Murder Mile by Tony Black Page A

would notice and question him on it. After a visit to the morgue Brennan always felt like taking a shower, a long burning-hot shower, and smothering himself in a lather. The place had come to signify not only death but stagnation to him; when he went there he felt like it inculcated something that was alien to life itself, that seeped into him, right down to his bones.
    ‘Right,’ said Pettigrew, ‘get going shall we?’ He snapped his rubber gloves into place and opened the door to the refrigerated section; the corpse of Lindsey Sloan was lying there. Brennan looked at the trolley; it had the same kind of wheels as a supermarket one, a little larger perhaps, but the similarity always struck him. Since first making this observation he had always chosen a basket in Sainsbury’s.
    Pettigrew asked McGuire to grab one end of the trolley and the pair removed the stretcher with the corpse on it towards the mortuary slab. The slab was grey as concrete and as the covering was removed Brennan noticed how similar the victim’s flesh was in tone.
    There was a different, more pungent odour now. It pervaded the large room and Brennan watched as McGuire raised his hand towards his mouth and tweaked the tip of his nose a few times.
    Pettigrew looked at the clock on the wall as a young man walked through the door and muttered apologetically, ‘The buses were late.’
    ‘Get scrubbed up, and be quick about it.’
    The pathologist’s assistant threw himself into a gown and started to scrub up. He seemed jolly as he joined the others. ‘Morning folks, how goes it today?’
    Nods. A chorus of ‘Good morning.’
    ‘Right,’ said Pettigrew.
    His first scalpel cut pierced the sternum and exposed a layer of yellow subcutaneous fat. The tissue was attached to the flesh and always struck Brennan as being far too bright, much brighter than any butcher’s meat. He watched as the pathologist removed the dead girl’s organs, weighed them, and replaced them in the body cavity. All the while his attendant washed away what blood there was with a hand-held hose; the blood ran down the slab and through a hole onto the cement floor where it met a drain and was carried away.
    No one spoke for a while as the procedure was carried out. Brennan was the first to break the silence, ‘What about that, when are you going to look at that?’
    He was staring at the victim’s head.
    ‘I have a procedure,’ said Pettigrew.
    Brennan lowered his voice, it seemed too loud for the room. ‘Just the mouth, please. The cloth.’
    The pathologist walked from the middle of the slab to the top. He creased up his eyes as he bent over, poked a finger into the girl’s mouth. ‘Yes, there’s something in there.’
    ‘What is it?’ said Brennan.
    ‘I can’t really see …’ He moved away, withdrew a slender grapple-hook, like a dentist’s instrument from his top pocket. ‘It’s soaked with blood of course …’
    ‘Can you remove it?’
    As Pettigrew eased the item from the girl’s mouth it looked like a tight red ball, a crumpled-up piece of cotton. He laid it down on the table to the side of the slab and started to ease it open with his fingers and the chromium instrument.
    ‘Yes, looks like undergarments,’ he said.
    The others watched as he unravelled cotton panties.
    ‘He’s gagged her with them …’ said Gallagher.
    ‘Suffocated her, you mean,’ said Brennan.
    Pettigrew continued to poke at the blood-caked panties. ‘Hang on a minute …’ There was something wrapped up inside.
    ‘What is it?’ said Brennan.
    The pathologist hovered over the small bundle. ‘There’s more here …’ he pointed with his gloved finger. ‘Look, it’s flesh, brittle flesh … Hang on.’ He took a long-nosed pair of scissors, eased them under the dark, pulpy tissue. The material was brittle, hard. As he snipped through, dark patches of blood crumbled and fell onto the table. Pettigrew leaned in again, picked up the thin, tight strips of flesh. ‘Oh, my