(1998) Denial

by Peter James

  On the far wall was a blackboard divided into sections: Brain. Lungs. Heart. Liver. Kidney. Spleen. A set of butcher’s scales with a digital read-out sat in front of it. The pathologist, Nigel Church, stood facing away from them all, dictating into a machine he held in his rubber-gloved hand.

  ‘Petechial haemorrhaging in the whites of the eyes,’ he was saying. ‘This looks normal, consistent with suffocation.’

  Glenn always considered him an incongruously handsome man for the grimness of his profession, and today, with his youthful face, his flourish of ginger hair, his blue scrub suit tucked raffishly into white boots, he looked quite the swashbuckler. In other circumstances, he might have been chosen for this part as the perfect foil to Cora Burstridge.

  Except, Glenn thought grimly, this was neither a theatre nor a film set. And although he respected Dr Church well enough, he was disappointed that the coroner hadn’t considered it necessary to call in a Home Office pathologist to conduct a more rigorous post-mortem.

  He shivered in his wet clothes. It was tipping down outside and he had got drenched just sprinting to the building from his car. A damp chill tunnelled into his bones. He tried to cheer himself with images from Cora Burstridge’s films. He saw her hurl an ashtray at Stanley Baker, who was two-timing her in She Always Wore Scarlet. He saw her driving an open Mercedes sports on an LA freeway, swerving in and out of the traffic and laughing while kissing Peter Sellers passionately in California Belle.

  Now he saw her lying on the shiny steel table. She had an incision from her neck down to her pelvis; the skin was clamped open, and her yellowy intestines bulged out of her midriff. A large triangle comprising her sternum and front rib, the flesh still attached, had been placed, in an act of grim modesty, over her pubic hair. Her breasts, once so famously flaunted in The Temple of Pleasure, hung at a skewed angle, resting squashed on the table top on each side, and a creamy brown lump, that was her brain, sat on her chest.

  Her fabled legs stretched out straight, marbled with veins. A brown tag hung limply from the big toe of her right foot; it was marked ‘Brighton and Hove Mortuary’ and gave her name. Her lower arms seemed pathetically bony, the tops fleshy and wrinkled.

  He could barely bring himself to look at her face. The hideously blackened and ravaged features framed, almost in mockery, by her shock of gleaming platinum hair. He was relieved that one of the worst bits, the cutting off of the back of her skull and the actual removal of her brain, had been done by the mortician before everyone had arrived.

  Finally he pulled himself together and forced himself to look at her properly. He felt in some way that he owed this to her. She had given him such pleasure through her films; now, in whatever way he could, he wanted to repay this debt.

  He had been brooding all of yesterday, and had lain awake during much of the night, trying to work out what was wrong with her death, why he was unable to accept that it had been suicide.

  It didn’t feel right, that was the simple truth. Maybe his judgement was being clouded because of who she was, and the horror of what had happened to her face. Maybe it was naïveté and when he was older and more experienced he would learn to accept that things like this happened, that people really did do these things to themselves.

  I’m here for you Cora. I’m here to make sure we’re getting the truth about your death. And I’m staying with it until I’m satisfied. I promise you that.

  He watched dutifully as the pathologist carved his idol’s brain into thin slices, inspecting each one closely in turn, then scooped them onto the scales.

  Swallowing bile, he forced himself to keep watching as the pathologist pushed his arm up to his elbow inside her chest cavity and cut out her lungs. When he put them down on the work surface, they oozed blood the colour of engine oil.

  The pathologist placed each lung in the scales, dictated the record of their weight into his machine, then dumped them alongside the sliced brain inside a white plastic bag. Next he removed her bladder held it up and, as if addressing Glenn, said, ‘The bladder contains a moderate amount of urine. We’re retaining some for analysis.’ Then he cut it open and poured some of the urine into a glass tube.

  Glenn had been to enough post-mortems to know the procedure by heart. When Dr Church had finished eviscerating her, all her internal organs would be in that plastic bag. The top would be secured and it would be placed back inside her. Then her chest would be crudely stitched shut.

