Silent Witness

Woohoo!

Woohoo!

Dean! Dean! Make him go slower!

I want to get out!

Aargh! You all right? No, I'm not. You're an idiot!

Let me out!

Mate, come on.

Come on.

Hey, Jack. All good? Yep. I've just spoken with DI Raymond.

The structural reinforcement company have arrived.

You can start thinking about bringing the whole thing

back to the Lyell. Nikki can chip away to her heart's content.

Bring me up to speed. Good morning to you, too.

Don't be needy, Jack.

What I can see is skull.

Could be male or female.

I won't be able to say exactly until it's fully visible.

Just the head? Not enough of the remains have been revealed yet.

We won't be able to say exactly until we've finished.

I hate these cases. Double the leg work, impossible to solve.

What about this? Presumably stolen.

Teenagers. Picked them up in A&E. One of them's got a broken ankle.

Should take the joy out of joy riding for a bit.

Do you hold the contract for building these car parks?

That's right. I work for Millennium Building Partnerships.

And that floor specifically. When was it finished?

I don't know. I'll have to look it up.

Mr Simmons, can you tell me how you construct the supporting pillars?

We build a wooden structure surrounding steel rods,

pour the concrete in, then remove the casing a couple of days later.

It's like a jelly mould. Right.

Did any of your men go missing during the construction

or stop turning up for work?

We use a lot of casual labourers. They come, they go.

Illegal workers? No, we don't do that.

Would it be possible for someone to fall into

one of those pillar constructions while it was empty by accident?

I don't know.

And could your workers have filled it up with concrete

without checking first?

It's possible, I suppose.

Have you found something in there?

I'm afraid we found some remains, yes.

Two centimetres an hour? That's better than the M25.

I quite like it.

Focuses the mind.

I took two weeks to excavate a skull once on a dig in Durban.

So thin and delicate.

Do you miss it? I miss the sunshine.

Come on. A small, windowless room in the depths of London.

What more could you want?

Wow.

That's incredible.

I didn't think there'd be so much tissue still intact.

Well, if it's a decent grade of concrete

that's been allowed to settle properly, it's basically creating

a semi-sterile environment with very little oxygen.

Decomposition would have been significantly slowed down.

I think there's a good chance of getting some DNA from the bones.

Great. How long till you can start the postmortem?

Just as soon as I get a body out of here.

I'll get someone to put the kettle on, shall I?

Yeah.

Wow.

Tea? Thanks.

Look, Ma', no hands.

One thing's for sure, this was no accident.

Thanks, Sam.

Frontal bone is sloped backwards...

...with prominent supraorbital ridges.

The orbits are square.

Prominent mastoid processes.

I would say this is a male.

Blunt force trauma to the top of the skull

affecting the parietal bones.

Fractures of the upper cervical vertebrae.

Hanging is a possible cause of death...

...but there's insufficient soft tissue to verify this.

Looking at the skull injury in conjunction with the broken neck,

that could represent a traumatic event that led to death,

but could equally have occurred postmortem

when the body was dropped into the pillar mould.

The wear and tear on the joints and disintegration of the bones,

I would place him in his 40s or 50s, approximately,

at time of death.

Hm.

We've found some treasure.

What does that look like to you?

A tiny fossil.

Calliphoridae pupae, if I'm not mistaken.

The good old-fashioned blow fly. Good spot.

Ooh. Have you got my sample?

Thanking you.

Is Max in the doghouse?

He's been driving me mad about this bloody cruise he wants to book.

Going on and on about me taking a break.

I come to work for a bit of peace.

Ah, domestic bliss.

Ah, domestic blisters!

I found small calcified areas along the inner aspect of the ribs.

Remnants of calcified pleural plaques.

This would indicate some exposure to asbestos

so, given his age, perhaps he worked in the building trade

when regulations weren't as stringent.

Perhaps he was a workman on the site, then.

Both arms are severed at the lower forearm above the wrist joints.

Wrist joints and hands are currently unaccounted for.

To disguise identity, perhaps. No hands, no fingerprint.

If that's the case, then why leave the teeth intact?

No clear cut cause of death, I'm afraid.

I did find some blow fly pupae casings embedded in the concrete

where it had contact with the body.

This might suggest that death occurred

approximately three days before the body was disposed of.

Do you have anything at all that could help us identify him?

At some point, this man has undergone reconstructive surgery

as there's a metal plate securing the symphysis pubis -

a common fracture from an RTC or industrial accident

Along with a hip replacement.

Judging by the wear and tear around the socket,

he probably had this surgery about ten years before he died,

so he'd have been 30s to 40s at that point.

Unfortunately, I don't have the manpower

to sift through every RTC from 30 years ago.

Do you have anything else?

Well mixed. Good grade.

And bubbles.

Clarissa's phone.

Oh, hi, Max.

Yes, she's here. Want to speak to her?

OK. Just putting you through.

Thanks!

Clarissa's cruising hotline. How may we help you?

What?

When?

OK. I'm on my way.

Everything all right?

No. I've got to go.

It's my mum.

I went back to look at the forearms on the body again.

It's difficult to see,

considering the condition of the mummified flesh,

but these are striation marks here.

They only seem to appear on the outer radius of each arm.

Sorry, what am I looking at? The hands were not severed cleanly.

They were hacked off with some difficulty, it might seem.

The perpetrator used a serrated blade for that,

which left a jagged, untidy edge to the wound.

These other wounds here...

...were made with a smooth-edged, thin instrument,

so I did some comparative testing

and I think it was perhaps a razorblade.

Suicide?

From the direction of the marks, it would be logical to assume

that they were part of longitudinal cuts right down to the wrists

on the radius of both arms,

consistent with someone trying to take their own life.

Perhaps that's why the hands were removed.

To disguise the cause of death.

Life insurance often won't pay out for suicide. There's your motive.

So somebody cut his hands off and then dropped the body

into the pillar mould?

It seems odd to go to such lengths to disguise who he was

and then hide him in concrete.

That doesn't make sense.

Maybe there was a change of plan.

Mum.

There you are, lovely.

Are you OK?

I have ordered roast chicken for my dinner with all the trimmings.

Just fancied a little holiday, did you?

She's a right cheeky one, this one is, keeping us on our toes.

I'm Nurse Coen. I'm Clarissa, Penny's daughter.

What are you giving her?

We just wanted to get some pain relief in her.

Make her more comfortable.

Pain relief?

You'll be able to see the doctor shortly.

She'll answer all your questions.

Queen of Sheba.

I don't mind if I do.

I'm afraid your mum has cancer.

It's in her pancreas.

The cancer team have looked at the images and unfortunately...

...due to the close proximity of a major blood vessel here...

...we don't think surgery is an option.

There may be some other treatments available to us.

What about, erm...

...chemotherapy?

That's something we could explore.

I've heard Folfirinox had good results.

Or something like Gemcitabine. Are you medical?

My background is science.

Chemotherapy is demanding on the patient.

I urge you to think really carefully

about whether you want to put your mum through it

or opt for palliative care instead.

I understand.

As your mother is already in the advanced stages of dementia...

She has good days.