‘Chris?’ she called as he headed down the hallway.
‘What?’
‘There’s… could you just…’
‘What’s up, Maya? Hurry up, love, I’m starving.’
‘Nothing. It’s okay. I’m coming.’
She shook her head, ridding herself of the ridiculous notion that something was wrong. Her mother, Dominique, was always accusing her of having an overactive imagination. She’d already made one huge, wrong assumption today and she wasn’t going to allow herself to succumb to any more.
Maya took one last look at the body bag and concluded it was probably just the shock of dealing with her first sudden death. After all, there was no sign of a disturbance or that anything untoward had happened. Chris had agreed with her on that, and he had years of experience to fall back on. The post-mortem would help to ascertain the cause of death and would reveal any cause for concern.
If the death was deemed to be suspicious then the scene would be examined with a fine-tooth comb, and any latent clues would inevitably be uncovered. Otherwise, the stepping plates would be removed, the scene closed, and the house would be secured until the next of kin or council arranged for the property to be emptied.
Knowing that Gorman had been a rapist and prolific criminal, Maya found she had little sympathy for his untimely death, whatever the circumstances. He was dead, but he was no loss to anyone. Perhaps she would have felt differently if he had been a well-liked family man. Now she was over the initial shock of having dealt with the scene, she was emotionally indifferent. Karl Gorman meant nothing to her other than being her first dead body.
Turning to follow Chris down the hall, she thought of what the mortuary would have in store for her. She shuddered at Chris’s comment about being in the splash zone. The earlier trepidation began to resurface, and her stomach lurched unpleasantly. Getting hands-on with her first dead body was one thing, but she couldn’t begin to imagine what it was going to be like watching Karl Gorman’s body being sliced open and ripped apart.
3
Maya slept restlessly as the images played out in front of her. In the mortuary, Karl Gorman’s post-mortem was no longer a challenge to be faced, but a stark reality. Disturbingly, Gorman was still alive as the oblivious pathologist sliced into him. The sound of Gorman’s screams mingled with the shriek of the Stryker saw, which was used to remove the top of the skull. The mortician had wielded it effortlessly, as if removing the top of a boiled egg with a teaspoon.
Maya shuddered as each of the organs grew legs and scuttled away, crab-like, from the weighing scales on which they had been placed. As much as she was desperate to, Maya couldn’t turn away as the horrific images unfolded. Gorman’s unblinking eye remained fixed on her. As unyielding in the mortuary as they had been when she first discovered him in the kitchen. She was about to cry out with shock when thankfully her radio alarm chirruped into life. The dream gradually evaded her, flitting back to the recesses of her subconscious.
The nightmare of Gorman’s post-mortem had been far more disturbing than the real thing, which she had found fascinating. It had been a surreal experience. The only real discomfort had been caused by standing for over four hours as she watched the post-mortem unfold. Doctor Granger had eventually concluded that Gorman’s death was due to sudden arrhythmic cardiac death, caused by chronic alcohol misuse. Toxicology samples had been taken, but it would be several weeks before the results would be analysed and returned.
Satisfied that there was no foul play surrounding Gorman’s death, DI Redford had agreed that the crime scene could be released. Doctor Granger had concluded that when Gorman’s head hit the kitchen table, it caused the gash above his eye to reopen. He echoed Chris’s earlier thoughts, surmising that Gorman’s drinking had accelerated the blood loss from the wound due to alcohol thinning the blood. It had been fascinating to watch the pathologist at work, but once the adrenaline rush of her first death had faded, Maya felt utterly drained and fatigued.
Chris had been right about the post-mortem making him hungry. Maya had been ravenous herself when they left the mortuary. They had managed to call at the Chinese takeaway near Beech Field just before it closed and had ordered a ridiculous amount of food between them, which to her surprise, they had managed to eat. As always, the ride home on her motorbike offered its usual cathartic release as the wind whipped past her as she opened up the throttle on the quiet dual carriageway.
It had been late by the time she got back to her apartment. She had been struck with how the familiarity of her home suddenly felt alien. Although everything was the same as it had been when she had left for work, in the aftermath of the day’s events she almost felt like she didn’t fit in her surroundings. It was a similar feeling to when she had returned from holiday. Although it felt good to be home, it always took her a day to settle back into her own environment.
The anticlimax had made her restless despite her tiredness. She had stood under the shower for an age. The zesty aroma of her shower gel championed the lingering smell of the mortuary and Karl Gorman’s festering house. Lying in bed, Maya marvelled at the day’s experience.
The relief she felt at having coped with her first body was palpable. After all, it was one thing longing to do a job, but quite another to be able to cope with it. She had come back from training and only been working in her new office for four weeks when the Karl Gorman job had come in. With her first death and post-mortem out of the way, Maya was eager for more experience.
Since being at Beech Field, she had not yet settled in with her new team. She