  But he wasn’t able to hack this any longer. He left the room, fighting back tears.

  He walked through into the tiny pink lounge area, made himself a cup of sweet tea, then phoned into the office to check his messages. Nothing urgent, a quiet Monday so far.

  When he had drunk his tea, he went back into the room. Dr Church was working on the intestines now, taking fluid samples for analysis. He stayed on until the pathologist had finished, but held back his private thoughts from Dr Church and the coroner’s assistant. Wild speculation wasn’t going to help anyone at this stage – all it would do was make him look unprofessional.

  While the pathologist and the coroner’s officer conferred on formalities over by the work table, and the mortician had left the room to take a phone call, Glenn walked across to Cora Burstridge and stared silently down at her. He wasn’t sure what he expected to see that the pathologist might have missed. Her eyes were shut.

  ‘One small anomaly,’ the pathologist said, walking across to Glenn. ‘The blowflies. Your report says that when you found her the plastic bag was secured tightly around her head. If that was the case, how did the blowflies get in?’

  Glenn turned to him in surprise. It was a good question and he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it himself.

  He looked down again at the dead actress. Cast his mind back to the moment that he discovered her. How tightly was it secured around her neck? Were there any gaps? ‘I – I hadn’t considered that,’ he said.

  ‘Blowflies can smell a human cadaver two miles away,’ another mortician, a shrewd looking man with Dickensian mutton-chop sideburns who had just entered the room, said with an air of almost macabre relish.

  ‘OK, but how did they get inside the bag?’ Dr Church asked.

  For a moment, Glenn’s hopes rose. Then they were dashed by the mortician.

  ‘They find ways. Her skin would have shrunk after she died, probably created a gap.’

  ‘The windows were shut,’ Glenn said. ‘How would they have got in?’

  He gave him a good-humoured but withering look. ‘They don’t need a very big space to get in. Not like you or I. They don’t have to have the front door opened for them.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Glenn said. ‘I get the picture.’

  He asked the coroner’s officer to send him a copy of the pathologist’s notes, then left. It was a relief to get back outside into the torrential summer rain, to be back in his car, to head back to his office, to the incessant warbling phones and the putter of keyboards and the smell of stewed coffee and the banter and bad jokes of his colleagues.

  To the living.

  To normality.

  Chapter Forty-one

  On Mondays, Michael had his clinic at the Princess Royal Hospital Medical School. When he’d been a student, he had determined to stay away from Harley Street, not wanting what he perceived as the ‘fat cat’ image of medical practitioners in that exclusive manor. He had always intended to be a psychiatrist of the people, not just of the wealthy, and at the Princess Royal he was able to do this.

  All the people he saw here were National Health research patients, often deeply underprivileged and more prone to depression than the wealthy sector of the community. His pay for this work was modest, but he was happy with the balance of his work. Sheen Park, his radio programme and his article for the Daily Mail gave him his living. He had no ambitions to become rich, but he enjoyed the comfort of not having money worries.

  This morning he had a different kind of worry.

  The Doppler wail of an emergency vehicle w
ent past two floors below. Rain ticked the window. This office was larger than he liked: he preferred the intimacy of his room at the Sheen Park Hospital. It had once been a drawing room in a grand house: high-ceilinged with moulded cornices; a massive fireplace with an absurdly small, unlit gas fire; formal antique furniture with a regal chaise-longue and two Victorian armchairs facing his desk that were more elegant than comfortable.

  In front of him sat Lucinda Ryan, a former top model, who was now so obsessed with her figure and skin tone that she cut herself constantly to let out what she imagined to be surplus blood.

  Michael was fond of her, but today the session was dragging. He glanced surreptitiously at the tiny silver clock on his desk. It had been a Christmas present from Katy – or maybe a birthday present, he was no longer sure. Details of their life together were slowly slipping below the surface of the water. Saturday night had been the clearest sign yet that he was starting to let go.

