Simon Beckett - The Scent of Death

In all of this, the reason why we were all there in the first place was almost forgotten. The body of the dead woman and her unborn child lay off to one side, far enough away from the hole not to be disturbed by the frenzied activity. At my request, a new plastic sheet was brought into the loft, and as Whelan and another officer set about extending the lightweight ladder into the hole I spread it over the near-mummified body. The plastic crinkled as I carefully drew it over the desiccated face, its leathery skin pulled drum-tight over the bones. The sheet would prevent any further contamination from the dust and glass fibre that had been stirred up, though I admitted to myself that wasn’t the sole reason I’d wanted to cover her. She’d lain here, alone and undiscovered, for God knew how long.

It didn’t feel right to ignore her now.

To my frustration, Ward made me stay well back while Whelan lowered the ladder, careful to avoid the debris that buried the pathologist. Floodlights had been repositioned to throw light into the space below, but the angle restricted our view. They cast enough light to see the mound of timbers and insulation covering Conrad, but beyond that the room disappeared into impenetrable shadow.

Rather than trust the ladder against the hole’s crumbling edge, Whelan leaned it against one of the roof timbers overhead and secured its top with a length of nylon rope. He gave it a shake, then swung himself out on to the rungs.

‘Watch yourself, Jack,’ Ward told him.

‘Just like cleaning windows,’ he quipped, climbing down.

The aluminium ladder bounced and creaked rhythmically as he descended. In a few seconds it stopped as he reached the bottom. From where I stood he was out of sight, but his voice carried clearly enough.

‘OK, I’m down. Let me get some of this stuff off him...’

There was a grunt, then the sound of scrabbling. A plume of dust rose up from the hole as the sergeant shifted the debris from on top of the pathologist.

‘That’s better.’ He sounded out of breath. ‘He’s pretty banged up. Still got a pulse but he’s in a bad way. One leg looks broken, and... OK, there’s a lot of blood.’

‘Where from?’ I called. ‘Is it arterial?’

‘I don’t know, I can’t see where it’s coming from. Looks to be from his leg but it’s pinned and I don’t want to risk moving him. Ma’am, if we don’t get this sorted quick we’re going to lose him.’

I turned to Ward. ‘Let me see if I can—’

Impatiently, she raised a hand to silence me. ‘We need to get in there, Jack. Can you see a door or a way out?’

‘Hang on.’ There was a pause. ‘Looks like a small ward. Still some beds and other junk down here, but I can’t see a door.’

‘There’s got to be one somewhere .’

‘No, it looks like one wall’s been bricked up and — fuck !’

There was a sudden clatter.

‘Jack? Jack! Are you all right?’

Seconds passed before Whelan replied. ‘Yeah, I just... I dropped my torch.’

Ward sagged with relief. ‘Bloody hell , Jack, what are you playing at?’

‘Sorry, ma’am. It’s the beds...’ His voice was strained. ‘There’s people in them.’

Ward didn’t want to let me go down to Whelan. ‘I’m not risking anyone else, not until I know what we’re facing.’

‘We know what Conrad’s facing. He’s going to bleed to death unless we stop it.’

‘The paramedics and fire crew will be here in five minutes—’

‘He might not have that long. Come on, I can at least try and slow the bleeding until they get here!’

‘Jack’s trained in first aid—’

‘And I’m a trained doctor! If you’re worried I might contaminate a potential crime scene—’

‘That isn’t it, and you know it!’

‘Then let me get down there!’

Ward put her head back. ‘Jesus Christ ! All right, but for God’s sake be careful!’

I didn’t wait for her to change her mind. Swinging myself out over the ladder, I began clambering down. It creaked and bucked under me but I took no notice. Whelan reached out to steady it as I reached the bottom.

‘Careful where you step.’

It was like being at the bottom of a well. Shafts of brightness from the floodlights came through the hole in the ceiling but illuminated only a small area around us. Everything else was in blackness. Whelan was crouching by a mound of broken plaster and timbers, focusing his torch on Conrad. The DI had cleared off most of the debris — at least it wasn’t heavy — and the pathologist lay twisted on his side in a nest of torn insulation. Caked in plaster and dirt, his face looked pallid and drawn, blood on it glistening darkly. He was unconscious, and I didn’t like the sound of his breathing.

But it was the wound to his leg that was most urgent. Clogged with plaster and glass fibres, blood had formed a pool around his lower body. It was coming from the leg Conrad was lying on, and to get to it would mean moving him. I could see now why Whelan had been reluctant. After a fall like that the pathologist could easily have a spinal injury, and from the rasping breaths I thought a rib might have punctured a lung. He needed more help than I could give him, but at least I could try to see he stayed alive until it got here.

‘Hold him still if he moves,’ I told Whelan, and slid my hands under the pathologist’s trapped leg. Trying not to disturb his position, I gently probed around where the bleeding seemed to be coming from. I was hoping I wouldn’t feel a shard of broken bone sticking through the muscle of his leg. If that was the cause of the bleeding there might be little I could do, especially if the bone had nicked one of the arteries. In that case Conrad might well be dead before the paramedics even got here.

But there wasn’t the sharp edge of splintered bone I’d been dreading. Instead, through the thin membrane of my gloves, I felt a rip in his coveralls and trousers on his thigh and the warm slickness of blood underneath. Conrad must have caught his leg on a nail or broken joist as he fell through the ceiling. Bad, but hopefully not an artery.

‘Get ready,’ I told Whelan. ‘I’m going to apply pressure.’

My gloves were far from sterile, but they hadn’t come into contact with the victim’s body in the loft. And infection was the lesser risk facing the pathologist just then. Relying purely on touch, I bunched up the fabric of his trousers over the wound and pressed hard.

He gave a low groan and tried to move.

‘Keep him still,’ I said.

In response Whelan clamped the injured man more tightly, using his weight to keep him pinned.

‘What’s happening?’ Ward’s voice floated down from the hole in the ceiling. ‘Is he all right?’

‘How far away are the paramedics?’ I called back.

‘They’ve just come through the gates. Two, three minutes.’

It couldn’t be soon enough. Still pressing on the wound, I shifted to a better position and concentrated on maintaining the pressure. Only then did I take the time to look around.

It was too dark to see much. Whelan had said it was a small ward of some kind, but beyond our island of light the rest of the room was in shadow. As my eyes adjusted, the blockwork of an unplastered wall took shape ahead of me in the gloom. Further away, blurred by the fog of dust, was the angular framework of a hospital bed. Lying on it, little more than a patch of grey in the blackness, was a still figure. I thought I could make out another bed beyond it, although that could have been the shadows playing tricks.

But whatever else this place contained, it would have to wait. Closing my mind to the growing cramp in my forearms, I kept up the pressure on Conrad’s wound and willed the paramedics to hurry up.