The Lost Crown of the Knights Templar

14 Getting to know the Dead

Barry and Glen acted like chivalrous fools, over-zealous in appeasing the pretty, petite historian with the raspy voice. They were clearly competing for her attention, each trying to sound more in charge than the other, which Nina found utterly amusing. However, amongst all the endearing male jousting, all she could think of was the dead body she was going to see.

The environment didn’t help her feel better either. From the grand, upgraded parts of the morgue she had spent the last two hours at, the way to where the eight cadavers were kept was quite the opposite. To the rear of the new part of the structure, the two physicians escorted her into the smaller corridors of what appeared to be the older section of the first building, founded decades before.

“Cold,” she remarked. Both men jumped to remove their coats, but Nina halted them. “I meant, the ambiance, not so much the temperature, gentlemen. It’s awfully creepy back here. It even smells different.”

“That would be the odor of embalming fluid,” Glen explained proudly, sounding like he was even bragging a bit. Of course, his partner got some information in for Nina as well.

“Formaldehyde, methanol, and some cleaning agents like ammonia too,” he added. “The place might be old and decrepit this side, but we still need to keep the floors hygienic and the dead things dead, you know.”

Both Nina and Glen glared at the bewildered Dr. Barry Hooper. Their faces were contorted in astonished reprehension at the man’s macabre uttering. Nina looked positively unsettled, while Glen’s countenance conveyed a befuddled frown that only just held back a bout of laughter at Barry’s clumsy ejaculation.

“What?” Barry asked innocently.

“Nothing,” Nina answered, still shocked. “Just the thought of keeping dead things dead while we’re on our way into the murky darkness of a cold cement building to look at a corpse… it is a tad much for a novice such as myself, doctor.”

Suddenly it dawned on Barry that he may have chosen his words wrongly. He gasped, “Oh my God! I’m sorry! I didn’t realize how eerie that sounded, my dear.”

“Idiot,” Glen muttered, shaking his head.

They continued on through the adjoining hallway to the compact maze of old storage rooms and fridge units that occupied most of the rooms. Nina’s eyes scanned the arched corridor with the weak lighting and the bubbly, oil-based, green paint that prettified the rot of the grey walls underneath it. Her nostrils suffered the stench of sharp chemicals that apparently had no effect on the senses of the two men accompanying her.

Thank fuck for the painkillers, she thought as a cold waft of air permeated from the room they headed into. Never thought being high as a kite would be good for the psyche as well.

“There they are,” Glen announced.

“Oh sweet Jesus,” Nina whispered in ugly apprehension.

Before them, a mountain of white cotton fabric piled up over three tables. Behind them, Barry closed the door to contain the refrigeration temperature. The cold Nina felt reached way beyond her skin as she realized that, under the sheets, the mangled bodies of eight men awaited her.

“Just show her one, Glen,” Barry suggested. “There’s no reason for her to see them all. It’s just the symbol.”

Desperate to change their minds about showing her the dead man, Nina asked, “Are you sure you couldn’t find this symbol anywhere on the internet? There are hundreds of sites that can help you find out what it is.”

“We checked, Dr. Gould,” Glen chipped in with authority. “Don’t you think we would rather keep our hard-earned money and research this ourselves, instead of turning to an expert such as yourself?”

Barry winced at his colleague’s harsh statement, but Nina understood what he meant. She took a deep breath and nodded, gesturing her reluctant readiness.

On approach, Nina secretly prayed that her medical inebriation would not fail her before that sheet was lifted. Her heart pounded as Glen pulled aside the cover, saying “Don’t worry, he is fully clothed,” as if that would make it better. Nina shrieked inadvertently when she saw the protruding ribs of the broken man peek through the tears in his shirt. Glen had the good sense to keep his caved face covered for her benefit. Barry quickly distracted the horrified Nina by pointing out the man’s tattoo, located on his left hip. “Look, Dr. Gould! That is what it looks like.”

Nina squinted. Glen leaned in and whispered, as if he were afraid of rousing the subject from his eternal sleep. “It is Templar, right? Right?”

“Wait, just give me a second,” Nina snapped a bit, intolerant of his urging as she tried to make sense of the bizarre marriage between ancient Jerusalem and contemporary London. Glen backed off immediately, and took his place next to Barry. The two exchanged glances in silence as Nina scrutinized the sigil.

“The red cross is certainly reminiscent of the original Templar sigils,” Nina remarked, scowling as she tried to unravel the wording with a magnifying glass. “But the slogan is not quite right.” She turned to the two physicians. “Do they all have the same working or is this just bad research mimicked by a tattoo artist who needed weed money?”

“I am a bit of a theology buff, Dr. Gould,” Glen assured her boastfully. “I discovered that the wording around these Maltese crosses lacked the full ‘Sigillum Militum Xpisti’ and that is why we were not sure if it is related to the order.”

“Aye,” she concurred, leaning on the table edge to take some of her weight off the sore ankle. “The so-called soldiers here seem to have lost their Christ in the inscription.”

Glen, ecstatic that the stunning woman affirmed his suspicion and confirmed that he was correct about the slogan, nudged his colleague a little too hard in his zeal. Barry almost came off his feet. Annoyed at Glen’s gloating, he barked, “Yes, yes, we all see how well you know the bloody Templar stuff already!”

