Thirty Four Minutes DEAD by Steve Hammond Kaye Page A

build the atmosphere to a level where his enjoyment of the match was embellished by watching the stadium gradually fill and hearing the crowd noise increase in volume. As an adult Vain maintained this character trait, and he preferred to be one of the first project members to assemble in the various Designations used for their work. After Denison's greeting he ushered Vain away from the entrance area to a side room. He had some pressing news for Vain's three-man team.
    "I'm dispensing with the usual formal re-assembly greeting today Greg. You see our first specimen for want of a better word has beaten the project team to our Designation. The corpse is fresh - Mason intercepted it from local police at 05.02 this morning in the Isle of Dogs area. She's a bit on the messy side with severe head injuries. I don't know if the parts of the brain you need will be affected or not, but you're the expert there Greg, and I'm damn sure you'll try your utmost to release some HVs. It's a bonus Greg, giving us an opportunity to carry out MC work straight away!”
    Vain followed Denison down to the mortuary, and as they arrived Mason extended his usual subdued welcome. This team member only seemed to come alive with regard to social skills when he was describing ‘causes of death’ details to team members. The majority of the MC team found the irony in this personality transition quite humorous. A few didn't find it that amusing feeling that Mason was almost ‘turned on’ by corpses. Tavini had labelled the man Mr Nechro and when the MC team were together this was the name he utilised for Mason. Ko-Chai was a bit more reserved with regard to finding the applicable humour in Tavini's description but he had to admit that a comic irony did exist when a man displayed most life-force when describing death!
    "Well gentlemen, I hope the good breakfast I trust you had won't make a reappearance after witnessing this victim! I don't know her name or age but have settled for ‘Charlotte’ for initial categorisation purposes. I think she's young - 16 or 17 but as you'll see in a second it's really quite difficult to be precise at this point in time! I think death did her a favour here - she was a heroin addict - hardly any blood left in her left forearm. Her veins were like a sponge through repetitive injections!”
    Mason opened the ice compartment that contained Charlotte, and both men were initially taken aback by the guignol sight that greeted them. The diagnosis began.
    "As you can see, Charlotte had a particularly painful death. The epidermal structure of the skin has been removed to a ratio of about forty percent. Large chunks of flesh have been removed from both facial cheeks, the small of the back, the breasts and the stomach. The tongue and lower lip are both missing and the left eye has been removed with some force - almost like a drill in its intensity! The hair is matted with blood - I should say her own - about two pints worth. Parts of her lower intestine have disappeared and one kidney has also been extracted. The…"
    Vain cut in.
    "What the fuck did this to her?”
    "Dogs, loads of them. Big dogs, but not animals that were well cared for. Their teeth left scum all over her body. She was bitten with such ferocity in the small of her back that parts of domestic food garbage were sunk into her spinal cord! The teeth that ripped her apart left their calling card all right".
    After he was sure he had answered Vain's question with enough in-depth precision Mason continued. He carried on detailing the savagery of the attack, paying particular attention to the more macabre details.
    Leif Denison directed another question at Mason.
    "A druggie getting wasted by stray packs - happens every day in the States, and I'm damn sure it happens here too. Are you sure we're looking at murder here Mason - seems like a shut case - young girl leaves home, falls on bad times, does drugs, dies - end of story, mate".
    Mason was rather indignant at this