the cost of a single investigation can take up a tenth of an area’s annual budget. The Serious Organised Crime Agency is planning to use the National Intelligence model to coordinate cross-agency operations for now, but their long-term plan is to consolidate all specialist units with the minimum of disruption. I hardly need outline the benefits; an end to so-called blue on blue clashes, and a huge financial saving for the government. It is imperative, therefore, that we arrange for the PCU to be closed down. And to do that, we must remove its senior detectives. The problem is that they command a certain amount of respect amongst older law enforcement officials, so they must be quickly discredited.”
“Mr Bryant and Mr May are entirely decent men,” said Land. “Their intentions are honest, if a little misguided.”
“Come on, Mr Land, you can’t have it both ways.” When Oskar Kasavian hooded his eyes at the subject of his attention, it was as though steel shutters had slammed down, screening off the weaknesses of the human heart. “You described specific instances of their incompetence to Mr Faraday
Now that he was finally getting what he had wished for, Raymond Land started to have doubts. If Kasavian could so quickly agree to dismissing two senior members of the force, he would easily turn his attention to others. But it was too late; the wheels of Whitehall were slow to grind forward, but once started would not be stopped.
? Ten Second Staircase ?
19
Arrhythmia
It was cold enough to condense breath in the converted school gymnasium, and that was how Oswald Finch liked it. Some nights he worked until his fingers and nose turned blue. The lower half of the room was below the level of the street, and remained cool until the two sticky months of the English summer, when everything, including Oswald, started to smell bad. Where climbing frames had once stood against the tall, narrow windows, there were now six body lockers. The sprung wooden basketball floor had been covered with carpet tiles that retained the acrid reek of spray bleach.
“Are you still here?” asked Bryant, leaning in the doorway. “I thought you’d have gone by now.”
“How can I, when you keep sending me bodies?” Finch complained. “Raymond Land refuses to accept my resignation, says it will have to wait for a few weeks while he’s sorting something out. It’s unfair, keeping me at my post like this. Do you have any idea how long it takes me to get up in the morning? If I’d known it would get so difficult to tie my laces, I’d have bulk-bought elastic-sided shoes back in the fifties.”
“Come on, I know there’s nothing you’d rather be doing than opening up a cadaver. It’s unnatural, but nothing to be ashamed of. I see you’ve got Danny Martell on the slab. What have you found for me?”
“Someone should run statistics on how many television comedians suffer untimely deaths.” Finch prised open a fatty yellow flap of chest flesh and peered inside, wrinkling his long nose. “They seem to peg out at an earlier age than the rest of us, and in more unusual ways.”
“Not strictly true,” said Bryant. “Look at Bruce Forsyth. He’ll live forever, or at least his wig will. For most celebrities, the trick is surviving the scrutiny of the gutter press.”
“If you make a deal with the devil you must expect to be damned,” said Finch gloomily. “This man Martell – his body was not in good shape. Take a look.” He unfurled another section of the black micromesh Mylar sheet from his dissection tray and revealed the bloated corpse of the entertainer in full. “This is what years of fast food, high stress, and sitting in cars shouting at the traffic does to you. That’s not a liver, it’s low-grade foie gras. To be honest, I only opened him up out of nosiness; a first-week intern could look at his face and say what caused his death.” Finch tapped the chest with the car antenna he used as an indicator. “Dicky pump. His valves are leaky, his pipes are furred, his blood’s virtually all fat. He’s suffering from arteriosclerosis, so I’m looking at ventricular fibrillation that went into a fatal heart attack. But then I have to add the witness reports about this so-called lightning flash. Did they really see some kind of electrical pulse strike Martell?”
“I wondered if it might have been the reflection of a distant lightning strike on the window of the apartment,” said Bryant. “That would have been an easy mistake to make. The storm looked close but had no accompanying thunderclap, because the real distance was greater.”
“But if it
“We considered that,” said Bryant, “but Banbury failed to find anything on his initial examination of the room. None of the equipment is operated electrically. Nautilus weight-lifting equipment is based on mechanical leverage. There are a couple of wall plugs for vacuum cleaners, but they have safety caps that haven’t been touched in a couple of days.”
“I can only tell you what killed him, Arthur, not how it was done.” Finch folded the fatty flaps of Martell’s chest shut like the curtains of a toy theatre. “It wouldn’t take a very powerful electrical device, just one with an alternating current. You can survive a low DC; it’s AC you have to watch out for.”
“There was nothing in the room, Oswald,” Bryant insisted.
“Then I’m afraid there’s something you’ve missed,” replied the pathologist. “How are you getting on with White?”
“It seems increasingly likely that Calvin Burroughs was the father of her child, but it’s too early to say for sure.” Bryant sniffed the air. “If you let me smoke my pipe in here, it would get rid of the ghastly smell.”
“This is meant to be a sealed sterile area. You are not allowed to smoke your disgusting Old Navy Rough Cut Sailors’ Shag in here. I found fag ash in my body tray last week and knew it was you.”
“I mix it with eucalyptus leaves. It’s medicinal.” Bryant picked up a pair of steel rib-cutters. “Can I borrow these? I’m thinking of having a barbeque at the weekend.”
“Just leave things alone.” Finch snatched the instrument from him. “If you really want to help, get me Giles Kershaw as an assistant.”
Bryant smiled slyly. “Will you stay if I do?”
The ancient pathologist went to wash his hands at the sink. “I’ll think about it,” he said, making a bear- catching-salmon motion that told Bryant the water was too hot. “But things will have to improve around here,” he added, shaking off water.
“Then I’ll have a word with Raymond.” Bryant tipped his head back at Martell’s corpse. “The zips on his tracksuit top were welded shut, by the way.”
“They were?” Finch looked up, amazed. “Why didn’t anyone tell me this?”
“You complained about bodies arriving with their clothes on.”
“You remember those two Japanese ladies who sheltered under a tree in Hyde Park during a thunderstorm? They were struck by lightning, and their zip fasteners melted. Judging from the marks on Martell’s wrists, it sounds like the same thing. That changes everything. All you have to do now is find out how it was done.”
“On the case, old sausage,” said Bryant, slipping the rib-cutters into his overcoat pocket and sauntering from
