City of Sinners

by A. A. Dhand

  The paramedics’ voices were urgent. Both were too intent on getting their new patient inside to notice that, during their frantic dash, a wallet had fallen from the trolley to the floor.

  Saima picked it up and followed the ambulance crew, waving away Linda’s exaggerated gestures at her watch.

  ‘One minute!’ Saima called as she headed for resus.

  As she entered, the paramedics were still performing chest compressions while a junior doctor stood looking petrified by their side, his hands visibly shaking.

  The sister in charge shot Saima a look, flashing her eyes towards the junior doctor. Saima shared her dismay.

  ‘Where’s the registrar?’ she asked.

  The nurse shook her head. ‘Trauma next door. Can you help?’ She was desperate.

  Saima’s heart sank; she’d never get to training on time now.

  Behind her, the paramedics were completing the handover.

  Saima wheeled around, alarmed.

  ‘Could you repeat that?’

  ‘Ranjit-Singh Virdee, seventy, found collapsed at—’

  Virdee.

  Her shoulders fell as she looked more closely at the man on the trolley.

  Saima Virdee was looking at her father-in-law.

  A man she had never been allowed to meet.

  A man who blamed her for taking Harry away and ruining his family.

  A man whose life she now needed to save.

  A man whose life she now needed to save.

  FOUR

  STARTING AN AUTOPSY just before lunchtime had never been something Harry had understood. It took a certain type of stomach to push aside what was about to happen and proceed with the day as normal.

  Harry watched in confusion as Dr Wendy Smith, the forensic pathologist, made her final checks before starting the autopsy. Usma Khan’s eyes continued to twitch like a zombie from a bad eighties movie. Wendy appeared unperturbed.

  Perhaps it wasn’t the worst thing she’d seen in this room.

  Harry often wondered how such a small, delicate woman as Wendy had found her calling working with the dead, trying to decipher what their bodies revealed about how they’d died. He’d asked her many times and never got a satisfactory response.

  After leaving the murder scene, Harry had returned to HMET headquarters at Trafalgar House to organize his team. The first twenty-four hours of any investigation were critical, especially with a murder as disturbing as this. He’d split his team of twenty into two groups. The first would form an outside enquiry team which would gather statements from staff and try to locate Usma’s belongings, including her mobile phone. They’d focus on CCTV footage inside the bookshop before expanding to the neighbouring area.

  His other team would handle the victimology, gathering as much information on Usma as they could. They would be responsible for trying to establish the details of her life.

  Which left Harry to deal with the autopsy; in his opinion, the worst part of the job.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t have the stomach for it, but ever since he’d become a father, he’d been unable to see a lifeless body on the cold metal of the dissecting table without thinking of the parents whose child he was looking at. Parents who had lost the most precious thing they had. The thought never came to him at the murder scene, only ever in the harsh light of the lab …

  Harry pushed his thoughts aside and focused on Usma Khan as Wendy dictated to her assistant.

  ‘Swollen abdomen, severe hives, ligature marks on the neck exacerbated by the barbed wire, eyelids sewn shut …’ Wendy moved around the body, gently touching each area that she mentioned, listing the most obvious external injuries before she reached for the scalpel.

  In the background, a SOCO systematically took photographs of the body from every angle, capturing each detail as Wendy noted it for the recording. Another SOCO was bagging everything Usma had on her and passing carefully labelled items through a small hatch to the exhibits officer. They had removed Usma’s false nails, Harry once again struck by their unique design. He’d taken a picture on his iPhone, recognizing that this was something that would need to be looked into.

  Despite the meticulous work taking place, Harry could tell that everyone in the room was thinking one thing: Why are her eyes twitching like that?

  ‘You sure you’ve never seen anything like this?’ asked Harry.

  ‘You can ask me as many times as you want, DCI Virdee, answer’s still the same,’ Wendy said mechanically.

  DCI Virdee.

