He looked at me. Wanted me to ask him what hypostasis was. I knew what it was, but I felt polite. So I looked puzzled for him.
`Postmortem hypostasis,’ he said. `Lividity. When you die, your circulation stops, right? Heart isn’t beating any more. Your blood obeys the law of gravity. It settles to the bottom of your body, into the lowest available vessels, usually into the tiny capillaries in the skin next to the floor or whatever you’ve fallen down onto. The red cells settle first. They stain the skin red. Then they clot, so the stain is fixed, like a photograph. After a few hours, the stains are permanent. The stains on the first guy are entirely consistent with his position on the warehouse forecourt. He was shot, he fell down dead, he was kicked around in some sort of mad frenzy for a few minutes, then he lay there for around eight hours. No doubt about it.’
`What do you make of the kicking?’ Finlay asked him.
The doctor shook his head and shrugged.
`Never seen anything like it,’ he said. `I’ve read about it in the journals, time to time. Some kind of a psychopathic thing, obviously. No way to explain it. It didn’t make any difference to the dead guy. Didn’t hurt him, because he was dead. So it must have gratified the kicker somehow. Unbelievable fury, tremendous strength. The injuries are grievous.’
`What about the second guy?’ Finlay asked.
`He ran for it,’ the doctor said. `He was hit close up in the back with the first shot, but it didn’t drop him, and he ran. He took two more on the way. One in the neck, and the fatal shot in the thigh.
Blew away his femoral artery. He made it as far as the raised-up section of highway, then lay down and bled to death. No doubt about that. If it hadn’t rained all night Thursday, I’m sure you’d have seen the trail of blood on the road. There must have been about a gallon and a half lying about somewhere, because it sure as hell isn’t inside the guy any more.’
We all fell quiet. I was thinking about the second guy’s desperate sprint across the road. Trying to reach cover while the bullets smashed into his flesh. Hurling himself under the highway ramp and dying amid the quiet scuffling of the small night animals.
`OK,’ Finlay said. `So we’re safe to assume the two victims were together. The shooter is in a group of three, he surprises them, shoots the first guy in the head twice, meanwhile the second guy takes off and gets hit by three shots as he runs, right?’
`You’re assuming there were three assailants?’ the doctor said.
Finlay nodded across to me. It was my theory, so I got to explain it.
`Three separate personality characteristics,’ I said. `A competent shooter, a frenzied maniac, and an incompetent concealer.’
The doctor nodded slowly.
`I’ll buy that,’ he said. `The first guy was hit at point-blank range, so maybe we should assume he knew the assailants and allowed them to get next to him?’
Finlay nodded.
`Had to be that way,’ he said. `Five guys meeting together. Three of them attack the other two. This is some kind of a big deal, right?’
`Do we know who the assailants were?’ the doctor asked.
`We don’t even know who the victims were,’ Roscoe said.
`Got any theories on the victims?’ Finlay asked the doctor.
`Not on the second guy, apart from the name on his watch,’ the doctor said. `I only just got him on the table an hour ago.’
`So you got theories on the first guy?’ Finlay said.
The doctor started shuffling some notes on his desk, but his telephone rang. He answered it and then held it out to Finlay.
`For you,’ he said. Finlay crouched forward on his stool and took the call. Listened for a moment.
`OK,’ he said into the phone. `Just print it out and fax it to us here, will you?’
Then he passed the phone back to the doctor and rocked back on his stool. He had the beginnings of a smile on his face.