“But?”

“Narrow, very sharp, pointed, four-inch, one-edged blade. Maybe a kitchen knife of some sort. Upward thrusts.” She made a gesture in demonstration.

“Four inches isn’t very long.”

“It’s long enough to kill, believe me.”

“Any other injuries?”

“None. No defense wounds, if that’s what you’re wondering. I’d say the attack took him by surprise. But look at that.” She pointed to a puckered area on the boy’s upper right thigh.

“What is it?” Banks asked.

“Scar tissue. I’ll need a closer examination to tell you more.”

“What about time of death? Any idea?”

Dr. Galway turned the body over. Gently, Banks thought. “I’ve done all the requisite tests, and I can’t tell you much more than you know already. Rigor’s been and gone, and hypostasis is established in the lower extremities, which agrees with the position in which he was discovered. Death probably occurred sometime between nine and eleven o’clock on Sunday evening.”

“And he’d been in the bin all night?”

“Ten to twelve hours. That’s only a rough estimate, mind you.”

“How long had he been dead before he was dumped?”

“Now, that’s interesting. I can’t give you an exact time, but I can tell you that some time passed between death and the final positioning of the body.”

“Can’t you narrow it down a bit?”

Dr. Galway smiled. “Sorry I can’t be anymore exact than that. Hypostasis starts—that means the blood begins to obey gravity and descend to the body’s lowest parts—some twenty minutes to half an hour after the heart has stopped. I can’t say how long he survived after the stabbing, but as I have suggested, it wasn’t very long. Minutes rather than hours. Anyway, the hypostasis isn’t usually visible to the naked eye until around two hours after death. It’s also a lot harder to see on darker skin tones. You can tell, however, by the lighter bands—where the body was touching a hard surface, the shoulders, lower back and so on—that the process had started while he was still on his back.”

“How long was he on his back?”

“I can’t say for certain. I may get a better idea once I open him up, but right now the best I can do is between one and two hours. You must understand, that does not mean I’m concluding that he was on his back for two hours after death.”

“Got it,” said Banks. “But he was on his back for a short period of time, perhaps being transported?”

“He was on his back for a while. I can’t say where or why.”

“OK. We have good reason to believe that he was dumped in the bin between eleven and half past, and you’re saying he died maybe two hours before then?” If the boy had been dead for two hours before being dumped in the bin, then he would have died between nine and half past. If he had only been dead one hour, then it had happened between ten and half past. It could make a lot of difference down the line, depending on where the investigation took them.