  It was hard to concentrate this morning. While Lucinda was studying her face in her tiny mirror, he brought his hand up to his nose, like a besotted schoolboy, and quietly sniffed his fingers. He had only washed his hands lightly and traces of Amanda were still on them.

  ‘I’ve been doing it again,’ Lucinda said. ‘But it’s working, isn’t it? I’m less red in the face. I’ve got two blood donor cards now.’ She smiled proudly. ‘Managed to wangle the second – they made a clerical error with my old address. So long as I go to different clinics, they don’t find out.’

  Michael wrote a note in her file. He was concerned about the way she looked. ‘Right, we’ll have to end it there for today. Please would you see my secretary on your way out, Lucinda? I’d like you to have a few tests.’ He registered the alarm in her face. ‘I think you’re looking too pale. I just want to make sure that all this blood you’re losing from your system isn’t causing anything else in your body to overcompensate.’

  ‘Will the tests involve them taking blood from me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She looked happier.

  As soon as she had left his room, Michael turned to his computer and logged on to the Net. A dozen or so fresh e-mails had arrived in the two hours since he had last checked, shortly before nine. To his disappointment, there was nothing from Amanda.

  He was aching for her. He wanted to see her name on his screen, wanted to read a cheery message from her, wanted to hear her voice.

  She had said she would call him when she got home from her sister’s last night, just to say hi, and to let him know she was back safely. She hadn’t rung. Michael was worried that she might have had an accident. More likely, because it had been such a fine day, the traffic to London from the coast had been terrible and she’d got back later than she’d intended.

  But she could have phoned him on her mobile.

  He’d lain awake until well past one, thinking about her, the bed full of her smell, analysing in minute detail how she had been towards him on Sunday. She couldn’t have gone off him, surely?

  Had she lied to him about going to her sister and seen Brian instead?

  No. All she had said about Brian had come from her heart. And although he knew his understanding of women was limited, in spite of all his years of psychiatry, he found it hard to believe that after the incredible night of love-making between them Amanda could have gone on to sleep with her ex.

  Unless she’d become riddled with guilt. But he really didn’t think so.

  He’d been tempted to phone her at half past one in the morning, on the pretext of making sure she was OK, but he hadn’t wanted to risk irking her. Instead he’d sent her an e-mail. Just a simple message. ‘Hi. Hope you got back safely. I’m missing you.’

  He’d hoped when he woke this morning to find a reply awaiting him. He’d checked again just before he left for the office and then again when he arrived.

  A great dark swell rolled inside him. How long could he leave it before he phoned her? He didn’t want to show her he was anxious. Nor did he want to play games. There were all kinds of complex rituals that followed the simple human spark of male-meets-female. But he didn’t want to be bothered with them. He just wanted to hear her voice again.

  He picked up the phone and dialled her office number.

  A plummy-voiced young woman answered, and told him Amanda had an early meeting and wasn’t expected in until noon. He hesitated when she asked if he’d like to leave his name, then thanked her and said no, he would call back.

  He felt a modicum of relief. An early meeting. She’d probably got back too late to phone him, and this morning had dashed off in a rush without checking her e-mail.

  Michael’s next patient was waiting. He reminded his secretary to put Amanda Capstick through to him if she phoned, then walked across to the door to greet his patient.

  He would give it until lunch-time. Surely she would call by then?

  She didn’t.

  Chapter Forty-two

  You could be blindfolded and still know you were in a police station, thought Glenn Branson. They had the same linoleum floors, the same long, beat-up corridors, the same noticeboards with the same junk on them you’d find in any hospital, or school, or in any other hard-used institutional building.

  But they didn’t smell like hospitals; they didn’t have the constant background shouting of schools. They had a quiet energy all of their own. Constantly ringing phones, gentle banter, graveyard humour, steady concentration, a sense of being part of a community. Glenn liked that.

  Monday was football day. All everyone talked about was the weekend’s games. Gary Richardson, at the desk behind him, was a former professional goalkeeper, disabled out after a knee injury, who had joined the force and was now a detective constable like himself. He ran the local forces team. Tall, gelled hair, hip. Glenn could hear him talking now.

