TOWARDS BOLEHILL COPSE AND THE CHILD’S BODY THAT AWAITED THEM
WITH A HISS OF STEAM AND A SQUEAL OF BRAKES, the local milk train from Sheffield to West Garside pulled into the station. Doors banged open and a dozen or so passengers disembarked, among them, Dr Penrose Gordon-Blood; a condescending and slightly contemptuous grimace on his face.
He hated these small, grubby, smoke-tangled industrial towns that clustered about the periphery of Sheffield like snot-nosed beggar urchins hovering about the skirts of a wealthy lady holding her nose against the stench of unwashed bodies.
Dr Penrose Gordon-Blood was a small dapper man, with a clipped moustache bristling indignantly below a sharp narrow nose. He was dressed incongruously out of his era, with black and grey striped trousers, a long-tailed morning jacket, his dazzling white shirt so heavily starched it crackled and crinkled, a crisp celluloid collar, a sombre dark green bow tie, and a wide black homburg hat. He dressed for attention, a reflection of his self-importance. Look at me, I’m a very important person; kneel before me as I pass.
He carried a small leather overnight suitcase and his medical bag. His secretary, Marjorie Thundercliffe, a suitably nondescript middle-aged spinster, dressed in a dark grey skirt, blouse, and jacket followed on behind, dutifully several paces behind him so as not to detract from his ego-drenched glorious presence. In addition to her shoulder-slung handbag and overnight bag, she also toted on her shoulder a heavy black leather camera bag. Penrose Gordon-Blood strode on ahead, leaving her to struggle with her extensive baggage.
Gordon-Blood was a Home Office registered pathologist, ‘on the list,’ normally practising his profession in the mortuary at Sheffield’s City General Hospital, a position he considered beneath his abilities and natural station in life.
It was his usual habit to attend to the site of a murder by highly polished black and cream Rolls Royce Silver Wraith but the vehicle was in a garage for servicing and the replacement of the carburettor which had developed an irritating fault.
Already in a vile temper, he had expected to be met at the station by a senior police officer and was further disgruntled that no police were waiting on the station platform to greet him, which he considered to be no less than his due. Scowling fiercely, he handed the outward half of his ticket to the ticket inspector at the gate and made his way out onto the station forecourt.
PC Balderstone spotted the pathologist scowling at his hunter pocket watch and crossed over to him.
‘Dr Blood?’ he enquired.
‘Dr Gordon-Blood, if you please,’ he answered sharply, the cachet of a double-barrelled name of great importance to him (even though he had been christened simply as Penrose Gordon Blood; two Christian names and one surname, he had hyphenated himself whilst at medical college, feeling that Dr Blood did not sound sufficiently patrician.)
‘Yes sir, of course,’ answered Balderstone, not in the least bit fazed, ‘The car is over here, sir, if you care to follow me.’
Gordon-Blood thrust his suitcase towards Balderstone, clearly expecting him to carry it for him but the policeman pretended not to notice and marched away towards the Wolseley police car, in his turn disgruntled at playing taxi driver when he should have been out looking for the murderous bastard who had killed Emily Black.
Gordon-Blood left his suitcase by the boot for Balderstone to stow and settled himself into the passenger seat, his medical bag cradled in his lap, motioning Marjorie Thundercliffe to sit in the back. He did not introduce her as his assistant or indeed as anything at all. She was used to that, Gordon-Blood ignored her most of the time, speaking to her only when necessary or dictating his notes and comments at crime scenes or in the process of the post mortems he undertook.
She was not in any way offended by his rudeness and arrogant behaviour, in fact she preferred it that way, she found Gordon-Blood as cold and as unpalatable as the corpses he dissected and the less she had to listen to his high-pitched whining voice the better. Despite all that, she enjoyed her job, it was far more interesting than being a typist in an office, which she had been before answering an advert in the Sheffield Star for an assistant to the pathologist.
No matter his rudeness and disregard, they were here to do a job, an emotionally unpleasant job and for all his coldness and disdain towards her and the world at large, it could never be said that he was anything other than supremely professional in his chosen vocation.
The car set off, speeding through the town centre and then heading westwards towards Bolehill Copse and the child’s body that awaited them.