Twelve Days of Winter

by MacBride, Stuart

  She was just sooking the last of the juice from the carton when Professor Muir muttered his way back from the toilets. He took one look at her and sighed. ‘I wish you wouldn’t eat those things in here: the smell upsets Elvis.’ He pointed at the King, who jiggled and nodded his agreement as the mortuary door banged shut.

  ‘I’m finished anyway.’ She tossed the empty container in the bin and pulled on a fresh pair of latex gloves. ‘You want me to do the spine?’

  ‘Please.’ Professor Muir went back to the mounds of offal piled up on the gurney next to the cutting table.

  Sandra pulled out the bone saw.

  Click and the vacuum whummmmmed into action, ready to whisk away any particles of blood and bone. Another click and the saw whined into life, the vibrating blade making her fingers tingle. ‘You want the chord on its own, or attached to the brain?’

  ‘Surprise me.’

  She smiled behind her mask – that was a challenge. With all the insides scooped out, the body cavity was a purple and red void, lined with shorn ribs where Sandra had popped his ribcage off like the bonnet of a car. He was a huge fat bastard, so big she could almost crawl inside and pull the lid back on. The perfect hiding place. Who’d look?

  Grinning, she went to work on his spine, making the saw shriek.

  She was bagging up the internal organs when the phone went: Oldcastle Force Headquarters, letting her know another pair of bodies were on the way. She slammed the phone down. ‘Arrrgh. . . It’s the same thing every sodding Christmas.’

  Professor Muir looked up from his preliminary report. ‘Let me guess: suicide?’

  ‘Two of them. Antisocial bastards.’ She slipped the guy’s lower intestine into a clear plastic pouch, sealed it, then hurled it into the open body cavity. ‘Like we’ve got nothing better to do than piss about here dissecting them. Some of us had plans for tonight!’

  ‘Don’t sweat it. We’ll process the paperwork tonight and carve them tomorrow. Consider it a Christmas bonus.’

  Sandra stuffed the last of the bags into place, jammed the ribcage back on, then rolled the fatty skin back over the top, sewing it up with angry blanket stitches. She checked the clock on the wall: Six fifteen. She was already late, and two sets of paperwork were only going to make it worse.

  Elvis danced for her as she wrestled the body back onto its refrigerated shelf and slammed the stainless steel door shut. She grabbed her mobile and stomped off to the viewing room to call Kevin, away from the professor’s big hairy ears.

  The little room was practically empty: just her; a vase full of artificial lilies; and the table they stuck dead bodies on. The families would troop into the soundproofed room opposite, look through the curtained window at what was left of their loved one, cry a bit. . . Then someone would say, ‘sorry for your loss’ and the dearly departed would be wheeled away so Professor Muir could gut them like a fish. All very tasteful.

  ‘Kevin?’

  The telltale click-hisssssss of the answering machine

  picking up, then it went into its pre-recorded routine: Kevin singing a bit of Pink Floyd’s ‘Comfortably Numb’, only with different words. Asking her to leave a message. ‘Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. . .’

  ‘Kevin? Look I know I’m late, but I’ll make it up to you, OK? Ewan’s pulling a green shift, so I’m yours all night. Better make sure you’ve got some baby oil in, cause I’ve got a surprise for. . .’ A clunk on the line. ‘Kevin? Kevin, is that you?’ And then a metallic voice thanked her for calling, and hung up. ‘Shite.’

  Maybe he’d gone out? Flounced off in a huff because she was late? No, Kevin wouldn’t do that to her, not when she’d blown forty quid on a kinky French maid’s outfit from the Naughty Knicker Shop on Barnston Street at lunchtime. He’d definitely want to be around for that.

  She stuck the mobile back in her pocket, rearranged her underwear, looked up. And nearly wet herself. There was a man on the other side of the observation window, staring in at her. . .

  Christ sake: it was Ewan with his face pressed up against the glass, leering. She slammed her hand against the window, making him flinch back. ‘You scared the life out of me!’

  He was wearing a yellow high-viz jacket over the top of his police uniform, the peaked cap speckled with raindrops. Not bad looking in a thin, George Clooney kind of way. Well, George Clooney crossed with John Cleese. He grinned like an idiot, mouthing something dirty at her through the glass, even though he knew the room was soundproofed.

  She marched back into the cutting room.

