“Had I not interfered yesterday, you would have been dead, lady,” Sam snapped.
“Ah,” she nodded, “was that your journalistic duty or your high morals at work, then?”
“Does it matter? Really, does it?” he asked impatiently. “Does there have to be an agenda behind helping people? Does everything have to be the result of some indoctrinated decision based on prejudice?”
“Would you have asked me this if I were not at the receiving end of Sharia Law when you found me?” she inquired sharply. It was that very comment that sparked Sam’s suspicion that she recalled more than she had let on, but he said nothing about this inkling. Instead, he simply rose from his chair and straightened his coat, his eyes cast away from her and smoldering.
“Well, now that you are safe and healing on, I guess I should get going,” he said cordially, his words tinted with sudden emotional distance. He turned and gave her a courteous nod. “I’m glad you are okay. Best of luck.”
Sam left her behind without even remote feelings of guilt. She may have sustained brain damage to her memory receptors, but if she could remember that she was being stoned — if she could recall by which laws she was being punished in such specifics, and odors from his coat — she would have no reason not to remember her own name.
Either she was selectively injured, or she was a liar. Whatever her motives for deceiving the doctors, Sam didn’t have time for feminine mind games, especially when a simple thank you shouldn’t have been too much to ask. Her hostility towards her rescuer was uncalled for, regardless of her injuries, and Sam Cleave was not the type to entertain her blooming resentment.
Leaving the ward felt like a weight lifting off Sam’s shoulders. Of course, he felt sorry for the woman after all she’d been through, but her attitude liberated him from the responsibility he felt toward her, the responsibility that kept him from completing his assignment for submission to the Edinburgh Post. Now he could concentrate on his work and put the stressful incident behind him, with no small amount of thanks to the misguided journalism of Jan Harris.
Sam owed the woman nothing. As he skipped down the steps, he felt light. He had done his part. In fact, he’d done something that hadn’t even been expected of him, and that peaked the balance of his emotional account to leave him all paid up, proud that he’d made a difference… and grateful that he’d survived it.
5
Secrets Scribed in Skin
At the same time that Sam and Gerold were bringing Toshana to the King George Hospital, another laborious delivery was being arranged.
Upney Lane boasted a new state of the art morgue, aptly called Nirvana Public Morgue, mainly serving the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. It was here where hospitals like King George and Barking Hospital dumped most of their expired patients straight after decease. However, it was the crime victim variety in particular that found their way into Nirvana, since the institution possessed ample space in which to keep unidentified bodies while the police tried to track down their relatives. Due to its extended wing playing host to six forensic laboratories, Nirvana was the preferred destination for police-inquiry autopsies and forensic analysis from crime scenes.
Dr. Barry Hooper was Nirvana’s head medical examiner, and he was on duty with another colleague, Dr. Glen Victor, when the bodies of eight men were brought in for processing.
“And what is this?” Barry asked as he looked for the morgue register.
The patient transporter, a wiry adolescent with an annoying habit of chewing gum, answered, “These are those blokes that was run over in Barking.”
“What blokes run over?” Barry frowned as the EMTs helped trolley in the deceased men for sign in.
“Oh,” the juvenile muncher replied, “yeah, I heard it on the police scanner. They say there was a call from someone in Barking, saying a gang of blokes was stoning a woman. But you know the cops are not easily moved to mess with the Muslim communities, so they took their time.”
“And?” Barry barked, frowning at the senseless religious persecution. “What happened to the woman?”
The wiry lad shrugged, “Dunno. She was gone when they got there, but the caller said a SUV came out of nowhere and just run the bastards down. This is them.”
“Jesus Christ,” Barry said, “this shite is getting out of hand. So these men are Islamic extremists?”
“I guess,” the driver drawled through his spittle. He held out his clipboard to the medical examiner, who wore a face of abject repulsion. Barry grabbed the board and checked the particulars before signing off on the new arrivals.
“Here,” he said bluntly, shoving the clipboard into the young man’s abdomen, “and for Christ’s sake, spit that crap out. You look like a roadhouse waitress.”
Barry walked off to call his staff for help with the influx, and as the adolescent idiot left, Barry murmured, “Fucking imbecile.”
“All these?” the morgue attendant asked, looking taken aback.
“No, just the dead ones!” Barry shouted from the next office. “Glen, you have to see this.”
“What is it?” his colleague asked.
“We are going to have our hands full tonight,” Barry revealed dryly, and dropped the register on Glen’s desk. “Look at that. Eight Muslims.”
Glen looked up. Barry was well aware of Glen’s open intolerance toward the Islamic faith and its ‘harsh rites,’ and he could not wait to see his colleague’s reaction. “You can’t be serious. Why don’t we just fire up the incinerator?”
Barry chuckled, not disappointed in Glen’s response. “I knew you would suggest such a thing, but unfortunately we are not a private institution, so we have to play by the rules.”
“Why?” Glen asked forcefully. “Just chuck the fuckers into the oven and claim they never made it here. Problem solved.”
Barry laughed uncomfortably, shaking his head at how easily Glen would come up with these ‘problem solvers,’ as he called them. “We have to get their relatives to collect them. You make the calls.”
“Fuck you, Barry,” Glen grinned.
Barry walked out and called the attendants. “Remember, boys, just lay them out so that we can plug and stitch ‘em before their families collect them.”
“No washing?” one morgue attendant wanted to know.
“Nope. Their religion forbids it. But we have to at least straighten them out. Jesus, they look like smashed tarantulas, man. Straighten them out, put their clothes back on, and wrap them in sheets, clothes and all,” Barry instructed the younger staff members, who all seemed a bit perplexed at the deviation from their usual procedure. “I’m getting some coffee. Call me when they’re laid out for stitching, okay?”
“Yes, sir,” James, the confused diener, answered as Barry walked away to check on Glen’s progress in the office. Nighttime always made the assistants nervous, but they enjoyed the peace and quiet outside. To add to their uneasiness at the sight of the shattered Muslim bodies, a storm was brewing outside.
“Oh, great, just what we need,” James moaned. “Frankenstein weather.”
He’d worked at Nirvana the longest of all the dieners, so he knew the procedure pretty well. The problem was just that James was also a great fan of paranormal studies and the occult, which often woke his mind to unnecessary scenarios.
“Suck it up, Jay,” his friend snorted. “The sooner you plug ‘em, the less likely they’ll be to rise and eat your brains.”
“Oh, shut it,” James sighed, and proceeded to prepare the first cadaver.
In the office, Barry found Glen more worked up than he’d expected. Glen looked vexed by the lack of information. He looked up at Barry. “I suppose I have to do the cops’ work for them again. After I take their prints and note identifying features, you can stitch them together.”