21. MURKY DEPTHS
‘There’s only one word for present driving conditions: atrociously bad,’ squeaked Hilary, the Sky One weather lady. ‘Flood warnings have been posted across Kent and Sussex, and there’s another belt of low pressure sweeping in from the south west. The AA is offering this advice: if you’re going out, don’t.’ She suddenly folded in half and vanished as the cable signal popped from the tiny wall-mounted television. Oswald Finch threw the TV remote on to his dissection table with disgust. ‘Stupid woman. I can’t believe the rain in England always makes the headlines.’
‘I can’t believe you’re still here,’ called Bryant, checking his watch.
‘Nor me. I was supposed to retire fifteen years ago.’ The ancient pathologist creaked up from his chair and shook Bryant’s hand. ‘I could be seeing out my retirement in a fisherman’s cottage overlooking the Channel. It’s all bought and paid for, but it’ll fall into the sea before I get there. I’m stuck here, and it’s your bloody fault.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘You know very well that the Home Office won’t pay the going rate for newly trained technicians because they can’t afford to buy them more up-to-date equipment, and most kids can’t work with antiques, so I’m being blackmailed to stay on.’
‘All right to smoke in here?’ asked Bryant, dragging his pipe from his top pocket.
‘No, it is not. You’re the one who requested my services in the middle of the bloody night. You know they’ll only agree to supplement my pension if I do two days a week for you. So instead of fresh sea air I get formaldehyde poisoning and rheumatism from sitting in a damp Camden basement twice a week.’
‘I thought you were getting a new building.’ Bryant looked about with distaste.
‘We are,’ sniffed Finch. ‘Not in my lifetime, however. It might have helped if you hadn’t incurred everyone’s wrath by blowing up your office.’ This part of the morgue had been housed in the old school gymnasium. Where once the youth of Camden had come to stretch their muscles, there were now only departed souls waiting to have their sinews sliced open and examined.
‘Come on, you old misery, I’ll give you a game of basketball.’ Bryant pointed at the steel hoop still attached to the far wall.
‘At my age the effort of getting up from a chair becomes an Olympic event in itself.’ He looked at the hoop longingly. ‘The only thing I can still dunk is a doughnut. I used to go ballroom dancing, you know. Now I can’t even get the shoes on.’
‘I hope this infirmity hasn’t spread to your brain,’ said Bryant rather rudely.
Finch ignored him. ‘I suppose you’re here about Mr Copeland.’
‘That him over in the corner?’ asked Bryant cheerfully.
Finch led the way to a shiny metal container shaped like an overgrown takeaway box. ‘This is what your bosses are providing for me instead of a sterile laboratory. They’re meant for use in the field, and they’re bloody awkward. I have to stand on a stool in order to get my arms over the sides, and they’re sharp, too. Take a look.’
Bryant climbed up beside the pathologist and peered into the tray. He found himself staring at a fleshy white male, face-down. Lilac bruises had blossomed across his lower back like pressed flowers. In the folds of his neck, a black contusion erupted in torn crimson petals.
‘I wanted to get the back of his head open before you arrived,’ Finch complained, ‘but the caterers upstairs keep borrowing my tools. They used my cranium chisel to take the top off a jar of piccalilli yesterday. I’m not meant to be alone in here. I’ve got a part-time technician and no exhibits officer. No notes, no video, nothing. I’m having to share the photographer and police witness with the Met, and all this after promises of increased personnel.’ He gave the corpse a desultory flick with his forefinger. ‘Jack the Ripper’s pathologist had more technical expertise at his disposal. I have to tell you, Arthur, I’ve lost a lot of faith in the system in the past few years. We define a few addled souls as being worthy of removal from society, and everyone’s under such pressure that we consider the job done when we’re lucky enough to find a court that will shut them away. You know, doctors look for five main signs of mental disturbance in prisoners: personality disorder, psychosis, neurosis, drug dependence and alcohol misuse, and less than one in ten inmates is clean of all five. The prison population stands somewhere above 70,000, which means that over 5,000 of them are functionally psychotic. And all you do, every time you catch someone, is add to the problem.’
‘You’re right, Oswald, we should just leave them out on the street to slaughter each other. Have you seen the headline of this week’s
‘There’s no need for sarcasm.’ With a quick slip of the scalpel, Finch exposed the back of Elliot Copeland’s neck to reveal damage at the base of his skull. ‘Take a look at that. A nasty crack, wouldn’t you say? It’s a large area. First and second cervical vertebrae have copped it, anterior and posterior tubercles crushed, so it came at him from the left side. Plenty of myofibril rupture, pretty straightforward. Was he hit with a large flat-edged rock?’
‘In a way,’ Bryant explained. ‘It was part of a paving slab, among other things.’
‘Hm. I assume the weight of it slammed him forward. Broken nose. You see this sort of thing in industrial accidents, except that there’s no bruising to his shins, so he had a soft landing. A manual worker, obviously, judging by the state of his hands. John phoned me and explained about the bruising. At first I thought the single blow had killed him, but that was before I cleaned him up. Mouth and nostrils blocked solid with earth.’
‘Hardly surprising. He fell face-down in a mud-filled ditch.’
‘Not the point, old fruit. He took a deep breath after he was hit. Do you remember the Aberfan disaster- ghastly business of the coal tip sliding on to the Welsh school? The nightmarish part of that was the coal dust, very fine. It poured in like water, suffocating those who had survived the collapse of the building. This is the same. Basically earth-fine particles of soot, clay, grit, vegetable matter and non-biodegradable stuff like polystyrene granules, held in a suspension of water-straight down into his throat. He couldn’t get up because of the weight on his back, so he choked to death. Nasty way to go, but at least it was fast. I ran a standard internal; judging by the state of his liver he was an alcoholic, which reduced his resistance to blood-vessel rupture. His stomach’s full of half-digested pizza, high sodium-heavy drinkers eat salt. What puzzles me is why he’s here. You usually only get me out of bed for murders.’
‘That’s exactly what it was,’ said Bryant, looking for something to put in his mouth. He finally located a tube of Love Hearts in his raincoat. ‘He was standing behind a truck that shed its load. Do you see anything contradictory to that?’
‘No, I suppose not. Except-’ He thought for a minute, resting his hand disconcertingly on Elliot’s waxy back. ‘It’s rather an inexact method of execution, isn’t it? I mean, ensuring that your target is standing exactly where you want him.’
‘I thought that,’ Bryant admitted. ‘The biggest problem it poses for me is the matter of premeditation. As far as we can tell, he had nothing stolen. Longbright’s conducting a search of his house, and has found his wallet. This isn’t the sort of crime you plan in advance. Which means it had to be committed by someone waiting to cause him injury.’
‘Rough neighbourhood, is it?’
‘Not really. The street doesn’t get much foot traffic. With the exception of the residents, hardly anyone uses it.’
‘Then I would suggest they’re your first port of call,’ said Finch, wiping his hands and stepping back to admire his handiwork.
The following morning, Balaklava Street was anaemic with mist as May knocked on the Aysons’ door.
The front room had been aggressively polished, and was clearly reserved for guests; it was an old-fashioned notion but appropriate to the street, and to the Aysons, a third-generation Caribbean family who honoured the attitudes of their grandparents. Kayla Ayson prepared breakfast while her children dextrously thrashed each other in a lurid Nintendo race, ignoring calls to the table. With Randall’s entrance, the atmosphere subtly shifted; the children became more subdued, and Kayla found something to occupy her attention in the kitchen. May appreciated that Randall Ayson took a dim view of the detective visiting his house, but he was required to check out witness
