Meanwhile, DS Lawrence had returned to the murder site to continue collecting evidence. He was accompanied by three more officers who were checking through Foxley’s personal effects and had been given the authority to open the safe. They found a considerable amount of money, a few documents regarding his divorce and custody of his daughter, his will, and the mortgage deeds for his house in Barnes and the purchase of his basement flat. So far, there was no evidence that the basement flat had been broken into.

Tyler was sure Foxley had been killed by someone he knew, but so far, none of the forensic evidence had produced a significant lead or pointed them towards a suspect. They would have to wait for the postmortem to see if that told them anything new.

Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

DCI Tyler had been gowned and booted up for the last hour and a half as the postmortem on Charles Foxley continued. One of the main conclusions that the pathologist had come to, after examining the victim’s skull, was that he was hit from behind, and this could have been the first blunt-force trauma the victim had suffered. The blow, he believed, would have knocked the victim forward, possibly to the ground, where he was then struck on the right side of the skull, and finally a lesser blow to the left. Tyler deduced from this that the attacker was already in the flat hallway when the attack began.

‘Would the blows have knocked him unconscious?’ Tyler asked.

‘Altogether, yes, without a doubt,’ the pathologist replied.

‘And the cricket bat was definitely the weapon?’

‘Yes.’

‘Would he have been alive when his throat was cut?’ Tyler then asked.

‘Very likely. But he was almost certainly dead when he was disemboweled.’

‘The cut-throat razor that was found in the bath of the victim’s home, was it the only other weapon used?’ Tyler asked.

The pathologist was less certain about this. ‘Some injuries are consistent with a cut-throat razor, but a large, very sharp serrated knife may have been used to disembowel the victim as the cut was deep and had left marks on the rear ribcage and spine.’

Tyler frowned. As yet, no large blood-stained knife had been found at the scene. He had no choice but to go back to the station to see if the house-to-house inquiries had turned anything up – someone seen carrying a cricket bat on the night of the murder, for instance. He also wanted to talk to Eric Newman, the dog walker. He could possibly be the last person to have seen Charles Foxley alive, apart from the killer, and might also know if he had a cricket bat in the flat, but they had been unable to trace him, and he was not at his home.

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