The Disappeared jc-2

by M. R. Hall

  'Yes . . .' came the feeble reply. 'Thank you.'

  Ross spent the evening locked in his room talking to friends over the internet and listening to music, anything rather than come downstairs to spend time with his mother. To stave off the pangs of rejection Jenny retreated to her study and tried to make an impression on her ever-increasing pile of untended paperwork. Corpses were a good indicator of social trends. In recent weeks she'd had two women under twenty-five who had died following sudden and catastrophic alcohol-related liver failure, and a third who had collapsed and died in a nightclub toilet from alcohol poisoning; two depressed fifteen- year-old boys who had committed suicide after meeting in a chat room; and a married father of thirty-five who had jumped from a motorway bridge when his mortgage company foreclosed. If the young seemed unhappy, the old were scarcely better off. In front of her lay a photograph of an eighty-year- old widower who had rigged up the bedroom in his tiny flat as a makeshift gas chamber. He had left a note explaining that the struggle of making ends meet was too much to bear.

  Depressed, Jenny dumped her papers into her briefcase and picked up the phone to call Steve, hoping he might welcome an hour or two away from his draughty barn. There was no reply, not even a machine on which to leave a message. And he didn't have a mobile. She supposed he was out walking his dog, who was now confined to a chicken-wire pound during the weekdays, but when she tried again later, and again and again until midnight, she accepted he wasn't at home. There were any number of explanations why he would be out late on a Wednesday evening, she told herself: he was probably with friends, or staying over with a colleague in Bristol. He wouldn't be with another woman. He couldn't be. Their relationship, however tenuous, was too significant to be betrayed by the temptation of casual sex. And she had never turned him away when she sensed he wanted to spend the night.

  Too restless for once to write in her journal, she took two pills and lay in the darkness listening to freezing rain beating on the window. The leaded panes rattled in their shrunken frames and the wind moaned fitfully under the eaves, conjuring ghosts and darker spirits, as she dipped in and out of consciousness. Her last sensation before being pulled into a deep, uneasy sleep was of the ground shifting beneath her, a groaning of the earth, and a sense that something had changed profoundly.

  Preoccupied and disturbed as she was, she clung to a semblance of normality throughout the morning routine, making Ross breakfast and keeping up light conversation until she had dropped him at college. Only when he merged into the stream of kids pushing through the school gates did she succumb to the mild attack of panic which had been bubbling under since she had stood under the shower and barely felt the water on her skin. Dr Allen had convinced her that the worst symptoms of her disorder had been confined to the past. He'd drawn her graphs explaining how the medicated brain retrained itself, returning the fight-or-flight response triggered deep in the amygdala to normal levels. He had promised her she wouldn't go back to where she had once been. Yet six months later, trapped in rush-hour traffic, her heart felt twice its normal size and a band was tightening around her diaphragm.

  She railed against the symptoms. She shouted and swore at them, drawing stares from other drivers. How dare they return to pollute her life? She fought through each diminishing wave, refusing to pull over and succumb, until the adrenalin at last subsided and left her feeling tired, heavy and hollow. She stopped at lights and pulled down the vanity mirror to look at herself. Her pupils were wide and staring, her face pale: both classic signs of acute anxiety. Fury gave way to despair. Why? Why on an ordinary morning, with nothing to threaten her, was she terrified? What was stirring in her? And why now, when she needed more than ever to be in control, had it chosen to resurface?

  Her mobile rang as she pulled into a parking space opposite her office. She nudged the car behind as she fished it out of her handbag. There was a crunch of plastic. She pretended she hadn't heard.

  An agitated voice said, 'Mrs Cooper? It's Andy Kerr at the

  Vale. I wondered if you had signed release for the removal of the Jane Doe.'

  'I beg your pardon?'

  'I thought perhaps you might have authorized its removal . . . it's gone.'

  'What?'

  'The body was here yesterday evening and it's missing now.'

  'You're serious? Who was on duty?'

  'There was only one person on last night. I guess it's possible if someone managed to break in . . .'

  She could hear the alarm in his voice. She could already imagine the newspaper headlines: Unidentified Body Stolen from Morgue.

