he merely grunted and she was content to doze in the enclosed space as it carried them through the quiet streets. When they reached home his mood changed again and in bed their coming together was as passionate as it had once always been. He was insistent and demanding, almost angry in the way that both excited and unnerved her.
ten
M CGOVERN COULD NOT REMEMBER when he’d last stood like this beside a dead body. One of the advantages of working for the Branch was that death was not a piece of rotting flesh on a slab, but an abstract event which had happened somewhere else. Visits to the mortuary were rare.
Every sound that echoed in the white tiled chamber – a dropped instrument, a visceral squelch, the drip of water from a tap – underlined the silence it interrupted. The smell of decaying human offal, blood and stagnant canal water leaked through the lime-juice odour of disinfectant.
The sterilised façade of normal life was pulled away in the mortuary. This was the real event, and an obscene contrast to the good manners of gentlemanly discussions with Kingdom and the colourless boredom of watching and waiting for conspiracies that seldom materialised.
When the canvas sheet was rolled back, a sharp intake of breath from Jarrell hissed through the silence, but Jarrell, whose curd-white skin looked greener than ever in the harsh light, turned not a single carrot-coloured hair at the gruesomeness of his surroundings and the body on the slab (his first, he said). The corpse was not in good shape: a flabby, slack, over-used body; the sallow skin as if pickled in nicotine; the bony cage of ribs and shoulders contrasting with the swollen belly; short,skinny legs like a toad. The coarsely sewn-up cut down the length of the torso reminded McGovern of Frankenstein’s monster. There was a pathos about the body, neglected by an owner who’d been more interested in things of the mind.
‘It’s Eberhardt,’ said Jarrell.
‘You recognise him?’
‘Yes, we recognise him,’ said McGovern. ‘Any identification?’
The pathologist gestured to a wallet and a bunch of keys. ‘These were found at the side of the canal. No money, so robbery could be a possible motive. He died from drowning,’ he continued, ‘but there’s also a nasty blow to the side of the head. The skull’s fractured. He was probably tipped into the water while he was unconscious, but he might have fallen in when he received the blow. Impossible to tell, really. He was also ill. He had very early signs of lung cancer, but I don’t expect he knew that. I’m not sure he was murdered, but it’s a working assumption. And I should say he hadn’t been in the water for more than … oh, not much more than twenty-four hours, certainly not more than two days. The body had got caught on a plank near that old cemetery in Paddington.’
‘Yes. We saw him two days ago, so it couldna be longer than that.’
It could indeed have been robbery with violence, an assailant who didn’t even mean to kill him, who either tipped him into the water or else just hit him and then fled and afterwards the unconscious man somehow rolled sideways off the edge of the towpath and into the canal. But McGovern remembered that there was no towpath on that side of the canal. No robber could have come that way.
‘One other thing,’ added the pathologist. ‘The brain wasn’t normal. He was suffering from signs of dementia.’
It was Kingdom who’d instructed him to get down to the mortuary. It shouldn’t have been a Branch case at all, and was in fact assigned to DI Slater of the CID, but nowit was McGovern’s case too, because Kingdom wanted it to be. Kingdom had somehow known about the dead man, but didn’t know his identity. This was bound to be awkward. Slater would have to accept there was a security angle, if that was what he was told, but he was bound to resent a Branch colleague muscling in and interfering. It was irregular and could be construed as insulting. But
ten
M CGOVERN COULD NOT REMEMBER when he’d last stood like this beside a dead body. One of the advantages of working for the Branch was that death was not a piece of rotting flesh on a slab, but an abstract event which had happened somewhere else. Visits to the mortuary were rare.
Every sound that echoed in the white tiled chamber – a dropped instrument, a visceral squelch, the drip of water from a tap – underlined the silence it interrupted. The smell of decaying human offal, blood and stagnant canal water leaked through the lime-juice odour of disinfectant.
The sterilised façade of normal life was pulled away in the mortuary. This was the real event, and an obscene contrast to the good manners of gentlemanly discussions with Kingdom and the colourless boredom of watching and waiting for conspiracies that seldom materialised.
When the canvas sheet was rolled back, a sharp intake of breath from Jarrell hissed through the silence, but Jarrell, whose curd-white skin looked greener than ever in the harsh light, turned not a single carrot-coloured hair at the gruesomeness of his surroundings and the body on the slab (his first, he said). The corpse was not in good shape: a flabby, slack, over-used body; the sallow skin as if pickled in nicotine; the bony cage of ribs and shoulders contrasting with the swollen belly; short,skinny legs like a toad. The coarsely sewn-up cut down the length of the torso reminded McGovern of Frankenstein’s monster. There was a pathos about the body, neglected by an owner who’d been more interested in things of the mind.
‘It’s Eberhardt,’ said Jarrell.
‘You recognise him?’
‘Yes, we recognise him,’ said McGovern. ‘Any identification?’
The pathologist gestured to a wallet and a bunch of keys. ‘These were found at the side of the canal. No money, so robbery could be a possible motive. He died from drowning,’ he continued, ‘but there’s also a nasty blow to the side of the head. The skull’s fractured. He was probably tipped into the water while he was unconscious, but he might have fallen in when he received the blow. Impossible to tell, really. He was also ill. He had very early signs of lung cancer, but I don’t expect he knew that. I’m not sure he was murdered, but it’s a working assumption. And I should say he hadn’t been in the water for more than … oh, not much more than twenty-four hours, certainly not more than two days. The body had got caught on a plank near that old cemetery in Paddington.’
‘Yes. We saw him two days ago, so it couldna be longer than that.’
It could indeed have been robbery with violence, an assailant who didn’t even mean to kill him, who either tipped him into the water or else just hit him and then fled and afterwards the unconscious man somehow rolled sideways off the edge of the towpath and into the canal. But McGovern remembered that there was no towpath on that side of the canal. No robber could have come that way.
‘One other thing,’ added the pathologist. ‘The brain wasn’t normal. He was suffering from signs of dementia.’
It was Kingdom who’d instructed him to get down to the mortuary. It shouldn’t have been a Branch case at all, and was in fact assigned to DI Slater of the CID, but nowit was McGovern’s case too, because Kingdom wanted it to be. Kingdom had somehow known about the dead man, but didn’t know his identity. This was bound to be awkward. Slater would have to accept there was a security angle, if that was what he was told, but he was bound to resent a Branch colleague muscling in and interfering. It was irregular and could be construed as insulting. But
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