Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

‘Right. Right. Well... OK, you’ve got Lucy Compton.’

‘Never heard of her.’ He helped himself to a pair of safety goggles.

‘New APT. This is her first week. Young lass, you’ll like her.’

Callum stared at him. ‘Can we at least pretend we’re taking this seriously, Dougal? I want a pathologist, not some wee Anatomical Pathology Technician just out of nappies.’

Franklin yanked an apron from the roll. ‘What, she’s not good enough just because she’s a woman?’

‘I don’t care if she’s a man, a woman, or a transgendered squirrel — she’s not a pathologist!’ He watched Franklin make a cat’s breakfast out of tying on her apron. ‘You’ve ripped the plastic.’

Dougal shrugged. ‘Don’t look at me. All I know is we’ve got two pathologists on duty and four bodies to PM today. Four to do tomorrow, and four more the day after that. Assuming no one else dies in the meantime. You want to moan at someone? Talk to Teabag and Hairy Harry.’

‘Oh don’t you worry, I will.’

Franklin tore off another apron and tried again. Finally got herself sorted out with goggles, wellies, a surgical mask, and gloves. Crossed her arms and shuffled on the tiled floor. ‘Well?’ Looking about as comfortable as a Seventies TV star in a police interview room.

Callum snapped on a pair of blue nitrile gloves. ‘Have you been to a post mortem before?’

Her nostrils flared. ‘Why, because I’m a weak and feeble—’

‘Fine, sod you then.’ He nodded at the door. ‘Come on, Dougal, let’s not keep Detective Constable Franklin waiting. She’s keen to see her dead body being hacked apart.’

Dougal opened the dissecting room door and stood back to let them past.

A dozen cutting tables sat in a row down the middle, the air redolent with eau de mortuary. CCTV cameras hung from the ceiling above each one, their black bulbous eyes ready to capture the most intimate and thorough violation anyone would ever experience.

One table was surrounded by half a dozen people doing their best not to look like plainclothes police officers and failing miserably. They’d donned the same safety gear as Callum and Franklin, a couple of them laughing, two looking serious and boot-faced, two taking notes as a tall thin man in purple scrubs arranged a collection of trainers and shoes on the stainless-steel surface. Someone in green scrubs followed him, taking photos — the flash turning everything monochrome for a moment, before the colour seeped back in.

Down at the far end of the room, a dark body lay beneath a set of industrial extractor fans going full pelt. Not that it made much of an impact on the stench. But then it was difficult to imagine what would. Tip three gallons of Febreze in here and it would still stink of perforated bowels and rotten meat.

Someone in green scrubs was washing the body with a sponge, wringing out dirty grey water into a drain set into the floor.

Franklin took a deep breath and stiffened her shoulders. ‘That our victim?’

‘Shall we?’ Douglas offered her his arm, as if they were off to the ball.

She ignored it and marched off, back straight, wellington boots making week-wonk noises on the stained floor.

The far wall was home to a long line of sinks and taps, with a glass wall above them looking in on a viewing gallery. A wee bloke with a red Henry hoover shuffled about inside looking as if he was in need of a post mortem himself.

Only two other tables were occupied — as far away from Franklin’s corpse as possible — and both of them sported a mahogany-coloured body, curled up on its side. One of which was being circled by a small figure wearing pink scrubs. Dark curly hair pinned up in a lopsided bun, purple nitrile gloves, surgical mask.

That would be his brand new APT then.

Ah well.

He wandered over. ‘Hi. You Ms Compton?’

She stopped and turned to him. ‘No, I’m not, sorry, I’m not Ms Compton, who’s Ms Compton?’ She’d put her pink scrubs on over a black-and-grey stripy top. Its sleeves were rolled up just far enough to expose an inch of yoghurt-pale skin between them and the purple nitrile gloves. Not Ms Compton pointed at the curled body. ‘Sorry, I know it’s not my case, but I saw the mummies over here and I thought “that looks interesting”, I mean I always loved those films when I was little, you know with Boris Karloff all wrapped up in bandages exacting revenge on the archaeologists who dared to disturb his tomb?’ The words were delivered like machine-gun fire, in a cheery unplaceable Scottish accent. ‘To be honest, I’m supposed to be consulting on another case about some severed feet, but the heart wants what the heart wants.’ She stuck out her hand. ‘Ooh, and it’s Alice, by the way, Alice McDonald, technically it’s Doctor Alice McDonald, but that sounds a bit uppity doesn’t it, so just Alice is fine, all gets a bit confusing doesn’t it, maybe if everyone in the world wore name badges it’d be easier, what do you think?’

Yeah... this one was a freak.

He shook her hand, warm and slightly sticky through his gloves. ‘Detective Constable Callum MacGregor.’

‘Right, yes, great, good name, couldn’t get much more Scottish, could you, not with a name like that, well, I mean it could be, if your middle name was Angus or Hamish. Is it?’

‘You said you’re consulting on a case. You’re not a pathologist are—’

‘Oh no, not a pathologist at all, I’m here doing Behavioural Evidence Analysis, which is what we call profiling now, because if we call it profiling people think it’ll be just like the movies where the forensic psychologist says, “Whoever killed all these women and ate their uteruses was a white middle-aged man with one leg shorter than the other and an unnatural affinity with the music of Johnny Cash”, because it doesn’t work like that and lots of people like Johnny Cash but never kill anyone, though I’m not a fan myself. Do you see?’

No.

‘Err...’ Wait a minute. Forensic psychologist. Alice. Rambling. He lowered his own surgical mask and the dirty-brown smell of the mortuary swelled in his nostrils. ‘Dr McDonald? It’s me, Callum. I was on the Birthday Boy investigation, five years ago? You were consulting.’ No reaction. ‘I was on DCI Weber’s team?’

She lowered her own mask and shared a slightly painful smile, as if she’d got something bitter caught between her back teeth. ‘Ah, sorry, it’s nothing personal, but I tend to just see a big sea of faces when I’m up giving presentations and then there’s all the different investigations all over the country and there must have been at least three thousand police officers over the years, probably more, and I would love to be able to remember them all, but I haven’t got that kind of brain, and I get a bit nervous when I’m up there, so I’m picturing you all in your underwear if that’s—’

‘Dr McDonald?’ A figure appeared at Callum’s shoulder, green plastic apron pulled on over a smart dark-grey suit. Half of his face was hidden behind a surgical mask, but there was no mistaking the voice or sticky-out ears. Detective Chief Inspector Powel. ‘They’re ready for you.’

Alice the weirdo waved at him. ‘Hello, Reece, I was just admiring Callum’s mummies, aren’t they great, did you ever watch Boris Karloff when you were little?’

He barely inclined his head. ‘DC MacGregor. I thought they were supposed to fire you this morning?’

‘Nope.’ Callum leaned against the cutting table. ‘You’ll just have to try a little harder next time you fit me up.’

Powel cricked his head to one side, then back again — like a boxer getting ready to fight. Then turned back to the professional nutjob in pink. ‘Professor Twining’s ready to begin, so if you want to come have a look before we take the feet out of their shoes...?’