by M A Comley
“I’ve told your mates everything I know. When can Zoe and me go home?” he asked, firmly gripping his cup of coffee. His hand was shaking so much that the coffee splashed out of his cup.
Lorne felt sorry for the nineteen-year-old, who appeared to be traumatised but trying hard to disguise it. His red eyes showed how much he had cried in the last hour or so.
“Soon, I promise,” she said. “Now, what were you doing in the forest at that time of night?”
He glanced over at the male officer standing in the far corner for help.
Lorne followed his gaze and saw the officer shrug. “Todd?”
The teenager shuffled his feet nervously, and Lorne got the impression he was too embarrassed to confide in her. She smiled reassuringly to put him at ease.
He cleared his throat before replying, “Zoe and me go there ev’ry Thursday. It’s the only place we can be alone, if you know what I mean?”
“I think I get the picture. I can think of more comfortable places to have sex though, especially in the middle of a storm. Do you still live at home, Todd?”
“Yeah, I do. So? What’s that gotta do with anythin’?” he asked defensively.
“Do your parents know that you go down the woods to play? Furthermore, do you know that it’s an offence to have sexual intercourse in a public place?” she stated, slapping the teenager down.
“I know, I’m sorry. You’re not gonna arrest me for that, are ya?”
Lorne fought hard to suppress a smile. “No, we won’t be arresting you this time, Todd. But in future, watch where you sow your oats, okay?”
“Yes, miss. No fear of that, miss. After finding that body, my oat-sowing days in open places are well and truly over.” His relief was evident, and for the first time, Lorne noticed a sparkle in his baby blue eyes.
“How was the body when you found it?” The lad smirked, and she sensed he was going to give her a wise-arse response, so she promptly rephrased her question. “I mean, was the body buried or exposed?”
“It was covered with leaves when Zoe stumbled over it. Something spooked her. She took flight and kicked it while she was running. She said the forest had an eerie feel tonight. She doesn’t usually complain.” He took a sip of his coffee.
Lorne’s notebook lay open in front of her but remained empty. She had a sinking feeling this interview was going to be a complete waste of time. “When was the last time you and Zoe visited the woods?”
“Last week, I think.”
“I need honest answers, Todd. Was it last week or not?”
“Yeah, it was last Thursday. The weather was better then. I wish we hadn’t gone down there tonight, that’s for sure.”
“Did you see anyone else in the woods?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Think, Todd. It’s important. It could be vital to the case,” Lorne urged the youngster and watched pain show in his expression.
“Nope, don’t remember seeing anyone. Can we go now? You won’t tell our parents, will you?”
Lorne let out a dissatisfied sigh. “You can go, but if you think of anything, anything at all, ring me. Okay?” She pushed back her chair and handed him one of her cards.
There was no point hanging onto the kids. She tapped on the door to the other interview room and asked Pete to join her in the corridor. He came out a few seconds later.
“Did you get anything out of the girl?”
“Not even a tadpole of a clue. She cried, then bawled, then cried some more. Total waste. How about you?” her frustrated partner asked, pulling his trousers up by the waistband.
“About the same. Let’s get shot of them and grab a coffee before Doctor Arnaud summons us. You losing weight, Pete?” she asked with a teasing smile.
“Fat chance,” he replied before returning to the interview room. Lorne watched from the door as he gave the girl one of his cards. Zoe burst into tears again, and Lorne sent Todd in to calm her down.
“How you feeling?” Pete tentatively asked Lorne when they reached the canteen.
“Thanks for asking, Pete, but I’m fine.” She intentionally avoided his eyes. They had a good working relationship. They’d been together for four years and knew each other well. Too well, at times.
“Why did he do it?” he asked, concern showing in his voice.
She knew what Pete thought of men who lashed out at their wives and suspected Tom, a close friend of his, had ultimately gone down in his estimation. “I’d rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.” She kept her head down as she absently played with her cup.
