Talking to the Dead by Harry Bingham Read Free Book Online

me and on Jackson. Price explains at excessive length. The gist is this. When somebody starts taking heroin, the body does all it can to counteract the effect of the drug. When the drug is taken in a familiar environment, the body is prepared for the toxic assault and is already doing its best to counteract it. The result is that users come to tolerate very high levels of the drug. If you pull them away from their home environment, the body’s defense mechanisms haven’t been primed to respond. Result: even an ordinary dose—the same dose as the user was tolerating in the home environment—can become lethal.
    “So,” Jackson says, “she leaves home. She’s having a bad time. We don’t yet know why. She takes heroin. Same dose as normal, but it’s a big mistake. Her body’s not ready for the drug. Next thing, bang! She’s dead.”
    Price fusses over this summary. It’s all too clear and sharp for him. He starts qualifying every statement and then starts adding riders to his qualifications. He prefers the fog of precision to the clarity of a decent hunch. On a look from Jackson, I stop taking notes while Price’s pedantry burns itself out. Jackson looks like an idiot in his white overalls and plastic boots, but then so do I. We exchange smiles. When either one of us moves, we rustle like taffeta. Price is wearing more or less the same kit, but it suits him for some reason. Also, he doesn’t rustle.
    When Price is done with his pedantic overdrive, he goes back to his briefing. Routine, necessary, boring. I take notes. Jackson prowls. Price lectures. I think he enjoys boring us. They haven’t found HIV or anything like that, but the tests aren’t yet complete. No obvious sexual assault. No recent semen found in or by the body.
    Then we’re done with Janet. I wrap up her feet again and cover her head, only this time I can’t resist and I move one of her coppery locks as I bring the gown down over her face. Her hair feels recently washed, clean and silky. I want to put my head down to smell it.
    The second gurney holds April Mancini. Someone has taped a dressing over the top of her head so that the splatter of her skull and brains is hidden, but the dressing sags where it should be smooth, a gap where there should be a head.
    “Cause of death,” says Price, coming dangerously close to a joke, “is fairly evident. No drug use. We haven’t been able to find any evidence of sexual abuse. No semen. I think we can say there was no major violence—aside from the sink, I mean—but there’s plenty of stuff that can happen without leaving marks. We haven’t yet found any infection, though blood analysis is still ongoing. I’m not sure what else you want.”
    He stands at April’s head and tweaks the dressing, trying to stop it sagging. I don’t know if he’s fidgeting, if he wants to preserve the little girl’s dignity, or if he’s just a neatness freak. I’m guessing it’s the last of those.
    Jackson isn’t looking at either body. He’s over in the corner where an Anglepoise lamp hangs over a workbench. He’s swinging the lamp around, working the springs.
    “Any sign of struggle? Blood under the fingernails, that kind of thing?”
    “We’ve taken a look, of course. Haven’t yet completed DNA testing and we might find something there, but if there is anything, it’s certainly not a lot. No obvious signs of struggle, anyway.”
    Jackson is frustrated, but Price is just a pathologist, a reader of evidence. He can’t look into the past any more than we can. I’ve filled out thirteen pages of my notebook in the loopy handwriting that I dislike. My first job tomorrow will be to type it up and get it on Groove. But there’s one big question still to be asked. If Jackson doesn’t ask it, I will, but Jackson is an old pro. He bends the Anglepoise down until its springs groan.
    “Fatal respiratory depression,” he says.
    Price nods. He knows where this is going.
    “What about respiratory depression