The Blood Detective

'OK.'

'Sure? Because we have people you can talk to about this. Good people. I've used them before.'

'I'll live,' he said, immediately regretting his choice of words.

Heather nodded and took another sip of her tea.

The details of the night before were still hazy -- it seemed a different age, not a matter of hours - but one episode seeped back into his mind. He needed to mention it. 'At the newspaper library, when I was waiting for some files, I did a search on DCI Foster on the computer.'

'Oh, yeah,' Heather said. 'Why?'

He shrugged. He didn't know. It was just something he did with people he'd met, whether on the Net or in the archives.

'Don't know. Something to do. I don't know anyone else who might have appeared in the national press during the last decade.'

'You found out about his dad, didn't you?'

'You know about it?'

'We all do. I wasn't on the team at the time, but I heard all about it. They didn't charge him, so he kept his job. It's that simple.'

Nigel was not convinced but saw no profit in prying further. Heather was looking at him.

'He makes no secret about it: he knew his father was going to kill himself and he didn't try to stop it.

That's not the same as killing him yourself. His dad wanted to die. Foster let him. For some people that's what any loving son would do; for others, it's tantamount to assisting suicide. Someone at the top took the former view. I think they were right.' She took another swig of tea then looked at him, her brow furrowed. 'So if I poked around in your past, what would I find, Nigel?' she asked, sitting back on the sofa.

'Nothing much,' he muttered.

'Well, you had a job at a university, then the next minute you're back in your old job as a genealogist.

Sounds interesting to me.'

This was the one subject he wanted to avoid. He felt that after Heather had been open about Foster, he could not clam up. But how much to tell?

'I met someone. It didn't work out,' he said.

' "Didn't work out" so badly that you left your job?

That's some "didn't work out".'

'Let's just say, all of a sudden, the past seemed a more inviting place,' he said.

She scanned the room, the teeming shelves, the old cases and chests on the floor, the sepia-tinted photographs, the array of vintage clocks and watches, none of which told the right time.

'Seems like it always has,' she said.

10

Foster was back at the morgue. I should get myself a bed here, he thought. A visit to the Gents and a quick glance in the mirror showed it to be an appropriate place to be -- his skin was the colour of ashes, deep gashes of black under his eyes. Some of those on the slab looked better than he did.

He got there as Carlisle was finishing the autopsy on the tramp.

'Anything new?' he asked.

'He wasn't hanged to death, that's for sure,' Carlisle said. He pointed to the neck. 'There's no fracture of the vertebrae. But then, if a drunken tramp were to commit suicide, one would hardly expect an expert job. But there is no mark from the rope around his neck, which there would have been if the noose had been applied before death, and no sign of bruising either. No signs of any capillary damage in the heart, lungs or eyes -- or anything else that indicates asphyxiation.

The only visible marks on the body are quite severe pressure sores on his buttocks and shoulder blades, congruent with spending a lot of time on his back.'

'Bed sores?'

'Yes.'

Foster knew that a lot of those who slept rough, and fell ill and became more immobile, suffered these sores. Pavements, cardboard boxes, tended to do that to damaged bodies. Though this guy did not look like the sort who'd been outstaying his welcome at death's door.

'So what killed him?'

'Heart failure.'

'You sure?'

'Almost certain. What caused it is less clear. All the internal organs were in good condition, including the heart. It seems as if it just failed. We've sent some specimens out to toxicology. That may give us more of a clue.'

Foster looked at the body, the well-tended hands and feet, the clear skin. 'Doesn't that strike you as odd? A derelict from the street in good working condition? No enlarged heart, no cirrhosis of the liver, no blood thicker than porridge? What did he drink on the streets? Wheatgrass juice?'

Carlisle pulled a face. 'I can only tell you based on what I see: his body is in good condition, exactly what you would expect of a healthy man in his forties. Though there are signs of drug use, specifically a few marks on the arm. He could be diabetic, of course . . .' His voice tailed off; he moved to the arm and picked it up. 'The reference was scratched on with a smaller implement than the one used on Darbyshire.'

'Like a Stanley knife?'

'It's consistent with the use of that, yes.'

'So there was a reference, but no stab wound and no mutilation?'

Carlisle shook his head. 'I've checked the entire body. He possesses every fingernail, eyelash and tooth he should.'

Why stage the hanging, Foster thought? There was no reason to cover the murder up, not when you've carved a message on one part of the body. Had something gone wrong?

Carlisle removed his gloves with an urgent snap.

'I need a cup of coffee,' he said. 'Then I have another body to look at. Care to join me?'

'Yes to the coffee, no to the body. Not until you've finished, anyway.'

The two men turned to walk to the door. Foster stopped.

'You've done with this guy?'

'Not sure there's much more I can do. Not until we get the results from toxicology.'

'Good. If it's all right with you, I've got someone outside who's here to clean him up.'

Carlisle bristled. 'He's been washed thoroughly,'

he said, defensively.

Foster shook his head. 'No, I mean a different kind of clean-up.'

The embalmer worked with great care and gentleness.

She was a dowdy, motherly woman with a round, cheerful face that seemed at odds with her profession.

'Sometimes I like to speak to them as I work,' she had warned Foster when she arrived.

'Feel free,' he replied. 'Not sure you'll get much conversation.'

She stroked the dead man's tangled, bedraggled hair. 'Let yourself get in a bit of state, didn't you?'

she said in a sing-song voice.

She brought over the tap used to hose down the tables. Shielding the dead man's face with her hand, she carefully wet the hair with a few gentle squirts.

Then she applied shampoo, working it into the scalp with her fingers in circular motions, rinsing it off with the tap. She produced a comb from her bag and straightened the hair, breaking up knots with a few stern strokes. With a pair of barber's scissors she started to trim away.

'Can't say I've ever had to just cut someone's hair and give them a shave before,' she said, without looking at Foster. 'Usually the last thing I do after they've been prepped. If they need it, of course.'

'Sorry,' he said.

'No, it's quite nice, to be honest. I used to do this a lot back in the days when it was common to have an open casket or viewings and you had to make the deceased look the best you could. But less and less now. People don't want to see their relatives or friends once they've passed over. They cut themselves off from death.'

For a fleeting second, Foster recalled standing over the body of his dead father. In his professional life he had seen countless dead bodies, hundreds, but nothing had prepared him for the effect of seeing the lifeless body of the man he had loved and idolized.

'Who is he?' the embalmer asked, stepping back to admire her work between snips.