Pete held up his hands in surrender—he knew how stubborn she could be. “Okay, boss. But you know where I am if you want to unburden yourself.”
“Thanks, partner.” Lorne smiled. She reached across the table and patted his hand.
Lorne regarded Pete as a brother, teasing him one minute, then shouting at him the next. It also meant they had a strong relationship, one built on trust and understanding. Pete was the type to jump in feet first, whereas Lorne took two steps back and analysed cases logically. Over the years their balanced partnership had served both them and the Met well.
A couple of uniformed officers joined them, and not long after that, Lorne’s mobile received the message they’d been waiting for. “Arnaud awaits, Pete. You ready for this?”
“Far from it,” he mumbled, pushing back his chair.
“Come on. Let’s get it over with.” She shuddered at the thought of spending the next three or four hours with Doctor Arnaud.
CHAPTER THREE
“Nice of you to come so promptly,” Arnaud said, when the two detectives arrived at the spotlessly clean St Patrick’s hospital mortuary.
Knowing how Pete felt about sarcasm, Lorne shot him a warning glance to not retaliate.
“Well! What are you waiting for? A number seven bus? For God’s sake, go get suited and booted. Bones, show them the way.”
His pathologist assistant, Bones, grudgingly showed them to the locker room. He rummaged through the tall plastic container in the corner marked “CLEAN” and withdrew two sterilised green operating gowns that had been discarded by surgeons.
The hospital deemed it a waste of funding to supply new greens for use in the pathology department, especially when, at the end of a post-mortem, the blood-soaked uniforms were disposed of in the hospital’s incinerator, anyway. Booties slipped over their shoes completed their fetching ensemble; they were ready to go.
On the return journey up the long hallway to the doctor’s theatre, Pete gave a small cough and said, “Well, then…”
Lorne cringed and braced herself. Her partner was about to ask one of his dumb questions.
“What’s with the nickname?” Pete asked his unsuspecting victim.
The small geeky-looking assistant snapped back, “Bones isn’t my nickname; it’s my surname.”
Pete smiled.
“You got a problem with that? And yeah, I’ve heard all the wisecracks in this universe and the next, so don’t waste your time even trying to come up with a new one.”
“Hey, mate, no insult intended, just trying to make conversation,” Pete replied, his smile slipping.
Lorne suppressed a chuckle at how Pete seemed put out by the young man’s abruptness.
Out of the corner of his mouth, Pete said to her, “Touchy, ain’t he? Guess his sense of humour died a long time ago, working in a dead-end job like this.”
“Give it a rest, Pete.” She elbowed him in the ribs and added, “Shut that overworked mouth of yours for a change, will you?” His mistimed humour was all bravado, a sign of how uncomfortable he was in his surroundings.
Inside the post-mortem suite, Lorne approached the stainless steel table in the centre of the room. Standing approximately eighteen inches from the corpse’s feet guaranteed her a bird’s-eye view of the proceedings. Pete however, positioned himself alongside a chair that’d been handily placed next to the exit, ideal for a quick getaway. His pusillanimity in their envir
onment was laughable.
Arnaud stood next to the table and snapped on his latex gloves. His tools were laid out on the waist-high trolley beside him. Eyeing the tools, Lorne thought some of them looked as though they had been purchased at the local DIY store, rather than a medical supplier. Alongside the pruning clippers and the vibrating bone saw was a knife that resembled a bread knife she used at home. There were also various-sized scalpels, probably painstakingly sharpened by his assistant, Bones, after every examination.
Bones unzipped the bag, and both men, one on either side of the table, slid the bag from under the body.
Lorne glanced over at Pete as the corpse, which had been wrapped in a white sheet at the scene, lay like a midget-mummy on the table.
After Bones and Arnaud carefully removed the sheet, Lorne hoped Pete wouldn’t faint—or throw up—at the sight of the headless, rotting trunk.
