The Wreckage - Michael Robotham [31]
A swinging door opens and a pale figure emerges. Gerard Noonan is in his sixties with short-cropped blond hair and no discernible eyebrows. His skin is so pale he seems to glow in the shadows, hence his nickname, “The Albino.”
When Ruiz was heading the Serious Crime Squad he worked more than a dozen cases with Noonan, a veteran Home Office pathologist, who enjoyed far better relationships with the dead than the living. Unmarried. Childless. Noonan has always struck Ruiz as being borderline autistic because of his social ineptness. The only sentient creatures that he relates to are horses—the thoroughbred variety that run round in circles carrying brightly colored leprechauns.
Ruiz falls in step.
“Gerard.”
“Vincent.”
“All-nighter?”
“People don’t die to a timetable.”
“How thoughtless of them. Had breakfast?”
“Not hungry.”
“Coffee then?”
“Are you going to follow me all the way home?”
“Depends.”
The café is a family business run by Italians with an endless supply of “cousins” working the tables and a barista who seems to have four arms. There are paintings on the walls of fat little nymphs playing in a forest.
Noonan orders a coffee. Ruiz wants the full English with everything fried, including the bread.
“I do autopsies on guys like you.”
“We keep you in work.”
The pathologist pushes up his sleeves. Ruiz is amazed at how Noonan has almost no color on his arms. It’s like someone has drained his blood or replaced it with milk.
“You autopsied an ex-soldier.”
“Might have done.”
“I called it in.”
“How much you want to hear before you eat?”
“Just get to it.”
Noonan puts three sugars in his coffee. “Let’s just say he was one tough bastard.”
“Meaning?”
“There was a lot of penile and testicular damage. He had his genitals remodeled with a set of long-nose pliers.”
“He was tortured?”
“Went every round. I don’t know what information he had but I hope he begged to give it up. I hope that’s what happened.”
Ruiz can feel his testicles retract. He looks at the side of Noonan’s face. The pathologist is gazing out the window at pedestrians, huddled beneath umbrellas, spilling from Victoria Station.
“How did he die?”
“Suffocated. The bullet was insurance.”
“A professional hit?”
“Looks like it.”
“Gangland?”
“Maybe.”
“Did you do a tox screen?”
“Results will take a few days.”
Ruiz scratches his unshaven chin, feeling the dirt between the hair follicles. “The police are saying it was a drug-related hit. What do you think?”
Noonan shrugs.
“Did they find any drug paraphernalia in the flat?”
“No.”
“Any needle marks?”
“None.”
“The guy was a war hero.”
“I heard.”
Noonan swallows the last of his coffee. “I’m too old for this shit.”
“For what?”
“To understand what some people do.”
Holly Knight sits in the back of the police car, letting the reflections of city buildings wash over her pupils. She’s dirty and tired and her shoulder aches where she was slammed against the wall during the fight.
The police car pulls into a walled yard with iron gates and razor wire. Holly is escorted through a door and along a wide corridor with a polished floor. It smells like a hospital with something missing. Patients. Hope.
Thompson makes her walk quickly, hustling her along without touching her.
“Wait here,” he says, leaving her in a room with two small sofas, a coffee table, water cooler and box of tissues. A curtain screens one wall.
Alone, Holly thinks about Zac. He had saved her. They had saved each other. Normally she didn’t get close to people. It was safer that way. Never pat stray dogs or they’ll follow you home. Her mother told her that.
She and Zac met at a rehabilitation center, which is a fancy term for a psych ward. Holly was undergoing tests. Zac was being treated for post-traumatic stress. Zac didn’t treat her like the other men in her life. He didn’t care about her history. That was a year ago. Long enough to fall out of love. It hadn’t happened. Closing her eyes, she can picture his stretched angular face and the blur of big freckles on his shoulder blades.