  ‘What happened Saturday, for Chrissake? I mean, this guy’s a striker. It was a fucking disaster! They’re the worst team in the league right now!’

  The bacon roll sat untouched on Glenn’s desk. Grease was sweating through to the outside of the paper napkin in which it was folded. It was midday. He had been back in his office for an hour and it felt good to be in the warmth of this room, to listen to the chatter, to be with the living. He liked football, but he didn’t have football on his mind right now.

  He was still feeling queasy from the mortuary. He needed to eat, needed some energy, he’d been at the mortuary since eight thirty this morning and had had no breakfast, but wasn’t ready yet to swallow anything solid. Instead he was sipping his way gingerly through a mug of treacly sweet tea.

  The detective constables’ office was on the first floor of Hove police station. It was a narrow room, packed tightly with six desks down each side, paired up so that their occupants faced each other. At the far end, partitioned off by a bank of filing cabinets, was a large oval conference table used by the ProActive section.

  Just inside the entrance was a work area housing the room’s one computer terminal, an ancient electric typewriter and a television set. Half-way down the room was a ceiling-mounted ForceLink closed-circuit TV screen, which played a loop, updated throughout the day, of descriptions of wanted criminals, with warnings if they were either violent or armed, licence plates of cars to be stopped, and anything else that Sussex Police should be on the look-out for, plus crime statistics and targets.

  On the screen at the moment in bright colours, it announced: OVERALL CRIME DETECTION RATE. JUNE 1997. 26.2%.

  ‘So this is what happens, I get called out at three thirty on Saturday morning,’ Glenn heard another colleague’s excitable voice. ‘Two gays, right? They lit a candle Saturday night to create the right atmosphere. They fell asleep after the right atmosphere had done its stuff. Burned their flat down and the flats on the next three floors above them. You know who the only casualty was? A cat! The guy in flat six threw his cat out the window and it died.’

  Glenn’s feet were sodden from treading in a deep puddle and his suit was damp. C
hilly air blasted him from the air-conditioning and an equally hostile draught came at him though the windows.

  He glanced outside. It wasn’t much of a view, the asphalt roof of the floor below, the car park, some garages; leafy branches swinging around in the wind. A patrol car was heading out, wipers clouting the rain, and some poor sod was cycling, plastic cape flying behind him.

  Petechial haemorrhaging in the whites of the eyes. This looks normal – consistent with suffocation.

  Everything the pathologist had found was consistent with suffocation. No abnormal marks on Cora Burstridge’s body. Her doctor had told the coroner’s officer that the actress had been on antidepressants for five years. There was an inevitability about the findings. He already knew what the bright young coroner, Veronica Hamilton-Deeley, would say in her summing up at the inquest. Cora Burstridge was a sad, lonely actress who could not face the deterioration of her looks, her reduced income, the absence of hope. Suicide while the balance of her mind was disturbed.

  Glenn sipped some tea and looked at the pile of files and forms on his desktop and in his in-tray. Paperwork was the only thing he didn’t like about this job. File Content Checklist. Defendant Details. Case Decision Information Form. Summary of Evidence. Remand Application Form. Witness List. Exhibit List. Cautions. Endless forms. Hours and hours of pen-pushing, never able to catch his tail. Everyone in here was overworked. That was good and bad.

  They were divided into three sections, each of four detectives, with a detective sergeant in another office. Three male and one female detective per section. The female detective in his section, Sandra Denham, was out taking a statement from a rape victim in preparation for a court hearing. One of his other partners, Mike Harris, sat opposite him, and Will Guppy, the team’s resident comedian, was across the narrow aisle.

  Guppy, beanpole tall, with crew-cut blond hair, a mournful crag of a face that masked a sense of humour even more grotesque than his taste in ties, sat in his shirtsleeves, hunched over his desk. He liked to give the impression that he was a man of culture. On the wall beside him was a drawing of two large squares, underneath which was printed the words: PICASSO’S TESTICLES.