by Andy Farman
Montego Bay, Jamaica: 0900hrs, Monday 24th January.
The legal system in the former colony remains essentially British, and as such the young constable who had first boarded the Krasivaya Dama off South Negril Point presented himself at the mortuary in order to provide continuity of evidence, in other words, he was to confirm that the body upon the slab and the body he had accompanied from the yacht’s main cabin to the mortuary two days before were one and the same. Constable McKenzie’s Inspector had added a requirement of his own to that of the young officer’s duties to the coroner. It was a matter of pride, his Inspector had explained.
Constable McKenzie was not from Kingston or any of the more ‘lively’ areas of the island; he had been raised in a small inland village and had seen a grand total of two dead bodies in his twenty years. The first had been his next door neighbour’s granny when McKenzie had been five. She had been laid out in her best Sunday dress and the blocks of ice placed around the bed had slowed what his father had termed ‘the ripening’. The Granny hadn’t looked dead, she had just looked asleep. The most memorable part of the whole occasion had been young McKenzie having his hands slapped for trying to lift the pennies off the old ladies eyes, to see if she was in fact awake.
The second body had been the chestnut haired young woman on the boat. She had also been on a bed, and she hadn’t looked dead either, at least not at first. He had felt embarrassed at intruding on a scene of obviously quite recent intimacy. She had been lying naked upon the rumpled sheets; face down on the red satin covers and with those glorious locks spread out like a chestnut veil and the tattoo of dogs paw marks on her right cheek. Blood splatter on the mirrored headboard was the first clue that she was not in fact sleeping. The colour of the sheets had hidden the large amount of blood actually present.
His sergeant drove him to the mortuary and pulled the car up outside the front entrance.
“Are you ready boy, got your notebook and a pen?”
McKenzie held up the notebook, it was opened to the page where he had recorded the delivery of the body the previous Saturday morning and he fumbled in a pocket before producing a biro, much chewed upon at one end.
“Yes, Sarge.”
“Does it work?”
The young officer ran the nib back and forth on one corner of an inside cover of his notebook, making rapid zig zag motions before looking at his sergeant apologetically.
The thirty-year veteran rolled his eyes upwards before handing over his own.
“I want it back or you will be walking the beat all next month.”
McKenzie exited the car, carefully closing the door behind him.
“And remember what the Inspector said?”
McKenzie bent to look back into the car.
“Yes Sergeant, I shouldn’t faint or throw up.”
The sergeant studied him for a moment before putting the car into first gear.
“Away with you now before you’re late boy,” his ‘skipper’ growled. “I’ll be back in an hour to pick you up.”
The car started to move off and McKenzie braced himself to enter the building.
“And if you’ve puked up over yourself you’ll be walking behind the car!”
He raised a hand to acknowledge he understood as the car drove away.
He entered the mortuary, stepping out of the heat of a fine Caribbean morning into the air-conditioned reception area. He wasn’t sure if the cool breeze that wafted over him was for the benefit of the living, or just a higher tech method of ensuring the residents did not ripen.
After signing himself in the young constable was shown along a corridor and upon opening the double doors at the end he had his first experience of an entirely different atmosphere.
It is a strange smell, a unique mix of sterilising fluid, formaldehyde, antiseptic, uncooked meat, gastric juices and last meals at every single possible stage of digestion.
A pair of mortuary technicians noticed the young officer enter and his naturally dark complexion became edged with grey as he sampled the smell for the first time. They looked at each other and winked. A probationary constable, quite obviously, so there would be some sport this fine morning.
Constable McKenzie swallowed the bile that had risen, and surveyed the white tiled room. There were only two other people in the room; living that is, and both wore disposable plastic aprons over their white coats, and those aprons were already blood splattered.
“Are you the forensic examiners?” He did not actually know what the proper title would be, but it sounded right.
“No officer, we just prepare them for the pathologist, and he will be here at any time now so why don’t you find the body you are here for and he can start with that one.”
Neither of the men made a move to assist him and McKenzie took in the white tiled room with a dozen stainless steel ‘slabs’ that had supine shapes resting upon them. A sheet covered each shape with just bare feet protruding from under one end. He saw that tags were tied to toes, just like in the movies, but he had no desire to lift any of the sheets.
“Er, she would be the white woman with the very long and curly, reddish hair, brought in last Friday.”
One of the mortuary workers approached the nearest sheet adorned corpse.
“Well that’s a problem then.” He gestured to the young officer to come closer and the folded back the top of the sheet.
Constable McKenzie stared wide at the thing on the slab.
“You see we shave them in order to cut off the top of the skulls with a circular saw.” A flap of skin remained at the back of the head allowing the top of the skull to hang open like a lid. The brain had been removed and was sat in a steel dish beside the head in readiness for a proper examination.
