Ken McClure - Pandora's Helix

Cooper, a jovial looking man with red hair and freckles was there within five minutes. He wore a royal blue boiler suit, open to the waist, exposing a Fair Isle pattern sweater with a hole in it; he carried a silver metal tool-box. He chatted with the young girl technician at Reception while he waited for Morse to appear. He was telling her that his daughter was about to start out soon on a nursing career, when Morse finally came through the swing doors. “Maybe she’ll be a unit sister one day, like this man’s wife,” he smiled.

“Good of you to come so quickly, Doug,” said Morse. “Come and I’ll show you the problem.”

Morse unlocked the PM suite and clicked on the lights. They stuttered slowly into life and settled down to a constant background hum.

“This place gives me the creeps,” said Cooper as he entered. The uncertainty showed in his step.

“It’s all in the mind,” smiled Morse.

“I suppose you’re right but you can’t help but think what happens on these tables, can you?” Cooper paused by the first one to run his fingers lightly along one of the drainage channels. His eyes strayed to a bank of heavy clasped doors along the far wall. “Is that where you keep them?” he asked, his voice falling to a whisper.

“That’s the body vault,” said Morse. “But nobody’s going to jump out at you, I promise.”

They had reached table four and Morse pointed up at the fan. “That’s the offender,” he said. “It sounds like it’s fouling something and I think there’s a bad electrical connection. It keeps starting and stopping. It annoys the boss; this is his favourite table.”

Cooper gave a look that suggested he couldn’t imagine anyone having such a favourite object. “Do you have step ladders down here?” he asked.

“No, but I’ll get you some. You could always stand on the table if you like?”

Cooper looked down at the metal table with distaste all over his face. “I’d rather not if it’s all the same to you.”

“OK,” smiled Morse. “Won’t be long.”

Cooper looked uncertain at being left alone but managed to smile manfully. He started whistling loudly as soon as Morse was out of sight. He favoured a Beatles selection.

Charlie Morse returned with a small pair of aluminium step ladders and positioned them beside the table. “There you go.”

Cooper took a screw driver from his box and climbed the steps to begin undoing the grill over the fan housing. When he had removed the last of four retaining screws, the grill still refused to budge. He tried using the flat end of the screw driver as a jemmy but found it difficult to insert far enough to get any purchase.

“Problems?” asked Morse.

“Can’t budge it,” replied Cooper.

“Maybe if I supported the grill you could use a hammer on the end of your screwdriver?” suggested Morse.

“Worth a try,” replied Cooper, now grunting with the effort of working with his hands over his head.

Morse found a small ball-pein hammer in Cooper’s box and got up on to the PM table to pass it to him. He stretched up to support the grill; he didn’t want it falling down on the table should it break free. Cooper started tapping with the hammer and managed to insert the end of the screwdriver far enough for him to start using it as a lever. He no longer required the hammer and passed it to Morse who accepted it and stooped down to lay it on the table. As he straightened up to restore support to the grill, he was just too late. The grill, complete with its dirty cowling broke free and fell away, showering both of them with all manner of dirt and dust. As they had been looking upwards at the time, they got it full in the face and started coughing and spluttering. There was so much dirt in his eyes that Morse had to kneel down blindly to find the edge of the table to help him find his way to the floor.

“Sorry about that, Charlie,” said Cooper when he had finally stooped coughing and descended the ladders to join him. “Bloody thing hasn’t been off in years.”

When Cooper had stopped apologising, he burst out laughing and said, “We look like something out of the Black and White Minstrel Show. Remember that?”

Cooper gave an impromptu rendition of Swannee River.

“Very funny. Let’s get cleaned up and then you can get on with it.”

Morse led the way to the changing room adjoining the PM suite and elbowed on the taps. He allowed Cooper to wash first. While Cooper was drying his hands and face he looked at his surroundings. The rows of plastic aprons and Wellington boots put his imagination into overdrive again. His attention was caught by a blackboard on the wall. There were two names written up on it in pale blue chalk.

“Are these the next customers?” he asked Morse.

“Yes,” replied Morse.

“I don’t understand how anyone can do this for a living,” said Cooper, shaking his head. “What a way to spend your life, cutting up dead people.”

“They probably don’t see it that way,” said Morse.

“It’s what they do, isn’t it?”

“It’s what goes on in your head that’s important,” said Morse. “Have you ever heard the story about the three stone masons?”

Cooper shook his head.

“When they were asked what they were doing, one replied, ‘I’m earning a living.’ The second replied, ‘I’m building a wall.’ But the third answered, ‘I’m building a cathedral.’ They were all doing the same job; they just saw it differently. The pathologists here investigate the causes of death and the effects of disease and injury to the body so that medical science can learn from it and hopefully improve things for the rest of us.”

“If you say so, Charlie,” said Cooper with a sigh. “Let’s get back to that fan. The sooner I’m out of here the better.”

Neef woke early on Sunday morning before even Dolly had given him his regular alarm call of a paw in the face. He lay thinking about whether it had been a good idea to have invited Eve Sayers along to the MacSweens before deciding finally that as he’d already done it, there was no point in wondering. He got up and filled the kettle to make coffee before going off in search of Dolly. She tended to sleep in different places around the house. He found her curled up on the settee. There had been a time when Neef had tried to discourage Dolly from sleeping on the furniture but in the end they had come to an arrangement; Dolly slept where she liked. Over the past couple of years Neef had accumulated a wide range of implements for removing cat hair from his clothes.

Dolly opened one eye when Neef stroked her but, seeing it was only him, closed it again. Neef smiled and went off to fill her bowl before making his own coffee and returning to sit in his favourite chair, looking out at the garden. Maybe he’d cut the grass before he went out to lunch. He liked having a garden but didn’t enjoy gardening. He did what was necessary to keep it tidy but that was as far as it went. Luckily there were no neighbours for him to offend when the grass sometimes got more than a little too high. By the same token he could make as much noise as he liked. He could begin cutting grass with a petrol-engined mower at eight on a Sunday morning if the notion took him and it did.

When the mowing was done, Neef changed to using a petrol powered strimmer to attack the long grass where the mower couldn’t reach before finally changing to manual shears to keep the encroaching shrubbery at bay. He was sweating freely by the time he came back indoors and showered leisurely before making himself two slices of toast, two boiled eggs and some more coffee. After this he set about tidying up the house. He usually did this on Sunday morning.

Neef dressed casually in navy slacks and a denim shirt with a cream coloured Arran sweater on top. He picked up Eve at twelve thirty as arranged and discovered that she lived in a well-appointed third floor apartment of a modern block on Durham Road. The walls were plain white with occasional splashes of colour provided by a series of modern prints which Neef found difficult to decipher as anything other than splashes of colour. He was no great fan of modern art. There were two black leather sofas facing each other on opposite sides of an Adam style fireplace, hosting a living flame gas fire and each had a small table alongside with identical ceramic lamps standing on them. The main carpet was cream and there were three strategically placed rugs of North African origin. Neef guessed at Tunisia because of the blue element in them. French windows led out to a small balcony where four slow-growing conifers braved the elements from terra cotta pots.