Whispers of the Dead

by Simon Beckett

  The cat is your earliest memory. There must be others before it, you know that. But none so vivid. None that you take out and replay time after time. So real that even now you can still feel the sun on the back of your head, see your shadow on the ground in front of you as you bend over. The soil is soft and easy to turn. You use a piece of wood broken off the fence, a piece of white picket starting to soften and rot. It threatens to break again, but you don't have far to dig. It isn't deep. You smell it first. A cloying, sweet stink that's both familiar and like nothing you've smelled before. You stop for a while, sniffing the damp soil, nervous but more excited. You know you shouldn't be doing this, but the curiosity is too great. Even then you had questions; so many questions. But no answers. The wood hits something almost as soon as you continue digging. A different texture in the soil. You begin to scrape away the final covering of earth, noticing that the smell has grown stronger. Finally, you can see it: a cardboard shoebox, its sides soaked and rotting. The box starts to disintegrate when you try to lift it, wet and sagging from the weight inside.You quickly set it down again.Your fingers feel clumsy and strange as you take hold of the lid, your chest tight. You're scared, but excitement easily outweighs your fear. Slowly, you remove the shoebox lid. The cat is a dirty mound of ginger. Its half-closed eyes are pale and dull, like deflated balloons after a party. Insects are crawling in its fur, beetles scuttling from the daylight. You stare, rapt, as a fat worm coils and contracts, dripping from its ear. Taking the stick, you prod the cat. Nothing happens. You prod again, harder. Again, nothing. A word forms in your mind, one you've heard before, but never really comprehended until now. Dead. You remember the cat as it was. A fat, bad-tempered torn, a thing of spite and claws. Now it's . . . nothing. How can the living animal you remember have become this rotting clump of fur? The question fills your head, too huge for you to hold.You lean closer, as though if you look hard enough you'll find the answer . . . .. . . and suddenly you're jerked away. The neighbour's face is contorted with anger, but there's also something there you don't recognize. It's only years later that you identify it as disgust. 'What in God's name are you . . . ? Oh, you sick little bastard!' There is more shouting, then and later, back at the house. You don't try to explain what you did, because you don't understand yourself. But neither the angry words nor the punishment wipe away the memory of what you saw. Or what you felt, and still feel even now, nestling in the pit of your stomach. An overwhelming sense of wonder, and of burning, insatiable curiosity. You're five years old. And this is how it starts. Everything seemed to slow down as the knife came towards me. I grabbed for it, but I was always going to be too late. The blade slid through my grip, slicing my palm and fingers to the bone. I could feel the hot wetness of blood smearing my hand as my legs gave way under me. It pooled on the black and white floor tiles as I slid down the wall, soaking the front of my shirt. I looked down and saw the knife handle protruding obscenely from my stomach and opened my mouth to scream . . . 'No!' I bolted upright, gasping. I could feel the blood on me, hot and wet. I thrashed off the sheets, frantically trying to see my stomach in the dim moonlight. But the skin was unmarked. There was no knife, no blood. Just a sheen of clammy sweat, and the angry welt of the scar just under my ribs. Christ. I sagged with relief, recognizing my hotel room, seeing I was alone in it. Just a dream. My heart rate was starting to return to normal, my pulse ebbing in my ears. I swung my legs off the edge of the bed and shakily sat up. The clock on the bedside cabinet said five thirty. The alarm was set for an hour's time, but it wasn't worth trying to sleep again, even if I'd wanted to. I got up stiffly and switched on the light. I was beginning to regret agreeing to help Tom with the examination of the body from the cabin. A shower and breakfast. Things will look better then. I spent fifteen minutes running through exercises to strengthen my abdominal muscles, then went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. I turned my face up to the hot spray, letting the needles of water sluice away the lingering effects of the dream. By the time I emerged, the last vestiges of sleep had been washed away. There was a coffee maker in the room, so I set it going as I dressed and powered up my laptop. It would be late morning in the UK, and I sipped black coffee while I checked my emails. There was nothing urgent; I replied to the ones I needed to and left the rest for