Whispers of the Dead dh-3

by Simon Beckett

  You like that idea: a ghost glass.

  But the pleasure soon fades. This is the part you hate most, the waiting. Still, it won’t be much longer now. You look across the room at where the uniform hangs on the back of the door, barely visible in the deepening shadows. It wouldn’t stand close inspection, but most people don’t look too closely. They see only a uniform in those first few seconds.

  And that’s all you need.

  You pour yourself another glass of milk, then stare out of the dirty window as the last of the light vanishes from the sky.

  CHAPTER 13

  THE DENTIST LAY exactly as he had the last time I’d seen him. He was still sprawled on his back, lying with the immobility only the dead can achieve. But he’d changed in other ways. The flesh had dried in the sun, skin and hair slipping from him like an unwanted coat. After a few more days stubborn tendons would be all that remained of the soft tissue, and before much longer there would be nothing left but enduring bone.

  I’d woken with a nagging headache, regretting the last glass of wine I’d had the previous night. Remembering what had happened before that hadn’t made me feel any better. As I’d showered I’d wondered what I should do until I heard from Tom. But there was really no decision.

  I’d had enough of being a tourist.

  The car park had been nearly empty when I’d arrived at the facility. It was still in shadow, and I shivered in the early morning chill as I pulled on a pair of overalls. I took out my phone, weighing up whether or not to leave it on. Normally I turned it off before I went through the gates—there seemed something disrespectful about disturbing the quiet inside with phone conversations—but I didn’t want to miss Tom’s call. I was tempted to leave it on vibrate, except that then I’d spend all morning waiting for its telltale buzz. Besides, realistically I knew Tom wouldn’t ring Gardner until later anyway.

  Making up my mind, I switched off the phone and thrust it away.

  Hoisting my bag on to my shoulder, I headed for the gates. Early as it was, I wasn’t the first there. Inside, a young man and woman in surgical scrubs, graduate students by the look of them, were chatting as they made their way back down through the trees. They gave me a friendly ‘Hi’ as they passed, then disappeared about their business.

  Once they’d gone, silence descended on the wooded enclosure. Apart from the birdsong, I might have been the only living thing there. It was cool inside, the sun not yet high enough to break through the trees. Dew darkened the bottoms of my overalls as I went up the wooded hillside to where the dentist’s body lay. The protective mesh cage meant that, among other things, I could observe how his body decomposed when no insects or scavengers were able to reach it. It wasn’t exactly original research but I’d never carried it out before myself. And charting something firsthand was always better than relying on the work of others.

  It had been a few days since I’d been here, though, so I’d some catching up to do. Stepping through a small door in the cage, I took a tape measure, calipers, camera and notepad from my bag and squatted down to work. I made heavy going of it; the headache was still a nagging throb behind my eyes, and the thought of the phone in my bag was a constant drag on my attention. When I found myself taking the same measurement twice I shook myself angrily. Come on, Hunter, focus. This is what you came here for.

  Closing my mind to distractions, I buckled down to the task. Headache and phone were temporarily forgotten as I was drawn into the microcosm of decay. Viewed dispassionately, our physical dissolution is no different from any other natural cycle. And, like any other natural process, it has to be studied before it can be fully understood.

  Eventually, sensations of discomfort began to make themselves known. My neck was stiff, and when I paused to flex it I realized I was hot and cramped. The sun was high enough now to reach through the trees, and I could feel myself starting to sweat in the overalls. Checking the time, I saw with surprise it was almost midday.

  I stepped out of the cage and closed the door behind me, then stretched, wincing as my shoulder popped. Pulling off my gloves, I started to take a bottle of water from my bag, but stopped when I caught sight of my hands. The skin was pale and wrinkled after being in the tight rubber gloves. There was nothing unusual about that, yet for some reason the sight prompted something to bump against my subconscious.

