Death of a Murderer

5

The double doors that led to the mortuary were pale-green and set deep into the wall. To their left was a notice that said for entry please push bell once. Another notice close by said staff only. Fixed high up on the wall was a circular convex mirror in which both Billy and the sergeant featured as thinner, more alien versions of themselves. Bulbous heads, bodies tapering away to nothing. Like tadpoles. Behind him, Billy could see a wide passage or ramp that sloped up to a large, cavernous area. Parked at the top, and motionless amid the constant, low-level grinding of generators, were several small-scale fork-lift trucks that were known as tugs. Phil told him they were used for ferrying the patients’ dirty linen to the back of the hospital. The woman’s bedding had been brought here too, though it had been treated not as laundry but as non-chemical waste. The moment her body was wheeled out of the private ward where she had spent her last days, her sheets and pillowcases had been disposed of, as had anything else that she had come into contact with. All such items would inevitably be viewed as souvenirs, he said, and that sort of temptation had to be removed.

Billy watched as Phil pressed the mortuary bell. The door opened from the inside, and a young blonde constable let them in. Billy didn’t know her. They were using officers from a number of different stations. Whoever they could get hold of, really.

“You next, is it?” she said, looking at Billy.

He nodded.

“It’s all right.” Her face angled back into the room. “Just boring, that’s all.”

Billy followed Phil through the doorway. Putting his bag down on a chair, he noted the bank of fridges that reached from floor to ceiling.

“Is there anything I should know about?” he asked the constable.

She thought for a moment, her small mouth twisting to one side. “If the phone rings in the office,” she said, “it’s best to answer it. Otherwise it starts making a weird beeping sound that’ll end up getting on your nerves.”

“Anything else?”

“It smells a bit.”

“That’s death,” Phil said. “Nothing you can do about that.”

Billy watched the constable bend over the scene log and sign herself out. If he had been asked to guess her age, he would have put it somewhere between twenty-eight and thirty-one. When the murders happened, in other words, she wouldn’t have been born, or even thought of.

She straightened up and ran one hand through her short blonde hair. “Well, that’s me done.”

“Have you got far to go?” Billy asked her.

“I live near Cambridge.”

“That shouldn’t take you too long.”

“Seen me drive, have you?” She grinned at him, then reached for her belongings.

When she had gone, Phil called Billy over. Billy recorded the fact that he was now the loggist, and that Detective Sergeant Shaw was present, then he wrote the date and time in the left-hand column, signed the entry and leaned back against the radiator, which was only faintly warm.

“Where is she?” he said. “Just so I know.”

“That one.” Phil pointed to the fridges marked police bodies, just to the right of the door that led to the postmortem room. “It’s locked.”

“Who’s got the key?”

“The woman you met by the main entrance. Eileen Evans.”

“Are there any others?”

“No.”

Prompted by Billy’s questioning, no doubt, Phil went over and tested the door of the fridge he had just identified. It didn’t budge.

“You’ve seen her, haven’t you?” Billy said. “Dead, I mean.”

Phil spoke with his back still turned. “Yes, I’ve seen her.”

“What did she look like?”

Now Phil’s head swung round — he suspected Billy of being ghoulish, perhaps — but obviously he saw nothing in Billy’s face to warrant such suspicions because he went ahead and answered. “She looked like she smoked too much,” he said. “She looked old. Older than sixty.”

“You ever think about what she did?”

“No. To me she’s just another sudden death.”

Billy nodded. “All the same,” he said. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was driving at, and yet he couldn’t seem to let the subject drop.

Phil walked over to another fridge, one that had a brown envelope taped to it, and inspected the names of the deceased. Once again, he spoke without looking at Billy. “Put it like this. When people die, I reckon they deserve a bit of respect — no matter what they’ve done.”

Billy thought Phil might have a point, though there would be many who would disagree. In this particular case, at least.

“And anyway,” Phil went on, still studying the names, “I think something goes out of people when they die, even someone like her. They stop being who they were.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Billy said, “but yes, I suppose that makes sense.”

“In the end, she’s just another code two-nine, you know?” Phil turned to face him.

Billy nodded, then opened his hold-all and took out a plastic folder. Behind with his reports, he had seen the twelve-hour shift as an opportunity to do some catching up.

“No chance of you getting bored,” Phil said.

Billy gave him a steady look, then the two men smiled at each other. Most police officers hated all the paperwork that came with the job — and there was so much more of it than there used to be. A lot had changed since 1984, when the Police and Criminal Evidence Act was introduced, and none of it for the better.

“Brought any refs with you?” Phil asked.

Billy reached into his bag again, producing a large package wrapped in silver foil. “Wiltshire ham,” he said, “with plenty of Colman’s.”

“If you need anything else,” Phil said, “there’s a cafeteria near the front entrance. You’ll get your first break at midnight and another one at about four.”

“OK, sarge. Thanks.”

Phil took one last look round the room, then left.