Marion Lennox: The Police Doctor’s Secret

‘As you say.’ Alistair’s anger was palpable. He climbed from the Land Cruiser and she could see it was all he could do not to slam the door. ‘The local policeman-Barry-is out with the searchers. I’ll introduce you to him later. Meanwhile can I show you to your quarters? Do you want dinner?’

‘I want to see the pilot first,’ she told him. ‘I’m here because this case is urgent. Let’s treat it like that.’

‘Fine by me.’

The morgue was at the rear of the hospital, but even the morgue wasn’t an unpleasant place to be. The high windows were open and the sound of the sea pervaded-the wash of surf from around the headland. Smells in morgues were unmistakeable and unavoidable, but the salt air was giving the antiseptic, clinical morgue atmosphere a run for its money.

‘Do you want to change your clothes?’ Alistair asked shortly, and Sarah shook her head.

‘Let me see him first. Then I’ll put on overalls.’

‘Fine.’ They were being scrupulously polite. Alistair cast her a glance that said he still didn’t really believe she was a pathologist, but he walked forward and pulled out the drawer containing the body.

Sarah didn’t move. She’d learned not to.

Her first task was to stand back and get an overall impression. Things were easier that way. If you glanced at someone you got an initial impression that might be superseded later by close examining. But often that impression was right. Age. Background. Where he’d fitted into life.

Jake Condor, his passport said. Aged thirty-eight. That fitted. He looked thirty-eight.

He looked like a schmuck.

He was a pilot, but he didn’t look anything like the pilot she’d just flown with on the way here. He was dressed in blue jeans, with elastic-sided boots that shone with almost astonishing brightness. His jeans were of the far-too-tight variety-designed for maximum impact on the opposite sex. Jeans like that never had the desired effect, Sarah thought, but she knew plenty of guys who wore them. They were the sort of guy who’d try to pick you up and react with total disbelief when turned down.

It was a lot to extrapolate from one pair of jeans, but Sarah was accustomed to forming impressions fast. Sometimes those impressions helped.

What else? A T-shirt with a slogan on it for some Thai beer. Interesting. That T-shirt had definitely come from overseas and it looked new. It fitted with what she’d been told.

The man had tattoos running down arms that were a bit too thin. His arms had been brawny when the tattoos had been applied, she thought. That dragon had definitely shrunk.

He was wearing a Rolex watch. Real? Maybe.

He was wearing something else that caught her attention. She walked around the table to see the leather pouch attached to his belt and glanced back at Alistair. ‘It looks like a gun holster. Was there a gun?’

‘No. We looked. When we saw the holster Barry did a thorough search of the plane, but there was nothing.’

‘You did check the body for bullet holes?’

‘We checked,’ he said wryly. ‘It seemed sensible.’

She nodded, moving on. The man was clean-shaven. Deeply tanned. A bit…oily, she thought. She walked forward and sniffed and was rewarded by the scent of cheap after-shave.

And his hair… His hair was horrid. It was long, black, and curling in oily strands to his shoulders. It looked as if it had been hauled back in a too tight ponytail and then released. Maybe that had happened in the accident?

His hairline was receding. Balding with a ponytail. Not Sarah’s favourite look.

‘He looks like a right Casanova,’ Alistair said, and she glanced up at him again, surprised in a way that he was still here. Work had the capacity to block out all else. It had always been that way and was her saving grace.

A right Casanova. Yeah. ‘You have that impression, too?’

‘He looks a type.’

‘We learn not to make judgements,’ she said, in a voice that was too prim, and she surprised a smile out of him.

‘I thought your job was all about judgements.’

‘In the face of evidence.’ She moved so she could see the man’s face from both sides. ‘That bump didn’t kill him.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought so. He looks like he’s got a broken nose. The guys who reached the plane first wiped him off, trying to see if there was any sign of life, but it’s bled.’

She glanced down at the T-shirt and nodded. The beer slogan was spattered. Okay. He’d been hit on the nose in the crash and then he bled. It meant that he’d still been alive when the plane hit. She looked more closely at the nose. Surely after a bump like that it should have bled more?

It wouldn’t have bled if the heart had stopped pumping. Death must have been fast.

‘Mmm.’ She wasn’t moving him-still simply looking. ‘Is there any damage to the back of his head?’

‘Not that I can see. I had a good look when we put him on the stretcher to bring him in.’

‘And you said there are no needle tracks?’ She was looking closely now at the man’s forearms. Not touching. Just looking. ‘If he was a user he’d have signs.’

‘I didn’t find syringe marks, though they wouldn’t necessarily be obvious if he had only an occasional hit.’

‘That makes less sense. An occasional user taking that amount when he was in control of the plane? He’d have to have been suicidal.’ She stared down at the man on the table and came to a decision. Pushing her curls back from her face, she straightened. Moved right into work mode. ‘Do you have a decent camera?’ she asked. ‘One that can do close-ups?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then can you show me where to change and then fetch the camera while I prepare?’ she asked. ‘I want to go in.’

‘You mean, perform an autopsy? Here?’

‘I know it’s not perfect,’ she told him. ‘I’d far rather take him back to Cairns and do it where I have specialist equipment. But I do know how to do an autopsy without destroying evidence, and if you’re willing to stay present all the time and document as I go then I’ll do it now.’

‘Why?’

‘Because why he died will be tied up with the missing people,’ she told him. ‘It has to be. If there’s injured people missing we may well be running out of time, Alistair. I assume that’s why you called me in instead of sending the body out? I agree. It’s important. So let’s move.’

He gazed at her and she gazed back, unflinching. She was right and he knew it.

There was nothing for it.

He moved.

It had been years since Alistair had performed an autopsy. If there was a coroner’s inquest required, Dolphin Cove’s deceased were generally moved to Cairns for examination, which suited Alistair fine. He didn’t miss the experience one bit. This community was tight knit, the line between patient and friend in this remote place always blurred, and to do an autopsy on a friend was unthinkable.

But back in basic training he’d learned to do them. He knew the rules, which were even more important if there was a hint of foul play. Still, he was more than happy to let Sarah take centre stage. She knew her stuff and, dressed for work, looked every bit the efficient pathologist. Enveloped in white overalls and white rubber boots, with her flaming hair tucked tightly under a surgical cap and her face masked for good measure, she almost wasn’t Sarah.

Only those speaking eyes stayed with him. Alistair operated the camera and took notes as she dictated, moving with Sarah every step of the way, but he was so aware of those eyes…

Where had she learned these skills?

Why had she decided on pathology?

What a waste, he thought suddenly, remembering how he’d first seen her. She’d been at the huge city children’s hospital, where she’d started her paediatric training.