Ian Rankin: Let It Bleed

He could hear car engines, and metal twisting, and the wind whistling all around. He could see feet, the soles of cheap trainers, something close to a smile on the lips of a fair-haired teenager. But then the smile became darkness, and everything disappeared.

Slowly, he hugged himself to sleep.

Down at the City Mortuary in the Cowgate Dr Curt was nowhere to be seen, but Professor Gates was already at work.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘you can fall from any height you want; it’s just that last damned half-inch that’s fatal.’

With him around the slab were Inspector John Rebus, Detective Sergeant Brian Holmes, another doctor, and a pathology assistant. The Preliminary Notification of Sudden Death had already been submitted to the Procurator-Fiscal, and now the Sudden Death Report was being prepared on two deceased males, probable identities William David Coyle and James Dixon Taylor.

James Taylor — Rebus looked at the mess over which Professor Gates was fussing and remembered that final embrace. Ain’t it good to know that you’ve got a friend.

The force of the impact of the bodies upon the steel deck of Her Majesty’s naval frigate Descant had turned them from human beings into something more like hairy jam. There was some on the slab — the rest sat in gleaming steel buckets. No next of kin was going to be asked to participate in a formal identification. It was the sort of thing they could just about accomplish by DNA-testing, if such proved necessary.

‘Flatpacks, we call them,’ Professor Gates said. ‘Saw a lot at Lockerbie. Scraped them off the ground and took them to the local ice rink. Handy place, an ice rink, when you suddenly find yourself with two hundred and seventy bodies.’

Brian Holmes had seen bad deaths before, but he was not immune. He kept shuffling his feet and shifting his shoulders, and glaring with hard, judgmental eyes at Rebus, who was humming scraps of ‘You’re So Vain’.

Establishing time, date and place of death was straightforward. Certified cause of death was easy too, though Professor Gates wasn’t sure of the precise wording.

‘Blunt force trauma?’

‘How about boating accident?’ Rebus offered. There were some smiles at that. Like most pathologists, Professor Alexander Gates MD, FRC Path, DMJ (Path), FRCPE, MRCPG, was possessed of a sense of humour as wide as his letter-heading. A quite necessary sense of humour. He didn’t look like a pathologist. He wasn’t tall and cadaverously grey like Dr Curt, but was a bossy, shuffling figure, with the physique of a wrestler rather than an undertaker. He was broad-chested, bull-necked, and had pudgy hands, the fingers of which he delighted in cracking, one at a time or all together.

He liked people to call him Sandy.

‘I’m the one issuing the death certificate,’ he told Brian Holmes, who filled in the relevant box on the rough-up Sudden Death Report. ‘My address care of Police Surgeoncy, Cowgate.’

Rebus and the others watched as Gates made his examination. He was able to confirm the existence of two separate corpses. Samples were taken of veinous blood for grouping, DNA, toxicology, and alcohol. Usually urine samples would be taken also, but that just wasn’t possible, and Gates was even doubtful about the efficacy of blood testing. Vitreous humour and stomach contents were next, along with bile and liver.

Before their eyes, he started to reconstruct the bodies: not so they became identifiable as humans, not entirely, but just so he could be satisfied he had everything the bodies had once had. Nothing missing, and nothing extraneous.

‘I used to love jigsaws when I was a youngster,’ the pathologist said quietly, bent over his task.

Outside it was a dry, freezing day. Rebus remembered liking jigsaws too. He wondered if kids still played with them. The post-mortem over, he stood on the pavement and smoked a cigarette. There were pubs to left and right of him, but none were yet open. His breakfast tot of whisky had all but evaporated.

Brian Holmes came out of the mortuary stuffing a green cardboard file into his briefcase. He saw Rebus rubbing at his jaw.

‘You all right?’

‘Toothache, that’s all.’

It was, too; it was definitely toothache, or at least gum-ache. He couldn’t positively identify any one tooth as the culprit: the pain was just there, swelling below the surface.

‘Give you a lift?’

‘Thanks, Brian, but I’ve got my car.’

Holmes nodded and tugged up his collar. His chin was tucked into a blue lambswool scarf. ‘The bridge is open again,’ he said, ‘one lane southbound.’

‘What about the Cortina?’

‘Howdenhall have it. They’re fingerprinting, just in case she ever was in the car.’

Rebus nodded, saying nothing. Holmes said nothing back.

‘Something I can do for you, Brian?’

‘No, not really. I was just wondering … weren’t you supposed to be at the station first thing?’

‘So?’

‘So why come here instead?’

It was a good question. Rebus looked back at the mortuary doors, remembering the scene all over again. The artic, assuming the crash position, Lauderdale spread across the bonnet, then seeing the other car … a final embrace … a fall.

He shrugged non-committally and made for his car.

Chief Inspector Frank Lauderdale was going to be all right.

That was the good news.

The bad news was that DI Alister Flower was looking for temporary promotion to fill Lauderdale’s shoes.

‘And with the funeral meats not yet cold,’ said Chief Superintendent ‘Farmer’ Watson. He blushed, realising what he’d said. ‘Not that there’s … I mean, no funeral or …’ He coughed into his bunched fist.

‘Flower’s got a point though, sir,’ said Rebus, covering his boss’s embarrassment. ‘It’s just that he’s got the tact of a tomcat. I mean, somebody’ll have to fill in. How long’s Frank going to be out of the game?’

‘We don’t know.’ The Farmer picked up a sheet of paper and read from it. ‘Both legs broken, two broken ribs, broken wrist, concussion: there’s half a page of diagnosis here.’

Rebus rubbed his bruised cheekbone, wondering if it was responsible for the broken wrist.

‘We don’t even know,’ the Farmer went on quietly, ‘whether he’ll walk again. The breaks were pretty severe. Meantime, the last thing I need is Flower and you vying for any temporary promotion it may or may not be in my power to give.’

‘Understood.’

‘Good.’ The Farmer paused. ‘So what can you tell me about last night?’

‘It’ll be in my report, sir.’

‘Of course it will, but I’d prefer the truth. What was Frank playing at?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean driving around like the Dukes of Hazzard. We’ve got expendables for that sort of escapade.’

‘We were just maintaining a pursuit, sir.’

‘Of course you were.’ Watson studied Rebus. ‘Nothing you’d like to add to that?’

‘Not much, sir. Except that it was no accident, and they’d no intention of getting away. It was a suicide pact: unspoken, but suicide all the same.’

‘And why would they do that?’

‘I’ve no idea, sir.’

The Farmer sighed and sat back in his chair. ‘John, I think you should know my feelings on all of this.’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘It was an utter balls-up from start to finish.’

… And that was putting it mildly.

They were only there because of power, because of influence, because a favour was asked. That was how it had started: with a discreet call from the city’s Lord Provost to the deputy chief constable of Lothian and Borders Police, requesting that his daughter’s disappearance be investigated.