5. The Pathologist

The body is moved, and Vega realises his last investigation is going to be difficult to drop.

5

They were almost back at their headquarters in Dowding House when Rosen received the call she’d been waiting on from the pathologist. The news was as expected and he estimated death to have occurred no more than seventy-two hours previous. Dr Rooker promised to be more precise, but only once he’d had the chance to examine the body more intimately.
      ‘I’d like to take him home as soon as possible,’ he said, a peculiar turn of phrase but the sort she had come to expect from the man.
     ‘Whenever you’re happy to remove him from the scene,’ she assured Rooker. ‘How are Forensics faring?’
      ‘Quite well. I’m hopeful that we’ll have him out of this horrid wood before the weather turns.’
        ‘All right. I’ll stop by to assist.’
       ‘Tell me, do you have Richard sitting beside you?’
      ‘I do, Niles. Want me to pass on a message?’ Rosen glanced at Vega who was beginning to smile.
      ‘Yes. Tell him that his little mistake last Sunday may have gone unnoticed by the majority, but not by me. Passacaglia is in c-minor, it has always been in c-minor. St James’ deserve better from their organist.’
      ‘I’ll be sure to pass that on. See you shortly.’ She hung up and tucked her phone back in her coat. ‘He said something about organ failure.’
     ‘I knew the lanky b*****d would bring me up on that.’
     ‘Are you playing this Sunday?’
     Vega checked his watch. ‘Doesn’t look like it, does it?’
     When they arrived a constable was unwinding the police tape stretched across the maw of the lane, to allow the private ambulance to pass. Vega followed it through.
     Rosen met each of the two coroner’s assistants with a handshake while Vega stood by like a spare part. They began unloading the trolley from the back of their subtle black van and while they worked swiftly and wordlessly the mechanical clanking of their apparatus ricocheted around the silent stretch of road. Although it was unavoidable the disruption seemed somehow indecent. The place felt consecrated now.
     Vega waved them towards the gap in the hedgerow where the line had been tied; the undergrowth had been mostly flattened by the many feet which had struggled through it and the climb down to the pastureland was not as perilous as it had been a few hours ago.
     Across the empty scrap of land, over to the luminous white tent. Outside of it stood a near emaciated man so tall he looked like a plant which had outgrown its cane and so bowed forward unable to support itself. He wore his ash blonde hair long, almost to his shoulders. A pair of heavy-framed glasses sat so comfortably on his retroussé nose that when he lifted them off to polish on his sleeve it was like he’d removed a permanent feature of his face. He smiled when he saw them approach, his attention lingering on Vega a little longer than it did Rosen.
     ‘I think we’re just about ready for you,’ he said. ‘Hello, Richard.’
     ‘Niles.’
     The pathologist had a habit of standing too close, and his height meant his peppermint breath shot straight into the face of whoever he was talking to. Vega was a couple of inches shorter than him and it bothered the detective more than it should. He had gotten used to being able to see the tops of people’s heads. Perhaps that was why he didn’t much like Rooker. He preferred to think it was because of that, and not the pathologist’s orientation.
     ‘Some awful things have been done to that boy,’ Rooker said, sighing minty air on Vega’s cheek. ‘The end result is equally as tragic but I’d venture that his death was more prolonged than Healy’s.’

     ‘We’re not comparing the two,’ Vega answered. Niles frowned. He looked about to argue the point before bobbing his head apologetically.
      ‘Of course.’
     ‘We’re acknowledging the similarities,’ Rosen said. ‘We just don’t want to make any assumptions at this stage.’
     ‘I understand.’
     The coroner’s assistants were just entering the tent and Vega caught a glimpse of the boy lying twisted on the leaves. His partially opened eyes were staring at him. Cold prickled across his scalp and he tucked his hands under his arms and turned away. He listened but didn’t look as Rooker returned inside and coordinated the move with a soft voice and carefully chosen words.
     Soon the trolley was being wheeled out again. The oily black bag on top of it didn’t look any less empty than it had when they’d manoeuvred it down the bank.

 