Bones cautiously placed the sheet to one side, making sure any trace of evidence, no matter how small, would stay in the sheet, to be studied in depth later.
The perforated table the body now lay on would allow any excess fluids to run through it and settle in the drip tray below, and those samples would also be analysed.
Bones walked over to the recorder and switched it on.
As Arnaud made his first cut into the torso, Lorne quickly donned her surgical mask. It didn’t take long for the smell of decomposing flesh to waft over to where Pete was standing. He gagged, his knees buckled, and he dropped into the chair beside him.
Darn it. Just as I thought. The post-mortem suite was where the men were sorted from the boys. For some reason, the women seemed to cope far better in the environment than their male counterparts. Lorne always thought that having to go through the ordeal of childbirth worked in a female officer’s favour.
“While I dissect the body, please feel free to ask any questions,” Arnaud said brusquely.
The doctor was one of the few pathologists she knew who performed a post-mortem without wearing a mask. She’d once asked him why, only for him to snap that ‘a mask disguises crucial smells,’ like the smell of almonds, when cyanide had been used in a homicide. Lorne had a suspicion that Arnaud got a kick out of the vile stench of rotting flesh and was too ashamed to admit he had a fetish.
“At the scene, you suspected the body had been moved. Can you tell us why, Doctor?” Lorne asked, her fascination piquing with every cut he made.
“Ah, yes. Although the body had been discovered beneath a pile of leaves, it was caked in mud. As far as I know, when a pile of leaves breaks down, it does not mysteriously change its natural composition. I suspect that somebody returned to the body, to remove its limbs. You see here.” He pointed to the gaping hole in the right shoulder. “The arm has been pulled from its socket, not detached with a sharp implement. This can only be carried out with ease once the body has begun to decompose.”
“Oh Jesus,” Pete cried as he bolted through the heavy plastic door.
“I see your colleague appears to have lost his stomach for the job,” the Frenchman said, smirking, a glint in his smouldering dark brown eyes.
A smile touched her taut lips. So this arrogant man did have a sense of humour after all.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lorne’s autopilot kicked in to get her home without much effort. Before long, she had her front door open and was easing her way along her narrow Minton-tiled hallway. Leaning against the decorative dado rail, she removed the shoes that had imprisoned her aching feet for the previous five hours. Standing over a corpse in a sanitised cold environment certainly took its toll.
The post-mortem had turned out to be disappointingly inconclusive. Doctor Arnaud suspected the cause of death would only be determined once the missing limbs had been recovered. He’d been positive about only one thing—a homicide had been committed.
Exhausted both mentally and physically, Lorne couldn’t summon up enough energy to climb the stairs to take a shower, despite the putrid smell of rotting flesh lingering uninvitingly on her clothes. Instead she wandered through to the kitchen. The newness of the wood was a welcome relief to her nostrils. Tom had recently refurbished it in a contemporary style of beech and stainless steel.
Henry approached her sleepily. “Hello, boy. How’s it going?” she asked, petting his silky head. She took a crystal tumbler from the cupboard above the granite breakfast bar and filled it with the remains of the whisky.
The sharp aroma of the amber-coloured liquid transported her to pastures far away. To the sumptuous heather-clad hillsides of Scotland. To a little holiday cottage Tom and she used to visit regularly before Charlie came along. Life had been so different back then. They’d been free spirits, without a care in the world. Now they were just an ordinary married couple, trapped in the midst of time, waiting for their child to fly the nest.
With Henry close to her heels, she crept back into the lounge, switching on the lamp on the small table beside the sofa. She groaned as she settled her weary body on the cushions her husband had left strewn across the floor. The burning embers of the fire still radiated enough heat for the room to feel comfortable. Henry sidled up to her. She stroked him, and he licked her face in return.
The whisky warmed her insides as it slid gracefully down her throat. She sighed with contentment and removed the band that had kept her shoulder-length hair in place throughout the post-mortem. She ran her fingers through her locks as she reflected on her day. Eventually her coil-sprung mind cleared, and she drifted off to sleep, wrapped around her devoted four-legged friend.
