who suddenly appeared beside them. Ignoring prescribed methodology he unceremoniously picked up the woman's head by the hair and carried it over to an examining table to get a better look under the bright illumination. He plunked it down close to the stump of her companion's neck. For a moment the professor seemed confused. Then he took the head in his hands and moved to the other table where he set it in place above the woman's own body. He's not immune to the subtle proprieties of death, thought Morgan.
Morgan bent close to observe as the professor used a spatula and a small scalpel to pry between the lips and sever the threads. Her lips were drawn tight against her teeth, but with the thread gone, they shrank back and her mouth opened a little to the light. Morgan leaned closer.
"Oh, my goodness," he gasped in astonishment.
Professor Birbalsingh fixed his gaze on the woman's mouth. Without saying a word, he pulled back the leathery flesh of her lips. She had a remarkably good set of teeth. He gently forced them apart. He stood upright but said nothing. He glanced at Morgan in affirmation, then shifted his line of vision and seemed to become absorbed in something outside the windows.
"Well now," said Morgan. "I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to terminate your inquiry, professor."
The graduate student sidled closer to the centre of attention, smiling at some private joke.
"Could I use your cellphone, Joleen?" Morgan asked. "I need to call the coroner's office, police headquarters, and my partner in crime."
"What on earth?" said Shelagh Hubbard as if she were about to protest. Professor Birbalsingh remained silent.
"People her age always have cellphones," Morgan explained.
Ignoring him, Shelagh Hubbard moved forward, and for a moment seemed to lose herself in the revelation of what appeared to be glistening composite fillings in the dead woman's skull. Slowly, her posture stiffened and, avoiding Morgan's gaze, she too looked out the windows into the middle distance, perhaps observing the lost possibilities of a research grant and easy tenure.
Morgan felt strangely elated, vindicated somehow, although he had been as beguiled by the simulations of antiquity as the experts. The case was now under his jurisdiction; a case and not just a case study. But he also felt oppressed: what had appeared to be a quirky historical windfall was now a genuine tragedy. This was no longer about death — it was about dying.
"Oh, my God," said Joleen Chau, standing between the cadavers, "I've never seen a real dead person before!"
chapter four Isabelle Street
Miranda was luxuriating in the warmth of her overheated apartment, lying in on a leisurely Saturday off work. She rolled over languidly, shifting the flannel sheet off and away, and stretched until her muscles tingled through every part of her body. She arched against the bed, feeling wonderfully lithe and sexual, emotionally vague, intellectually drifting, like she had been making love for hours.
Damn it, she thought. I wish I could remember my dreams.
Suddenly, a loud thumping on the door wrenched her out of her reverie. My God, she thought. What's Morgan doing here at a time like this?
It had to be him. The building superintendent would have knocked deferentially, and the few people she knew in neighbouring apartments would telephone first. He must have slipped past the security door. She looked around for a robe. In movies there is always a dressing gown within hand's reach of the bed.
The hell with it, she mumbled to herself. I pay the heating bills, I'll wear what I want. By the time she got to the door, she was having second thoughts. What if it's Girl Guides selling cookies, or Jehovah's Witnesses? She glanced at herself in the full-length mirror. She was wearing an oversized T-shirt and nothing else. She looked good. If it's a couple of fresh-faced Mormons, I might let them in.
It was Morgan.
Through the peephole he looked grotesquely distorted. He was leaning so close, all she could see was the smile. His version of the Cheshire Cat; he had done it before, with full explanation. She opened the door. His face become solemn, then shy.
"I love your outfit," he said.
"Come in, Morgan."
She turned and walked barefoot into the living room as if she were wearing heels.
"What on earth are you doing here," she asked. "It's the middle of the night, my time, and I was having lovely dreams."
He plunked himself down on the sofa, admiring the full length of her legs before her lower half disappeared behind the kitchen counter. He had kicked off his snow-drenched shoes in the hall but he was still wearing his sheepskin coat.
"It's two in the afternoon," he announced.
"It's not."
She put on the coffee and came back around the counter, still feeling a little flirtatious, even though it was only Morgan. She walked across to her bedroom door, swaying her hips just enough to set the lower edge of her T-shirt astir. He peered into the fluttering shadows and immediately glanced away.
"Why don't you take your coat off and get comfortable," she murmured in a sultry voice as she turned to face him.
"No hurry." He seemed to be searching for something to say. "I was with you when you bought that T-shirt."
"Oh, yeah."
"Yeah," he said, giving her his most inscrutable smile. Not out of Alice in Wonderland, she thought. It's his Buddha smile. No, his post-coital Mona Lisa smile. No, his Jesus smile — endearing and infinitely dangerous.
He smiled so seldom, but when he did he had a range she found thrilling.
Still in the doorway, standing in opaque silhouette with the daylight from the bedroom behind her, she asked, "What are you doing here, anyway? It's too early for a gentleman caller — or too late."
They both smiled.
"It must be business, except you seem cheerful."
"Do you want to get dressed?"
"Do I need to?"
"Yes."
"Oh, dear."
She walked through into her bathroom, leaving the doors open.
"Has this got something to do with the boss working last night?"
He followed her as far as the bedroom door; then, leaning against the frame, he admired the play of shadow and light as she attended to her tantalizing ablutions just out of sight.
"I think he's had a fight with his wife."
"You mean there's no city-wide disaster? He's just hiding out?"
"Yeah."
"His wife's a lawyer."
"Yeah."
"Lawyers should only marry lawyers, and cops, cops."
"How do you figure?"
"A functioning
