Simon Beckett - Whispers of the Dead

‘And what about Hicks?’ I asked.

Paul’s expression hardened. ‘Hicks can go to hell.’

It was obvious he was in no mood to make concessions. The pathologist and Gardner would find him very different to work with from Tom, I thought.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Shall I carry on reassembling the exhumed remains?’

‘Leave them for now. Gardner wants to confirm whether or not the bones from the woods are Willis Dexter’s. Summer’s made a start on unpacking them, so that’s our priority for the moment.’

I turned to go, but then remembered what I wanted to ask. ‘Mary said Tom tried to tell her something earlier. She said it sounded like “Spanish”. Does that mean anything to you?’

‘Spanish?’ Paul looked blank. ‘Doesn’t ring any bells.’

I went to get changed after that. Paul had to go to an emergency faculty meeting, but said he’d be back as soon as he could. Summer was already in the autopsy suite where the remains from Steeple Hill had been taken, unpacking the last of the evidence bags from their boxes.

Somehow I wasn’t surprised to find Kyle helping her.

Engrossed in their conversation, neither of them heard me enter. ‘Hi,’ I said.

Summer gave a cry and spun round, almost dropping the bag she’d just picked up. ‘Omigod!’ she gasped, sagging with relief when she saw it was me.

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.’

She managed a shaky smile. Her face looked tearstained and blotchy under the bleached hair.

‘That’s OK. I didn’t hear you. Kyle was just lending a hand.’

The morgue assistant looked embarrassed but pleased with himself.

‘How’s it going, Kyle?’

‘Oh, pretty good.’ He waggled his gloved hand, the one he’d spiked on the needle. ‘Healed up nicely.’

If the needle had been infected it wouldn’t matter whether the wound was healed or not. But he’d be well enough aware of that himself. If he wanted to put on a brave face then I’d no intention of spoiling it.

‘Summer was telling me about Dr Lieberman,’ he said. ‘How is he?’

‘He’s stable.’ It sounded better than saying there was no change.

Summer looked as though she might cry. ‘I wish I could have done more.’

‘You did great,’ Kyle assured her, his round face earnest. ‘I’m sure he’s going to be OK.’

Summer gave him a tremulous smile. He returned it, then remembered I was still there.

‘Well, uh, I suppose I ought to get on. See you later, Summer.’

Her smile grew more dimpled. ‘Bye, Kyle.’

Well, well. Perhaps something good might come out of this after all.

After he’d gone Summer seemed listless, without her usual exuberance as we finished unpacking the remains.

‘Kyle’s right. It’s lucky you were here last night,’ I told her.

The overhead lights glinted on her piercings as she shook her head. ‘I didn’t do anything. I feel like I should have done something more. CPR, or something.’

‘You got him to hospital in time. That’s the main thing.’

‘I hope so. He seemed fine, you know? A little tired, perhaps, but that’s all. He joked about buying me pizza to make up for keeping me late.’ The ghost of a smile flickered across her face. ‘When it got to ten o’clock he told me to go home. He said he wanted to check something before he left himself.’

I felt my curiosity stir. ‘Did he say what?’

‘No, but I guessed it was something to do with the remains from the cabin. I went to change and was on my way out when I heard his cell phone ring. You know that corny old ringtone he has?’

Tom would have had a few choice words to say at hearing Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take Five’ described as ‘corny’. But I just nodded.

‘I didn’t take much notice, but then there was this sudden crash from the autopsy suite. I ran in and found him on the floor.’ She gave a sniff and quickly wiped her eyes. ‘I dialled 911 and then held his hand and talked to him until the paramedics arrived. Telling him he was going to be all right, you know? I’m not sure he could hear me, but that’s what you’re supposed to do, isn’t it?’

‘You did well,’ I reassured her. ‘Was he conscious?’

‘Not really, but he wasn’t completely out. He kept saying his wife’s name, like he was worried about her. I thought perhaps he didn’t want her to be upset when she found out, so I told him I’d call her. I thought it might be better coming from me than the hospital.’

‘I’m sure Mary appreciated it,’ I said, although I knew that sort of news was never welcome, no matter who it came from.

Summer gave another sniff and wiped her nose. A little of her bleached hair had come loose from its Alice band, making her look younger than she was.

‘I put his glasses and cell phone in a cupboard above the workbench in your autopsy suite. I hope that’s OK; they were on the floor and I didn’t know what else to do with them.’

I was about to say that I’d make sure Mary got them, but then her words registered. ‘You mean they were on the floor in my autopsy suite?’

‘That’s right. Didn’t I say? That’s where Dr Lieberman collapsed.’

‘What was he doing in there?’ I’d assumed Tom had been in his own autopsy suite when he’d had the heart attack.

‘I don’t know. Is it important?’ she asked, looking worried.

I assured her that it wasn’t. Even so, I was puzzled. Tom had been reassembling Terry Loomis’s skeleton. Why would he have broken off to check on the exhumed remains?

The question continued to nag me as we took the skull and other bones from the cemetery to be X-rayed, but it was another hour before I had a chance to do anything about it. Leaving Summer to make a start on cleaning the remains, I went to see where Tom had collapsed.

The suite looked exactly as I’d left it. Only the skull and larger bones were set out on the examination table; the rest were still waiting their turn in plastic boxes nearby. I stood there for a while, trying to tell if anything had been moved or changed. But if it had I couldn’t see it.

I went over to the cupboard where Summer had left Tom’s glasses and phone. The glasses looked both familiar and forlorn without their owner. Or perhaps I was just colouring them with my own emotions.

I slipped them into my top pocket and was about to do the same with the phone when something occurred to me. I paused, feeling its weight in my hand as I tried to decide if what I had in mind was too much of an invasion of privacy.

That all depends what you find.

The phone had been left on overnight, but it still had plenty of power. It didn’t take long to find where incoming numbers were stored. The most recent had been logged at 22.03 the previous night, just as Summer had said.

The same time as Tom’s heart attack.

I told myself that it could be a coincidence, that the two events might not be connected. Still, there was only one way to find out.

The number was from a landline with a local Knoxville code. I keyed it into my own phone. I had enough doubts about what I was doing as it was without using Tom’s. Even then I still hesitated. You might as well try it. You’ve come this far.

I rang the number.

There was a pause, then the engaged tone sounded in my ear. With a sense of anticlimax I rang off and left it a minute before trying again. This time I was connected. My pulse quickened as I waited for someone to answer.

But no one did. The phone rang on and on, repeating itself with monotonous regularity. Finally accepting that no one was going to pick up, I broke the connection.

There were any number of reasons why the line should have been busy one minute and unanswered the next. The person at the other end might have gone out, or decided to ignore an unknown caller. It was useless speculating.