Four hours later, she woke to find Tom standing over her, glaring.
She stretched and yawned noisily. Henry ran to the back door and whimpered to be let out.
“What time did you get in?” Tom asked.
“I don’t know exactly. About three. Are you still in a mood?”
He turned and headed into the kitchen. Lorne shook her head in dismay. After a few minutes, she followed him. He had his back to her. She tiptoed across the room and wrapped her arms around him, her head resting on his back, she asked again, “Are you still in a mood with me?”
Untying himself from her grasp, he stepped away. “Don’t you ever stop interrogating people?”
His angry words sent a chill running up her spine. He looked handsome in his burgundy silk robe that was draped open, revealing a muscular, thickly thatched chest she usually adored running her fingers through. Her heart skipped a beat as her eyes lingered on the stunning Mediterranean dark looks he’d fortunately inherited from his father. The problem was he’d also inherited other traits that weren’t so charming, such as his temper and unwillingness to compromise.
“Once a policewoman, always a policewoman, I guess.” She shrugged an apology.
“You stink. The least you could have done was had a shower.”
Lorne shook her head. “Tom, I was buggered when I got home. Give me a break, will you?”
“I don’t doubt that. You’re always buggered lately,” he snapped back at her.
Without realising it, she rolled her eyes—which set him off again.
“Don’t bloody do that! You know I’m right. You’re always too tired to do anything when you get home from that place, but that doesn’t excuse you from not having a shower. You should’ve had one at work. What gives you the right to bring the smell of death into our home?”
“Are you finished?” She folded her arms defiantly. “For your information, I was at the mortuary last night—”
“That much is evident,” he retaliated, eyes narrowed.
“As I was saying, I was at the mortuary, and it was quicker to come home rather than go back to the station. I’ve never done that before, have I?”
Tom shrugged and had the grace to look ashamed at his uncalled-for outburst. He bent down and took a couple of cereal bowls out of the cupboard. “Do you want some breakfast?” he asked, his tone much softer.
“I’ll grab a shower first and then have some, thanks.”
&n
bsp; As she turned to leave the room, she heard him mumble an apology.
“No problem,” she called back over her shoulder and headed up the stairs.
Half an hour later, she found him at the hob frying bacon and eggs. “Not for me, hon. I’ll just grab a bowl of cornflakes and head off. Sorry, but I have to be at the station for a nine o’clock meeting with my team.”
That was it. The storm clouds gathered again. He threw the frying pan in the sink and stomped out of the room like a five-year-old.
Why do I bother? Her appetite suddenly gone, she left the house moments later. She was tired of fighting. Tired of stepping on eggshells. Tired of saying the wrong thing.
When did it all change?
The happiness they’d once held so dear now seemed light-years away. She didn’t have a clue how—or if—they would be able to sort things out. Was their marriage really at breaking point, or was her imagination working overtime?
CHAPTER FIVE
“Morning, ma’am,” the balding desk sergeant greeted her as she marched through reception.
“Morning, Burt. Anything I should know about?”
“All quiet around here, ma’am, but Chalmers asked me to tell you he’d like a word ASAP.”
“What kind of mood is he in?” she asked the sergeant.
“The usual, I guess,” he replied vaguely.
DCI Chalmers was an unknown quantity to her team, but Lorne had been with him for many years and understood his quirky ways. He was her mentor. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out her potential. He had pushed her to the limit, knew she’d have to work harder than any male under him. He had showed continued faith in her when others obstinately neglected to see her strengths.
Without his guidance, she wouldn’t have been half the detective she was, and she would’ve probably been driven from the force years ago, like most of the female colleagues she had trained with at Hendon. The force, unfortunately, still lived in the Dark Ages, where female recruits were concerned—something that Lorne fought hard to combat daily.