“Can you see the knife anywhere?” he asked Quarry.
The social worker grew paler. Gardener thought he was going to throw up.
“Oh my God.” He brought his hands to his face. “I never noticed. Do you think he’s been murdered?”
“And made to look like suicide.”
“How do you know?”
Fitz turned to join in the conversation. “Was he right or left-handed?”
“Right, I think.”
“The officers are right. It was not suicide. He’s been cut from left to right. You wouldn’t do that if you were right-handed.”
Fitz pointed with a pen to prove
his point. “The cut is angled upwards, so it had to be someone who was standing over the victim. It’s very deep. Someone committing suicide would not cut that deep. An outside force will almost certainly pull the knife into the neck with more force than his victim could.”
Quarry leaned back against the door frame.
“Mr Quarry, can you leave us for a few minutes?” Gardener asked. Quarry made no reply. He couldn’t find the exit quick enough. Fitz removed the thermometer and made a note of the reading.
“How long would you say he’s been dead?”
The pathologist drew in his breath. “You can never say with any accuracy, but my guess would be about nine hours.”
“So that puts it at eleven o’clock last night.”
“Give or take an hour.”
Gardener thought about the time. “What do you think, Sean? Someone kills Fisher about eleven, which would give them time to drive over to Kirkstall in time to grab Sargent.”
“But how would they know where Sargent would be, and at what time?”
“They wouldn’t, unless they were one of the stag party.”
“Fair point. The quicker we get the names and addresses the better, find out if anyone left early.”
“We’ll also get one of the lads to check the client list on the clinic, see if Fisher has ever been a patient there. It looks more like someone has it in for Billy Morrison and his car lot.”
“Or that Billy Morrison has it in for a number of people who work for him.”
“Could be. Still can’t figure out a motive.”
“Maybe he found out his brother was into drugs and prostitution and God knows what, and decided he’d had enough.”
“That would only account for his brother. Two more people have been killed since.”
“Maybe they were in on it.”
“Insurance scam?”
“Possibly,” said Reilly. “Or maybe something personal.”
“Either way, it doesn’t look good for Billy.”
“I think I’m about done here, gentlemen,” Fitz said as he started to pack up his equipment. “I’ll ask the undertakers to come in and take him back to the morgue, if you’re okay with that?”