Читать книгу Dark Angels - Grace Monroe - Страница 16

I rarely see dead people. I try everything I can to avoid it, but when faced with the inescapable I do as I’m told. And this was something I had been told to do.

‘Stand aside, Ms McLennan. Unless you are intent on performing this autopsy for me.’

On the word of the pathologist, I threw myself back against the wall. Squat and easygoing, he required space in which to manoeuvre his considerable girth. Gowned in green surgical robes, he edged past me, buttocks rubbing against the side of the wall. He held his gloved hands aloft: the tips of his fingers were already bloody, as if he hadn’t been able to wait and had already been poking about in the body before we arrived.

Professor Patterson, police pathologist and holder of the Chair of Forensic Medicine at Edinburgh University, was now in his sixties. Born with a port wine stain that smudged over half his face, including his right eye, most of his life he had endured the nickname ‘Patch’.

Patch was always picked last in games as a child, but he didn’t mind, rationalising that he wasn’t exactly a born athlete. Yet, even in the classroom where he had shone, he wasn’t favoured. Frustrated by this treatment, he turned to his studies and graduated as a doctor. Highly sensitive and intuitive, Patch Patterson recognised as a junior registrar that his patients were frightened by his appearance. A resilient boy from the Western Isles, he embraced the only branch of medicine where his patients could not judge him–the study of the dead. Patch had been my Professor of Forensic Medicine at university, and had also taught Frank Pearson too. He kept people at a distance, but when he liked you, he made it obvious in his own way–he had always been kind to me as a student, and, despite the fact that he sometimes still treated me like one, he had continued his kindness towards me in my professional life.

The body, still covered by a sheet, lay on the table, not two feet away from me. Ironically, I had never been this close to the man underneath while he was alive. In life, red silk gowns trimmed with white ermine proclaimed his status. Now, I was doing my best not to stare at the toe tags dangling from the veined blue feet with the usual collection of bunions and corns.

Unsurprisingly, the morgue had a distinctive odour, the stale stench of death no amount of air freshener could mask. Had I been led here blindfolded, I would still have known exactly where I was. The clock on the wall showed that it was 2p.m. At this hour of the day it smelled even more unpleasant.

‘Death is the great leveller,’ began Professor Patterson, jovial as ever and keen to chat.

‘Always nice to host a reunion.’ Patch gave the welcoming smile of a genial host. ‘I met him several times at functions,’ continued the Prof as he threw the corpse a sideways glance. I was pretty sure I heard him say, under his breath, to the cadaver:

‘And a right arrogant bastard you were too.’

I looked up sharply at Patch. He smiled and nodded in my direction. My eyes met Frank’s over the gurney. Simultaneously, we rolled them upwards. Although it had been several years since we had been in his class, Patch’s irreverent attitude to death could never be forgotten. Nothing, except children, was so horrific or sacrosanct that he wouldn’t make a joke about it.

‘Lord, Lord, let’s start the cutting.’

The lilt of his voice was high and poetic; it reverberated round the austere, windowless room. Patch had left Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis over fifty years ago, but living amongst the Sassenachs had not dulled his accent. Adhering still to the traditions of his childhood and a staunch member of the Free Church of Scotland, he compounded his position as an outsider. Social pariahs acknowledge one another, and like all fatherless children I collected father figures. I was as close as Patch would come to a friend, and it cut both ways.

With the flourish of a magician, he yanked the sheet away. Lord Arbuthnot lay pale, naked and bloodless. The silence of the dead hung heavy in the room, as we came to terms with our own thoughts. I thought of the droves of reporters outside–how much would a photograph like this command? Perhaps Patch was thinking along similar lines as he shouted: ‘I don’t want anyone within fifty feet of this room, is that clear?’

The young morgue assistant responded to his high sharp command, and shuffling off, replied: ‘I’ll see to it, sir.’ A dynamic nod followed, as he affirmed, ‘I’ll keep an eye out…I sure will.’ Hobbling out on his loose-laced skateboarding shoes, the young man did not return to the autopsy room.

