The Scent of Death

Chapter 19

Any illusions I might have had that Ward would be pleased to hear about Gary Lennox were soon dispelled. After I’d briefly explained to Whelan, the deputy SIO had sworn under his breath.

‘She’s going to want to talk to you,’ he’d said.

It wasn’t far from where Lola lived to the hospital, but the road layout meant I had to take a meandering route. Whelan hadn’t said much, only that the cadaver dog search was being resumed. That was sooner than I’d expected, so either the asbestos scare was a false alarm or it wasn’t as bad as they’d thought. The press pack outside St Jude’s had thinned, reduced to a token presence now the investigation had slipped out of the headlines. Traffic was sparse, but as I drove up to the main gates a lone bus was coming the other way. A solitary passenger waited at the bus stop but made no attempt to flag it down as it went by. It was only as I saw his hooded top as I turned into the hospital driveway that I registered who it was.

It was the same man who’d stepped out in front of my car, too engrossed with what was happening at St Jude’s to look where he was walking.

I’d seen him at the bus stop before, I realized. Not that there was anything wrong with that, except that he’d just let the bus go past. You’re getting paranoid. After what had happened at Lola’s I was probably a little twitchy. I slowed to a stop and wound down my window as one of the police officers at the gates came over. It was the same round-faced young woman who’d been on duty the other times I’d been there.

‘Back again?’ she said cheerfully. ‘OK, go on through.’

I smiled but didn’t drive on. ‘Do you know how many buses run along here?’

She gave a nonplussed smile. ‘Just one, I think. Every hour. Why?’

Let it go. I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, looking in the rear-view mirror. The bus stop and its sole occupant were out of sight.

‘It’s probably nothing, but I’ve seen the man across the road here before. Late teens or early twenties. He’s just let the bus go past.’

‘Probably nothing better to do. Not much else happening round here if you’re out of work.’

I nodded, wishing I’d not said anything. But now she was looking across the road, taking a few steps backwards to get a better view.

‘Can’t see from here.’ She turned to the other policeman on gate duty. He looked old for a uniformed PC, unfit and nearing retirement age. ‘Hey, Carl, mind holding the fort for a couple of minutes? I’m going to check out somebody across the road.’

‘Want me to go?’

She grinned. ‘I don’t think you can walk that far.’

I got out of the car, moving so I could see across the street. The young officer started across the road but the hooded man at the bus stop had started walking away as soon as he saw her approaching. She watched him go, then turned around and came back.

‘Doesn’t want to say hello.’ She shrugged. ‘Could be a junkie waiting for us to clear out. We’ll keep an eye out in case he comes back.’

‘Fat chance,’ the older officer said. ‘He’ll make himself scarce now you’ve scared him off.’

‘Good job he didn’t see you then, he’d have run a mile.’

The banter had an ease to it, the familiarity of people used to spending long hours in each other’s company. At least I’d broken the monotony for them, I thought, driving away from the gates.

Ward was in the trailer where the briefings had taken place. Whelan was with her, along with Jackson, the search adviser, and several other officers I didn’t recognize.

‘Come in, we’re done,’ she told me, waving me inside when I hesitated in the doorway.

Jackson nodded to me as he went out, while Whelan gave me a look I couldn’t decipher. Ward was sitting behind a table, plastic stacking chairs scattered in an uneven row around it. They weren’t designed for comfort at the best of times, and her pregnancy didn’t help. She looked cramped and awkward, but I didn’t think that was the reason for her bad mood.

‘Sit down.’ She sounded tired and irritable, her face puffy and ringed under the eyes. A disposable cup of what smelled like mint tea stood on the table in front of her, the teabag’s string still dangling down its side. She waited until I’d taken a seat. ‘Jack tells me you’ve been busy.’

I told her about Lola and her son, beginning with the accidental encounter in the woods behind St Jude’s and ending with what had happened that morning. Ward stared into her tea as I spoke. Only when I’d finished did she look across at me.

‘So why is this the first I’ve heard about it?’

‘It didn’t seem important until now.’

‘Since when has it been your job to decide what is and isn’t important?’

‘It was uncorroborated gossip. I only found out about Gary Lennox an hour or so ago, and I would have told you straight away if Whelan hadn’t called first.’

‘You shouldn’t have been at their house anyway. What the hell did you think you were doing?’