Ignoring their boyish contesting, Nina asked, “And you say they all have exactly the same symbol, lacking the Christ-name?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Glen confirmed. “They are all precisely the same, but on different parts of their bodies.”

“By the way, these are not Maltese crosses, Dr. Victor,” she informed Glen firmly. “The correct term for this particular design is cross pattée.”

Barry decided not to scoff at his colleague’s singular error. The three of them stood silently in the cold, reeking chamber for a few seconds, contemplating. Barry and Glen waited anxiously for a theory from Nina, but what she finally said was not what they were expecting.

“Did you note on your reports the location of each man’s marking?” she asked.

“Is that important? We just want to know if this diversion is significant. That’s all,” Glen explained. Nina grasped his upper arm firmly and employed her deadly, dark-eyed stare on him. “Dr. Victor, humor me, and I will not charge extra for the added examination I wish to do.”

“Well, in that case,” he agreed hastily, “would you like to see the reports or the bodies?”

“I would prefer paper to hide, I think,” she replied, less squeamish this time. “You say these men had no next of kin you could contact?”

“All wrong numbers,” Barry reported. “Not one single man here had family.”

Nina’s dark eyes combed the cement and tile on the floor, as always, when she tried to solve a puzzle that hid facts in plain sight. Finally she looked up at them, her face lit up with notion. “Maybe they were the family.”

“How do you mean?” Glen frowned.

“Maybe the men here are all part of a family, leaving nobody to collect them,” she shrugged. “What about their names? What one-name declarations did you get from Home Office?”

“Just odd names, according to their fingerprints,” Glen shrugged.

“Odd?” she asked. “Like?”

“I’m no expert in other languages, but these men, according to the available records, are all named after elements,” he reported matter-of-factly. Not only his nonchalant manner, but also the information he gave, provoked Nina’s immediate attention.

“Excuse me? What? They’re named after elements? What, like earth, water, fire, and air?” she asked, feeling beyond intrigued.

Glen seemed completely unsurprised by his statements, and calmly answered Nina as if she had just asked him to pass the salt. “No, periodic table elements.”

Barry looked as confounded as Nina, and the two of them huddled together closely as they stepped closer to Glen with an immense air of fascination. “Oh, of course, how silly of me,” she said. “Naturally.”

Finally Glen noticed how amazed his companions were at what he forgot was not public information or common practice. With a sudden chuckle, he snapped out of his seriousness and decided to explain. “I’m sorry. Just been so inundated with these records’ information since these lads came in for processing that I forgot not everyone would just accept it. God knows I had sleepless nights over it when I first got the details.”

“You wrote down the names as well, I take it?” Nina asked.

“I did. Come, let me get the folders for you,” Glen said, and started walking to get the door, while Barry assisted Nina as she treaded lightly on the sore ankle.

“You still haven’t concluded that these tattoos are in fact Templar in nature, madam,” Barry reminded Nina as they hobbled back to the more civilized part of the morgue.

“Dr. Victor is quite correct, Dr. Hooper,” she replied. “I cannot find anything that could rebuke the influence of the Knights Templar doctrine, but until I can unravel the names of each along with the position of the marking on each body…. only that connotation could hopefully clarify exactly why the name of Christ is missing from the inscription. Only then can I try to research the proper lines for the actual identity of the order these men belong to.”

“Free of charge, you said,” Glen mentioned from behind Nina and Barry, just to make sure he would not have to pay her for all the extra research.

“Aye, Dr. Victor. Free of charge,” she exclaimed with amusement. Nina whispered playfully in Barry’s ear, “He is lucky I’m loaded and curious at the same time.”

The two men burst out laughing with Nina as the three of them made it into the main examination room, heading towards the office.

“Almost time to knock off again,” Barry revealed as they passed the clock on the wall.

“Yes, and I have a date with Sarel and a cue stick tonight,” Glen said. Upon questioning glances, he elucidated. “A Dutchman down at the pub, bragging he could beat me at snooker. Ha! Like he even knows how to hold the bloody stick the right way round in the first place.”

“I’ll have to occupy your office a bit longer, though, doctor,” Nina asked-told Glen. “To get through the records and get the information I need.”

“Of course. No problem,” he replied. “Barry, will you be staying too?”

“Um,” Barry stammered, his hands nervously fumbling in his pockets. “My wife will kill me if I’m late one more time. Besides, she got us Dr. Gould, so I don’t want to piss the old bird off so soon after a favor.”

“That’s true, mate,” Glen agreed as he rid himself of his white coat. “Was rather a quiet day, thank God. Dr. Gould, I’ll tell security that you’re here to help me with paperwork, so they’ll know you’re here. Alright?”

“Great, thanks,” Nina smiled, sitting down. “Listen, before shift change, could you ask Anya for more of those magic pills? I fear my sobriety walks hand-in-hand with pain tonight.”

“Of course,” Glen laughed. Ten minutes later Nina found herself alone in the administration office of the medical examiners with plenty of coffee and a hauntingly quiet zombie house she did not enjoy being hosted in.