  It was the same sense of almost-recognition as I’d had the day before at Steeple Hill, and just as elusive. Knowing better than to force it, I took a drink of water. As I put the bottle away I wondered if Tom had spoken to Gardner yet. The temptation to switch on my phone to check for messages lured me for a moment, but I firmly put it aside. Don’t get distracted. Finish what you’re doing here first.

  It was easier said than done. I knew there was a good chance that Tom would have called by now, and the awareness nagged at my concentration. Refusing to give in to it, I took almost perverse care over the last few measurements, checking and noting them down in a log book before I packed away. Locking the mesh cage behind me, I headed for the gates. When I reached my car I stripped out of my overalls and gloves and put everything in the boot before I allowed myself to turn on the phone.

  It beeped straight away to let me know I had a message. I felt my stomach knot with anticipation. It had been left not long after I’d arrived at the facility, and I felt a stab of frustration when I realized I’d missed Tom’s call by minutes.

  But the message wasn’t from him. It was from Paul, to tell me that Tom had had a heart attack.

  * * *

  We don’t realize how reliant we are on context. We define people by how we normally see them, but take them out of that, place them in a different setting and situation, and our mind baulks. What was once familiar becomes something strange and unsettling.

  I wouldn’t have recognized Tom.

  An oxygen tube snaked up his nose, and a drip fed into his arm, held in place by strips of tape. Wires ran from him to a monitor, where wavering electronic lines silently traced the progress of his heart. In the loose hospital gown, his upper arms were pale and scrawny, with the wasted muscles of an old man.

  But then it was an old man’s head that lay on the pillow, grey-skinned and sunken-cheeked.

  The heart attack had struck at the morgue the night before. He’d been working late, wanting to make up for the time lost out at Steeple Hill earlier that day. Summer had been helping him, but at ten o’clock Tom had told her to go home. She’d gone to change, and then heard a crash from one of the autopsy suites. Running in, she’d found Tom semiconscious on the floor.

  ‘It was lucky she was still there,’ Paul told me. ‘If she hadn’t been he could’ve been lying there for hours.’

  He and Sam had been coming out of the Emergency Department as I arrived, blinking as they emerged into the bright sunlight. Sam looked calm and dignified, walking with the stately, leaned-back balance of late pregnancy. By comparison Paul seemed haggard and drawn with worry. He’d only found out about the heart attack when Mary had phoned him from the hospital that morning. Tom had undergone an emergency bypass during the night and was still unconscious in intensive care. The operation had gone as well as it could under the circumstances, but there was always the danger of another attack. The next few days were going to be critical.

  ‘Do we know anything else yet?’ I asked.

  Paul raised a shoulder. ‘Only that it was a massive attack. If he hadn’t been so close to Emergency he mightn’t have made it.’

  Sam squeezed her husband’s arm. ‘But he did. They’re doing everything they can for him. And at least the CAT scan was OK, so that’s good news.’

  ‘They did a CAT scan?’ I asked, surprised. That wasn’t a routine diagnostic for heart attacks.

  ‘For a while the doctors thought he might have had a stroke,’ Paul explained. ‘He was confused when he was brought in. Seemed to think something had happened to Mary instead of him. He was pretty agitated.’

  ‘C’mon, hon, he was barely consciou
s,’ Sam insisted. ‘And you know how Tom is with Mary. He was probably just worried that she’d be upset.’

  Paul nodded, but I could see he was still concerned. So was I. The confusion could have been caused by Tom’s brain not receiving enough oxygen or by a blood clot from his misfiring heart. A CAT scan should have shown up any obvious signs of a stroke, but it was another worrying factor, even so.

  ‘Lord, I just wish I’d not been away yesterday,’ Paul said, his face lined.

  Sam rubbed his arm. ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference. You couldn’t have done anything. These things happen.’

  But this needn’t have. I’d been berating myself ever since I’d heard the news. If I’d bitten my tongue instead of provoking Hicks, the pathologist might not have been so hell-bent on having me thrown off the investigation. I could have taken some of the workload from Tom, might even have spotted the danger signs of the impending heart attack and done something about it.

  But I hadn’t. And now Tom was in intensive care.

