Page 20 of Dead Fall

Cassie took a drink of her vodka before asking, ‘How’s Matt?’ Judging by Flyte’s expression she wasn’t being too intrusive, so she went on, ‘Is he any closer to, you know, dealing with losing Poppy?’

‘No,’ said Flyte crisply.

Seeing anger flare across her face like a brushfire, Cassie wondered whether, subconsciously, she was fanning her fury against Matt, to keep it alive. Perhaps this unresolved conflict, with Flyte as ‘good parent’ and Matt ‘bad parent’, was keeping Poppy alive, or more present in some way.

She wished she could say something that might help, but they weren’t close enough to talk about it.

After they’d exchanged farewells and Cassie had left the pub she was aware of feeling uneasy. Trying to locate the source, she realised that the charged atmosphere between her and Flyte made her feel guilty – and confused – about Archie.

Not because she fancied Phyllida Flyte, and had done since she’d first laid eyes on her. There was nothing wrong with her – or Archie – fancying other people. No, she was recalling all the times she could have talked to him about her moments of communion with the dead, regardless of how he might react.

Now it occurred to her: how could you have a meaningful relationship with someone while hiding such an important part of what made you tick?

Chapter Fifteen

Cassie’s phone woke her at 7 a.m. on Monday. It was the mortuary.

WTF? She wasn’t due in for another two hours.

‘Doug?’ She ran a hand over her face.

‘I need you to come in straightaway. Something’s happened.’

‘What?’ She pushed herself upright, her nerves jangling at the anxiety in his voice.

‘I can’t talk about it over the phone. Just look at the news.’

Levering herself upright she opened her newsfeed.

DEAD BRONTE PHOTO OUTRAGE, screamed the first tabloid headline she saw.

The piece led with an image of a head and shoulders shot of Bronte, her face pixelated but still recognisable, an edge of white body bag in frame. The report adopted a tone of faux outrage that an image of ‘tragic Bronte’ had been posted on TikTok while simultaneously milking it for all it was worth.

There was only one place the photo could have been taken – inside the body store.

*

Now, she and Doug were looking at the images on his computer at work. ‘You told me about someone trying to get in the other night?’ he said. ‘Talk me through it again.’

‘Someone put a ladder up against one of the windows in the autopsy suite. But when I put the light on they scarpered.’

‘Well they got their photo somehow,’ said Doug, looking beyond miserable. ‘I’ve been onto Malcolm Bellwether at CID and he’s promised to send over a detective. I’ve also informed the coroner and the HTA.’ The Human Tissue Authority, the body who oversaw the handling of all bodies and samples in the mortuary system; a body with the power to initiate disciplinary action against staff or even to close a mortuary down.

Cassie decided against telling him that she’d spent the rest of that night at the mortuary to stand guard over Bronte. Why add to his angst? If the photo had come from a break-in it had to have happened some other night.

‘This account they all say it came from @Charly_Detective – that’s that .?.?. woman who filmed me without my permission.’ At least the dead Bronte image had been taken offline now, possibly for offending platform guidelines. ‘I suppose it could be faked?’ she said. ‘You know how sophisticated the tech is these days.’

Doug pointed to a faint red line, just visible through the pixelation. It ran from Bronte’s left collarbone towards her sternum. ‘That’s the top of the Y-incision, isn’t it?’ he said glumly.

She scanned the image. He was right. It wasn’t a detail anyone would be likely to fake.

*

The PM list was cancelled but when the promised detective arrived she wished she’d put her scrubs on anyway. That morning she’d just pulled on what she’d been wearing the previous evening: ripped jeans, and a black T-shirt emblazoned with a big image of Siouxsie looking at her most goth.

He looked like he’d just stepped off the set of some TV cop series from the eighties: sixty-plus years old, ginger sideburns, waistband of his past-its-best suit straining at his paunch, and what looked like ketchup on his tie. He looked at her chest before her face – of course he did – but when he went in for an old-school handshake she could hardly refuse.

‘How do. DI Bacon.’

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