I shrugged. “Meredith’s probably got the longest missing one in his files. You’d better ask Wren.”
Loomis nodded and blew smoke out towards the water. We were standing behind a glass shelter a little back from the dock. The light had faded, and everything around was taking on the grey colour of the canvas bundles. “Better phone him. If I know Ralph, he won’t have anything to do with this side of things.”
“Frank Parker said he was a good man, Wren.”
“He is. Good desk man. Tireless. D’you want a smoke?”
“No, thanks. Have you got a bucket on you?”
Loomis laughed. “Some tough guy.”
But an hour later it was me who was standing inside the room where the bundles had been unwrapped and Inspector Loomis who was away some-where retching his guts up.
The pathologist, Dr Carstairs, was a slim, handsome type who looked too young to be having anything to do with death. That impression vanished as soon as he opened his mouth; his voice was rough-edged and unemotional. “Get cracking, Mr Bennett.”
Carstairs buttoned up his white coat and pulled on rubber gloves. His assistant, evidently named Bennett, did the same, and Carstairs signalled to him to use bolt cutters on the chain and a knife on the stitching of the canvas. The bundles had been neatly sewn along one side in big, strong stitches. “No telling,” Carstairs said. “Gas from the bodies is the story here. Could swell up and burst, in which case you’ll have guts and muck all over the place, or it could go the other way-gas could be absorbed and the body would shrivel.”
Loomis nodded, still very tough. “What decides that, doctor?”
“State of the body when living-age, condition, last meal and manner of death.”
The assistant was still working on the chains. Nothing yet. “What are the chances of identification in both cases?” I said.
“Difficult, either way. Not like with a buried corpse. There, as you’d know, inspector, the bacteria in the earth get to work and you get putrefaction pretty quickly, and destruction of the tissue. Lots of crawly things around to help. Here, you’ll get preservation of the tissue because the only active bacteria are in the body. But there’ll be mould and such. Parts of the face could stick to the canvas. We’ll see.”
Bennett got the chains off and went to work on the stitching. The bundles were lying on two wide, metal tables which were already awash with water and other matter leaking from inside. The room we were in had a concrete floor and bare walls, artificial light. It smelled strongly of disinfectant, which was starting to be overlain by the smell of sea water and something else. Bennett cut the stitches of each bundle in turn and pulled aside the seam on the first.
The creature inside looked like a mummy, scarcely larger than child-size. It was naked, shrunken and a greeny-black colour. There was no hair on its head. As the pathologist had predicted, parts of the flesh seemed to have formed a mould on the canvas and came away when the material was pulled back. An exposed shoulder bone was white.
“Jesus,” Loomis said. “He looks a hundred years old.”
Carstairs nodded. “Absorption of the gas, as I said. Wasn’t young when he died. Bald, stooped possibly, arthritic, I’d say…”He leaned over and peered closely at the shrunken head and the clawlike hands. He straightened up and looked at me. “Dentition intact and a ring on the third finger of the left hand. Shouldn’t be too much trouble with identification.”
I nodded. I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or alarmed that the corpse bore no possible resemblance to Brian Madden. Before we moved on to the next one I noticed that the fingernails and toenails on the shrivelled body were long and curling.
“Doctor Carstairs?” Bennett said. He’d pulled back part of the canvas and stopped. There was a smell now, all right-of old meat and old milk and rotten eggs and everything else bad you can think of. Carstairs waved to Bennett to continue and he tugged the canvas apart. The mess was like a dozen or more squirming, green-black, half-skinned rabbits. The corpse had ruptured and the organs were splattered around and twisted together. The man had been big; his limbs and torso were still sufficiently defined to be able to see that, and he had a massive head which lolled drunkenly as if it had been half-wrenched from the shoulders.
“Broken neck,” Carstairs said, “and massive gas formation in the gut. Mr Loomis…?”
But Loomis had run for the door, his shoulders heaving. Carstairs looked at the closing door with amusement. I looked up at the ceiling and drew a breath. This wasn’t Madden either. “This is the best argument I’ve ever seen for cremation,” I said.
Carstairs snorted as we watched Bennett resume snipping. “You seem remarkably composed, Mr…?”
“Hardy. I can stand it. I’ve seen the insides of men before, doctor. I’ve seen them holding themselves together, literally.”
“Ah, a soldier. Tell me, which is worse. This or combat wounds?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s all bad.”
“That one had been in the water longest, at a guess. It’s going to be very interesting sorting all this out. We have a serial killer here, do we?”
“Yes. Pretty unusual.”
Carstairs examined the black tongue protruding from the crazily-angled head. “Here it is, yes. I spent a couple of years in New York. Different story there.”
The next corpse was intact and less shrivelled than the first, though it had gone through the same process. The legs were drawn up towards the abdomen and the arms had locked in a rigid position across the chest. Naked and green-black like the others, Brian Madden had for some reason retained more dignity. Under the harsh light his body looked like a three-dimensional rubbing taken from the tomb of a mediaeval saint. The wet, matted hair lay on the skull like a metal cap; his eyes were closed and his mouth had set in a line that was almost a smile.
“How did he die, doctor?”
Carstairs ran his eye over the body. “Can’t say. No obvious signs of violence. Time will tell. You’re going?”
I was on my way to the door. “I said I could stand it. I didn’t say I enjoyed it.”
I rang Louise Madden in Leura and told her that I’d found her father, and how and where.
I had to wait a long time before she responded. “How did he die, Mr Hardy?”
“We don’t know. All I can tell you is that there were no signs of violence on the body. We’ll have to wait. I would’ve come to see you, but there’s no time.”
“What do you mean?”
“This’ll be a big story. No way of avoiding that. I thought you should get the news from me first. It’s not much but…”
“Thank you. My dad was a very private person. He wouldn’t like being part of a… a mass killing.” Her voice broke on the word. “Will I have to identify him?”
“I’m not sure, under the circumstances. I’m in touch with the police and I’ll let you know. Will you be all right? Do you have a friend or someone to stay with?”
“I’ve got plenty of friends. I’ll be all right.”
“I mean someone who can protect you. And you should contact the Leura police and ask them to keep an eye on things.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Look, Louise, this man is insane. We don’t know where he’s going to stop.”
“It sounds as if you know who he is.”
“It’s complicated. I talked to him. I didn’t know at the time that he was responsible.”
“Has he killed people other than… like my dad?”
“Yes, he has.”
“Then you should worry about yourself. If he knows you he might…”
“I can take care of myself. I don’t want to alarm you. I can’t see how he could find out that you employed me, but you never know. Just be careful. And I’m very sorry that it turned out like this. If there’s anything else I can do, just ask.”
“I’ll manage. And thank you, thank you. It’s better to know.”
“That’s right.”