I’d never seen her so angry, but I wasn’t happy about this either. ‘Visiting an old woman and her son who’re struggling to cope,’ I shot back. ‘If I’d known about any of it sooner I’d have done things differently, but I didn’t. Would you rather I’d just ignored them?’

‘Right now, yes! And this had better not be a backdoor way of getting social services to help them out.’ She held up a hand to stop me as I started to object. ‘All right, that’s not fair. But you shouldn’t be talking to potential witnesses, let alone possible suspects, behind my back. Oduya was bad enough, but after this I’m starting to wish I’d let Mears…’

She didn’t finish, but she didn’t have to. ‘Let Mears what?’ I demanded. ‘Examine Christine Gorski as well?’

Good luck with that, I thought, furious. After the mess he’d got into with just two victims, God knew what he’d have done faced with the responsibility of all three.

But I couldn’t say that without making the situation worse. And Ward seemed to be regretting her loss of temper as well. She made a visible effort to rein herself back.

‘OK, let’s both calm it down. I know you didn’t do it deliberately. And I appreciate you offering to help Mears like you did.’

I thought I’d misheard. ‘Sorry, say that again?’

‘Don’t get me wrong, I know it was well meant. But Mears is a big boy, he doesn’t need any help. You should stick to your own responsibilities in future.’

Jesus. ‘What exactly did he say?’

‘Just that you’d stopped by the mortuary and offered to lend a hand. He wasn’t complaining, as such. He was very polite about it.’

I bet he was. I tried to keep a lid on my temper. ‘You seriously think I’d just “stop by” the mortuary at eleven o’clock at night?’

Ward studied me for a moment. ‘OK, probably not. But whatever’s going on between you two, either sort it out or keep it between yourselves. We’ve enough problems as it is without the pair of you getting into a pissing contest.’

I didn’t trust myself to respond to that. Bloody Mears. ‘So do you still want me on the cadaver dog search?’

‘If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be here. I just want you to stop all these extracurricular activities you seem to find.’

‘I don’t go looking for them.’

‘Maybe not, but they seem to find you anyway.’ She sighed. ‘Look, we’re under a lot of scrutiny. I’m under a lot of scrutiny. Ainsley’s still furious about yesterday, what with Jessop kicking off and then Luke Gorski nearly passing out.’

I was glad to get back on to less contentious ground. ‘How is he?’

‘If you mean the brother, it was just a faint. He was visiting the place his sister was murdered, he’s entitled to be a bit overwrought. The point I’m making is that we’ve had enough cock-ups already, some self-inflicted, some not. I don’t want any more, OK?’

I had the impression there was something about Luke Gorski that Ward wasn’t saying. I knew when to take a hint, though: I was on thin enough ice already.

‘So what happened with the asbestos?’

Ward massaged the back of her neck as she answered. ‘There’s an old service tunnel in the basement that used to link the hospital to the morgue. That’s been knocked down, but the tunnel’s still there, and now it turns out there’s asbestos in the ceiling. It should have been removed before any demolition work started, but as far as we can tell it’s only in the tunnel. We can cordon it off for now, so providing everyone wears masks and protective gear down there it shouldn’t be a problem.’

I’d seen the remains of St Jude’s morgue around the back of the main building, now just a mound of bricks and concrete overgrown with weeds. The tunnel would have been to transfer patients’ bodies to it from the hospital, well away from public view.

‘Did Jessop know about it?’

Ward’s smile was hard. ‘He says not, but I don’t believe that for a second. We’ve found out he lost his licence for asbestos removal six months ago. Some foul-up over red tape because he didn’t fill in the right forms, or something, which doesn’t surprise me. But it meant another company would have been brought in to remove it, which would probably have lost him the contract. At the very least it would have caused delays and he couldn’t afford that. He’d pared his costs down to the bone to win the tender, even re-mortgaged his house to buy new equipment. It’d have ruined him.’

‘There were delays anyway,’ I said.

‘That’s his problem,’ Ward said unsympathetically. ‘I’m more bothered about how it affects the investigation. And it makes me wonder what else he might have done.’

‘Like what?’

But she shook her head. ‘Never mind. I need to get on.’

She heaved herself to her feet, grimacing and rubbing her lower back.

‘How are you?’ I asked, standing up as well.

‘This, you mean?’ Ward rested her hand on her stomach. ‘Peachy. My back aches, my bladder’s got a mind of its own and I’ve got this pain-in-the-arse forensic consultant who won’t do as he’s told. Other than that, everything’s great.’

