The Heights. Parker Bilal
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tilted his head at her. ‘This one is beginning to grow on me.’
‘And there was me thinking we had something special,’ said Drake.
‘Time moves on for all of us,’ lamented Archie. ‘I take it you’re here for our Mary Stuart.’
‘Mary Stuart?’ queried Drake.
‘She lost her head, remember?’
‘A history lesson? Really?’ Drake glanced over at Marsh. She seemed resigned. Maybe she and Archie Narayan had more in common than he realised.
‘I warn you,’ said the pathologist, ‘coming here asking for miracles is never a good plan. She’s fresh. Well, as fresh as can be under the circumstances. Literally just come through the door. Hardly had time to clean her off.’ He squinted at Marsh. ‘I understood this wasn’t a priority.’
‘You heard that from DCI Pryce?’
‘He is still the one calling the tunes, isn’t he?’
‘Looks that way.’
Archie gave a theatrical sigh, a hint perhaps at a frustrated career in amateur dramatics. Nothing about Archie would surprise Drake. ‘These days the blue line is so thin it’s more of a blue rinse.’
This struck a chord with Marsh. ‘Rising knife crime, mental-health statistics through the roof and a budget that has been slashed to ribbons. Yeah, I would say that was fairly accurate.’
‘I hate to break up your love-in here, but there was a time when a severed head warranted some kind of urgency,’ said Drake.
‘Ah, that’s precisely the point, old bean, changing times and all that.’
Marsh was in agreement. ‘What we have now is the management of unmitigated disaster.’
‘Sad, the lack of faith in one so young, wouldn’t you say?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Drake.
They were coming down the dark stairs to the basement, which always had a dank feeling to them despite the modern fittings and the discreet lighting. Archie punched a code into the keypad and led the way to the darkened room. The smell of chemicals hit Drake’s nostrils with a jolt. Familiar, in the way that the taste of last night’s vindaloo can bubble to the surface like gas in a geyser. The autopsy room crackled with electric energy. Neon lights buzzed, refrigerators hummed, a gigantic extractor whirred overhead, and in the corner a centrifuge spun in regular cycles, up to who knows what mischief. Only one of the four dissection tables in the centre of the room was occupied.
With a showman’s flourish, Archie pulled back the sheet to reveal the steel basin and its contents. There wasn’t much left of the head. The skull had been sliced open and the brain removed.
‘Meet Mary Stuart.’
‘So you said. Your idea, I take it?’
Archie shrugged. ‘Makes a change from Jane Doe. It seemed fitting. The realm under threat. Catholic queen challenging Elizabeth for the throne. That’s what got her killed.’
As he looked down at the human remains lying on the examination table Drake was struck by a feeling of dread, as though the past was reaching out to him.
Archie stared at Drake. ‘I know it’s an obvious question, but why are you here actually?’
Marsh said, ‘We’re going off the record on this one, doc.’
‘I don’t know what that means.’ Archie folded his arms.
‘It means I’m not here, actually.’ Drake was leaning over for a closer look. The head was slightly deformed in shape, as if it had been crushed, pressed to one side.
‘Is it her?’ Marsh was leaning over his shoulder.
‘Is it who?’ Archie asked.
Drake wasn’t sure. The skin had a greenish sheen to it and in death people rarely resemble themselves in life.
‘I think this might be Zelda,’ he murmured.
‘Zelda?’ Archie frowned. ‘Your witness from the Malevich case?’
‘We had a body in at the time, found near Brighton.’
‘Of course I remember. That would have been taken care of elsewhere.’
‘Can you still access the body for tests?’
‘Possibly. That case was unresolved.’
‘So you could do a DNA match?’
Archie straightened up. ‘If I had reason to. As I recall the body was matched to items from the victim’s flat.’
‘I could be wrong, but I think this is her.’ Drake moved round the table. ‘She would have had to be frozen to preserve it like this, right?’
‘That’s the only way to account for the relatively good shape she’s in.’
‘How do you explain the discolouration?’ Marsh asked.
Archie glanced at her. ‘The colour and the mould are indications of humidity, meaning the head wasn’t perfectly sealed, wherever it was kept. If I was to guess, I would say she has been moved around for short periods, not long. Slight defrosting and refreezing.’
‘Where could she have been kept?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. A large home freezer would do the trick, beside the pork chops.’
‘Charming,’ muttered Marsh.
‘A commercial freezer can produce temperatures as low as minus forty degrees centigrade. Once out of that environment thawing would commence, and with that deterioration, which explains the pallor. This suggests that she had been left for periods of time exposed to room temperature, then possibly re-frozen, which would suggest she was moved. The worst of it occurred on the train, where the elevated heat would have accelerated the process. Also, the person doing the transporting didn’t know, or think, about moisture. She was in a plastic bag that didn’t allow for ventilation.’
‘Kelly mentioned something about pink teeth? Did you manage to confirm it?’
‘Ah, yes.’ Archie moved around, reaching for a pair of clamps. He pressed the jaw open. Drake recoiled as the smell hit him again, the chemical sting starting to tangle with the contents of his stomach.
‘What exactly are we talking about?’
‘It’s a side effect of arsenic trioxide. It was used to kill the nerves.’
‘So that would at least confirm she’s from Eastern Europe.’
‘Which would tie into your theory that it’s her, wouldn’t it?’ Archie withdrew his hand holding the clamps. The head’s jaw remained at an awkward angle. Drake stared at the open mouth. He had to remind himself that this had once been a living person.
‘What else can you tell us at this stage?’
‘I would say that she was frozen relatively quickly.’
‘And how long between coming out of the freezer and landing on the Tube?’
‘A matter of hours. Hard to say.’
Drake rested one hand on the steel table. The cold ran up his arm.
Sensing that he needed a moment, Marsh stepped in. ‘What else can you tell us?’
‘The skin shows traces of cleaning fluid, some kind of disinfectant. That would remove any excess blood and dirt. Neat, methodical, not frenzied. This man knew what he was doing. The spinal chord: the bone has been chipped in places and pulverised in others. Evidence, I would say, of the use of a mechanical device.’
‘What, like a wood saw?’
Archie looked at her and shrugged. ‘A narrow