“It’s to save time, we prepare the bodies and the pathologist just goes from one to the other, digs around a bit, prods here and there, writes his notes and moves onto the next one.” The mortuary technician gripped the skin that had slipped down from the forehead when the cut had been made, making the face unrecognisable. Taking a firm grip he pulled the skin upwards, drawing back the folds from where they had sunk towards the chin.
“Is this her?…ah no, it’s a man, well let’s try another…”
Constable McKenzie had become very pale indeed but the appearance of the pathologist spared him further unnecessary torment by the technicians.
There had only been the one murder victim brought in over the weekend and this was his priority of the morning, a plainclothes detective accompanied him into the room and the demeanour of the technicians altered slightly.
“We will start with the woman from the boat….Constable can you confirm that this is the same body?”
The same technician took McKenzie by the arm and immediately led him to the end of the line to where the technicians had known the woman to be all along. He then grasped the sheet and uncovered the corpse with a flourish.
The breakfast Constable McKenzie had been trying to keep in place now started to rise. As well as removing the top of the head the technicians had already opened the chest cavity and the officer looked again at the ruined face, wrecked by the .45 calibre round that had entered through the back of her head.
“Yes sir that is the woman I found in the yacht’s cabin…..”
“Duly noted,” said the pathologist, addressing the back of the hurriedly departing young officer.
The examination of the body took half an hour, during which it was discovered that a stainless steel crown had replaced a molar at the back of the lower jaw, a practice only carried out within the borders of the old Soviet Union.
A motive for the killing had yet to be established although robbery may well have taken place. A safe had been found open but empty.
The pathologist answered the detective’s queries during the course of his examination of what had once been a very beautiful young woman.
No, there was no trace of semen in the vagina, anus or gullet, however there was evidence that sexual activit
y had been occurring either at the time of death or very shortly before.
No, there were no ligature marks on wrists and ankles, no defence wounds and no sign of injury aside from that fatal wound.
The toxicology report proved negative for illegal substances and as only a small amount of alcohol had been in the victims system at the time of death, the sexual activity had probably been of a consensual nature.
At last the doctor had removed his latex gloves and turned to the detective.
“I don’t suppose you know who she was?”
The detective shook his head.
“The safe had been opened and there were no documents to be found on board, no passports or even any photographs.” He consulted his own notebook.
“The yacht was purchased with cash in Columbia and renamed; and there are no details as to the purchaser.”
“Drug related?” the pathologist queried.
The detective answered with a shrug, meaning it was not going to be a great shock if it was found to be cartel related. There may have been a war going on but that had not stopping drug smuggling, if anything it had increased.
“How about fingerprints and DNA?”
“Ah yes, they were taken as a matter of course but we drew a blank on our records here, so we sent them off to London and to the FBI.”
“Perhaps I can help with that?” a voice stated from behind them, and the doctor and detective turned to face a large man who had plainly not spent long in the sun. The off-the-rail suit he wore was probably adequate for a summer wedding in England but it was sweat stained from the Caribbean heat and rumpled from the flight in an economy class seat.
“Broadhead, Foreign and Commonwealth Office,” the stranger identified himself, handing across his government identity card before removing from a thin attaché case a sheet of paper bearing the set of fingerprints and an orange coloured folder bearing the printed title ‘National Identification Bureau’.
“We were quite excited when we received your set of dabs,” he explained. “You see we have been looking for this woman for some time now, so my department chief had me on the next flight out here.”
The detective, who after many years cultivating a cynical outlook on life and therefore thought himself never to be surprised again, now found himself to be just that. He handed the Englishman back his I.D after looking at it closely, and nodded to the pathologist that he was satisfied with the bona fides.
Broadhead of the FCO opened the folder and extracted a colour photograph, which he handed to the detective.
“We knew her as Christina Carlisle, but her real name was Svetlana Vorsoff, a Russian national.”
The detective looked at the photograph of a beautiful young woman and then handed it to the doctor. He looked at the thing upon the slab and shook his head sadly.
“What was she known for, Mister Broadhead?”
“Well, it seems she was KGB and she was involved in espionage before the war,” he stated with a degree of relish. “She…ahem, shall we say that she specialised in ‘pillow talk’, if you get where I am coming from?”
The man from London claimed back the photograph, replacing it in the file and handed over to the policeman a copy of a National Identification Bureau record with its own photographs attached with paperclips.
“I’d like to sound mysterious and say that I cannot tell you any more than that, but I really don’t actually know anything further, however I hope I have at least helped you in some small way?”
The detective thanked him but when Mister Broadhead enquired as to how the investigation was going, he stated rather formerly that it was proceeding and arrests would follow before long.
The man from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office received a copy of the pathologists report before leaving the mortuary, pausing on the steps to gaze at the bustle of life going on around him.
Inside the mortuary the detective was so pleased at the news that he could give his boss that it never occurred to him that the bureaucrat, a pen pusher from London, had been unaffected by either the smell, or even by the sight of the sliced open cadavers.