  Wendy was all about procedure and didn’t do casual. Her total focus was on the dead, something which unnerved Harry. He’d witnessed autopsies many times, yet the change in Wendy’s face, the colour flooding into her usually pale skin as she approached the victim with a scalpel reminded him of a child approaching a sweet-counter. She had often pointed out that Harry had the same sickness with his cases.

  Sickness.

  Her choice of word set Harry wondering.

  He shook the thoughts from his head.

  ‘You know,’ he said, staring at the clinical white walls, ‘I’ve always wondered why you don’t add a little colour to this place. I mean, it’s basically your office. Would it kill you to brighten it up and make it a bit less morbid?’

  Wendy kept her head bowed but shot a glance in his direction. ‘Morbid is what we do, DCI Virdee.’

  ‘Just trying to lighten the mood, Doc.’

  While her assistant, Ingrid, arranged tools on a steel trolley and pushed them closer to the dissection table, Wendy stepped on to a small stool so her five-foot frame could easily reach the body. She leaned in to pull the girl’s lower lip down and examine her mouth.

  ‘Unlikely she died from asphyxiation.’

  Harry saw what she had noticed.

  ‘There are no burst blood vessels on the inside of her lips, a phenomenon consistent with strangulation or hanging,’ Wendy commented, as if reading from a textbook.

  ‘Right, so what did she die from?’

  ‘First impression? The swelling tells us that it’s likely to be some sort of massive allergic reaction.’

  ‘Can you die from that?’

  ‘You can.’ Wendy grabbed a scalpel. ‘Let’s have a look.’

  She tapped the girl’s eyelids with the smooth side of the scalpel and didn’t flinch when they twitched.

  ‘How does a dead girl blink?’ said Harry.

  ‘There’s something inside there,’ replied Wendy.

  With utmost precision, she used the scalpel to cut the first stitch from the girl’s eyes, placing it into a plastic exhibits container which she handed to Ingrid, who in turn handed it to the exhibits officer.

  In the uncomfortable quiet of the laboratory, Wendy took her time removing the other five stitches, each thread bagged separately.

  Only then did Wendy peel back the girl’s eyelid, and for the first time in their ten-year working relationship, Harry saw her recoil. Before he could react, she had jumped off the stool and dropped the scalpel to the floor as something flew out of the girl’s eye.

  Something fucking angry.

  Wendy screamed, an alien sound in the mortuary.

  Harry backed away hurriedly as a large black insect shot towards him.

  ‘What the fuck is that?’ he said, a note of panic in his voice.

  Buzzing loudly, the insect made for the light directly above Usma’s corpse, its body hammering against the glass.

  ‘Damn thing’s on steroids,’ Harry said to himself. The room was frozen in mute chaos, everyone’s eyes on the insect.

  Wendy was the first to switch back to professional mode.

  ‘Well, that was unexpected. Now, tell me you don’t want that thing alive,’ she said.

  ‘God knows,’ said Harry, his voice still shaky. This was unfamiliar territory. ‘No way we’re getting it alive. Guess I need to play hero?’

  ‘Afraid of little insects?’ asked Ingrid, the only one not to have shown any signs of panic. Harry saw her suppress a
smile.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ he lied. He hated bugs, especially, he realized, when they flew out of corpses.

  Goddamn horror movie, he thought.

  ‘I’ll handle it,’ he muttered, afraid that if it flew aggressively towards him he’d do a dance similar to the one Wendy had just done.

  He moved to turn the overhead light off.

  The insect flew away to rest beneath a light on the wall.

  Sensing he was only going to get one shot at this, he tried to keep his cool while slowly, very slowly, removing his shoe and raising it above his head. It took him almost a minute to get his hand within a few inches of the insect.

  Menacing-looking bastard. Black with a hint of blood on its wings.

  He moved quickly and hammered his shoe firmly against it, hearing a satisfying crunch. The insect fell to the floor.

  ‘Container,’ barked Harry, ‘and tweezers.’

  One of the SOCOs hurried towards him and handed Harry both. He crouched by the insect and used the tweezers to place it into the container, relieved his hands were not shaking.

