After her few days of enforced leave Cassie hadn’t been looking forward to going back to work – and having to face Dr Curzon – but when she got in, she discovered there was no PM list scheduled. Even Jason had the day off, which meant she had the rare gift of a quiet day with only her deceased guests for company. Perfect.
She’d been going batshit crazy sitting at home alone with her questions – the latest being who could have been sending her money all those years. If it really had come from her mother’s killer then that surely ruled out the ‘random psycho’ who Barney blamed for the crime. But was her father right to assume that the cash was blood money from her mother’s secret lover – the man who he believed had killed her? Might it have come from the investigating officer Gerry Hobbs? Not out of sympathy, but because he felt guilty that they’d put the wrong man away for the crime?
At least Cassie’s dream of her mum weeping had been replaced by ones in which she was vividly alive again. Last night she had dreamed of drowning in a giant pick ‘n’ mix hopper of strawberry skulls when her mother’s face appeared above her, smiling, and lifted her out effortlessly. When she woke in the afterglow of the dream, a new memory arrived: she was wrapped in a giant fluffy towel after a bath, being cuddled by her mum, who was singing her a song she couldn’t place.
In the body store, she started the guest inventory, pulling open the drawers of the giant fridge to check each occupant off against her list. The only sound was the burble of the fridge and the gentle hum of the extraction system. But to Cassie it wasn’t the hush of an empty room; it was a companionable silence, shared with fifteen others who lay behind the wall of polished steel.
It was a relief being alone for once and not having to lower her voice as she talked to her charges. ‘Morning, Mr Iqbal. The undertakers are coming to pick you up today for your funeral. Soon you will be in Jannah with your parents.’ She always found the Muslim picture of heaven as a garden of bliss appealing. ‘The doctors had to do an examination to see how you died but we managed to fast-track the process for Saira and the family.’ Muslims were supposed to be buried within twenty-four hours of death. That wasn’t possible if a post-mortem was required but she usually managed to get Muslim guests prioritised and released to the family within two or three days.
Taking the inventory was a routine task which allowed her the headspace to revisit what she’d found out over the last few days. Of course she still had no hard evidence that her father was innocent, but she was convinced that a crucial part of his story was true: Kath really had been having secret assignations with another man. Had that man also been her killer?
The sound of knocking broke her train of thought. Through the glass of the windowed door that gave onto the clean side she saw Doug and, looming over his shoulder, a tall, athletic-looking man in his early fifties, already wearing scrubs over his suit.
A visitor. Bollocks. Bang went her quiet morning.
She thought she heard Doug introduce him as ‘DCI Baldy’, which couldn’t be right. And he actually had a fine head of hair, near black and swept back off a high forehead, with an olive skin that suggested a parent with Southern European heritage. Apparently, Baldy had ‘dropped by on the off-chance’ of getting a tour of the mortuary which made her clench her jaw but the look on Doug’s face told her that there was no putting off a Detective Chief Inspector.
After Doug left them, she said, ‘Sorry, I didn’t catch your name?’
‘Just call me Tony.’ He smiled at her, his gaze lingering a little longer than it needed to, but then she was used to people gawping at her look. It was always older people; the idea that young people had a monopoly on rudeness made her laugh.
‘So, Tony,’ she said. ‘You must surely have seen inside a few mortuaries in your time?’ – adding a smile to conceal her irritation at having to waste time babysitting a cop.
‘I certainly have. But these days, police officers spend too much time driving a desk. So, as I was telling your boss – I’m on a mission to change how we train our graduate intake of newbie detectives.’ As he rested his intent gaze on her again she noticed his eyes were a deep blue, a striking combination with his Mediterranean complexion and dark hair. ‘I want to get our trainees into a mortuary straight away, to familiarise themselves with the coronial system and to observe a post-mortem. I want them to be comfortable with dead bodies, and to have some idea of how to read them, like you do.’ He sounded passionate, like it was a pet project he’d been nurturing for a while.
‘Amen to that,’ she said, warming to the guy. ‘We hardly ever see an investigating officer these days. Even at a forensic PM it’s sometimes only the CSM and CSIs.’ Crimes Scene Managers and Investigators might be trained forensic specialists, but she could never understand why any detective worth their salt would opt not to attend a forensic PM – to see the body, quiz the pathologist, get an understanding of the injuries? Flyte turning up to see Bradley Appleton had been an exception to the norm – and Bradley’s was only a category two, aka an unexpected death, not even a suspicious one.
‘Exactly.’ Tony was nodding. ‘When I was a probie fresh out of Hendon it was one of the first things we had to do. The sarge would send you down to watch a PM’ – he grinned at her – ‘before lunch, if you were lucky. These days some of the younger detectives never even set foot in a mortuary.’
Having established that he wasn’t just some rubbernecking suit who fancied a day out of the office, she gave him the tour with more enthusiasm.
When they reached the autopsy suite he whistled. ‘Well, this has had a bit of an upgrade since I was last here.’
‘When was that?’
‘Oh, long before your time. I worked in Camden nick for a brief spell in the early 2000s. I used to come here to watch forensic PMs, even if it wasn’t my case.’ He sent her an embarrassed look. ‘I know it sounds a bit . . . creepy but I learned so much from the pathologists, the clues that a killer would leave on a body. “Every contact leaves a trace”, right?’
‘Yep. Locard’s exchange principle.’ Edmund Locard had been the father of modern forensics.
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if he’d known Gerry Hobbs or Spud Neville back then. But where would that get her? She could hardly ask if they were the kind of cops who’d take a backhander to cover up a critical swab result.
DCI Baldy, aka Tony, cast his searching gaze over the gleaming steel of the nearest dissecting table before indicating the grid of vent-holes around the table’s perimeter. ‘What are these for?’
‘That’s the downdraft ventilation system. It sucks any nasties in the air away when we’re doing the eviscerations.’
He trained his gaze on her again. ‘I suppose you must just get used to it after a while, cutting up the bodies?’
Having long ago tired of this kind of enquiry she just shrugged, non-committal.
‘Forgive me, stupid question.’ He sent her an admiring look. ‘You know, I’ve always thought of you technicians as the unsung heroes of sudden death.’
Was he hitting on her? He wasn’t unattractive, but seriously? He had to be fifty years old.
‘Listen, Cassie, I’m planning on setting up a programme of mortuary induction sessions for young detectives. I wondered if you would consider overseeing it. They would pay you more attention than an old geezer like me. And, of course, you would receive a fee for your time.’
Although not exactly posh, he had a nice speaking voice – but now and again he used a London word like ‘geezer’. Voice coaching was probably part of the media training senior officers had to go through these days.
‘I’d be happy to,’ she told him. ‘But I wouldn’t want paying.’
He beamed, once again letting his eyes linger on her face just a bit too long.
After he’d gone to change out of his scrubs, she tried to decipher the weird way he looked at her. The vibe she got off him didn’t feel sexual. The best description she could come up with was speculative – like she was a puzzle he was trying to work out. Maybe he was just a bit eccentric and enjoyed meeting a fellow mortuary geek.
Ten minutes later she heard a knock on the glass from the clean side.
‘Have a think about my mortuary induction plan.’ He handed her a card though the open door. ‘I’m set to retire in a few months so I’d like to get it all sorted before I go. If you’re interested, let me know and I’ll make an official application through Doug. I’ve written my mobile number on the back.’
As his broad back disappeared down the corridor she examined the card and smiled. Funnily enough, his name wasn’t Baldy.
It was Capaldi. DCI Antony Capaldi.