Cambridge Blue - Alison Bruce [26]
‘Well, I’d like to pair you with him, but I’ll have a word with him first as he’s probably feeling a little put out because you’re here right now and he’s not. But then I would rather he was sick of me than sick during the autopsy.’
Marks checked his watch, stood up, drained his mug, and clunked it back down on the table. ‘He’ll be at the station still, with that boy Matt. By the way, did you find Ratty?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘Says he knows nothing.’
‘And you’ve got that in a statement?’
‘No, I was sidetracked with this business. Do you really think it’s still necessary?’
‘Absolutely. Is that a problem for you?’
‘No, it’s fine,’ Goodhew fibbed again.
Within five minutes, they crossed from the edge of leafy pre-war suburbia to the sprawling sixties development of Addenbrooke’s Hospital. Goodhew took the perimeter road around the campus. Two parking bays were reserved for pathology and both stood empty.
‘Pull in here. We’ll wait until Sykes shows up, there’s no point in us hanging around inside.’ Marks unclipped his seatbelt and shifted round in his seat so his head rested against the window.
Sometimes Goodhew wished he could spend just five minutes inside his boss’s head. But then, on second thoughts, it might be – like Ratty had said – healthier to stay on your own side of the line. And therefore leave Marks on his.
TWELVE
The laboratory reminded Goodhew of a showpiece commercial kitchen. Stainless steel appliances hummed, keeping the meat chilled and the cutlery sterilized. The sinks gleamed and the work surfaces were perforated with holes that allowed water and juices to drain from the carcasses. Implements, including knives, scalpels and a small tenon saw, were sorted by type then size, waiting for use.
The room was almost square, with a single door over to one corner. It had a window, too, but only in the partition wall between it and a small viewing gallery. Lighting, bright and white, blazed down from flush panels in the ceiling; confirming that plenty of people got more attention when they were dead than they ever did in life, although Goodhew was sure that didn’t apply to this particular corpse. Even in the aftermath of her squalid death, she held on to neatness. Strands of her hair still held the shape of their last cut, and not one of her short nails was chipped or broken.
Goodhew felt like a school kid on the first day of a new term; the surroundings were familiar, but his senses were heightened. He knew his way around, but he’d forgotten the detail; the dry air, the disinfectant that never quite covered up the rusty smell of blood, and the toe-tag on the body that was always filled in with black ink from a fountain pen.
The girl hadn’t been beautiful, but she wasn’t ugly in any way either. She had a roundish face and features that were in proportion but unremarkable. Her hair was slightly longer than a bob, and layered, as if anything more feminine might not have suited her. She was boyish rather than womanly and that applied to her body, too: her breasts were small and her hips narrow, and the overall effect was more like parallel lines than an hourglass, but attractive nevertheless.
She’d taken care of herself too. Her complexion was flawless, and all over her body her skin appeared blemish-free – even on her feet it was smooth and unchafed. Her legs and underarms were hairless with no sign of regrowth, and her bikini line had been waxed to leave just a half-inch strip of pubic hair.
Sykes’s first job had been to remove the victim’s clothes and personal effects. And, of course, the ripped black plastic bag that had ended up looking like a grotesque balaclava.
She now lay on the examination table, naked with blue-marbled skin stretched over the stiff tissue underneath. The only hint of colour was in her lower legs, where the flesh had turned a deep purplish-red. Later, Sykes would open her up and the trapped blood would leak, like a side of beef oozing on a butcher’s block.
Goodhew pushed this food analogy from his mind. Luckily, nothing about