‘It got me out of a barbecue at my girlfriend’s parents,’ he said. ‘That’s the downside of this work. I can’t cope with barbecues since I started working here.’
‘That makes two of us.’
They were both thinking of burns victims. Usually their skin was blackened, crisp like pork crackling. Depending how long they had burned for, their flesh was sometimes grey and hard, sometimes raw and bloody liked seared, undercooked pork. Cleo had read once that cannibal tribes in central Africa called white man long pig. She understood exactly why. It was the reason many people who worked in mortuaries were uncomfortable at barbecues. Particularly when pork was involved.
Together they rolled the cadaver on to her stomach and examined her back for tattoos, birthmarks and bullet-entry wounds, but found nothing. With relief they finally eased her into a body-bag, zipped it up and slid it into fridge number 17. Tomorrow the process of identifying her would begin. The soft tissues from her fingers were gone, so there were no prints that could be taken. Her jaw was intact, so dental records could be checked. DNA was a longer shot – she would need to already be on a database to find a match. Her description and photographs and measurements would be sent to the Missing Persons Helpline, and Sussex police would contact friends and relatives of anyone who had been reported missing who fitted the description of this dead woman.
And in the morning the consultant pathologist, Dr Nigel Churchman, would conduct a post-mortem to establish the cause of death. If, during the course of this, he found anything suspicious, he would halt his work immediately, the coroner would be notified and a Home Office pathologist, either Nadiuska or Dr Theobald, would be called in to take over.
In the meantime, both Cleo and Darren had several hours remaining of a glorious August Sunday afternoon ahead of them
Darren left first, in his small red Nissan, heading for the barbecue he really could have done without. Cleo stood in the doorway, watching him drive off, unable to stop herself from envying him. He was young, full of enthusiasm, happy in his relationship with his girlfriend and in his job.
She was rapidly heading for the wrong side of thirty. Enjoying her career but worrying about it at the same time. She wanted to have children before she was too old. Yet each time she thought she had found Mr Right, he would spring something on her from left field. Roy was such a lovely man. But just when she thought everything was perfect, his missing wife popped up like a bloody jack-in-the-box.
She set the alarm, stepped outside and locked the front door, with just one thought in her mind – to get home and see if there was a message from Roy. Then, walking across the tarmac drive to her blue MG, she stopped dead in her tracks.
Somebody had slashed the black canvas roof open. All the way from the windscreen to the rear window.
64
The woman behind the wooden counter and glass window handed him a buff-coloured rectangular form. ‘Please put your name and address and other details on this,’ she asked him in a weary voice. She looked as if she had been sitting there for too long, reminding him of an exhibit in a museum showcase that someone had neglected to dust. Her face had an indoors pallor and her shapeless brown hair hung around her face and shoulders like curtains that had become detached from some of their rings.
Above the reception desk of the Accident and Emergency Unit of the Royal Sussex County Hospital was a large LCD display of yellow letters on a black background, currently reading WAITING TIME 3 HOURS.
He considered the form carefully. A name, address, date of birth and next of kin were required. There was also a space for allergies.
‘Everything all right?’ the woman asked.
He raised his swollen right hand. ‘Difficult to write,’ he said.
‘Would you like me to fill it in for you?’
‘I can manage.’
Then, leaning on the counter, he stared at the form for some moments, his brain, muzzed by the pain, really not functioning that well at all. He was trying to think quickly, but the thoughts that he wanted didn’t come in the right sequence. He felt a little dizzy suddenly.
‘You can sit down and fill it in,’ she said.
Snapping back at her, he shouted, ‘I SAID I CAN MANAGE!’
People all around looked up from their hard grey plastic seats, startled. Not smart, he thought. Not smart to draw attention. Hastily he filled out the form and then, as if to make amends, beside Allergies he wrote, wittily, he thought, ‘Pain.’
But she didn’t appear to notice as she took the form back. ‘Please take a seat and a nurse will come and see you shortly.’
‘Three hours?’ he said.
‘I’ll tell them it’s urgent,’ she said flatly, then watched warily as the strange man with long, straggly brown hair, a heavy moustache and beard, and large, tinted glasses, wearing a baggy white shirt over a string vest, grey slacks and sandals, walked over to an empty seat, between a man with a bleeding arm and an elderly woman with a bandaged head, and sat down. Then she picked up her phone.
The Time Billionaire unclipped the BlackBerry from its holster, which was attached to his belt, but before he had time to do anything, a shadow fell in front of him. A pleasant-looking, dark-haired woman in her late forties, in nursing uniform, was standing over him. The badge on her lapel read Barbara Leach – A&E Nurse.
‘Hello!’ she said breezily. ‘Would you come with me?’
She led him into a small booth and asked him to sit down.
‘What seems to be the problem?’
He raised his hand. ‘I hurt it working on a car.’
‘How long ago?’
Thinking for a moment, he said, ‘Thursday afternoon.’
She examined it carefully, turning it over, then comparing it to his left hand. ‘It looks infected,’ she said. ‘Have you had a tetanus injection recently?’
‘I don’t remember.’
She studied it again for a while thoughtfully. ‘Working on a car?’ she said.
‘An old car. I’m restoring it.’
‘I’ll get the doctor to see you as soon as possible.’
He went back to his chair in the waiting room and turned his attention back to his BlackBerry. He logged on to the web and then clicked on his bookmark for Google.
When that came up, he entered a search command for MG TF.
That was the car Cleo Morey drove.
Despite his pain, despite his muzzy thoughts, a plan was forming. Really quite a good plan.
‘Fucking brilliant!’ he said out loud, unable to control his excitement. Then immediately he shrank back into his shell.
He was shaking.
Always a sign that the Lord approved.
65
Reluctantly cutting short his precious hours in Munich, Grace managed to board an earlier flight. The weather in England had changed dramatically during the day, and shortly after six o’clock in the evening, as he went to get his car from the short-stay multi-storey car park at Heathrow, the sky was an ominous grey and a cold wind was blowing, flecking the windscreen with rain.
It was the kind of wind that you forgot even existed during the long, summer days they’d had recently, he reflected. It was like a stern reminder from Mother Nature that summer was not going to last much longer. The days were already getting shorter. In little over a month it would be autumn. Then winter. Another year.
Feeling flat and tired, he wondered what he had achieved today, apart from earning another black mark in Alison Vosper’s book. Anything at all?