‘Business as usual, then.’

‘Pretty much.’ Her smile died. The tension between us had thawed a little but it hadn’t gone completely. ‘Seriously, we can’t afford any more cock-ups. I can’t afford any more. Let’s keep our focus, shall we?’

I didn’t think I’d ever lost it, but I wasn’t about to argue. ‘Can I at least ask what’s going to happen with Lola and her son?’ I chanced as we left the trailer.

‘We’ll look into it.’ Ward’s tone seemed to end the conversation, but then she paused. ‘This Lennox and her son, do they have a dog?’

‘I didn’t see one.’ I was about to ask why, then I realized. There were dog hairs on the tarpaulin that Christine Gorski’s body had been wrapped in.

‘OK, I just wondered,’ Ward said.

Her expression was thoughtful as she walked away.

Back inside St Jude’s again, it was as if I’d never left. Shut off from the outside world, the old hospital seemed to exist in a bubble all its own. Its interior hadn’t seen fresh air or sunlight for years, and the dankness seemed to have soaked into its stones. Not even the Labrador was immune to the oppressive atmosphere. The animal had taken to whining more often, looking to its owner for reassurance before venturing into yet another dark corner. Even the well-chewed tennis ball it was rewarded with seemed to have lost its appeal.

But at least we were making better time. By late afternoon we’d finished searching the rest of the top floor and were well on with the middle. There’d been fewer false alarms down here, perhaps because this floor was less accessible to any birds and rodents from the loft. Armed with power tools and an endoscope, another SOCO had replaced Jessop in case any suspect walls were found. So far, they hadn’t been.

We’d got as far as the hospital chapel when Whelan received a call.

‘They’ve found something in the basement,’ he said, coming back over. ‘No need for the dog, I’ll just pop down to take a look with Dr Hunter.’

‘Don’t they want the dog to check it out as well?’ I asked, my voice echoing as we went down the stairwell.

‘Not this time. It’s hard to get at but they can see it.’

‘See what?’

‘They think it’s an arm.’

Hospital basements are a world unto themselves. They’re its beating heart, home to the unseen boilers and pumps that keep the building alive. Even though St Jude’s had been a corpse of a building for years, this netherworld remained intact. Like the fossilized organs of some long-dead beast, the mechanisms that had kept it warm and breathing still remained.

It was the first time I’d been down there, and the difference could be felt immediately. The smell of damp and mould became stronger as we descended the stairs. If I’d thought the upper floors were bad, this was even worse. Upstairs had been the hospital’s public face, where over the years cosmetic attempts had been made to disguise the building’s antiquated roots. Down here, away from the gaze of any patients, there was no need for such efforts. It was in its basement that St Jude’s showed its true age.

There were no long, sweeping corridors. Instead, the stairs ended at the junction of a warren of narrow brick passageways where ducting and pipework clung to walls like angular intestines. Cold and damp as the upper floors were, at least they had some ventilation. Surrounded by earth on all sides, unheated and shuttered for years, the basement had become an aquatic environment. Water dripped from the ceiling and pooled on the floors, beading and trickling like clammy tears down the walls.

‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ Whelan said.

We followed the spaced-out floodlights that ran off down one of the passageways, splashing through the puddles that reflected their glow. Every now and then we’d have to duck under some low pipe or duct. Once upon a time this place would have fairly hummed with boilers, pumps and fans, the background rhythm of the hospital’s pulse. Now it was silent except for us.

After a few minutes we came to a service-lift shaft, where folding metal doors were pulled back to reveal a refuse-strewn interior. A little further along was the rectangular opening of a passageway, dank and unlit. It had been cordoned off with a diagonal cross of yellow tape, from which hung a sign warning Danger! No Entry!

‘Is that where you found the asbestos?’ I asked. Ward had told me it was in a service tunnel that linked the hospital to the morgue.

‘Don’t worry, it’s at the far end. Some of the ceiling came down when the morgue was demolished. The passageway’s all blocked off with rubble so you can’t get through to the morgue any more. Not that one, anyway.’

I didn’t know what he meant, but then he went to a set of double doors near the passageway entrance. A sign was fixed above them that looked as old as the hospital itself. It bore a single word, so faded it could only just be made out.

Morgue.

‘There were two morgues?’ I said, looking back at the cordoned-off opening.

