The Edinburgh Dead - Brian Ruckley [60]
“I don’t believe I was expecting a visit from you,” Christison observed. “Even the police are not encouraged to wander too freely into rooms such as this, you know, Sergeant.”
“I’m just hoping for a few minutes of your time, sir. I think you’ll find them well spent.”
Christison spread his hands above the partially dissected corpse. Though Quire was trying not to look too directly at the gruesome spectacle, he could not help but see that it was a woman, perhaps fifty or so years old.
“I am, as you can see, engaged in rather important business at the moment. Extremely important, I would say. This woman’s death was taken for an unhappy accident—an excess of laudanum—until certain aspects of the case drew my notice. Certain bruising about her person, to be precise, suggestive of forced administration of the drug.
“The body will not take a bruise after death. Were you aware of that, Sergeant? Or, to be more precise, the bruising that occurs after death is distinctive and does not result from force or blows, as might be the case in life. I am, I believe, the first in the country to have demonstrated and documented this with what might be called the proper rigour of the scientific method.”
Quire shifted uncomfortably. The sack he carried was heavy, and his weaker arm was aching.
“Just a few minutes, sir,” he said. “I swear to you I would not have come here if I didn’t think it important.”
Christison sighed, and rubbed his chin.
“Very well. Very well. Give me a minute or two with Sergeant Quire, would you, gentlemen? Go and smoke a pipe, or take the air, or whatever pleases you.”
The two assistants—current or recent students of Christison’s, Quire guessed by their youthful looks—went reluctantly out, bestowing upon Quire glares of grave disapproval. It almost made him laugh, seeing those rosy-cheeked innocents so affronted by so trivially unexpected a turn of events. How ordered and polite they must imagine the world outside their cosy little bastions of learning to be.
“What is it, then?” Christison demanded.
“You’re the only man I know can read the tale of a corpse,” Quire said, advancing towards a vacant slab. “I’m in sore need of that today.”
“Well, I do like to think…” Christison began.
Quire unceremoniously emptied out the contents of the sack on to the slab. The dog’s decapitated corpse flopped down with a wet thud. The head tumbled after it, hitting the slab with a bonier crack, and rolled almost to the edge before coming to rest and fixing Quire with its lifeless gaze. The tongue protruded stiffly from between the yellowed teeth.
“Good God, man,” Christison exclaimed. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Not entirely, sir. Not yet.”
“I could have you thrown out for bringing such a thing in here. I could probably have you arrested, for God’s sake, and how would that look?”
“Please, sir. All I’m asking is that you look at it. Unless I’ve misunderstood what it is you do here, you’ll surely see something of interest. And if you don’t, I’ll leave the moment you tell me.”
Christison glared at him. Quire was testing their relationship to its very limits, he knew; quite probably beyond them, for it had never been more than a formal acquaintance as a result of their joint endeavours. But if he was any judge of men at all, Christison was the sort to give him the benefit of the doubt, and to succumb to his own innate curiosity.
Christison took a step closer to the dog’s body and leaned to examine its raggedly severed neck.
“I see no blood. There should be rather obvious evidence of catastrophic bleeding, internally, externally—everywhere, really—in a case of decapitation. There does seem to be some other fluid here, though.”
He looked quizzically at Quire, who simply nodded. Christison took hold of the hound’s stiff legs and turned it over. He ran