  Damn thing looked dead, but Harry wasn’t certain.

  He brought the container closer to his face.

  ‘Looks like some kind of freakish wasp. Only it’s the wrong colour.’

  He carried the container back to Wendy, wiping beads of sweat from his temple as he did so.

  ‘Guess we know what’s inside the other eye,’ said Harry. He handed the plastic container through the hatch to the exhibits officer.

  Wendy had stepped back to the body.

  ‘The eyeball has been completely removed. Nothing surgical about it – butcher’s job. Whoever did this isn’t skilled,’ she said.

  Harry joined her, looking into the clear void where Usma’s eye had been.

  ‘Assuming we are going to find something similar in the other eye socket, can we get this one alive – since we know what we’re dealing with?’ asked Harry.

  Wendy grabbed a larger plastic container, more of a lunchbox size this time. ‘I’ll make a clean cut above her eyelid. As I peel it back, you’ll need to be quick. Hold this above the eye. The bug flies inside and you trap it, right?’

  Harry didn’t fancy the task but his ego wouldn’t let him refuse.

  Back beside the body, Wendy used the scalpel to tap the girl’s other eye.

  ‘You okay?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t like insects,’ Harry replied coldly, ‘that’s all.’

  ‘You want me to—’ started Ingrid, stepping closer.

  ‘No,’ said Harry, refusing to let his pride take the blow.

  Wendy sliced a fluid stroke above the girl’s eyelid and held the blade there.

  ‘Ready?’ she whispered.

  ‘As I’ll ever be,’ replied Harry, turning his feet slightly so that, if he missed, he would at least be ready to retreat. ‘You mind?’ he said to Ingrid, who was encroaching into his personal space. Harry brought the plastic container closer as Wendy used the blade to peel back the eyelid.

  Nothing.

  She peeled it further.

  The insect crawled weakly out of the hollow socket, its wings clogged with blood, trying desperately to flap.

  Harry moved the container on to its side, touching it to Usma’s face, allowing the insect to crawl inside. As soon as it was in, he trapped it there and breathed a sigh of relief. Only then did he take a closer look.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked the others in the room, all of whom had now closed in around him.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Wendy.

  ‘Spider wasp,’ called out the exhibits officer, holding his mobile phone through the hatch. The screen showed a picture he’d found on the Internet.

  ‘There’s something else here,’ said Ingrid.

  Harry watched as she removed a small piece of plastic from the hollow socket. She set it on the bench, gently pulling a scrap of folded paper from inside. She unfolded it and, for a moment, her tweezers obscured the words from Harry’s view. Only once she’d stood back, her step faltering as she did so, could he read the words written on it:

  This is only the beginning, Harry.

  FIVE

  I SEE HIM as he leaves the mortuary, afternoon giving way to evening.

  I’m hoping he found the note I left for him. By the look on his face, I’m guessing he found the wasps, at least.

  Did everyone in the room scream? I wish I could have witnessed it.

  I see you, Virdee – all of you, not just the parts you choose to show to the world.

  I know you are not a good man. I know what you have done.

  Did you think there would be no consequences for your actions?

  Did you think nobody would find out? That I would take what you did to me lying down?

  He starts to walk towards me as I push my hands deeper into my pockets, whistling as if I haven’t a care in the world.

  But I do care.

  He’s so close I can smell the stench of the dead girl’s corpse on his clothes. But he doesn’t look at me as he passes, eyes to the ground, brow furrowed.

  I’ve caused that. And I’m not done yet.

  In fact, this is only the beginning.

  Soon, Virdee, I will be coming for you.

  SIX

  SAIMA WAS ALONE in the A&E resus room, a few feet from her father-in-law’s resting body. His orange turban was perched on a seat, Ranjit’s long grey hair chaotically strewn across his chest. A cardiac monitor beeped rhythmically and a ventilator hummed continuously, every so often letting out a whisper of air.

