Page 26 of Dead Fall

Cassie shook her head. ‘They only have access to the clean side of the body store – the drawers are double-sided so they can check in a body out of hours.’

Flyte made a note in her neat schoolgirl handwriting.

‘What about the PM report?’ asked DI Bacon. ‘Who might have seen that, aside from the pathologist?’

She frowned. ‘The family, anyone in the coroner’s office, anyone with access to the police computer .?.?.’ – widening her eyes for emphasis. ‘Look, why don’t you ask this Charly character where she got it?’

Seeing a frown flit across Flyte’s brow, Cassie guessed something. ‘Is it even a crime, sharing this stuff?’

It was DI Bacon who answered. ‘Without an actual break-in, or payment of a bribe to an official, probably not. But rest assured we’ll still be paying her a visit.’ He cracked his knuckles meaningfully, earning a frosty look from Flyte.

The Neanderthal and the Ice Maiden. Cassie had to suppress a smile: these two were going to have a barrel of laughs working together.

Flyte pulled out her phone. ‘In her latest video she claims the PM report overlooked “clear evidence” of foul play.’

‘Oh Jesus.’ Cassie rolled her eyes. ‘Let me see it.’

Flyte tapped her screen and handed the phone to Cassie.

Charly had filmed herself at night on the towpath outside Bronte’s flat, an uplight casting spooky shadows on her face. She flourished some papers. ‘I managed to get hold of the pathologist’s top-secret autopsy report from my sources. What I found in here shocked me. The police are lying to us about Bronte’s death,’ she said. The vid cut to a close-up of a phrase, the words looming larger to fill the screen – ‘fracture of the hyoid bone’. Charly went on in a doom-laden voice, ‘The hyoid is a tiny bone in the throat. What does a fractured hyoid strongly suggest? That Bronte was strangled.’

Cassie made a scoffing sound. ‘What a load of crap.’

‘Go on,’ said Flyte.

‘What this halfwit doesn’t mention is that Bronte had multiple broken bones large and small, all over her body,’ said Cassie. ‘Falling ten storeys will do that to your skeleton. The hyoid bone is often fractured in a fall from height.’

‘Not evidence of strangulation then, in your view?’ asked Flyte.

‘No! Curzon would hardly mention a hyoid fracture in the report without further comment if it meant anything.’ Even Curzon.

‘And you saw nothing else to suggest that she might have been strangled?’

Cassie noticed Bacon’s sideways glance at Flyte – probably wondering why she was asking a lowly mortuary tech this stuff instead of the pathologist. She obviously hadn’t told him their history, the cases they’d collaborated on.

Cassie pictured Bronte’s throat: the flesh unmarked, with no tell-tale bruising, and the whites of her eyes clear, with a bluish tinge, but no sign of the petechial haemorrhages that were a red flag for asphyxia of any kind.

She shook her head. ‘Nothing that was visible. But you know that it takes a forensic PM to look at the underlying tissues for any hidden injuries.’

Flyte motioned to DI Bacon that it was time to go.

Cassie felt a flare of anger. ‘So am I a suspect for this photo stunt? Or did you drag me out of bed just to pick my brains?’

Flyte had the grace to blush – two points of pink high on those wide cheekbones. ‘Your insights are always appreciated. Thank you for your time.’

FLYTE

After leaving Cassie Raven, DI Bacon wanted to stop at a greasy spoon for breakfast. He’d ordered an egg and bacon bap – making Flyte wonder if nominative determinism extended to food preferences – and having dispatched a good third of it in one messy bite, he wiped his mouth and asked, ‘So I’m gathering you and this Cassie Raven have previous?’

‘What do you mean by that?’ she snapped. All her working life in the Job she’d had to deal with snide insinuations about her sexuality from male colleagues.

He shrugged. ‘Only that your paths appeared to have crossed in the past, professionally I assume?’

She gave a curt nod.

‘I assume this was when you were at Major Crimes?’

‘Yes, and CID before that,’ she said, taking a sip of her tea and grimacing. The café didn’t have Earl Grey and even the slice of lemon they’d drummed up couldn’t rescue it, the tannin fierce enough to strip tooth enamel.

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