Читать книгу Saving Sophie: A compulsively twisty psychological thriller that will keep you gripped to the very last page - Sam Carrington, Sam Carrington - Страница 27

The smell was like nothing she knew. Lindsay Wade had arrived at the hospital morgue early – an unfortunate trait at times like this, as now she was being treated to an extra post-mortem, the one prior to her murder victim. She knew she was unlikely ever to get used to them, despite having been present at a fair few. It wasn’t merely the stench. It was the way they manoeuvred the body on the cold, metal gurney. The way the head of the deceased slammed up and down on the block, while they hacked at the chest wall, pulled the tongue out from within, a sickening thud reverberating around the white sterile room with each action.

She shuddered. It was barbaric. A flash of her dad came to her. How she wished she didn’t know about these procedures. Ignorance was preferable to knowledge sometimes. Images of his face the last time she’d seen him alive, his greying skin screaming out for oxygenated blood as his shallow breaths failed to circulate it – her own pale hand holding his as she sat by his chair, waiting for an ambulance to arrive. Her begging the doctor not to have her dad cut up, but knowing she’d lose that battle. She blinked them away, trying to bring herself back to the present. Another thud as the heart landed in the weighing scale. In a while, the majority of this man’s insides would be shoved in a black bin liner, stuffed back into the cavity, and he would be roughly sewn up. Lindsay bit the inside of her cheek and turned from the scene.

Erin Malone was next up.

The preliminary examination of the body prior to post-mortem indicated asphyxiation as the likely cause of death; the puncture wounds evident in her abdomen appeared superficial, not deep enough to cause sufficient bleeding to cease respiration or stop the heart. This particular detail, left out of public knowledge, would, in all likelihood, be needed later in order to whittle out those cranks who crawl out of the woodwork in these cases to claim this girl’s murder for themselves.

She watched a man wheel the trolley bearing Erin’s body into the room, then turned her attention to the doorway. She could leave. Get someone else to relay the required information later. She wasn’t sure she could stomach it.

But then, the family’s hope was her responsibility now. She couldn’t start ducking out at this early stage.

She was the one whose job it was to catch Erin’s killer and bring justice and closure to them.

She had to stay.