Back up in the lane the two uniformed constables were stood behind the tape again, facing away from the pathologist and his team with their arms folded and feet apart as if braced against some unseen threat. As the doors at the back of the private ambulance were opened, Vega saw a small flash of light from somewhere beyond the road block. ‘You’re joking me…already?’
      ‘What is it?’
     ‘Press, maybe. I’ll go take a look,’ he told Rosen and strode towards the constables. ‘Have we got a shutterbug?’
      ‘Apparently.’
      Loitering a few feet away was a scrawny figure whose features were hidden under the shadows of his hood. He lifted his phone or camera again and took another picture; he wouldn’t get anything other than the lights of the cars, the van was parked too far down. Vega stared harder into the dark. ‘F**k, not him.’
     ‘Who is it?’ Rosen asked, stood at his side now.
      ‘No one you need to worry about. I’ll see him off.’
     ‘Do it.’ Rosen returned to the van and Vega headed for their uninvited guest, who stopped his pacing and stood his ground when he saw the detective bearing down on him.
      ‘You turn up to a crime scene this promptly, Duncan, and you’re liable to be hauled in as a suspect.’
      ‘That would be pretty lazy policing, don’t you think?’ he said, thrusting out his chin. ‘But maybe that’s the only kind you do. You’ve been packing it a way a bit lately, huh?’
     ‘Middle age spread, Dunc. If you want to reach a similar life stage, I suggest you push off. Pronto.’
     ‘Is that a veiled threat, DS Vega?’
     ‘No. Not veiled.’
     Duncan snorted but took a small, unconscious step back. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’
     ‘I never said you had. I just don’t like the look of you. Or the smell of you, for that matter.’
     In the partial light Duncan looked like a teenager. He was slightly built and with his out-sized cargo jacket, skinny jeans and graphic t-shirt he could’ve passed for a student. Only close up was it obvious that he was older, perhaps in his early thirties. There were lines beginning to deepen around his eyes and his birds-nest hair was beginning to thin at his temples. He scuffed his skate shoe and shrugged. ‘I don’t know why you’re out to make trouble for me. They won’t let me back in the college since you started sniffing around me.’
      ‘You never had much call to be there in the first place though, did you?’
      ‘I was helping the students with the Macs.’
      ‘The female students.’
       ‘Maybe they just need more help.’
      ‘Maybe you do. Now come on, I’m serious, piss off.’
      Duncan’s lips pursed, deepening the shadows in his cheeks and sockets. ‘Fine. There are other things I can blog about.’
     ‘You do that.’
     ‘Like that body they’re trying to chip out of the concrete in Hammersmith.’
      Vega had turned to go but glanced back for a fraction of a second. Too long. It was enough for Duncan to see he’d rattled him and his brows arched triumphantly. ‘There won’t be much left of him now, will there? How are they going to identify him? I suppose they got you to give a DNA sample. Course, that’s no guarantee. See, since you’ve been digging around in my personal life I thought I’d return the favour. I’ve done my research, DS Vega, and do you know what they say?’ Duncan’s voice became a stage whisper. He leant in a little closer, until Vega could count his blackheads.
     ‘If they find the skeleton in your closet and you’re not a genetic match for it, maybe it won’t be such a big shock…because from what I’ve been told? Your old man used to pass your mum around like a joint.’
     ‘Let me hear that again,’ Vega moved quicker than a man his size should be able to. Before he could catch himself his pulse was hammering in his neck and he was in Duncan’s space with his fist tight about the smaller man’s balls. ‘You say that again, an octave higher.’
    ‘Are you mental? Let me go!’
     Vega squeezed harder. Duncan’s mouth gaped and he could see right down his gullet. He could see his silver fillings and the wet punch bag that was his tonsils. He wanted, badly, to reach in and yank out that dangling flesh. Duncan’s eyes were goggling stupidly, pleadingly, and the detective felt flush with satisfaction.
     ‘Not a nice feeling, is it, Dunc? Having some nasty man’s hands on your privates. What sort of person gets their kicks like that? What’s wrong with you?’
    ‘Richard!’
     Vega turned and saw Daria and the constables silhouetted against the blinking blue lights. Like a reprimanded dog, he let Duncan go. The man dropped and retched. The sharp smell of bile mixed with the leaf mulch and Vega’s own empty stomach groaned in complaint. ‘Take him home,’ he said, beckoning over one of the constables. ‘He’s feeling poorly.’
      ‘Yes, take him home.’ Rosen’s voice was taut. ‘And Richard, you do likewise.’
      ‘I’m good, thanks.’
      ‘I wasn’t asking.’ She stared him out and eventually Vega’s shoulders fell in defeat and he fished his keys from his pocket.
     ‘Well what about you? I drove you here.’
     ‘I’ll get a ride with someone else. Just go. Go get some sleep. I’ll call when you’re needed.’
     ‘Fine.’
     ‘We’ll speak later,’ she warned. He slumped into the driver’s seat and made a show of gently closing the door as a belated demonstration of restraint.
     Before he drove off he took a moment to study Duncan as he hobbled towards the patrol car.
      The man was a coward. He wouldn’t retaliate. Vega was almost sure of it.