  ‘How’s Mary?’ I asked.

  ‘Coping,’ Sam said. ‘She’s been here all night. I offered to stay with her, but I think she’d rather be alone with him. And their son might be flying in later.’

  ‘Might?’

  ‘If he can tear himself away from New York,’ Paul said bitterly.

  ‘Paul…’ Sam warned. She gave me a small smile. ‘If you want to say hello I’m sure Mary would appreciate it.’

  I’d known Tom would be too ill for visitors, but I’d wanted to come anyway. I started to go inside, but Paul stopped me. ‘Can you stop by the morgue later? We need to talk.’

  I said I would. It was only just starting to dawn on me that he was effectively the acting director of the Forensic Anthropology Center. The promotion didn’t seem to give him any pleasure.

  The clinical smell of antiseptic hit me as soon as I stepped inside the emergency department. My heart raced as it sparked a flashback to my own time in hospital, but I quickly quelled the memory. My footsteps squeaked on the resin floor as I made my way along the corridors to the intensive care unit where Tom had been taken. He was in a private room. There was a small window in the door, and through it I could see Mary sitting next to his bed. I tapped lightly on the window. At first she didn’t seem to have heard, but then she looked up and beckoned me in.

  She’d aged ten years since I’d been to their house for dinner two nights ago, but her smile was as warm as ever as she moved away from the bedside.

  ‘David, you needn’t have come.’

  ‘I only just heard. How is he?’

  We both spoke in a low whisper, even though there was little chance of disturbing Tom. Mary made a vague gesture towards the bed.

  ‘The bypass went well. But he’s very weak. And there’s a danger he might have another attack…’ She broke off, moisture glinting in her eyes. She did her best to rally. ‘You know Tom, though. Tough as old boots.’

  I smiled with a reassurance I didn’t feel. ‘Has he been conscious at all?’

  ‘Not really. He came round a couple of hours ago, but not for long. He still seemed mixed up over who was in hospital. I had to reassure him that I was all right.’ She smiled, tremulously, her anxiety showing through. ‘He mentioned you, though.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘He said your name, and you’re the only David we know. I think he wanted me to tell you something, but I could only make out one word. It sounded like “Spanish”.’ She looked at me hopefully. ‘Does that mean anything to you?’

  Spanish? It seemed like more evidence of Tom’s confusion. I tried to keep my dismay from my face. ‘Nothing I can think of.’

  ‘Perhaps I misheard,’ Mary said, disappointed. She was already glancing towards the bed, obviously wanting to get back to her husband.

  ‘I’d better go,’ I said. ‘If there’s anything I can do…’

  ‘I know. Thank you.’ She paused, frowning. ‘I almost forgot. You didn’t call Tom last night, did you?’

  ‘Not last night. I spoke to him yesterday afternoon, but that was about four o’clock. Why?’

  She gestured, vaguely. ‘Oh, it’s probably nothing. Just that Summer said she heard his cell phone ring right before he had the attack. I wondered if it was you, but never mind. It can’t have been anything important.’ She gave me a quick hug. ‘I’ll tell him you stopped by. He’ll be pleased.’

  I retraced my steps and went back outside. After the oppressive quiet of the ICU the sun felt glorious. I tilted my face up to it, breathing in the fresh air to clear the smell of illness and antiseptic from my lungs. I felt ashamed to admit it even to myself, but I couldn’t deny how good it felt to be in the open again.

  Mary’s words came back to me as I walked back to my car. What was it Tom had said? Spanish. I puzzled over it, wanting it to make some sort of sense rather than be further evidence of his confusion. But try as I might I couldn’t think what it could mean, or why he should have wanted her to tell me.

  Preoccupied with that, it was only when I was driving away that I remembered what else Mary had told me.

  I wondered who might have been phoning Tom at that time of night.

  * * *

  The pan has boiled dry. You can see the tendrils of smoke coming from it and hear its contents hissing as they start to burn. But it’s only when the smoke begins to cloud above the stove that you finally rouse yourself from the table. The chilli is blackened and hissing with heat. The stink must be intense, but you can’t smell anything.