  DI ‘Stinky’ McClain – a hairy wee man with a face like a used condom – stood with his back to the wall of refrigerated drawers, sharing a joke with Professor Muir. ‘So the receptionist pulls up her knickers and says, “It’s never done that before!”’ He laughed, jowls jiggling. ‘“It’s never done that before.” Get it?’ Then waved at a tall, old, grave-looking man from the local funeral directors. ‘Come on, Unwin, haven’t got all night.’

  Mr Unwin raised an eyebrow as he wheeled a stainless steel coffin in from the loading bay. ‘Patience is a virtue, Inspector. The dead will not be rushed.’ He activated the trolley’s brake with a shiny black shoe, then headed back out for the other body.

  This would be their double suicide then.

  Sandra followed the undertaker out into the hallway.

  Ewan was leaning against the wall, waiting for her. He grabbed her, planting a big wet kiss right on her mouth. ‘What you still doing here? Thought you’d be home with Emma by now.’

  Heat bloomed across Sandra’s cheeks. She pulled herself free. ‘Mum’s looking after her. And I’d be home by now if it wasn’t for you and your bloody suicides.’

  He shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, that’s Christmas for you. Listen, I was thinking. . .’ He grabbed her again, wrapping his hands around her buttocks. ‘If you’ve got nothing on for the next fifteen minutes, maybe we could find a nice quiet room and—’

  ‘No you bloody don’t! Randy sod.’ She backed away. ‘You and your gonads can. . .’

  Mr Unwin reappeared in the hallway, the wheels on his gurney squeaking as he pushed it through into the cutting room.

  ‘Look, I got to go, OK? Sooner we get started on this pair, the sooner I get home.’

  A playful smile sneaked its way onto his face. ‘Maybe when I get home. . .?’ Ever the optimist.

  ‘Fat chance! Some of us have to get up for work in the morning.’

  The smile vanished. ‘How’s Emma ever going to get a baby brother if we never do it? I could dress up: would that help? You know, be a fireman, or a doctor, or something?’

  Change the subject. ‘So, what we got – pair of oldies?’

  ‘Naw.’ He took her hand and led her back towards the dissecting room, where Professor Muir and Mr Unwin were hefting a dark-blue body-bag onto one of the mortuary’s examination tables. ‘Quite romantic really: man and woman, both early twenties, found holding hands on the bed. Painkillers, sleeping pills, and a big bottle of milk.’

  ‘What the hell’s romantic about that?’

  ‘Decided they just couldn’t live without each other. If one of them was going to die, they were both going to die.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  Professor Muir unzipped the bag, revealing a pretty blonde woman. Upturned nose, small overbite, and bright-red lips. Her face was plastered with make-up, hiding the bloodless yellow waxy pall of death. But from the neck down she was all corpse. And not a natural blonde either.

  ‘So which one was dying? Let me guess, she–’

  ‘It was him. We found a letter from the hospital: test results. Turns out his HIV just got upgraded to full-blown AIDS.’

  She scowled. ‘Great, just what we need – a pair of fucking biohazards. They take forever.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you just make sure you take care, OK?’ He patted her on the arse. ‘Don’t want nothing happening to my woman.’

  She didn’t bother answering that, just stomped across the room as Muir and the un
dertaker manhandled the other body-bag out of its stainless steel coffin. ‘Better watch out,’ she pointed at the bag, ‘this one’s got AIDS.’

  The professor swore, then pulled on a surgical mask and another pair of latex gloves. Scowled in DI ‘Stinky’ McClain’s direction. ‘No one bloody tells me anything.’ He hauled down the zip, zwwwwwwwwwwwwip . . . and there was Kevin.

  The floor wobbled beneath Sandra’s feet.

  It was Kevin. Kevin was dead. Kevin was lying on his back, on a cutting slab, staring up at the mortuary ceiling with a faraway look in his glassy eyes.

  She stumbled back a couple of steps. He had AIDS! Just two days ago they’d had unprotected sex in a ‘dangerous area’: the multi-storey car park behind Marks and Spencer. The bastard never even told her he was HIV positive!

  Oh fuck. . .

  ‘Sandra?’ Good old Ewan, at her side in a flash, playing the big, strong husband. ‘You OK?’

  She couldn’t take her eyes off Kevin’s dead face.

  The cheating, dirty, diseased, two-timing bastard hadn’t even bothered to tell her! That could be her lying there next to him, all peaceful and serene and not having to worry about dying from some horrific disease. Instead of some STUPID BLONDE TART.

