Simon Beckett - The Scent of Death

‘But before they came. Was there a lot of dealing round here?’

‘Open your eyes. Streets aren’t fit for decent people no more.’ A look of indignation came over her face. ‘Why’re you asking?’

‘I was just—’

‘You think I’m one of them scum?’

‘No, I—’

‘Filthy bastards! They deserve stringing up, the lot of ’em! Ruining decent lives, but nobody cares about that, do they?’

I tried a change of tack. ‘I’d no idea this place existed. Do you live nearby?’

‘Near enough.’ She looked around her, tutting when she saw a couple of empty drinks bottles in the grass. Opening the bin liner, she bent and picked them up, flinging them into it in disgust. ‘Look at this. Dirty sods, leaving all their rubbish.’

‘Is that why you come here?’ I asked, realizing now why she’d brought the empty bag.

‘No law against it, is there? Someone has to get rid of it.’ Her jaw worked ruminatively as she considered me, the eyes unmistakably hostile now. ‘To say you’re not police you ask enough bleeding questions.’

I held up my hands in surrender. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’

She glared, shifting her grip on the empty bin bag as she weighed me up.

‘Piss off.’

With that, she turned around and walked off through the woods. Well, that’s told me, I thought, watching the dumpy figure trudge through the trees. Then, making sure I’d not left any litter behind, I went back to St Jude’s.

There was still no sign of Ward by the time I’d walked back to St Jude’s. I changed into fresh coveralls, gloves and overshoes and pulled on my hood and my mask. Then I went back into the hospital’s dark interior.

It was like stepping into a pit. Even climbing the stairs somehow felt like being underground, far beneath fresh air and daylight. At the top, I paused when I saw the windowless corridor stretching ahead of me. It seemed to go on for ever. Floodlights were dotted along its length, disappearing into the distance like a night-time landing strip. Giving an involuntary shiver, I set off down it.

The sound of hammering told me the wall still hadn’t been dismantled. As I drew nearer to the ward, a floodlight in the corridor illuminated a haze of cement dust in the air. It was even thicker inside. Two burly police officers were pounding away at the wall with lump hammers and chisels. Their shadows jerked under the glare of the floodlights as they hacked out the mortar around each breezeblock, removing them one at a time to make a crenellated hole. The sheet of protective plastic draped on the other side as a dust barrier shimmered with each blow like a dirty shower curtain.

A number of white-suited officers and SOCOs had gathered in the ward, almost indistinguishable from each other in their coveralls, hoods and masks. I managed to pick out Whelan among them, but he turned away when he saw me. Evidently, he wasn’t in a mood to talk. He wasn’t the only one. A palpable tension, as thick as the dust, hung in the air as we waited.

There was a disturbance in the corridor outside. ‘Excuse me, coming through, let the dog see the rabbit, thank you...’

I recognized the voice even before I saw its owner. It was low but strong, with a throatiness that suggested a bad cigarette habit. Falsely, because the person it came from was a devout anti-smoker. The police officers and SOCOs standing in the ward’s doorway hastily stepped aside as a small woman bustled through. She seemed tiny compared to the officers who hurriedly moved out of her way, yet she neither slowed nor gave them a glance as she breezed through, taking it for granted that they’d clear a path. She stopped beside me, setting down a leather Gladstone-style bag that looked almost as big as her. Her dark face crinkled in a smile behind her mask.

‘Hello, David. Been a while.’

It had. Riya Parekh had been one of the first forensic pathologists I’d worked with. She’d been a senior figure in her field even then, much older than me and already at the top of her profession when I’d been starting out. That was a long time ago now, longer than I cared to remember.

A lot had changed since then.

Including Parekh herself. Even under the concealing mask and hood, it was apparent how she’d aged. Never a tall woman, she seemed to have physically shrunk, developing the beginnings of a stoop around her shoulders. The jet eyebrows were now grey, and her eyes surrounded by wrinkles, with dark shadows etched underneath them.

I returned her smile, genuinely pleased to see her. ‘Hello, Riya. I didn’t know you were working on this.’

‘I wouldn’t have been if Conrad hadn’t bolloxed things up.’ She gave a sniff. ‘Typical.’

Some things, at least, hadn’t changed. ‘How are you?’

‘Oh, you know. Older. Creakier. The same.’ The eyes scrutinized me. ‘You’re looking well.’

‘So are you.’

‘Liar.’ But she looked pleased as she turned away to consider the partly demolished breezeblock wall. ‘Puts me in mind of Edgar Allan Poe. The Fall of the House of Usher . Are you familiar with the story?’

‘Not really, but I’m guessing someone gets walled up.’

‘Entombed, actually, but close enough. Although it isn’t in a hospital, so let’s hope the similarities stop there.’

‘Similarities?’

‘Poe’s victim was still alive.’

I thought about the restraints I’d seen strapping the bodies to the beds when I’d been in the chamber helping Whelan with Conrad. But there was no point speculating: we’d know soon enough. We watched as another breezeblock was lifted out and carried to the growing pile. A big enough section of wall had now been removed to allow access. Flushed and out of breath, one of the SOCOs heaved the block on to the pile with the others and turned to Whelan.

‘That should do it.’

Whelan came to speak to Parekh while the worst of the dust and the debris was sucked up with a heavy-duty vacuum. Again, he didn’t seem inclined to acknowledge me, but I was too distracted by the crenellated black hole to wonder why.

‘No SIO?’ Parekh asked him. ‘Where’s DCI Ward?’

I’d wondered about that myself. It must be an important meeting to keep her away from this.

‘She’s on her way,’ Whelan told her. ‘She’d still like a word with you when she gets here, Dr Hunter. You might want to wait for her outside.’

I didn’t like the sound of that. For the first time I began to wonder what Ward might want to talk about, but Parekh spoke before I could quiz the DI.

‘Nonsense, we’re about to go in. If DCI Ward can’t be here on time then she should invest in a better watch.’

Whelan seemed to be about to speak before thinking better of it. He turned to face the hole, not meeting my eye as a SOCO drew aside the plastic sheet like a translucent curtain. Beyond it was blackness. The section of wall where the breezeblocks had been removed now looked like the mouth of a cave.

‘Who has a torch?’ Parekh asked, holding out her hand.

‘I think we should wait until the ceiling’s been shored up and we’ve got some lighting in there,’ Whelan said. Blue-suited figures were already lifting steel props from a stack and carrying over portable floodlights. ‘We’re going to rig up a tent over the beds, as well. We want to keep any more plaster dust from coming down on the bodies.’

‘Then I can take a look while you’re doing it.’

She left no room for argument. Whelan still didn’t acknowledge me as torches were supplied.

‘Don’t go far in. And keep away from where the ceiling’s collapsed,’ he warned Parekh as she switched on her torch.

‘You can stay out here if you’re worried,’ she told him.