  Saima had picked Aaron up from nursery and returned here, awaiting her mother-in-law. She’d left him with Linda, not wanting him in the room near Ranjit. It just didn’t feel right.

  Alone, staring at a man who hated everything about her on principle, though he’d never even met her, Saima didn’t know how to feel.

  She turned away from Ranjit and closed her eyes. Her hand gripped her mobile phone tightly.

  You’ve got to call Harry.

  But Saima knew what had happened between father and son when Harry had broken the news that he intended to marry her.

  Blood had been shed.

  Ranjit had beaten his son. First with an open palm. Then the reverse side, his ring cutting Harry above the eye.

  Finally, a fist.

  When Harry hadn’t backed down, Ranjit had come at Harry with his kirpan, the sacred sword carried by devout Sikhs.

  Harry’s mother, Joyti, had thrown herself between the men and dragged Harry from the room. She had led him outside where she had embraced him, removed her slippers and given them to Harry because, from that day forth, Harry would never be able to touch his mother’s feet again, a traditional display of respect he had carried out every morning since he had been a boy.

  Saima thought about those slippers. They sat on a table by their front door and Aaron would copy his father and touch them every morning.

  ‘These are Grandma’s slippers,’ Harry would explain to their son. ‘When I was a boy, I was taught to touch her feet every morning to show my respect. But I can’t do that now, so instead I touch these slippers.’ Aaron would look up at him and pretend to understand.

  Saima let a tear fall.

  She hated Ranjit.

  The words of the junior doctor came back to her.

  ‘Should we call it?’

  Saima hadn’t been able to stop the thought entering her mind:

  If he died, would their problems be over?

  But she hadn’t allowed herself to hope for his death. Despite the pain he had caused, Saima had worked as if the devil were on her back. Looking over at him now, she saw a frail old man, bruised and vulnerable from the heart attack which had damn well nearly killed him.

  Saima had his blood on her uniform.

  Her thoughts were disturbed by a gentle knock on the door. Harry’s mother, Joyti, and her daughter-in-law, Mundeep, walked in, the door closing softly behind them. Joyti had obviou
sly been crying.

  A painful silence.

  The women had met before, but they were far from comfortable with each other.

  Saima saw Joyti glance at the blood on her uniform before she looked over at her husband. Her mouth dropped open and she blinked away tears.

  Joyti approached Ranjit, placed her wrinkled hands on his body and combed his hair away from his face.

  Saima and Mandy shared a look.

  And in that look, they also shared a memory.

  A confession from two years previously, when, on another dark night for the Virdees, Mandy had confessed that she didn’t resent Saima because of her faith but because Saima had taken the one thing from her which had given her happiness in her doomed marriage: her brother-in-law, Harry.

  A brother-in-law Mandy had loved dearly, a man she had eventually fallen in love with, despite herself.

  Saima didn’t drop her gaze as Mandy looked away, her secret clearly as distressing now as if it had been confessed only the day before.

  As Joyti approached, Saima stooped to touch her mother-in-law’s feet.

  ‘You don’t need to do that, I know it is not a Muslim tradition,’ said Joyti, trying to stop her.

  ‘Your boy still does it every morning.’ Saima paused, then added, ‘And your grandson.’

  Joyti grasped Saima’s hands.

  ‘Why,’ said Joyti in Punjabi, ‘must we always meet over a tragedy?’

  The language was familiar to Saima, she had spoken it as a girl with her family.

  The two women embraced, each trying hard not to cry.

  ‘Kismet,’ whispered Saima. Fate.

  ‘They said you saved him. You didn’t let him … go,’ said Joyti.

  ‘I only did my job.’

  Joyti forced a smile. ‘You didn’t let him go,’ she repeated, pulling a tissue from her pocket and wiping a tear from Saima’s cheek.

  Saima nodded once.

  ‘And my Hardeep?

  Saima shook her head.

  Joyti whispered for God to give her strength.

  She turned back to her husband, opened her mouth to say something, then reconsidered.