“A poker, perhaps?”

“Possible. That would fit the dimensions. It’s the angle that puzzles me.”

“What about it?”

“See for yourself.”

Banks bent over the wound, which Dr. Glendenning’s assistant had shaved and cleaned. There was no blood. A few days in the water would see to that. He could see the indentation clearly enough, about the right size for a poker, but the wound was oblique, almost horizontal.

“You’d expect someone swinging a poker to swing downward from behind, or at least at a forty-five-degree angle, so we’d get a more vertical pattern,” Dr. Glendenning said. “But this was inflicted from sideways on, not from in front or behind, by someone a little shorter than the victim, if the angle’s to be believed. That means whoever did it was probably standing beside him. Unusual angle, as I said.” He lit a cigarette, strictly forbidden in the hospital, but usually overlooked in Glendenning’s case. Everyone knew that when you were dealing with the smells of a postmortem, a ciggie now and then was a great distraction. And Glendenning was more careful these days; he rarely dropped ash in open incisions.

“Maybe the victim was already bent double from a previous blow?” Banks suggested. “To the stomach, say. Or on his knees, head bent forward.”

“Praying?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Banks said, remembering that more than one executed villain had died on his knees praying for his life. But Luke Armitage wasn’t a villain, as far as Banks knew.

“Which side did the blow come from?” Banks asked.

“Right side. You can tell by the pattern of indentation.”

“So that would indicate a left-handed attacker?”

“Likely so. But I’m not happy with this, Banks.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, in the first place, it’s hardly a surefire way to kill somebody. Head blows are tricky. You can’t count on them, especially just one.”

Banks knew that well enough. On his last case a man had taken seven or eight blows from a side-handled baton and still survived a couple of days. In a coma, but alive. “So our killer’s an amateur who got lucky.”

“Could be,” said Glendenning. “We’ll know more when I get a look at the brain tissue.”

“But could this blow have been the cause of death?”

“Can’t say for certain. It could have killed him, but he might have been dead already. You’ll have to wait for the full toxicology report to know whether that might have been the case.”

“Not drowned?”

“I don’t think so, but let’s wait until we get to the lungs.”

Banks watched patiently, if rather queasily, as Dr. Glendenning’s assistant made the customary Y-shaped incision and peeled back the skin and muscle from the chest wall with a scalpel. The smell of human muscle, rather like raw lamb, Banks had always thought, emanated from the body. Next, the assistant pulled the chest flap up over Luke’s face and took a bone-cutter to the rib cage, finally peeling off the chest plate and exposing the inner organs. When he had removed these en bloc, he placed them on the dissecting table and reached for his electric saw. Bank knew what was coming next, that unforgettable sound and burned-bone smell of the skull, so he turned his attention to Dr. Glendenning, who was dissecting the organs, paying particular attention to the lungs.