  You wish you were as immune to everything.

  You pick up the pan but let it drop again as the metal handle stings your hand. ‘Sonofabitch!’ Using an old towel, you lift it from the cooker and carry it to the sink. Steam hisses as you run cold water into it. You stare down at the mess, not caring one way or the other.

  Nothing matters any more.

  You’re still wearing the uniform, but now it’s sweat-stained and creased. Another waste of time. Another failure. And yet you’d come so close. That’s what makes it so hard to stomach. You’d watched from the shadows, heart hammering as you’d made the call. You’d worried your nerves might give you away, but of course they hadn’t. The trick is to shock them, to tip them off balance so they don’t think clearly. And it had gone just as you’d planned. It had been almost pathetically easy.

  But as the minutes ticked by he still didn’t appear. And then the ambulance had arrived. You could only watch helplessly as the paramedics ran into the building and returned with the unmoving figure strapped to the trolley. Then they’d bundled it inside and driven him away.

  Out of your reach.

  It isn’t fair. Just when you were on the point of triumph, of parading your superiority, it’s been snatched away. All that planning, all that effort, and for what?

  For Lieberman to cheat you.

  ‘Fuck!’

  The pan clatters against the wall as you fling it across the kitchen, leaving a trail of water and swinging flypapers. You stand with your fists balled, panting, desperate to feed the anger because behind it is only fear. Fear of failure, fear of what to do next. Fear of the future. Because, let’s face it, what do you have to show for all the years of sacrifice? Worthless photographs. Images that show only how close you came, that have captured nothing but one near miss after another.

  Tears sting your eyes at the injustice. Tonight should have gone some way towards countering the despair that’s built up as one disappointment after another has emerged from the developing tray. Taking Lieberman would have made up for some of that. Would have shown that you’re still better than the false prophets who claim to know it all. You deserve that much, at least, but now even that has been snatched away. Leaving you with what? Nothing.

  Only the fear.

  You close your eyes as you’re blasted by an image from childhood. Even now you can still feel the shock of it. The chill from the big, echoing room soaking into you as you step through the doorway. And then the stink. Yo
u can still recall it, even though your sense of smell is long since defunct, an olfactory memory like the phantom tingling of an amputated limb. You stop, stunned by what you see. Rows of pale, lifeless bodies, drained of blood and life. You can feel the pressure of the old man’s hand as he grips your neck, indifferent to your tears.

  ‘You want to see somethin’ dead, take a good look! Nothin’ special about it, is there? Comes to us all, whether we want it or not. You as well. Take a good long look, ‘cause this is what it all comes down to. We’re all just dead meat in the end.’

  The memory of that visit gave you nightmares for years. You’d catch sight of your hand, see the bones and tendons covered by a thin layer of skin, and you’d break out in a clammy sweat. You’d look at the people around you and see those rows of pale bodies again. Sometimes you’d see your reflection in the bathroom mirror and imagine yourself as one of them.

  Dead meat.

  You’d grown up haunted by that knowledge. Then, when you were seventeen, you’d stared into a dying woman’s eyes as the life—the light—went out of them.

  And you’d realized that you were more than meat after all.

  It had been a revelation, but over the years it had become harder to sustain your belief. You’d set out to prove it, but each disappointment had only undermined it more. And after all the work and planning, after all the risks, tonight’s failure was almost too much to take.

  Wiping your eyes, you go to the kitchen table where the Leica is partially disassembled. You’d started to clean it, but even that pleasure has turned to ashes. You slump down on to the chair and consider the pieces. Lethargically, you pick up the lens and turn it in your hand.

  The idea comes from nowhere.

  A sense of excitement starts to grow as it takes shape. How could you have overlooked something so obvious? It was there, staring you in the face all along! You should never have let yourself forget that you have a higher purpose. You’d lost sight of what was really important, let yourself become distracted. Lieberman was a dead end, but a necessary one.