gown hung loosely over his hunched shoulders, as though he’d spent too long bending over bodies. We shook hands but Briggs made no attempt to invite me anywhere else.
‘Thanks for your time,’ I said. ‘I just have a few questions about the overdose brought in this morning. Has anyone come by to see the body?’
‘Yep, someone made an ID an hour or so ago,’ he said.
‘Who?’
‘Some guy in a summer suit. I don’t think it was his father.’
‘Then who?’
Briggs shrugged and looked at his watch.
‘I also wanted to ask when there’ll be an autopsy,’ I said, getting to the point.
‘I thought that’s what it might be about. I’m used to working with police.’
He didn’t continue because he didn’t need to. With cops, especially detectives, everything was urgent. Me showing up to put a rush on the post-mortem was about as original as butter on a sandwich.
‘The PM’s scheduled for Monday morning,’ Briggs read off a clipboard. ‘The pathologist is Dr Julie Wong. Why?’
I knew Dr Wong and felt sure she would listen to me. Monday was too long to wait.
‘Tell Julie she needs to change the booking to tomorrow morning,’ I said.
‘Excuse me?’ Briggs said. ‘Detective, I just explained to you that the body is scheduled for Monday. That’s the best we can do.’
‘Well, it’s not good enough. There are things that need to be confirmed before the death is ruled accidental.’
‘You don’t need to tell me that. That’s what we do here. And we do it in our own time, in accordance with key performance indicators.’
‘Spare me the induction spiel, Briggs. Just tell Julie to trust my judgement and book the boy for a preliminary exam tomorrow morning. If she doesn’t find anything in the prelim, you can do it next month for all I care. Just check it in for tomorrow.’
‘You’ve got some nerve, detective. Last night we get three guys brought in from a car crash on the Westgate Freeway. Uni students, heading down the beach for a holiday. For some reason the car flips and, bang, just like that they’re all dead.’
I’d heard about the accident and knew what was coming.
‘The families are having a group funeral on Monday, so we’re putting these guys up front. On top of that, we’ve got a guy who ended up in a fight at a pub last night. He copped one in the jaw, cracked his head open on the pavement. A homicide.’
I understood the predicament of having to prioritise human bodies, but if what I was now thinking was true, Dallas Boyd deserved immediate attention.
‘Listen, there are anomalies with the Boyd case, things that don’t add up,’ I said, handing Briggs the list I’d made earlier. ‘Look!’
He took the list, studied it and pointed to the last line on the page. ‘What do you mean by this? Leather belt – teeth marks?’
‘That’s why I’m here. I need to see the belt, to check if there are any teeth marks on it. You’ve still got it, I presume?’
Briggs shot me a questioning look. ‘Of course we still have it. Things don’t just go missing around here.’
‘Yeah, righto. Can I see it or not?’
‘Why?’
‘Let me see it and I’ll explain. What’s the big deal? I don’t need to touch it.’ I realised I was standing over him and stepped back. ‘Look, it can stay in the audit bag. Just let me see it.’
‘Only if it stays in the bag.’
‘Fine.’
‘Come with me.’
I followed him through a door into a hallway. Long familiar with the layout of the building, I knew he was taking me to a storage room where personal belongings of the deceased were kept, but was glad he left me at the door. I often found it worse to be surrounded by the clothes and personal belongings of dead people than the actual bodies.
When Briggs came back he closed the door and handed me a clear plastic bag with a thin leather belt inside. It seemed somehow smaller and more innocent than it had around the boy’s arm.
‘The belt was used as a tourniquet,’ I explained, turning it in my hands. ‘As you’d know, junkies keep the tension in the belt by pulling it tight with their teeth, so they can use their other arm to inject the syringe. They pretty much have to when they’re alone, but look here.’ I pointed at the surface of the leather. ‘This doesn’t have any teeth marks on it.’
Briggs nodded, thoughtful, as I gave him back the belt. He was probably wondering