Sanctus

Chapter 66

Reis was scanning a sheet of paper when Arkadian walked into his office.

‘Anything missing?’

‘Nope.’ Reis remained at his desk. ‘I thought they may have taken this — the lab report I told you about — but I guess they didn’t know what it was. It’s. . extraordinary.’

He glanced over the Inspector’s shoulder and his face registered surprise. Liv stood in the doorway behind him.

Arkadian sighed. ‘Reis, this is Liv Adamsen. She’s related to. . She’s the monk’s sister.’

‘Yeah, I. . er. . Hi. .’ A nervous smile tweaked the edges of Reis’s mouth. ‘Sorry about the, er. .’ He trailed off as his mind tottered through a minefield of inappropriate responses to what had just happened.

‘Sorry about losing my brother’s body?’ Liv suggested.

‘Yeah. . I guess. .’ he said. ‘First time it’s ever happened.’

‘Well, that’s reassuring.’

Reis blushed, ruining his well-cultivated pallor, and dropped his gaze. ‘No, I suppose. . er. . no. .’ He shut up before he could dig himself deeper.

Arkadian pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Miss Adamsen. .’ He fixed her with what he hoped was a look of suitable authority. ‘I know you’re angry, and you have a right to be, but I’ve got every uniform out there looking for that ambulance. We’ll get your brother back. I shouldn’t have let you down here in the first place, and now it’s a crime scene you can’t be here. I need you to go back up to reception and wait until we’ve secured this area.’

Liv held his gaze. ‘No.’

‘It wasn’t a request.’

Very deliberately, Liv stepped into the office and sat down opposite Reis. ‘Let me explain why I’m staying. In the last twenty-four hours I’ve discovered that my brother, who I thought was already dead, has died, for real. I’ve flown thousands of miles on uncomfortable planes to come and identify him. I’ve been kidnapped, shot at, and then — just when I thought I would finally be re-united with him — you lost him.’

She let the words sink in.

‘I know how to behave at a crime scene. I can’t contaminate this one further because I’ve already been in it. So you might as well keep me here and keep me happy. Because,’ she held up the crumpled newspaper, ‘if you try and pack me off, the first thing I’ll do is call my editor. Think he might hold the front page?’

Reis flicked between Arkadian and the girl as they stared each other out, until Arkadian finally blinked.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Stay. But if anything does leak to the press, anything at all, I’m going to assume it came from you and charge you with obstruction of an ongoing investigation. Are we clear?’

‘Perfectly.’ She turned, the ice in her green eyes instantly thawing. ‘So — Reis, isn’t it. .?’

The pathologist nodded. Feisty women frightened him at the best of times. He also found them incredibly attractive. This one was off the scale.

‘You were saying something about a lab report?’

Reis glanced at Arkadian, who just shrugged.

‘OK. Er. . lab reports are a normal part of the clinical procedure. . as you probably know. Here we always run a standard batch of tissue tests and tox routines to establish certain things and rule out others, such as whether the subject may have taken, or been given, something that could have contributed to their death. One of these measures the extent of necrosis in the liver, which often helps establish time of death. We didn’t really need to in this case because of all the witnesses, but procedure is procedure. These are the results — ’ He gestured at a red note stapled to the top sheet.

‘It came back with a contamination query. They think the sample must have been incorrectly labelled. There was no sign of any necrosis; in fact, quite the opposite. The cells appear to be. . regenerating. Liver cells do regenerate, of course, but only if the host is alive. .’

Arkadian wondered — too late — if it had been the smartest move to let Liv hear this.

‘I checked it out thoroughly. The sample they got was definitely from the monk. So going purely on these results, and ignoring the fact that I performed the post-mortem myself. .’ He hesitated. ‘I’d say he was on the mend. .’