later. The restaurant downstairs had opened for breakfast, but I was the only customer. I passed on the waffles and pancakes and opted for toast and scrambled eggs. I'd been hungry when I went in, but even that seemed too much for me, and I managed less than half. My stomach was knotted, though I didn't know why it should be. I'd only be helping Tom with something I'd done myself countless times before, and in far worse circumstances than this. But telling myself that didn't make any difference. By the time I went outside the sun was coming up. Although the car park was still in shadow, the deep blue of the sky was paling, shot through with dazzling gold on the horizon. The hire car was a Ford, the subtle differences in style and automatic transmission a further reminder that I was in another country. Although it was still early, the roads were already busy. It was a beautiful morning. Built-up as Knoxville was, this part of East Tennessee was still lush and verdant. The spring sun hadn't yet developed the shirt-sticking heat and humidity of high summer, and at this time of day the air held an early morning freshness, unsullied by traffic fumes. It was an easy twenty-minute drive to UT Medical Center. The morgue was located in a different part of the campus from the facility, but I knew my way there from previous trips. The man on the morgue reception was so huge he made the desk look like a child's toy. He was quilted with so much flesh that he seemed virtually boneless, the strap of his watch digging into the dimpled wrist like cheese wire into dough. His breath came in a faintly adenoidal wheeze as I explained who I was. 'Autopsy suite five.Through the door and down the corridor.' His voice was incongruously high-pitched for such a big frame. He gave a cherubic smile as he handed me an electronic pass card.'Cain't miss it.' I swiped the card on the door and went into the morgue itself.The familiar olfactory punch of formaldehyde, bleach and disinfectant greeted me. Tom was already in the tiled autopsy suite, dressed in surgical scrubs and a rubber apron. A portable CD player stood on a bench nearby, quietly playing a rhythmic drum track I didn't recognize. Another, similarly dressed man was with him, hosing down the body that lay on the aluminium table to sluice off the insects and blowfly larvae. 'Morning,' Tom said brightly as the door swung shut behind me. I tipped my head towards the CD player. 'Buddy Rich?' 'Not even close. Louie Belson.' Tom straightened from the dripping wet chest cavity. 'You're early' 'Not as early as you.' 'I wanted to get the body X-rayed and send the dental plates over to the TBI.' He gestured to the younger man who was still hosing down the body.'David, this is Kyle, one of the morgue assistants. I've had him helping out till you got here, but don't tell Hicks.'

  Morgue assistants were employed by the Medical Examiner's office, which meant that Hicks was technically Kyle's boss. I'd forgotten that the pathologist was based here, and I didn't envy anyone working for him. Not that it seemed to bother Kyle. He was tall, with a heavy-boned build that was just on the right side of plump. His pleasant moon face beamed from under an untidy mop of hair. 'Hi,' he said, raising a gloved hand. 'One of my students is going to be lending a hand, as well,' Tom went on. 'It doesn't really need three of us, but I promised I'd let her help out on my next examination.' 'If you don't need me here . . .' 'There's going to be plenty to do. It just means we'll finish sooner.' Tom's smile said I wasn't getting away that easily. 'Scrubs and the rest are in the locker room down the corridor.' I had the changing room to myself. Putting my own clothes in a locker, I pulled on surgical scrubs and a rubber apron. What we were about to do was perhaps the grimmest part of our work, and certainly one of the messiest. DNA tests could take up to eight weeks, and fingerprints only provided an identity match if the victim's were already on record. But even with badly decomposed bodies such as this, the victim's identity and sometimes also the cause of death could be gleaned from the sk
eleton itself. Before that could be done, though, every last trace of soft tissue had to be removed. It wasn't a pleasant job. When I went back to the autopsy suite I paused outside. I could hear Tom humming along to the jazz over the sound of running water. What if you make another mistake? What if you can't do this any more? But I couldn't afford to think like that. I opened the door and went in. Kyle had finished hosing down the body. Dripping water, the dead man's remains glistened as though they had been varnished. Tom was at a trolley of surgical instruments. He picked up a pair of tissue scissors and pulled the bright overhead light closer as I went over. 'OK, let's make a start.'

