Kershaw’s face remained stony, but his cheeks paled a shade. They worked in silence for the next few minutes, until it was time to open the last corpse bag. The sound of the zip was loud in the former gymnasium.
“Wait a minute, someone’s playing silly buggers.” Finch checked the accompanying file again. “This is not a woman who has been in the ground for thirty years.” He shone his torch down, puzzled. “Furthermore, this is not a woman. She possesses what those of us in advanced medicine refer to as a willy.” He tapped Kershaw’s clipboard. “Show me Bryant’s signature. I hate to say it, but he doesn’t normally make mistakes of this kind.” Finch switched to a second pair of spectacles and examined the writing. “It’s a perfect facsimile, but this is too steady to be Arthur’s hand.”
“What do you think’s happened?” asked Kershaw, puzzled.
“Something rather nasty, I fear. This isn’t the kind of mistake that happens anymore. As you get older, you become more suspicious. I think our Mr Kasavian is chasing an accusation of negligent procedure, and is tipping the scales in his favour. The trouble is, when men in unassailable positions start taking the law into their own hands, nobody is safe anymore.”
“You mean he deliberately forged an approval slip on the wrong body?” asked Kershaw. “What can we do?” Nothing in his training had allowed for such a situation, but Finch had seen all kinds of cover-ups after the war, when so many bodies had lain unidentified and unclaimed.
“Give me the file.” Finch tore the exhumation order into pieces and dropped it into his lab coat pocket. “We have to get the body put back at once. It was never here, you understand? There are a couple of people I trust at University College Hospital. I’ll make the call, wait for them, and clean everything up here. Time is of the essence. If I was Kasavian, I’d send someone around to check that we took the samples.”
“But your friends, how will they know where to – ”
“Stop worrying, Mr Kershaw. As far as you’re concerned, all three cadavers came from the same site – I’ll reassign the paperwork. Two DNA samples will be enough to bear out Bryant’s theory, but I bet we’ll need a confirming third in court. I’m sure Kasavian will be counting on something like that.”
“Mr Bryant will really appreciate what you’ve done for him tonight,” said Kershaw admiringly.
“I’m not doing it for him,” Finch snapped. “I won’t have skulduggery of any kind in my mortuary. A medical examiner builds his entire career on absolute truths, and I will not be derailed from this path in my final moments.” As he drew himself upright, he was filled with the ideals of his youth. For a moment the years dropped away, and Kershaw glimpsed the determined young scientist inside.
? Ten Second Staircase ?
37
Loneliness
It was the first time Detective Sergeant Janice Longbright had gone out in public without make-up since John Lennon was shot. In a world of fleeting fads, she was a benchmark of consistency, wearing her mother’s lipstick and the kind of wired undergarments that narrowed her waist and accentuated her bust to the point of altering her uniform into fetishwear. She was used to spending two hours in wardrobe and make-up listening to old Beverly Sisters albums before venturing out. Now, as she approached the grey concrete box of the community hall in cheap sweatpants, uncombed hair, a hooded top, and trainers, she felt perversely conspicuous. Through the rainsmeared glass of the small, grimly overlit hall, she could see nearly twenty people slumped in orange plastic chairs waiting for the meeting to begin.
Nobody noticed as she entered and took her place at the rear of the room. She discreetly examined the audience. Most were kids in their early to mid teens. No adults were present. Longbright wondered how they could have been coerced into attendance.
Brilliant Kingsmere made his appearance with a theatricality that suited his Christian name, appearing onstage apparently from nowhere. Watching him stride confidently towards the only upholstered swivel chair in the room, she knew he would use the kind of Blairite semantics that designated males and females alike as
“I see we have some new faces in tonight, which is good,” Kingsmere began, his eyes lingering on her. Longbright looked down at the dowdy trainers with which she had replaced her heels and willed herself to become invisible.
“Last week we were discussing the unfairness of branding lawbreakers as criminals,” said Kingsmere. “If you remember, we decided that it’s quite normal for us to conduct some form of illegal activity as we grow up, and that sometimes it’s the only way we can develop certain skills. In particular, we talked about the territorial problems that have arisen lately from fixing the aerial for a pirate radio station on the roof of the estate’s central block.
“You know, few people in authority consider the amount of hard work that goes into making a living, even when it’s something that’s considered illegal. Let me give you some examples. In 1703, a young man named George Psalmanazar made a fortune by translating the catechism into Japanese for the Bishop of London. Actually, he didn’t speak any Japanese at all, but was such a highly talented linguist that he fooled everyone. In 1993, currency dealer Nick Leeson, a twenty-six-year-old plasterer’s son, destroyed the venerable British institution Barings Bank by losing eight hundred fifty million pounds of their money. Both men worked hard for superiors who were blinded by ambition. Which raises the question: How much blame should be shouldered by those in positions of power when they turn a blind eye to the ways in which money is made? If your radio station attracts lots of listeners and enriches their lives, why should you be arrested for running it? And how can you make real money legitimately? Let’s start by working out how far each of you would be prepared to go, in order to get the things you want. When does it become a good idea to break the law?”
At first she had thought that this lecture on morals was aiming too far above their heads, but the audience quickly responded. She watched and listened as Kingsmere carefully drew experiences from even the surliest attendees. The spirited argument that followed provided the teacher with all the information he needed. At one point he began blatantly making notes on each of the speakers. Longbright knew she was the oldest person in the room, and wondered how long it would be before he picked on her. He was working his way between the rows of chairs, heading her way.
Kingsmere’s lecture was interrupted by the arrival of four smart schoolboys in St Crispin’s blazers. The teacher looked up in clear discomfort. “This isn’t your class,” he told them.
“No, sir,” said Billings, who looked smaller and more ratlike than ever. “We heard you were here and thought you wouldn’t mind us sitting in.” The boys quietly arranged themselves in the front row, acting as a barrier between their master and the rest of the room.
Longbright caught up with the St Crispin’s boys as they left the hall. They regarded her with the usual suspicion created by the age gap that stood between them. But Longbright had inherited her mother’s ability to hold the attention of any male whatever the age difference, and used it shamelessly now, questioning the boys about the school and their teacher as she walked back across the rainy quadrangle.
“He’s a good guy,” said the pustular Parfitt. “He doesn’t just recite stuff from set text. He makes you think in a moral dimension. He tells us there are no clear-cut answers, then gets us to make up our own minds.”
“Sounds like he wouldn’t be very popular with the school authorities,” said Longbright.
“St Crispin’s is a progressive school,” Billings pointed out. “But he wants his ideas to go wider. That’s why he
