placed the bundle on a chest of drawers under the window, where the light was best. I started snipping. I get all the dirty jobs.
Inside, we found a tiny baby, wearing a blue romper suit with white and pink roses appliqued to it. Blue for a boy. According to the dictionary infanticide is any killing of a child. In legal terms it means the killing of a baby while suffering from post-natal depression.
Either way, it's a bummer.
I spent that Christmas Day morning in the post-mortem room of Heckley General Hospital. It's in the basement, adjoining the mortuary, and feels like you are deep in some nuclear bomb-proof bunker. All stainless steel, dripping taps and cold light. I took a chair to the farthest corner and settled down, praying that the professor wouldn't say: 'This is interesting, Charlie. Come and have a look.'
He didn't. I listened to his litany and said my amens silently, in my head. Miss Crabtree's injuries were massive, consistent with a fall from a high building, but death was probably instant, from the fractured skull. The shape of the fracture matched the flatness of the pavement. She was about twenty, and appeared to have been in good health. No operation scars other than a not fully healed episiotomy.
The prof looked up at me after he'd droned that piece of information into the tape recorder and explained: 'She's given birth in the last three weeks.'
He opened her up, examined her organs and took his samples, to go away for analysis. Eventually he stepped back, saying: 'I think that's all we need,' and his assistant took over to do the tidying up.
I said: 'Does post-natal depression leave any signs, Professor?'
'I'm afraid not, Inspector,' he replied.
He changed his gloves and overalls and I saw him sneak a look at the clock. It was eleven forty-five, and every kitchen in the country would be warming to the smell of roasting turkey. I wondered who did the carving at their house.
'Right,' he said, businesslike. 'Let's have the other one.'
This was the one I wasn't looking forward to. I swivelled the chair the wrong way round and sat with my chin on my folded arms, eyes focused on one perfect white tile on the far wall. The hard back of the plastic chair cut off the circulation to my hands and they became cramped, but it helped close my mind to an image that I didn't want to admit.
I worry about pathologists. More so about their assistants. I suppose they drift into their jobs, like most of us; but they could always drift out of them again, if they wanted, and they rarely do. Is an executioner just a serial killer who's learned how to avoid breaking the law? If so, what sort of a pervert does that make the pathologist?
I've always suspected these two were a pair of callous bastards, so it was a surprise when the Professor said: 'It's Christmas Day, and I need a drink. Let's have a snifter in the office, Charlie.' He'd done his job and we were walking along the corridor, away from the lab, the clatter of the heels of his assistant's shoes echoing off the antiseptic walls.
The Professor only had two heavy tumblers, hidden at the back of a filing cabinet, so he found a disposable cup for himself. It was Johnny Walker. I only had the one, but between us we drank nearly half the bottle before we wished each other a sardonic Merry Christmas and went our separate ways.
I'd telephoned Annabelle to suggest she put the turkey on a low light and had gone round to see Mr. and Mrs. Crabtree, Susan's parents.
Someone else, thank God, had broken the news to them the night before.
Mrs. Crabtree made me a cup of tea and sat me in an easy chair with antimacassars on the back and arms. 'Would you like a piece of cake?' she asked in a soft girlish voice.
'No thank you,' I said. 'Come and sit down. Don't bother about me.'
She took a place on the settee, next to her husband. They were a few years older than me, so it looked as if they'd had Susan, their only child, when they were well past the first flush. That must have made her extra special to them.
After a long silence I told them about a note we'd found at the flat, and the pathologist's preliminary conclusions Susan had almost certainly suffocated the baby and taken her own life while suffering from post-natal depression There would be an inquest, but there was no reason why the coroner couldn't release the bodies immediately for a funeral.
Mrs. Crabtree knew all about post-natal depression. She'd suffered badly from it herself after Susan's birth. 'Didn't I William?' she'd prompted, turning to her husband. Ashen face, he nodded confirmation.
There was an eloquence in his gesture that spoke volumes about his own ordeal.
I glanced round the room. It was stuffed with bric-a-brac, like a folk museum with too many exhibits and not enough space. Every picture frame was perfectly aligned with its neighbour, every polished surface shone like a millpond on a summer's evening. It was a SOCO's nightmare. I noticed that the feet of the three-piece suite stood in little cups so they wouldn't ruffle the pile, and wondered if I should have removed my shoes when I came in.
Mrs. Crabtree had conquered her problem with the only therapy available to her at the time housework and poor old William had suffered in silence. I sat with my cup and saucer on my knee because I didn't know where else to put it, until Mrs. Crabtree noticed and found me a little tray that clipped on the arm of the chair. She poured me a refill.
I asked a few questions about their daughter. She'd had a boyfriend, obviously, but they'd never met him. She left home shortly after becoming pregnant, because she wanted to be independent.
'Young people do, these days, don't they,' Mrs. Crabtree said.
I nodded agreement and wondered how welcome a toddler would have been in that temple to hygiene. I didn't over-do the questions. There was no other crime to solve, and it's not my job to apportion blame or spread guilt. Three teas and an hour later I started to make leaving noises, but I needed to use the bathroom first. In there, everything that didn't hold water wore a fluffy cover, and when I washed my hands I noticed that the plug for the sink rested in a special little holder.
Hey, that's a good idea, I thought, for a millisecond, and promptly changed my mind. There was a similar one for the bath plug.
Driving back to Annabelle's I composed my report in my head, for typing later. Typing and driving don't go together. I decided to say that Mrs. Crabtree suffered from OTD — Obsessive Tidiness Disorder. I liked the sound of that, and had my first smile of the day. In this job you have to grab one when you can.
That was last Christmas. It was a good point to come out of the daydream, thinking about Annabelle. It was early, still fully dark outside, but I decided to get up. A shower and some breakfast would do me more good than a last desperate hour of snatched sleep. I don't need much sleep.
First bombshell of the day came when I made my customary visit to Gilbert's office. All the troops have been deployed and most villains are still in bed. That's when we relax for a few minutes with a cup in front of us and do the real policing.
'Have you heard about bloody Makinson?' Gilbert growled. 'Er, no.'
'How much do you know about the Dr. Jordan job?' 'Next to nothing.
Why, what's Makinson done?' 'Humph!' he snorted, tossing his head.
'Only gone and booked himself some leave to celebrate Hogmanay, hasn't he? Thought he'd grab a couple of days skiing in the Cairngorms while he was at it. Region have been on, asking what you're up to. Any chance of you looking after things while he slides up and down the side of a hill wearing a pink suit and make-up on his face?'
'Good for him,' I said. 'His priorities are right. I wish I could be more like that.'
'It doesn't catch villains, though, does it?' 'It probably does. So what's the state of play?' 'They know who did it, apparently, but he's gone away for a few days, too. If he's not done a complete bunk they're expecting him back anytime, so it's just a matter of keeping an eye on his usual address and picking him up. Can you take over tomorrow morning's meeting at HQ? Young Newley and Dave Sparkington are in the team, so they'll fill you in if you can't wait that long.'
'No problem,' I said. 'I've already had a bet with Sparky that they'd have to call me in to catch him.'
'Then it looks as if you won the bet. Now, how are you getting on with this rape job?'
The period after Christmas is harvest time for burglars. Garden sheds, bedrooms and hallways are bristling with new bicycles, power tools and electronic gadgetry. All desirable and highly portable. We'd raided three shops that claimed to 'Buy 'n' Sell Owt' and two of our cells were now stuffed with several thousand pounds worth of
