Acid Lullaby by Ed O'Connor Page B

various toxins: mostly cyclic octapeptides.’
    ‘Come again?’ asked Harrison, uncomfortably aware that Dexter was very quiet.
    Leach pushed his gold-rimmed glasses back up to the bridge of his nose and squinted at his notes. ‘Organic poisons. Amatoxins occur naturally.’
    ‘Where?’ Dexter asked sharply, always seeking the angle.
    ‘Most commonly, in poisonous mushrooms.’
    ‘Mushrooms?’ Dexter couldn’t help smiling faintly, ‘you’re telling me that Stark died from eating magic mushrooms?’
    ‘No. I’m not really. I need to do some checking but the levels of amatoxin found in Stark’s system were extraordinarily high. Once I have the full toxicology analysis I’ll be able to be more specific.’
    ‘Problem two?’ Dexter asked.
    ‘Problem two,’ Leach continued, ‘the damage to the neck. There is a twelve-centimetre incision on the front, left side of Stark’s neck leading from under his left ear to his larynx. Some serious muscular damage. Amazingly none of the major blood vessels was severed.’
    ‘Could the wound have been self-inflicted?’ asked Dexter suddenly. ‘If he was spaced out on some drug or other might he have tried to top himself?’
    ‘I wondered about that too,’ Leach replied, ‘but the difficulty is that I think Stark was left-handed.’
    ‘How do you figure that?’ Dexter was trying to remember her previous encounters with Stark.
    ‘He was a former addict. Most of the needle track marks – the scars from old puncture wounds – were on the inside of his right arm. That is consistent with a left-handed addict who regularly injected himself.’
    Jensen was thinking about the significance of Leach’s comments.
    ‘So if he was left-handed,’ she raised her own left arm to replicate the necessary movement across her own throat, ‘he couldn’t have cut himself from left to right.’
    ‘It’s unlikely,’ Leach concluded.
    Dexter sat back in her chair and crushed a yawn. ‘Anything else?’
    Jensen handed Dexter and Harrison a photocopied sheet. Leach shifted on his plastic seat as Jensen leaned across him.
    ‘I’m sorry, Doc,’ said Jensen, ‘I only have three copies so you’ll have to share with me.’
    ‘No problem,’ Leach replied, catching a faint waft of perfume. Perfume was against regulations. Dexter smelled ittoo. It made the thin line of mascara under Jensen’s eyes doubly unforgivable.
    Oblivious, Jensen read from the sheet she now shared. ‘Items recovered from personal effects of Ian Daniel Stark. Officers present DC Jensen and PC Evans. One wallet (black leather) containing five hundred and sixty pounds; one Nokia 3330e mobile phone (blue). Phone battery appears to be dead. There was thirty pence in change in his jacket pocket and a packet of chewing gum. That’s it.’
    ‘Any drugs?’ Dexter asked.
    ‘Nothing,’ Jensen answered.
    ‘OK,’ Dexter had heard enough. ‘You’ll get us the tox report by tonight, doc?’
    ‘Absolutely.’
    Dexter stood and stared out of the window at the blue and white line of parked squad cars and the little square of grass behind New Bolden police station.
    ‘Frankly, Ian Stark was a shit-eel and we are well rid of him. If he died because of his own drugs then so much the better. However, the neck wound makes this our problem. I’m going to check out Stark’s flat this afternoon. Jensen, you can drive me.’
    Jensen shot a cloudy look across the room at Harrison.
    ‘Harrison. Take a SOCO team and check out some of Stark’s old haunts. Start around the station. That’s where he turned up bleeding. Aren’t there some old factories nearby where all the junkies hang out?’
    Harrison nodded. ‘The Car Wash. Behind the station. We’ve picked dealers up there before.’
    ‘Take Marty Farrell,’ said Leach. ‘He’s the most thorough.’
    ‘I know Marty,’ Harrison said, ‘he’s a top man.’
    ‘That’s it, then,’ Dexter concluded. ‘Jensen, can you wait a moment?’ The DC took a deep breath