 

Home was a two-bed semi just off Sandhurst Road. Vega had bought it a decade ago as a probate property. The couple who had lived there previously had done so for forty odd years, which he took to be a good sign. The husband had died after a prolonged illness and the wife had followed him, aided by the stash of medication she kept under the mattress of their marital bed alongside her jewellery and his medals.
     Vega talked to them sometimes. They were friendly ghosts.
    He hadn’t done much to the house since moving in. He didn’t care enough to replace the bright 70s carpets, but he’d rescued the greenhouse and wood-stained the shed.
     The second bedroom had been for guests. He’d put Cherry in there when she’d first started staying over, and when that couple-of-nights became six months she had started putting posters up. Now there was eyeliner squashed into the grouting of the bathroom and slugs of hair clogging every plughole. Still, Vega found he didn’t mind. It was like having a whisky-soaked cat about the place who came and went as she pleased. Another heartbeat in the house.
      He made himself cheese on toast loaded with ham and slices of chicken breast. He ate perched on the edge of the bed but crumbs found their way into the sheets anyway. That had always bothered Daria. Was that why she had left? He would have stopped eating upstairs if she’d asked him to. Then he remembered that she had, several times.
     He wouldn’t sleep, his mind was spinning, it wouldn’t let him, but he’d close his eyes and feign it and maybe that would refresh him.
      Shouldn’t have hurt that little parasite, Duncan, his conscience whispered as he began to drift. No, a louder voice said. Shouldn’t have got caught.
     The man liked power, Vega knew this. Power over the girls he suspected him of forcing his dirty fingers into. Power over the detective who had until that morning been investigating him. Why else would Duncan be looking into the search at Hammersmith? Vega would need to warn DS Kite, if she were to take the case on.
    He got up to write her an email while it was still forefront of his mind. Since he was already on his laptop he began to search news sites for Tom Healy.
     He was still reading long-locked forum threads when his alarm went off at seven, but now he knew which details of Tom’s death had been public knowledge. Almost all of them, it seemed.
     No messages, no missed calls. He slouched downstairs for a fry-up and he was stood in the kitchen mopping up the last of the egg when his phone finally jangled with a message from Rosen.
      Briefing @ 8.
      It wasn’t exactly forgiveness, but at least he was welcome back in the fold again. He wiped his chin and resolved to shave.

Author's Note

All constructive criticism gratefully received.

Reviews

[IK]

Firstly, the gut-instinct good bits and bad bits:

didn't like this: "The detectives helped them down, Vega’s bulk fleetingly useful, all without a word spoken."

Excellent: "A pair of heavy-framed glasses sat so comfortably on his retroussé nose that when he lifted them off to polish on his sleeve it was like he’d removed a permanent feature of his face."

Excellent: "Still, Vega found he didn’t mind. It was like having a whisky-soaked cat about the place who came and went as she pleased. Another heartbeat in the house."

The Duncan bit was superb - at least the introduction. I felt that when Duncan started revealing he knew stuff about Vega that bit could have been done better. I felt a bit confused about what was going on here. This confusion is fine in part as a literary technique but you just need to be careful to use it sparingly.

I liked the ending - that was good. Let us in another side of him and close the chapter suitably.

Look forward to seeing more! Try and upload a few chapters a time - that way I get to build up a head of steam reading :)

ps: sorry for the delayed responses atm. my MA dissertation is due so its all a bit hectic.

[SLD Bailey]

Thanks for sticking with my story this long, and best of luck with your MA. I remember the shadow cast by a looming deadline well...!
As ever your suggestions are spot on; I've cut and edited based on them -- removing the first offending line and elucidating on Duncan's knowledge of Vega's personal life -- and I think the chapter is all the stronger for it.

[NoelHC]

I didn't realize you had posted a new chapter, I have now subscribed to your writing so I don't miss future chapters.

You have a real talent with the dialogue, and the jaded, seen it all cynical attitude of the detectives, have you been hanging out with coppers? ; )

I had mentioned P.D. James in another review earlier, and I have to say your story puts me in mind of a cross between her Inspector Dalgleish and Caroline Graham's Chief Inspector Barnaby.

My favorite line in this chapter?
‘He said something about organ failure.’
That made me laugh.

Well written, I can't wait for the next chapter, I feel like when I was a kid, and a radio play I listened to every day at lunch time would leave me hanging, until the next day, only to leave me hanging yet again.

[SLD Bailey]

Thanks for subscribing, Noel! I'm really pleased that the attitude of the characters seems legit because unfortunatley I haven't been able to track down any coppers to pass time with. I've been considering contacting my local police force to see if someone might be willing to talk to me so I know I'm getting the procedural stuff right but I'm not sure how well that would be met! It's so great to hear you're looking forward to reading the next chapter; I will use that as motivation!

[W.k.kortas]

Nicely done chapter; I like the method of bringing in Duncan--it fits the modus operandi of the genre nicely without feeling forced or too much of a deus ex machina type of thing. Likewise, the coroner is a nice piece of characterization as well, done with admirable subtlety. Again, jsut a very strong chapter.

[SLD Bailey]

Thanks so much! And thanks for sticking with it this far :) I'm relieved to know that the introduction of Duncan didn't seem forced or overly coincidental as this was a concern I had before posting.