  'It's not here, Mrs Cooper. It was in your custody. What should we do?'

  'I'll be right there.'

  Dr Kerr looked even more ashen than she felt. She followed him along the corridor and stared down at the empty drawer. He explained that the assistant who'd been on night duty was more of a watchman, a Filipino who worked a cleaning shift in the day and sometimes remained overnight. Chances were he would have spent most of his time asleep in the staff rest room, which was around the corner, at least thirty feet from the refrigerator. Intruders could either have come through the door opening onto the car park or along the underground tunnel which led over from the sub-basement level of the main hospital building. There were no signs of forced entry, but the locks were hardly sophisticated.

  Jenny said, 'You're sure there hasn't been a mix up? It's not unknown for undertakers to take the wrong body.'

  Andy Kerr shook his head. 'We've got thirty-six here at the moment. Every one accounted for.'

  Jenny's mind raced over the possibilities, but there was only one logical conclusion: the Jane Doe had been stolen. But why would anyone steal a body?

  Nervous, Andy said, 'There's one other thing. You know you mentioned the missing girl who worked at Maybury?'

  'Yes?'

  'I couldn't get hold of any sophisticated kit, but I did manage to borrow a basic dosimeter from the radiology department. . . The body was emitting low levels of beta and gamma radiation. I couldn't say what isotope, but she'd definitely been exposed to a significant source at some point.'

  'So what are we talking about - nuclear accident?'

  'No. Nothing like that. But more than double what you'd expect to find, even in someone who works at a plant. It's not that uncommon in East Europeans.'

  'Enough to cause a thyroid tumour?'

  'Maybe. But exposure probably took place some time ago, years possibly.'

  'Still, I think it's time we called the police, don't you?'

  The detective sergeant's name was Sean Murphy. A man of no more than thirty-three in a crumpled suit with a shirt open at the collar, tousled hair and a thin beard that ran along his jaw-line to hide the first signs of sag under his chin. And when he turned to the side, Jenny saw he was wearing a miniature diamond stud at the top of his left ear.

  They stood around the empty drawer in the refrigerator as if it might yield some clue. Murphy said, 'How do you know which is which?'

  'They're all toe-tagged,' Andy said. 'And we keep a separate record on the whiteboard over there.'

  'Ever get mix-ups?'

  'I couldn't say - it's only my fourth day here.'

  Murphy said, 'Oh,' and nodded, as if that might explain what had happened.

  Jenny said, 'It's very rare. Dr Kerr is adamant that the body went missing overnight. There's no record of any undertaker having been here during that time or having signed for a body. I think we can assume it's been stolen.'

  'Any idea who might have done it?' Murphy said.

  'None at all,' Jenny said. 'We've had maybe twenty-five groups of relatives through here in the past week, all of whom have missing daughters. None of them ID'd her. We've got more who were meant to be coming in tomorrow.'

  'And you've no idea who she is?'

  Andy shook his head.

  Jenny said, 'The families have all been put in touch with a lab who are running DNA tests.'

  'Uh-huh.' Murphy reached out
with his foot and nudged the drawer shut with the toe of his loafer. 'Have we got any pictures of this body?'

  Andy said, 'I can email some over to you.'

  'It'd be good.' He glanced up and down the corridor. 'What about this guy who was meant to be looking after the place?'

  'He went home at eight. He'll be back on a cleaning shift at midday.'

  Murphy rubbed a hand over his mouth and scratched his whiskers while pulling a face. 'What's he like, this bloke?'

  'Very reliable, according to the other staff.'

  Jenny guessed what was coming next and interjected to save the detective the trouble. 'If you're wondering whether he might have abused the body in some way, I'd say it's unlikely. The eye sockets were empty, most of the abdomen was missing and last time I was here it didn't smell too good. If you have a look around there are plenty more attractive propositions.'

  'I'll take your word.' He gave her a leering smile, his eyes still shot through with broken veins from the previous night's excess. 'No cameras or anything, I suppose?'

  'Not in here,' Andy said, 'only in the hospital's main reception and maternity unit. It's unlikely they would have passed any.'