‘Mister Broadhead’ took a handkerchief from a pocket to mop his brow before continuing down the steps where he encountered the pale and dejected form of Constable McKenzie sat on the bottom step. He patted him on the shoulder in passing.
“Chin up son, it’s a part of the job we all get used to eventually.”
McKenzie looked up and nodded his thanks for the kind words, but the man in the crumpled suit was not dallying for a chat, he was hailing a cab.
The patois of the taxi driver brought a smile to his face as he lounged back in the rear seat, admiring the views being pointed out by the owner of some seriously long dreadlocks. Instead of turning right for the airport the cab turned west, and travelled along the edge of Montego Bay. On Southern Cross Boulevard his driver took both hands off the steering wheel and both eyes off the road in order to point out the Bob Marley Performance Centre and enthuse at the talent of a dead musical genius, which was particularly worrying as he could see the drivers of cabs driving in the opposite direction were engaging with their passengers in the same manner. No head on collisions or dreadful pile ups resulted though, and shortly after turning onto Sunset Drive he was delivered safely to the door of the yacht club.
After paying the cab fare he entered the building and made his way to the bar, where after purchasing a long cool cola with lime and crushed ice he stepped out onto a terrace that overlooked the sea.
The lunchtime business rush was still well over an hour away and as such the terrace held only one other person, but after casting his eye around at all the vacant tables the man from the FCO approached the table occupied by a lone female, elegantly dressed in light, fashionable designs that were ideal for the climes, and sporting close cropped, platinum blonde hair.
“May I?”
The woman, the possessor of a great tan and photographic models physique looked up from the broadsheet crossword she had apparently been struggling with.
“Please do, I was about to leave anyway.”
With a smile, ‘Mister Broadhead’ sat opposite, placing the attaché case on the table between them.
He did not seem to take offence at the familiarity in which she drew the case to herself.
She opened the attaché case and withdrew the orange folder, the contents of which she studied earnestly.
He looked over at the newspaper and saw that the crossword she had apparently been battling with was in fact complete, and probably had been in around ten minutes flat.
Eventually she closed the folder and returned it.
“So I’m dead then?” she queried, a flash of amusement on her face.
“Your fingerprints and DNA records have been exchanged, and eventually the Jamaica Constabulary will conclude that Svetlana Vorsoff was the victim of a robbery that went wrong, slain by persons unknown.”
He placed a hand inside his jacket, delving into the pocket there and took out an envelope which he handed across.
“As requested.”
The blonde examined the British passport that the envelope contained, and she knew without asking that it was the real article, not some clever forgery.
“Who was she and what happened on the yacht that night?” he asked.
She returned the file and closed the attaché case.
“KGB, and a rather close friend of Elena, one would suppose.” replied Svetlana. “As to the ‘what’, well I hardly think your blood pressure would stand it.” The flash of Vorsoff gaiety and mischief that had been absent since London made a brief reappearance in the hoot of laughter that his expression caused, but it faded as quickly as smoke on the breeze.
“She went by a rather pretentious codename, and it was she who killed Caroline.”
Broadhead considered that for a moment, recalling an incident on a tube train.
“I think I saw her, and if that is true then I am deeply sorry as I it means I may have led he
r to you in London.”
“Elena would have found us one way or another, so you must not beat yourself up over this, and it was not I who was the target in London, but Caroline.”
Svetlana withdrew a pair of sunglasses and placed them atop the silvery buzz cut before finishing her drink.
“Elena relishes inflicting emotional pain on others, and quite perversely upon herself also, or why else would she have sent her latest girlfriend to inveigle her way into ones affections in order to Shanghai me back to Russia?”
“You knew this?”
“Her obsession?” Svetlana rolled her eyes. “Well of course I did.” Svetlana appeared a little disappointed in him. “There is more to this whore sat before you than you apparently realise.”
The offhand use of that vulgar word made him wonder if she accepted that as her lot in life. The intelligence, the intellect locked away inside her, was therefore just so much lost potential and even a hardened copper, such as he was, saw the tragedy in that.
“Well, at the very least I hope that the new identity will allow you to stay clear of her from now on,” he stated apologetically.
Svetlana paused and looked him in the eyes, holding his gaze for a moment as she weighed her words, before tapping the envelope with a white painted fingernail.
“Dear Sir Dickie, what on earth leads you to believe that I made my request in order to run away, hmm?”
In those green orbs the eye candy façade was lowered for a fleeting heartbeat, and he felt a chill.
“Yet another of her lovers running for the border, but this time with all the blood money? Well that is a short lived fiction indeed, and one that Elena will see through before very long so I had better make use of the advantage whilst I still have it.”
She stood.
“There are some envelopes in the centre of the newspaper, and I would be grateful if you could ensure their delivery?”
He stood, and quite formerly he gave a little bow.
“Of course.”