  ‘Sandra?’

  Kevin didn’t even have the common decency to ask her to commit suicide with him. He never really loved her at all.

  Men were such bastards.

  3: French Hens

  Marguerite Dumond could swear fluently in four languages, but right now she was practising her English. Clutching the side of her head, trying to staunch the bleeding. Leaning against the alley wall, as Philippe – still dressed in his chef’s whites – kicked the shit out of the man who’d hit her.

  Philippe’s words were slurred, his heavy French accent rendered almost unintelligible by half a bottle of vodka on top of a hit of heroin, but his aim was dead on. ‘How,’ kick, ‘many,’ kick, ‘times,’ kick, ‘do I have to tell you?’ Kick. ‘NEVER come around my work!’ He took three steps back, had a run up, and slammed another boot into the man lying curled up on the alley floor. Then started stomping on his face.

  Marguerite peeled the tea towel off her head. It was soaked through – glistening and dark red. The alleyway began to spin, her knees gave out – she sat down heavily on a crate full of empty bottles, making them rattle and clink. She wasn’t going to be sick, she wasn’t going to be . . . oh yes she was. Marguerite leaned sideways and retched, spattering the cobbles with coq au vin and crème brûlée.

  Philippe knelt on the man’s chest and grabbed a handful of hair. Pulled his head off the ground. ‘I ask you nicely!’ A muffled grunt, then the hard, wet thunk of something being bounced off the alley floor. ‘I ask you nicely, but you don’t listen! You just,’ thunk, ‘don’t,’ thunk, ‘listen.’ Thunk. There was a moment’s silence, then, ‘You are stupid fucker, Kenny. You don’t deserve friend like me. . .’

  Marguerite raised her head, mouth coated with bitter slime.

  Philippe was rummaging through Kenny’s pockets, pulling out little silver foil packets. Then he settled back on his haunches and forced Kenny’s mouth open.

  ‘If you kill my waitress, how can she serve my food? A great restaurant, she cannot function without her front of house staff!’ He ripped the end off a wrapper of heroin and poured it into Kenny’s blood-smeared mouth. Then another and another and another. . . ‘Bon appétit.’ He slammed his hand into Kenny’s chest and the battered man convulsed, sending a plume of white powder up into the cold evening air.

  Philippe clamped a hand over Kenny’s mouth. ‘I said, Bon appétit!’

  And that was when Marguerite blacked out.

  Half past seven in the morning and Alexander Garvie stood at the front door of La Poule Française, signing for the day’s fish delivery – haddock, brill, turbot and hake. No sea bass, which would piss the chef off, but some days you just had to go with what was available.

  He shuffled back in through the restaurant doors, heading for the kitchen. If the reservations book was anything to go by, it’d be another busy day. Nearly full for lunch and packed for dinner. If it kept up like this they’d have to get more staff. Maybe a bigger restaurant?

  Alexander shouldered his way through the kitchen doors and marched up to the walk-in fridge. There was a lot to be said for opening a new place: maybe something down by the river, or the cathedral?

  He balanced the box of fish on his hip and cracked the fridge open.

  It’d be expensive, but if they could match the success of La Poule Française they’d break even in about a year and a half. Eighteen months. It would be tight, but—

  What the hell was that?

  There was a man in the fridge!

  He was lying flat on his back, next to the carrots and shallots, legs bent outwards, arms above his head. Like a frog waiting to be dissected.

  ‘Hello?’ Alexander slid the box onto the nearest shelf. ‘You shouldn’t be in here – it’s not hygienic. . .’

  The man didn’t move.

  ‘Are you OK?’ He flicked on the inner light, breath misting around his head.

  The man was not OK. His skin was the colour of rancid butter, spattered with dark-brown blood, and his forehead had a decided dip in it. Alexander reached out and touched the icy skin with trembling fingers. The man would never be OK ever again. He was dead.

  ‘Oh dear God. . .’ The first big glass of cognac hadn’t settled his nerves and neither had the second one. The third was making things a little fuzzy around the edges, though. Alexander sat at the restaurant bar, trembling, drinking the good cognac, and staring at his mobile phone.

  He should call the police.

  Just as soon as he felt able to speak.

  Call the police and tell them about the dead man in his fridge. And after that he might as well put a big ‘GOING OUT OF BUSINESS’ sign in the window. Who wanted to eat in a restaurant with a corpse in the kitchen? They were ruined.

