Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

That got her a smile.

The biscuit disappeared in two bites, to be followed by a crumb-spilling sigh. ‘Don’t suppose your IT guru has come up with anything, has he, Ash?’

‘Says he’s got locations for most of the photographs, but no IDs yet.’

The smile faded away. ‘The universe hates me, doesn’t it?’

A voice, from over by the main doors: ‘Evenin’ all.’ A middle-aged man scuffed into the mortuary, headphones around his neck, hair scraped back in a thinning ponytail that exposed about sixty percent of his shiny head, a greying beard trimmed to within an inch of its death. All done up in pale-blue hospital scrubs, backpack slung over one shoulder. ‘DI Henderson! As I live and breathe.’

‘Alf.’

He nodded his head towards the closed office door. ‘The Prof here yet, or do I have time to nip out for a fag?’

And right on cue: Teabag emerged, having changed into a rustling white Tyvek oversuit, white wellies, and a thick brown rubber apron. ‘Alfred, get scrubbed up: we’re doing a quick surface examination, then I’ve got a dinner party to get back to.’

‘Right you are, Prof.’

‘The rest of you better put on protective gear. Let’s not have a repeat of the Robert Bradbury fiasco.’

We all struggled into disposable SOC suits, finishing off with safety goggles, face masks, blue plastic booties, and purple nitrile gloves. Then joined Alf and Teabag at the central table. All gathered around that bin-bag package like ghosts at the feast.

Alf switched on a big digital camera and took a couple of test shots. ‘All working.’

‘Then I’ll begin.’ Teabag’s scalpel sizzled through the black plastic, opening it up like dark flower petals, exposing the red holdall within as Alf snapped away. ‘Has this been tested for fingerprints, fibres, or DNA?’

Mother shook her head. ‘You always moan when you don’t get first go with remains.’

‘I do not moan. I apply constructive criticism when people don’t prioritise the correct chain of forensic hierarchies.’ He took hold of the zip and pulled. Nothing. Tugged. Still nothing. So he sliced along the stitching next to it instead. Pulled the sides apart.

A dark, leathery smell joined the mortuary’s foul bouquet, tainted with a compost earthiness.

Whatever was in there, it’d been dead a long, long time.

‘Hmm...’ Teabag peered into the slit. ‘Better move this to the end of the table. We’re going to need some room.’

Soon as it was relocated, he reached in and came out with a dirty length of what looked like grey-brown tubing, about an inch and a half wide, maybe fourteen inches long, both ends ragged and chipped. He laid it down on the stainless-steel surface with an audible click, then went back in for another piece of piping with ragged ends — this one thinner and curved — and laid it out near the end of the table, on the opposite side to the first bit.

The next two things were definitely ribs. They got clicked down in the proper anatomical place. Then a pelvis. A shoulder blade. Then what looked like the head of a femur.

‘You can see here, that the remains have been dismembered.’ Turning the smooth head of bone over to expose the ragged end. ‘Probably an axe, going by the fractures and splintering. A saw would leave much cleaner cuts in the bone.’

A radius and ulna were next, both parts of the arm bone cut short and splintered.

‘Your victim was most likely dead at the time, because, let’s face it, dismembering someone with an axe would be fairly difficult if they were still alive. And even if you tried, they wouldn’t be for long.’ Teabag dipped into the bag again and again, humming away to himself as he reassembled a human skeleton on the cutting table in front of us. ‘I know it’s not to everyone’s taste, but I rather enjoy this part. I completely get why people like a good jigsaw puzzle.’

Finally he stepped back, hands on his hips. ‘Well, I can safely say your victim is dead.’

Alf was the only one who laughed at that. But it didn’t sound convincing.

‘As you can see, we’re missing a number of phalanges, mostly distal and middle,’ pointing a purple finger at the body’s hands and feet. ‘Given the body was most likely dismembered to make it fit in the holdall, you wouldn’t need to take the fingers off, would you? So, and this is nothing more than an educated guess, but I think they could’ve been removed before death. Which suggests to me that your victim was murdered.’

If Teabag thought he was getting a round of applause for that, he was in for a disappointment. Not when we had the ‘after’ set of Polaroids.

‘These additional kerf marks on both sets of forearms, thighs, and shins — you see how they’re nowhere near the dismemberment points? And the ones on the skull?’ Pointing at a trio of dark lines carved into the bone above the right eye socket. ‘That makes me suspect they might be ante-mortem too. And then there’s the broken-slash-missing teeth...’

He pinged off his gloves, into an open bin marked ‘MEDICAL WASTE ONLY’. Removed his face mask. ‘Don’t quote me on this, but I think there’s a good chance your victim was tortured quite extensively before they died. Male, five-nine, I can’t speculate on ethnicity before we’ve done DNA testing. And for that, and everything else, you’ll have to wait till tomorrow.’ He took off his thick rubber apron and draped it over one of the empty cutting tables. ‘We start at nine o’clock sharp — you should arrange for a forensic anthropologist to be in attendance. In the meantime, thank you for not asking any stupid questions, and I’m going back to my boeuf bourguignon and friends.’

With that, Teabag marched off into his office, thunking the door shut behind him.

Mother pulled a face. ‘I don’t know about anyone else, but I am now officially gagging for a glass of wine. Rosalind, Ash?’

I pushed away from the dissecting table and its collection of bones. ‘Can’t: pills. Besides, I’ve got a prior appointment...’

I unlocked the front door and hobbled into the flat. Eyes full of grit. My back aching like it’d been holding the world up for two years too long. All that weight pressing down on my shoulders — still aching from trying to haul Nick James up from the abyss...

Come on, Ash, dead was dead. At least you tried .

And failed.

The pair of heavy carrier bags swung in my other hand as I limped down the hall, letting loose the spicy-cumin scent of curry.

‘Hello? You still up?’

No reply.

Was only quarter to ten. Maybe she’d gone out?

‘Alice?’

She was in the living room, slumped at the dining table, with a pile of paperwork, her laptop, and two half-bottles of something the wee off-licence on Shand Street passed off as ‘SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKEY’. One of them was empty, the other heading that way.

I picked it up and screwed the top back on. ‘You have to stop drinking this gut-rot. They can’t even spell “whisky” properly — stuff’s probably fifty-fifty antifreeze and horse piss.’

She raised her head from the table. A big oval red patch where the skin had been pressing into the glass surface. A string of drool still connecting her to it. She blinked puffy bloodshot eyes. Wiped the drool away with the back of her hand. ‘Whhtmsit?’

‘Have you eaten anything, or just drunk yourself into a stupor?’ Thunking the carryout down on the table. ‘Punjabi Castle. Got you a chicken dhansak, coconut rice, saag paneer, onion bhajee, and a heap of poppadoms.’ Voice getting harder and sharper. ‘You want to eat it first, or should I flush the whole lot down the toilet now and save you the effort of vomiting it up?’