  'There'll be some out in the street I expect. I guess we ought to get a team down here, see if these body snatchers left any prints behind. Been a lot of people through this morning?'

  'Five or six,' Andy said.

  Pulling out his phone, Murphy said, 'Shit. There's no fucking reception in here. Where's yours?'

  'Wouldn't you like to know more about the body?' Andy said. 'I can't prove it forensically, but there's a chance she could have been a murder victim.'

  'We'll do all that stuff later when you write your statements.'

  'Could I get on with that now? I've got a busy day.'

  Murphy dipped his chin and turned to look at him with raised eyebrows. 'I don't think so, my friend - you're a suspect.'

  Jenny said, 'I don't know how much you had to drink last night, Mr Murphy, but I hope you didn't drive here.'

  Murphy opened his mouth to answer back, but Jenny caught him with a sharp look and said, 'Ask nicely and Dr Kerr might let you use the phone in his office.'

  The detective sniffled and slouched off in search of a signal.

  Andy said, 'Is he serious? What would I want with a body?'

  'Ignore him. He's hungover.'

  A few moments later Murphy reappeared at the end of the corridor and called out to them, 'What's the name of this lab doing the DNA tests?'

  Jenny stopped herself from slapping him down again. She'd complain to his superintendent later, get him to teach him some manners. 'Meditect. They're out by Parkway.'

  'Interesting. They just burned down.'

  It was early afternoon by the time Jenny made it back to the office. She could have cut and run sooner, but Andy had looked so bewildered as a team of forensics officers and several more detectives swarmed over his mortuary that she felt compelled to hold his hand. They had both made statements and Alison had emailed over the details of all those who had viewed the body or had expressed an interest in doing so.

  Initial reports had been sketchy, but over the course of the morning it emerged that Meditect, which was housed in a small industrial unit in a business park, had been very skilfully razed to the ground. Alarm cables had been cut and diesel oil pumped through the ventilation system and set alight. Another fire had been started on nearby wasteland, which distracted the fire brigade for vital minutes during which catastrophic damage was caused to the testing lab. Its entire contents had been destroyed.

  Jenny and Andy went together to the hospital's histology department to track down the blood and tissue samples from the thyroid tumour he had sent up for analysis, and came upon a scene of unfolding chaos. Several racks of samples appeared to have gone missing from their chill cabinets overnight. Among them were the Jane Doe's. The in/out log on the card-swipe system showed that a junior technician had been present in the lab for seven minutes at four a.m. She swore that she had been in bed at the time. Murphy came up to speak to her in person, but she broke down and asked to speak to a solicitor. The last Jenny saw of her, she was being led away by two constables.

  The Jane Doe's DNA had been erased from the record. Even the inside of the refrigerator drawer had been sprayed with industrial bleach. There was no physical trace of her left in existence, and whoever had arranged it had been thorough, well resourced and far cleverer than most criminals.

  Alison was completely caught up in the drama. Every five minutes she was on the phone to another of her ex-colleagues, fishing for an update and exchanging excited gossip. Wild and extravagant theories about the identity of the Jane Doe were already proliferating.

  Jenny was opening an email sent from the office of the Home Secretary when Alison bustled in with the latest exciting titbit. 'The lab assistant they arrested - she claims she had her pass stolen when she went to the canteen yesterday morning, but it turned up again in the afternoon.'

  'What's she saying - that someone cloned it?'

  'It's possible. It's just like a credit card - once through a reader and you've got a copy in minutes.'

  'Where do you get a reader?'

  'A few pounds on the internet. It seems complicated, but it's easy. Anyone with half a brain could do it - happens at petrol stations all the time.'

  Jenny said, 'It's not easy working out where the samples in the histology lab are stored, believe me. They knew what they were looking for.'

  'Apparently there were several in and outs with her card yesterday afternoon. If she's telling the truth, it looks as if someone was coming and going, getting the lie of the land.'

