An Accidental Shroud by Marjorie Eccles Page A

I'll leave you to it, but let me know how you go on.'
    He was already shuffling papers together, his mind on the next thing. As she rose to go, he said, almost as an afterthought, 'I'll be glad to have you working with me.' It was, however, said with one of his rare smiles. Seeing what it did for him, how attractive it made him appear, Abigail thought it was a pity he didn't smile more often.
    'Thank you, sir.'
    She was happy enough with what she'd got, realizing it was as far as he could go, considering her lack of experience in this direction, and more generous than she'd expected. She tried not to let it show, but she felt like a cat that had got a taste of the cream as she left Mayo's office.
    She barely had time to burn her tongue with machine coffee from a styrofoam cup before starting out, though if she'd missed the PM altogether, it wouldn't have made an unstoppable gap in her life – post mortems being top of her list of things she could do without. She tried bracing admonitions to herself – Come on, Abigail, you've been here before! – and more in similar vein, as she drove across to the mortuary. For however stomach-churning it might be, whatever she might feel at the waste and ultimate stupidity, the barbarousness of murder, she needed to see the body of Nigel Fontenoy. To try and begin to know what sort of person he had been, that someone had felt the need to deprive him of his right to live. In the event, she was glad she'd made it, for several reasons.
    'Forceful stab wound to the abdomen, penetrating the abdominal aorta,' the rubicund pathologist announced with his usual cheerful insouciance, a tape recorder switched on as he worked. 'So he wouldn't have lasted long. There'd be blood, yes, but probably not as much as you'd expect – the haemorrhage was mostly internal. He'd be dead within a couple of hours, most likely, which makes it – say, somewhere around midnight?'
    'What sort of weapon?'
    'Mm, needs thinking about, that. Slender, tapering, with a very sharp point, lozenge-shaped in cross-section.'
    'Any idea what it might be?'
    'The depth of penetration indicates a length of about six inches ... Think of a small stiletto, but thinner. Probably employed by a right-handed person striking downwards. A single entry wound, at an angle from the left, slightly off-centre, and corresponding cuts on the clothing – one through his shirt where the weapon entered and two others through his tie. Nice one, by the way, he had good taste ... Wonder where he bought it? But those cuts, measuring from where the tie was knotted, were a couple of inches above the entry wound. Which would suggest– ?'
    'That he was sitting down or leaning over when he was attacked?' Abigail supplied dutifully.
    'Good girl!' Timpson-Ludgate cast his beaming approbation over her. He only just failed to pat her on the head. 'Yes, the position of the body when seated, especially if slumped, or leaning forward, would have meant that his tie was probably hanging over his waistband as the knife went through it.'
    Sitting down, relaxed, shin sleeves rolled up, no jacket, facing his attacker? Not much of a struggle? So, like most murder victims, Nigel Fontenoy had probably known his killer, ruling out the opportunist mugging theory, and the possibility that the attack had taken place in Nailers' Yard.
    'You'll see the body's been subject to a fair bit of manhandling,' Timpson-Ludgate went on. 'If you look at the drag-marks on the backs of his shoes where they've scraped the ground, and the bump on the back of his head. These abrasions on his nose and chin suggest he was pulled face downwards at one time, from the gravel embedded in the grazes.'
    'Could a woman have done it – got him in and out of a vehicle?'
    'With extreme difficulty, unless she was an Olympic weightlifter. Your average woman might have been able to drag him out, but getting him in would've been a different matter. He's a big chap, six-two and