  The sound of stainless steel platters clanging on the tiled floor came through from the kitchen, followed by French swearing. Philippe was in. His creased face appeared through the doors two minutes later – pink eyes, pale skin, dark-purple bags under the eyes. ‘Mon Dieu. . . I feel like merde.’ He rubbed a hand across his stubble-coated chin. ‘Is that brandy or whisky?’ pointing at the balloon glass in Alexander’s hand.

  ‘Er. . . Cognac.’

  ‘Thank God.’ He poured himself a huge measure, knocked it back in one gulp, refilled his glass, then let his head sink onto the bar. ‘Please – when hangover kills me, don’t let the bastards bury me in Paris. You know we’ve got a full service today?’

  Alexander stood, levered Philippe off the bar and dragged him back into the kitchen. Propped him against the wall, and opened the fridge. The dead man stared up at them.

  Philippe pursed his lips, frowned, looked at his glass of cognac, then frowned some more. ‘Is this today’s special? Because I thought we were doing seared sea bass with langoustine butter and pommes dauphinoise.’

  ‘They didn’t have any sea bass.’

  Philippe shrugged. ‘So you got me a dead body instead?’

  ‘I DIDN’T GET HIM! He was here when I arrived.’ Alexander slammed the fridge shut. ‘What are we going to do? It’ll be in all the papers; as soon as people find out we’ve got a corpse in here they’ll cancel their reservations; we’ll have to shut!’ Getting louder and louder until Philippe grabbed him by the shoulders.

  ‘Stop! Too loud! You’re hurting my head.’

  ‘What are we going to do? Where did he come from? We’re ruined!’

  Philippe let go, then opened the fridge again, staring in at the man on the floor. ‘Merde. . .’ He buried his head in his hands. Groaned. Swore. ‘We have to get rid of the body.’

  Silence, broken only by the whurrrrrr of the fridge, trying to compensate for the door being open. ‘No. We have to call the police.’

  Philippe snorted. ‘And then what? The
y’ll close us down. Martin White is coming in tonight!’

  ‘Oh God. . .’ Martin White – food critic for the Old-castle News And Post. A man who could make, or break, a restaurant with a single review. ‘We’re doomed.’

  ‘No we’re not. We get rid of the body and no one will know. Everything is the same. Nothing changes.’

  ‘But . . . but. . .’ Alexander closed the fridge door, unable to look at that battered face any longer. ‘But how did he get here?’

  Philippe licked his lips, cleared his throat, then laid a hand on Alexander’s shoulder. ‘Does it matter? He’s here: we must get rid of him or the restaurant is finished.’ Philippe turned a bleary eye on the kitchen, nodded, pulled on a heavy apron, and unrolled his bundle of knives. Picked out a boning knife and a long metal steel. ‘We cut him up.’ The blade made shnick, shnick, shnick noises as he sharpened it.

  Alexander drained his cognac and nodded. It made sense. Cut him up. Cut him up into little pieces. ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then?’ Philippe tested the knife’s edge. ‘We get rid of him.’

  ‘But someone will find the pieces!’

  A frown, then a smile. ‘We will mince the meat, yes? Cook it off and throw it out in the bins. Looks like any other mince. No one will know.’

  ‘Mince. . .? Yes, mince. . .’ sweat prickled between Alexander’s shoulder blades. Maybe another drink to steady his nerves?

  Philippe pulled out a meat cleaver and a hacksaw. ‘Now, you help me get him up on the worktop, then you lock all the doors and make sure no one comes in here.’

  ‘But the veg man—’

  ‘No one! Take the deliveries out front. I don’t care! But not in here!’ He clicked on the radio, cranking up the volume. Then they hauled the dead man out of the fridge. And got to work.

  Lunchtime was packed and it didn’t help that Marguerite hadn’t turned up for work that morning, so they were a waitress down. Alexander pushed through from the dining room with an order for veal escalope, coq au vin, and turbot with champagne hollandaise.

  The kitchen was a well-oiled machine, and so was Philippe. He’d downed at least half a bottle of cognac this morning – while he was cutting and mincing and frying – before moving on to vodka-and-tonic. And now he was drinking ice-cold beer, directing the sous chef, pastry chef, dish washer, and waitresses, turning out food that was the talk of Oldcastle.