  Jenny was only half listening. The email she had just opened was from the Permanent Secretary informing her that the Home Secretary agreed that it was very much in the public interest that the disappearance of Nazim Jamal be the subject of an inquest:

  with the caveat that the coroner must be advised to exercise particular discretion in matters affecting national security. In this regard the coroner may wish to consider consulting with appropriate persons, contact with whom, it is understood, has already been made.

  'It seems Mrs Jamal is going to get her wish,' Jenny said. 'They're not letting you go ahead?' Alison said incredulously.

  'After a fashion.'

  'It won't achieve anything. They'll make sure of that.' 'You don't have to be involved, Alison.' 'Did I say that? I'm just giving you my opinion, Mrs Cooper. No one will ever find out what happened to those boys. They reined in the police eight years ago, and you'll be treated no differently.'

  'We'll see. But if you've got a problem with this case, or with Muslims or whatever it is, can you get it off your chest so we don't run into difficulties later?'

  'No, I don't have a lot of sympathy with radical Muslims, Mrs Cooper. It's always struck me as strange that we bend over backwards to be decent to these people when we despise everything they stand for. Their views on women for one thing: if my husband thought like they do he'd be a pariah.' 'Aren't all radicals outcasts?'

  'Try being on the receiving end of them - see if you still feel as reasonable.'

  'You've had personal experience?' Jenny said, sarcastically. Alison set her jaw and looked away. 'Mrs Cooper, I'm quite capable of putting personal feelings to one side when I'm at work. I was a police officer for twenty-five years.' She turned and walked out of the door, leaving a toxic wake.

  Chapter 7

  The inquest had been arranged for Monday morning, the second day of February. In common with many coroners throughout the country, Jenny was still without a permanent, or even a semi-permanent, courtroom. Alison leaned on her contacts in the Court Service, but was told that none would be available in the Bristol area for several months. Jenny had grown used to this sort of low-level obstruction. She had no objection to the range of village and community halls she had used over the previous months - some coroners had been known to convene in scout huts and the function rooms of
unlicensed restaurants (by law inquests could not be held in licensed premises) - but part of her secretly craved the recognition and gravitas a proper court would bring. Alison had suggested the former Methodist chapel in which her New Dawn Church met each Sunday. Jenny politely declined. They had compromised on an unassuming venue at the northern end of the Severn estuary. It was in a village close to the Slimbridge bird sanctuary, of which Alison was a life member and which had an excellent cafe, she said.

  Such were the trivialities which competed for Jenny's attention, along with stolen corpses, a steady stream of paranoid text messages (which had replaced the phone calls) from Mrs Jamal, and planning tactics to extract maximum information from the police and Security Services. And all the while she was staving off the symptoms of acute anxiety with extra beta blockers. She had tried emailing Dr Allen for advice, but received an out-of-office reply that said he had gone skiing in the Italian Alps for a week. Lucky him. She had a mobile number for critical emergencies, but feared that the moment she called it he would be forced to sign her off sick, with or without her consent. She had little choice but to manage as best she could.

  Ross came home late on Saturday night. Jenny was woken by his and Karen's stifled giggles and two pairs of clumsy footsteps on the stairs. They retreated to his bedroom, and moments later music started. It had been part of their deal that he could have his girlfriend over to stay if her parents agreed, and Jenny had a certain self-satisfaction in being cool enough to suggest it in the first place. The reality was a pain. She resented him wanting to be treated like an adult without being prepared to take an ounce of responsibility. And she was childishly jealous. She was still just about young enough to have the kind of good time they were having next door, but the chances of it ever happening for her seemed increasingly remote.

  The teenagers lay in bed until close to midday, then appeared yawning and dishevelled, complaining of being tired. Despite her disturbed night, Jenny had spent a productive morning in her study planning questions for the witnesses at her inquest. A rush of adrenalin had temporarily pushed her subconscious anxieties aside. Focused and purposeful, she carried her energy into the kitchen and set about preparing lunch. Her sense of achievement gave her the tolerance not to be irritated by the sight of the two of them slumped on the sofa with the curtains half drawn to keep the daylight - God forbid - from hitting the TV screen. With forced cheer she fetched and carried cups of tea, even drawing a smile and a thank you from Karen.