useless and they don’t want you. So they’ve given you to me.’
No. They wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t leave him.
They couldn’t …
‘You’re mine now, little boy. You belong to me.’ Scratching noises against the wall. ‘Now open the door and let me in.’
A hand on his arm. ‘Gah!’ Callum flinched.
Franklin frowned at him. ‘Are you OK?’
He let out a shuddery breath, looking down at the photo of the four of them in their holiday clothes. ‘What?’
She pointed at the photo. ‘I said, “You’ve got an identical twin?”’
He clicked the wallet closed and slipped it into his back pocket. ‘A long time ago.’
Hairy Harry loomed over the wrinkled body on the cutting table, humming away to himself. A huge breezeblock of a man, with rounded shoulders and a bit of a gut on him. He’d tucked the last six inches of his Victorian-style beard into the top of his apron. A blue-camouflage bandanna covered the top of his head, his long furry ponytail poking out the back of it. Hairy Harry’s voice was surprisingly soft and warm for someone who looked as if they ate live badgers. ‘Now that’s interesting …’
He reached into the open body cavity, coming out with a chunk of shrivelled black, holding it aloft like that baboon did at the start of Disney’s The Lion King. ‘Have you ever seen a liver look like that before, all dried out and wrinkly?’
Lucy shook her head and made another note on her clipboard.
‘Fascinating.’
They’d laid the body out on its back, not so much uncurling the limbs as snapping them off at the dry brittle joints. Legs and arms, positioned either side of the smoke-coloured ribs.
Franklin had her own arms folded, voice so low it was barely a whisper. ‘At least this one doesn’t smell as bad.’
Hairy Harry went back in, coming out with what looked like a dehydrated snake. ‘Well, well, well …’
Mother and McAdams stood off to one side, heads together, McAdams poking away at his mobile phone as she talked in hushed tones. Every now and then, she’d look up and stare at Callum. Then go back to conspiring with her poetry-spouting sidekick. Probably trying to figure out what crappy job to punish him with next.
‘Amazing, when you think about it.’ Hairy Harry stuck his gloved hands on the hips of his purple scrubs. ‘The only internal organs still attached are the heart and the lungs, everything else has been taken out, preserved, then put back in again. It’s almost impossible to tell cause of death from the soft tissue, because there isn’t any – it’s all like beef jerky.’
The mummy’s ribcage lay on a trolley against the wall, its covering of leathery skin too dried-on to remove like in a normal post mortem.
‘No external sign of trauma, other than the discolouration around the throat – which could just be pigmentation from the preservation, but looks more like ante-mortem bruising to me. And then there’s this.’ He held up a little jar full of tiny discoloured spheres and gave it a shake, making them rattle against the glass. ‘You’ll need to get it tested, but unless I’m very much mistaken, it’s silica gel. The kind of thing that comes in those little sachets they stick in bags, shoes, and handbags to sook up moisture and stop them going mouldy. His mouth was stuffed with it. More in the oesophagus, trachea, and sinus cavities. We’ll have to rehydrate the stomach to find out, but I’m willing to bet we’ll find some there too.’
Mother wandered back to the table. ‘Excuse me, Dr Jenkins, I have to borrow Detective Constable MacGregor here.’
Oh. That didn’t sound good. Whatever horror she and McAdams had come up with, it was about to spatter down on Callum’s head.
‘Please, it’s Harrison. And by all means. The young man’s a bit of a fidget anyway.’
Everyone’s a critic.
She pulled on a smile. ‘Thank you.’ Then headed for the exit. ‘Come on, Constable.’
Here we go.
Callum leaned closer to Franklin. ‘Try not to punch anyone else, OK?’ And followed Mother out, through the changing room, past the rows and rows of refrigeration units, across the reception area, and out into the rain.
She shrugged her shoulders up around her ears and hurried across the puddled tarmac to her battered Fiat Panda. Hurled herself in behind the wheel and beckoned at him from the safety of the car.
What would it be: door-to-doors in the freezing downpour? Digging into the archives for some obscure file that hadn’t been seen for three generations? Talking to small children about road safety? Or maybe she was just going to fire him?
He high-stepped between the water-filled potholes, collar pulled up against the rain, and clambered in the passenger side.
A furry penguin hung from the rear-view mirror, along with a yellow air-freshener that smelled of chemical lemons. Inside, the car was a mess. Mud, grit, gravel, and old magazines in the footwells; plastic bags, a collection of cardboard wine-carriers full of empties, and for some bizarre reason a quarter-size inflatable sheep with sunglasses, littering the back seat. Dust coating the dashboard like a furry blanket. The bottles clinked and rattled as he thumped the door shut.
Ooh, sodding hell: it was like climbing into a very filthy fridge. Cold air nipped at his ears.
Mother stuck her hands in her pockets, her breath fogging in front of her face. ‘Callum, Callum, Callum … What am I going to do with you?’
Oh great. She’d dragged him all the way out here for a bollocking. Could they not have done it inside in the warm?
‘Thought I told you not to lead our new girl astray? And what do I find? She’s running around assaulting detective sergeants on DCI Powel’s Major Investigation Team. Care to explain yourself?’
What? ‘How is this my—’
‘I had Powel on the phone this afternoon, and he wasn’t a happy hedgehog. Says after the assault you waded in and interfered with the victim – to wit one DS Jimmy Blake. Got him to change his story and say he slipped and battered his own nose to a wee bloody lump.’
‘All I did was point out that the whole thing would be caught on the mortuary’s CCTV system.’ A shrug. ‘For some reason, Blakey wasn’t keen on anyone seeing it.’
‘Right.’ Mother nodded. Then sighed. ‘Callum, I’m all in favour of sticking up for the team, I really am …’
‘But?’
‘But probably better get a copy of the footage. Just in case Powel or Blakey decide to make it disappear. Blackmail only works as long as you’ve got the negatives.’ She grinned, then dug a paper bag out of her fleece pocket. ‘Have a jelly baby. Hell, take two.’