The four of us were left alone. Lord Arbuthnot hardly counted, although he was the reason we were there. My eyes explored inches of his exposed flesh at a time. Age had undermined his muscle tone and he lay flaccidly before us. Nonetheless, I could see that in his youth, he had been an athlete, and as my mother would have said prior to his demise, he was still ‘a fine figure of a man.’

Ordinarily, death masks are peaceful. Lord Arbuthnot’s face seemed irate. Most of the blood had been washed from his body, but it was still accumulated between his fingers and under his nails. In life, I was sure his hands would have been immaculate–in death, they were downright grubby.

‘He literally bled to death.’

Patch had read my mind–he had an uncanny knack of doing that.

‘Hardly a drop of the red stuff left in him.’

His gloved finger pointed to a jagged scratch on Lord Arbuthnot’s neck.

‘Insignificant, isn’t it?’

Patch was now poking into the small puncture hole.

‘I’ve had worse nicks than that shaving.’

Frank Pearson’s mouth was slightly agape, staring incredulously at Patch’s actions.

‘Could that really be the cause of death?’ he asked.

‘It was the means by which he appears to have died. However, if Ms Coutts had merely placed her forefinger like so…’ Patch pressed down hard with his finger, ‘he would be alive…and looking down on us all.’

Accidental death? My mind was racing ahead to petitioning the High Court for Kailash’s release from prison. I wasn’t really present in the room, my mind was so busy on the next job. I almost didn’t hear Patch speak again.

‘So simple to have saved him, to have saved the life of Scotland’s highest Law Lord.’

Patch’s voice always got higher, when he was onto something. To my ears, he was almost squeaking. My heart was sinking as I knew that this case was just about to get difficult again.

‘Rudimentary first aid was all that was needed. A Girl Guide could have saved this man.’

Patch was almost singing now.

‘I seriously doubt that Kailash Coutts was ever in the Girl Guides,’ I interrupted. ‘Although she’s probably got the uniform these days.’

It was an off-the-cuff remark I was shortly about to regret.

‘Presumption rarely leads to the truth, Ms McLennan, and when you assume facts, you are invariably led on a wild goose chase.’

Patch smiled at me condescendingly.

‘What evidence do you have that Ms Coutts was not a perfectly ordinary child?’

‘It was you who taught me, Professor, that aberrant behaviour in adults has its roots in childhood.’

‘How very Freudian of you, Brodie, but the aberrant behaviour you have accused your client of–is it murder or prostitution?’

Frank Pearson stared at me like the adversary he was. I had forgotten he was there. At university he was so insignificant. Obviously the Fiscal’s office had honed his wits. I stared at him with a new respect.

‘Who’s the deviant?’ I asked, trying to regain lost ground. ‘The man who pays ten grand to get his arse whipped, or the woman who does it to him?’

‘I guess we’ll have to ask Roddie Buchanan that one,’ sniggered Frank. He caught himself quickly, clearly recognising it was inappropriate to be laughing as he stood over Lord Arbuthnot’s naked corpse.

‘If I may continue…’

Patch spoke sternly as if addressing two school children. He switched on his tape recorder and spoke clearly.

‘Although, the entry wound is small…observe the jagged edges of the lesion…it would appear to be consistent with a blow from a broken glass…the downward serration…would indicate the glass was propelled from above the carotid artery…severing it immediately…the assailant was left handed…and strong.’

Patch switched off the tape recorder. He never did that. It was against the standard operating procedure.

‘In view of the deceased’s position and status, details of this autopsy must be held under the strictest security.’

He looked shiftily around. Clearing his throat he continued.

‘It has been proposed that the Lord Advocate may place a one hundred year banning order on some of the papers in this case.’

‘They can’t do that. It’s a murder trial.’ Frank Pearson sounded outraged.

‘They did it with the Dunblane Report initially,’ I reminded him. ‘They had no good reason to do that, and it would have remained sealed unless some people had fought to get it changed.’