He nodded. ‘This is the original. The passageway leads to a bigger one they built in the 1960s. It can’t have been worth stripping out the old fittings all the way down here, so they just left it. Out of sight, out of mind.’

That could have been St Jude’s motto. Whelan pushed open the doors, revealing a scene from a history book. Lit by police floodlights, the ancient morgue resembled a filthy museum exhibit, unchanged in a half-century or more. Three porcelain post-mortem tables stood side by side in the middle, coated with dust and grime. Hanging above each of them were oversized light fittings, conical metal shades from which bristled ancient, twisted wiring. Rusted taps spouted over dry, cracked sinks, while at one end the heavy doors of a body-storage cabinet hung open like a giant refrigerator to reveal empty shelves.

The entire morgue was a relic from the past. The hospital had simply closed the doors and forgotten all about it, leaving a time capsule of mortality to silently gather dust. Turning away from the husks of dead spiders that lay curled on the crazed ceramic tables, I went to see what the search team had found.

They were in a small office at the far end, ghostly in their white suits. Inside was a metal desk, behind which lay a broken chair. Everyone was gathered around a huge rusted filing cabinet that was canted at an angle against the wall. I recognized one of them as Jackson, the police search adviser.

‘It’s on the floor behind the cabinet,’ he said. ‘The thing weighs a ton and it’s been fixed to the wall. We wanted you to see it before we tried moving it.’

‘Let’s have a look.’ Whelan knelt down and shone his torch into the narrow gap between the wall and cabinet, peering to see behind it. ‘It’s an arm, right enough. Dr Hunter, do you want to take a shufti?’

He straightened, stepping away so I could take his place. I’d been looking around the rest of the room, listening for something that should have been there. Chalking up its absence, I went and crouched down by the filing cabinet.

It was difficult to see into the narrow gap. Pipework ran behind the cabinet, and at first I couldn’t make out what else was there. Then my torch picked out something pale. Covered in dirt, the hand was lying palm down with the fingers half curved, a slender wrist and forearm extending beneath the cabinet.

‘No sign of blood or any discolouration,’ I said, pressing my face against the wall in an attempt to see more. ‘Doesn’t look like much decomposition either.’

‘Can’t have been there very long, then,’ one of the search team said.

‘Well, it’s got to have been at least a week,’ Whelan commented. ‘Nobody could have got in after we showed up. It’s pretty cold down here, though. Could that have preserved it?’

‘Not to that extent.’ I put my face to the gap and sniffed. My mask got in the way, but there was no discernible odour.

‘Might be embalmed,’ another search-team officer offered. ‘Maybe it was a specimen or something that got left behind.’

‘How the hell do you leave an arm behind?’ Whelan asked irritably. ‘And that’d mean it had been here for years.’

‘I think it has,’ I said. I’d wondered about embalming as well, but I couldn’t smell any trace of embalming fluid or formaldehyde either.

Getting to my feet, I crossed to the other side of the cabinet, trying for a better view. From there, concealed behind the cabinet like another pipe, I could just make out that the arm ended below the elbow. A neat, straight cut, without any ragged edges or torn skin.

‘Have any of you noticed any flies?’ I asked.

No one had. A freshly severed arm would have attracted them in droves, even down here. Unlike the room upstairs, there was no false wall to keep them out, yet the old morgue was blessedly free of the droning insects.

Sliding my hand down the gap between the cabinet and wall, I gently touched the top of the arm.

‘Should we get Dr Parekh out to take a look?’ Whelan said uneasily.

‘There’s no need.’ Reaching further in, I took hold of the arm by the wrist and gave it a hard tug.

‘Whoa!’ Whelan yelled.

But the arm had already slid free from behind the cabinet in a shower of rust. I examined the blunt end where the forearm ended below the elbow, then rapped it against the filing cabinet. It made a solid clunk.

‘It’s plaster,’ I said, holding it up so they could see for themselves. ‘I don’t even think it’s a medical prop. Looks more like an old shop mannequin.’

Whelan took the dummy arm from me, turning it as though not entirely convinced even now.

‘Bad case of rigor mortis, sir,’ one of the search team commented.

Whelan gave him a baleful look and slapped the arm against the man’s chest. ‘Funny. Next time you call us all the way down here for nothing I’ll jam it up your backside.’

He set off back through the old morgue without waiting for me.