buttocks.’ The doctor paused, her words hanging in the air for a moment, like smoke. ‘And that means that they were inflicted upon her at different times, most probably daily. In my opinion, she was flogged and tortured for five days, give or take a day.’

‘Was she sexually assaulted?’ Hunter asked.

‘Repeatedly. But unfortunately for us the assailant was careful enough to protect himself. I could recover no trace of semen, foreign blood, or any other bodily fluids.’

As a sign of respect, the room went silent for a moment.

Hunter walked over to where Garcia was and bent over to have a closer look at the victim’s neck.

‘I found no signs that she was either strangled or suffocated,’ the doctor added, anticipating Hunter’s question. ‘X-rays also revealed no broken bones. Toxicology will be another day or two, and if the killer used any sort of drugs on her prior to her death we should get a result for traces of it soon enough, but we won’t get a positive result for poisoning. That’s not how she died.’

‘So what was the cause of death, Doc?’ Garcia asked.

‘I’ll get there in a minute, Carlos,’ Doctor Hove said, paused, and called their attention to the marks on the body’s wrists, ankles and cheeks. ‘First let me show you a peculiarity about these. These marks indicate that she was very tightly restrained, and for a considerable amount of time. Most certainly while she was being tortured and violated. The restraint used on her wrists was some sort of thin rope. Probably nylon. Probably very easy to obtain from a multitude of stores. But I found no residues to examine, so that’s just an educated guess.’

‘On her wrists?’ Garcia asked with a frown.

Doctor Hove nodded. ‘And that’s what I mean by peculiarity. Her captor used different restraints on her ankles – stronger, harder, thicker. From the pattern left on her ankles, I’d say he used a metal chain.’

‘And why would he do that?’ Garcia again. ‘I mean, why two different types of restraints?’

Doctor Hove allowed her gaze to move around the room aimlessly, almost as if she was trying to pass the question on.

‘More torture,’ she finally replied. ‘The kind that won’t show externally.’

‘Whoa.’ Garcia lifted a hand. ‘Are you saying that her internal organs were also damaged? I mean, due to torture?’

‘One was,’ Doctor Hove replied. ‘And that’ll finally bring us to the cause of death, which baffled me throughout the entire post mortem examination until I examined her brain.’

Doctor Hove’s words seemed to chill the air inside the autopsy room even further.

‘Her brain showed signs of being damaged?’ Garcia asked. His eyes moved to Nicole’s head. ‘With no visible external trauma? Was her cranium injured?’

‘No. Her cranium was intact.’

Garcia raised his eyebrow questioningly.

Doctor Hove retrieved two sheets of paper from the instrument table behind her and handed one to each detective. ‘What caused her death was oedema of the brain.’

Garcia frowned at the sheet. ‘Wait a second, Doc, isn’t oedema some sort of swelling?’

‘Well, swelling is a consequence of it,’ the doctor clarified. ‘More precisely, oedema is an excessive build-up of fluid in the body’s tissues, which will often cause swelling and can result in further damage. It’s most common in the feet and ankles, but it can occur anywhere in the body – the lungs, the eyes, the knees, the hands, and in rarer cases, the brain.’

‘So you’re saying that her brain swelled up because of fluid excess?’ Garcia again.

‘That’s correct.’

‘What sort of fluid?’

‘Her own blood.’

Thirteen

Garcia looked at Hunter, then at the body, then back at Doctor Hove.

‘She died due to an excessive build-up of her own blood inside her brain?’ he asked. ‘And that was induced by the killer? How?’

‘By keeping her upside down for long enough,’ Hunter answered in a subdued voice. ‘That would explain the difference in restraints from her wrists to her ankles. They needed to be stronger to be able to hold her body weight.’

‘Correct again, Robert,’ Doctor Hove agreed, moving closer to the head of the examination table, and resting her hands by Nicole’s ears. ‘If you understand the process, oedema of the brain isn’t very difficult to achieve. You see, it all rests on the difference between arteries and veins. Arteries are thick-walled vessels that carry blood away from the heart and into the organs of the body.’ Like a medical professor addressing her students, she pointed at Nicole’s chest, and then moved her hand away, spreading her fingers at the same time as she explained. ‘Even upside down, the heart will continue to distribute blood through the arteries just as strongly as it would right side up. That blood travels with a lot of pressure, due to it being forced into the arteries by the pumping of the heart. So, right side up, upside down . . . it makes no difference. Blood will always travel with the same force away from the heart. Veins, on the other hand, are thin-walled vessels that carry blood from the organs of the body back into the heart for repumping. They have essentially no pressure in them, and they rely on gravity, inertia and the force of skeletal muscle contractions to help push blood back to the heart.’