‘Brodie, they didn’t have a trial there. Thomas Hamilton was shot dead after he massacred those children.’ Frank Pearson had forgotten himself, and was leaning across Lord Arbuthnot’s body. I was wincing at the sight of it, but we court lawyers love a good argument. The rights and wrongs get lost in the fight.

‘Thomas Hamilton was a paedophile. As far back as 1968 if talk is to be believed. Police officers had been questioning his right to run boys’ clubs for years. In particular, in 1991 a police report said he should be prosecuted for the way he ran his boys’ clubs, and his gun licence was revoked. But the report was returned marked “no-pro.” No prosecution by the Fiscal’s service, Frank, because, according to some–nonsense conspiracy theorists in your eyes, I’m sure–in the reports three other people were mentioned: two Scottish politicians and a lawyer.’

Frank Pearson glared at me as I continued to shout at him across the cadaver.

‘The Fiscal’s office didn’t prosecute, Frank. And on 13 March 1996, Thomas Hamilton walked into Dunblane Primary School and shot sixteen children and a teacher…with a licensed gun.’

I was so incensed, I was almost frothing at the mouth. The brutality of those murders had shocked the world but especially Scotland. Nothing like it had ever happened before or since, but I couldn’t understand the link here. Why was I being told the same thing might happen with my case as had happened with Dunblane? Lord Arbuthnot’s death didn’t justify a cover up just because he was a pillar of the establishment.

‘Why does this need to be confidential?’

Patch turned to look at me. He seemed relieved that I had finally asked the question which needed to be spoken.

‘I understand that someone–I don’t know who–will have a “watching brief”.’

I could tell that Patch would have felt more comfortable discussing such matters privately. Guilt stabbed at me. Like Fishy, he had been neglected by me. I figured he felt he had to speak to me now, or he might not get the chance again until the trial. It wasn’t a wise decision. A watching brief meant overseeing how events unfolded, and if anything untoward were to come out then the individual given it would have to act. What form that action would take, I had no idea. A watching brief certainly explained Sheriff Strathclyde’s extraordinary behaviour at the judicial examination.

Kailash Coutts was a powder keg, and everyone knew that she would not go down alone–as long as she didn’t take me with her, I felt I could cope.

The whirr of the blade and the crunch of bone brought me back to reality. Patch had switched the tape-recorder back on and was cutting through Lord Arbuthnot’s ribcage. Snap, snap, and he was in. Stealthily, like a burglar, he reached inside, droning on into his microphone. I preferred not to listen, concentrating instead on blowing air onto my heated face.

Scales were on the bench beside him. He plucked the still heart out of the body and placed it to be weighed. The ancient Egyptians believed that after death, your heart was weighed against a feather; if your heart was heavier you were not admitted to heaven. They understood that you had to receive joy and give joy, and they believed you should be rewarded or punished accordingly. To my fanciful eye, Lord Arbuthnot’s heart looked heavy on those scales. He didn’t give or receive joy from his father. Had he shared such an emotion with anyone else in his life?

‘I hardly knew the man in life–I didn’t like him then and I certainly don’t like him after dissecting him.’

Patch sounded disapproving and it snapped me back to attention. It wasn’t hard to breach his moral code because of the strict tenets of his religion. In fact, it was a surprise to me that he tolerated my behaviour, although he did often say it was because I knew no better. I was sure that wasn’t a compliment.

‘As I said before, to have saved this man’s life would have been so straightforward. It turns out it was only a question of time anyway.’ None of the condemnation had left Patch’s voice.

I followed him to the metal side table where he had placed the heart. Scalpel in hand, he progressed with the dissection, shaving slivers from the heart. He stained the shavings and invited us to look down the lens.

Chivalry has no place in law. Frank Pearson moved forward to examine the slide first. Nervously, he cleared his throat, and again he coughed. Either he didn’t know what he was looking at or he was reluctant to say.