Page 14 of The Dark Hiss of Magic
‘YoupersuadedCindy?’
‘There might have been a financial inducement,’ I conceded.
Irritation flashed across his face. ‘No wonder she was so keen to get rid of you. How do I know you’re not some kind of grubby necromancer?’
From his tone, the mortuary had experienced troubles with their kind before now. I knew of only three necromancers in Coldstream, and they were all cold bastards who were in it for the money. It didn’t surprise me that they might have finagled their way into a place like this, or that Dr Singh despised them.
I held up my hands. ‘Check my fingernails.’
He flicked a glance at them then looked at my face. ‘You know that necromancy stains your fingers black?’
‘When you look into the abyss it looks back intoyou,’ I said quietly. ‘Nothing comes without a price.’ The price which necromancy demanded was high indeed, probably far higher than Dr Singh realised.
His mouth tightened and he sat down. ‘You know more about it than most.’
‘As I said, I have skills.’
‘Do you have any idea, Ms McCafferty, how many John and Jane Does we get in here each year?’ He sounded weary, which suggested his attitude was softening.
It might have been a rhetorical question but I answered it anyway. ‘Around twenty, I imagine.’ Before I’d retired, I would have been responsible for at least three or four of them in any twelve-month period.
‘More like fifty,’ he said, surprising me. ‘People in Coldstream fall through the gaps all the time. Why are you so interested in this one?’
‘Because I was by the river when he died.’ I drew in a breath. ‘I saved one person who fell in but I didn’t know about this one until it was too late. The person I saved is well known and people cared what was happening to him, even people who didn’t know him personally. Nobody cared about this man. I want to redress that balance.’
Dr Singh considered my words for several seconds then he nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I’ll do what I can to help you.’
The pathologist tookme into a different room lined with filing cabinets. He produced a key from his pocket and unlocked the nearest one. It made a lot more sense that sensitive information about bodies was locked away rather than lying about where anyone could access it.
As he rifled through the cabinet, Cindyreappeared. She was carrying only one mug of tea and looked unimpressed that I was still there. ‘Your tea, Dr Singh,’ she said overly loudly.
‘Thank you, Cindy,’ he told her. ‘You can leave it on the desk.’
She harrumphed and did as he asked. I considered reminding her that I’d asked for a cup of tea as well but decided not to push my luck; I didn’t want to find myself drinking spittle. I smiled at her instead, but Cindy only tutted and left the room. I shrugged; I’d tried.
‘I came on shift half an hour ago,’ Dr Singh explained. ‘So it was one of my colleagues who took the body in this morning. They’ll have done little more than a cursory examination. If a post-mortem is to be held, it will be later on in the week – maybe next week, depending on what we have in.’ He paused. ‘Unless there are extenuating circumstances, which mean that any forensic investigation into the cause of death needs to be completed more quickly.’
I imagined those extenuating circumstances would be if there was a distraught family member hovering in the background, or if the MET or a similar organisation requested the post-mortem be fast-tracked. For obvious reasons, that wouldn’t happen in this case.
‘Here we go.’ He pulled out a folder triumphantly. ‘It must have been Dr Biswick who took possession of the body. Her filing is haphazard.’ He flipped it open to read the contents.
I started forward to peer over his shoulder, but he held up a finger and shook his head; apparently there were limits as to how much trust Dr Singh was willing to place in me. Fair enough. I wouldn’t trust me either.
‘Male witch, judging from the initial examination,’ he said. ‘Approximately late twenties. Reported cause of death is drowning, though Dr Biswick seems to think that’s not actually the case.’
Drowning was difficult to prove or disprove because evidence of foul play was often washed away – and in the Tweed you were likely to be killed by the river beasties long before you actually drowned. Any pathologist worth their salt would take their time before making a definitive diagnosis. However, that didn’t imply that my John Doe had been murdered; he could have fallen into the river like Quentin Hightower, but that wouldn’t be confirmed until a full post-mortem was carried out.
I still didn’t know whether John Doe had gone into the Tweed before, after or at the same time as Hightower, although I was sure that the timing had been close.
‘Hmmm.’ Dr Singh’s frown deepened. ‘There was some old netting wrapped around one of his legs. It seems to have been tangled up with both his body and some items on the river bed.’ That would explain why he’d not been dragged away by the river currents to the same spot as Hightower.
‘But the netting wouldn’t account for the wounds on his torso,’ Dr Singh went on.
‘It was the Tweed,’ I said softly. ‘The section by the market is where lots of the river monsters congregate. I saw the bite marks before the Redcaps took him away.’
Dr Singh’s frown didn’t clear. ‘Hmmm,’ he said again. He snapped the folder shut and marched out of the room. Because I’d not been told otherwise, I followed him.
We returned to the room with the refrigerated body lockers. He took the clipboard from the wall and flipped through the pages of paper. ‘You have to sign your name,’ he said.