  The first dead body I saw was when I was a student. It was a young woman, no more than twenty-five or six, who had been killed in a house fire. She'd asphyxiated from the smoke, but her body was untouched by the flames. She was lying on a cold table under the mortuary's harsh, revealing light. Her eyes were partly open, slits of dull white showing between the lids, and the tip of her tongue was protruding ever so slightly from between bloodless lips. What struck me was how still she looked. As frozen and motionless as a photograph. Everything she'd done, everything she'd been and hoped to be, had come to an end. For ever. The realization hit me with physical force. I knew then that no matter what I did, how much I learned, there would always be one mystery I couldn't explain. But in the years that followed that only increased my determination to solve the more tangible puzzles that lay within my scope. Then Kara and Alice, my wife and six-year-old daughter, were killed in a car accident. And suddenly such things were no longer academic. For a time I'd retreated to my original profession of medical doctor, believing that way might bring a measure of peace, if not answers. But I'd only been fooling myself. As Jenny and I had found out to our cost, I couldn't run away from my work. It was what I did, what I was. Or so I'd thought until I'd had a knife thrust into my stomach. Now I wasn't sure of anything any more. I tried to put the doubts aside as I worked on the victim's remains. After collecting tissue and fluid samples to send for analysis, I used a scalpel to carefully cut away the muscle, cartilage and internal organs, literally stripping the last vestiges of humanity from the body. Whoever it was, he'd been a big man. We'd need to take more accurate measurements from the skeleton itself, but he was at least six two, and heavily boned. Not an easy man to overpower. We worked in near silence, Tom humming absently along to a Dina Washington CD as Kyle wound up the hose and busied himself cleaning the tray where the insects and other detritus from the body were caught after being washed off. I'd begun to lose myself in the work when the double doors to the autopsy suite abruptly swung open. It was Hicks. 'Morning, Donald,' Tom greeted him pleasantly. 'To what do we owe this pleasure?' The pathologist didn't bother to reply. The dome of his hairless head gleamed like marble under the bright lights as he glared at Kyle. 'The hell are you doing in here, Webster? I've been looking for you.' Kyle flushed. 'I was just--' 'He's just finishing up,'Tom put in smoothly.'I asked him to help out. Dan Gardner wants a report on this as soon as possible. Unless you have any objection?' Hicks could hardly admit to it if he had. He turned his ire on Kyle again. 'I've got an autopsy this morning. Is the suite ready?' 'Uh, no, but I asked Jason to--' 'I told you to do it, not Jason. I'm sure Dr Lieberman and his assistant can manage by themselves while you do what you're paid for.' It took a second or two to realize he meant me. Tom gave him a thin smile. 'I'm sure we can.' Hicks gave a sniff, disappointed to be deprived of a confrontation. 'I want everything ready in half an hour, Webster. Make sure it is.' 'Yes, sir. I'm sorry . . .' Kyle said, but the pathologist had already turned away. The heavy door swung shut behind him. 'Well, I'm sure we all feel better for that,' Tom said into the silence. 'Sorry, Kyle. I didn't mean to get you into trouble.' The younger man smiled, but his cheeks still flamed red. 'That's OK. But Dr Hicks is right. I really ought to--' The door burst open before he could finish. For a second I thought Hicks might have come back, but it was a harried-looking young woman who appeared rather than the pathologist. I guessed she was the student Tom had mentioned would be helping us. She was in her early twenties and wore a faded pink T-shirt over well-worn cargo pants, both stretched by her ample build. The bleached blond hair had been pulled into some sort of order by a red and white polka dot Alice band, and her round glasses gave her an amiably startled appearance. It should have clashed with the steel balls and rings that studded her ears, nose and eyebrows, but somehow didn't. Once you'd got over the initial surprise, the painful looking array of metalwork seemed to suit her. Her words were tumbling out in a rush before the door had even swung shut. 'God, I can't believe I'm /ate! I left early so I could stop off at the facility to check my project, but then I totally lost track of time! I'm really sorry, Dr Lieberman.' 'Well, you're here now,' Tom said. 'Summer, I don't think you've met David Hunter. He's British, but don't hold that against him. And this is Kyle. He's been holding the fort till you got here.' A dazed smile spread across Kyle's face. 'Pleased to meet you.' 'Hi.' Summer beamed, revealing an industrial-looking brace. She glanced across at the body, with interest rather than revulsion. It would have been a shocking sight for most people, but the facility helped prepare students for such grim realities. 'I haven't missed anything, have I?' 'No, he's still dead,' Tom reassured her. 'You know where everything is, if you want to get changed.' 'Sure.' She turned to go out, catching a stainless steel trolley full of instruments with her bag. 'Sorry,' she said, steadying it, before disappearing through the doorway. A stunned quiet settled over the autopsy suite once more. Tom wore a half-smile. 'Summer's our resident whirlwind.' 'I noticed,' I said. Kyle was still staring at the door with a shell-shocked expression. Tom gave me an amused glance, then cleared his throat. 'The samples, Kyle?' 'What?' The technician looked startled, as though he'd forgotten we were there. 'You were about to get them packed up for the lab.' 'Oh, right. Sure, no problem.' With a last hopeful glance at the doors, Kyle gathered up the samples and went out. 'I think it's safe to say our Summer's got an admirer,' Tom said wryly. He turned back to the table and suddenly winced, rubbing his breastbone as though he had trapped air. 'Are you OK?' I asked. 'It's nothing. Hicks is enough to give anyone heartburn,' he said. But his colour wasn't good. He reached for the tray of instruments and gave a gasp of pain. 'Tom--'