turned out to be. First the mummy, then Paula Bartlett . . . Paula . . . Flaming heck! The autopsy! He daren’t be late for that. He was in enough trouble with the pathologist as it was.
He checked his watch. Ten to four. They could just do it if they ignored fiddling details like adverse traffic lights. ‘I’ve got to leave you to it, Arthur. Just solve the case and tie it all up before the end of the shift.’ He dashed across to the door. ‘Come on, Gilmore. We’ve got an autopsy to watch and ten minutes to get there.’
At four o’clock on a cold, dark, rainy morning, the mortuary lights gleamed across the driveway to the hospital and bounced off the black, supercilious shape of the pathologist’s Rolls Royce. Frost’s mud-coated Cortina shuffled in and parked alongside. ‘Don’t forget . . . ours is the one on the left,’ he reminded Gilmore.
The night porter, a gangling twenty-year-old with an embryonic moustache, snatched a cigarette from his mouth and dropped it to the floor as the two detectives walked in. He thought it was that toffee-nosed pathologist who had already rebuked him for smoking on duty.
‘Midnight matinée,’ said Frost, flashing his warrant card. ‘Paula Bartlett.’
‘We should get paid double for handling bodies in that condition,’ complained the porter, leading them through to the autopsy room which was in darkness apart from the end table where the overhead lights poured down on a mass of decomposing and charred flesh that was once a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl. ‘Dockers get dirty money, so should we.’ He opened a side door and called, ‘Police are here, doctor.’
‘Overture and beginners, doc,’ yelled Frost, perching himself on a stool for a good view. Gilmore, not so eager, moved back out of the splash of light.
The pathologist, his faithful secretary in tow, entered, scowling. He found nothing about his job amusing. The smile would be wiped off Frost’s face when he read a copy of the report he was sending to his Divisional Commander complaining that the inspector had allowed every Tom, Dick and Harry to maul the body before he had had a chance to see it.
‘Do you reckon he sleeps with her?’ whispered Frost to Gilmore as the secretary adjusted the lights over the end autopsy table to her master’s satisfaction. ‘It must be off-putting, banging away at someone, knowing you’re shaking up her stomach contents and her internal organs.’
Gilmore pressed further back into the blackness, not wanting to get involved in Frost’s coarse asides.
While the porter turned on the extractor fan above the autopsy table, the pathologist allowed his secretary to help him on with his green gown and heavy plastic apron. He fiddled with a control under the perforated table top and as water gurgled and trickled, he pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and flexed his fingers. He was ready.
First, he carefully examined the body from top to bottom, without touching any part of it. ‘Body of a female in advanced state of decomposition,’ he intoned. Miss Grey’s pencil zipped across the page of her notebook. He eased open the mouth with a spatula and shone a small torch inside. ‘Age about . . .’
‘We know how old she is, doc,’ Frost told him. ‘I even know her birthday. What I don’t know for sure is how she died.’
The pathologist’s eyes flashed. ‘Don’t interrupt!’
‘Sorry, doc,’ said Frost, quite unabashed, ‘but we’re operating at half-strength and I’ve got lots to do. Could you just give me the headlines? I’ll read all the boring bits in your report.’
‘I don’t cut corners. Aged around fifteen.’ He snapped his fingers and demanded: ‘Dental records!’ Miss Grey passed him across a small typed card with marked diagrams. He studied it then handed it back. His spatula clicked on the teeth checking extractions and fillings. ‘From the dental record I can identify the body as that of Paula Bartlett, aged fifteen years and two months. Some traces of blood in her mouth.’ He wiped the mouth with a swab and dropped it into a container held out by his secretary.
‘She anticipates his every move,’ Frost whispered to Gilmore. ‘I bet he doesn’t have to tell her when to thrust or withdraw.’
Gilmore couldn’t even pretend to smile.
Frost fidgeted with impatience as the pathologist plodded on, the swollen neck now receiving his painstaking scrutiny, fingers carefully prodding and probing.
‘Dr Maltby said death was due to manual strangulation,’ prompted Frost. Why was this man so bloody slow?