The Cold, Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty Read Free Book Online Page A

me the way to the morgue along a dim black and white tiled corridor that seemed unchanged since the 1930s.
    A leak was dripping from the ceiling into a large red bucket with the words “Air Raid Precautions” stamped on the side.
    I stopped outside a door marked: “Autopsy. Strictly No Admittance Without Permission of Staff Nurse.”
    I knocked on the door.
    â€œWho is it?” a voice asked from within.
    â€œSergeant Duffy from Carrick police.”
    â€œAbout time!”
    I pushed the door and went inside.
    An antiseptic, freezing little room. More black and white tiles on the floor, frosted windows, a buzzing strip light, charts from a long time ago on “hospital sanitation” and “the proper disposal of body parts”.
    Dr Cathcart was wearing a mask and a white cotton surgical cap. A little Celtic cross was dangling from her neck and hanging over her surgical gown.
    The star of the show was John Doe from last night who Dr Cathcart had opened up and spread about like a frog on a railway line. There were bits of him in various stainless steel bowls, on scales and even preserved in jars. The rest of him was lying naked on the table uncovered and unconcerned by these multiple violations.
    â€œHello,” I said.
    â€œPut on gloves and a mask, please.”
    â€œI don’t think he’s going to catch anything from us.”
    â€œPerhaps we’ll catch something from him.”
    â€œOk.”
    I put on latex gloves and a surgical mask.
    Cathcart held up the severed right hand. “Were you responsible for fingerprinting this hand?” she asked. Her eyes were blue and I could see the hint of black hair under the cap.
    â€œOne of my officers did it, but I take full responsibility forhim. Why, did we do something wrong?”
    â€œYes, you did. Your officer cleaned the fingers in white spirit before taking fingerprints from this hand. We therefore lost any evidence that may have been under the victim’s nails.”
    â€œOh dear, sorry about that.”
    â€œSorry doesn’t fix things, does it?” she said sternly in what I realized now was some kind of posh South Belfast accent.
    I really didn’t like her tone at all. “Love, in a murder investigation getting the fingerprints is a priority so that we can establish who the victim was and hopefully trace their final movements and question witnesses when things are fresh in their minds.”
    She pulled down her mask. Her cheeks were pink and her lips a dark red camellia. Her eyes were a vivid azure and her gaze icy and disturbing. She was imperious, attractive and she probably knew it.
    â€œI prefer ‘Dr Cathcart’ rather than ‘love’ if you don’t mind, sergeant.”
    Now I felt even more like an eejit.
    â€œSorry, Dr Cathcart … look, we seem to have got off on the wrong foot, I mean, uhm, just because we’re police officers, it doesn’t mean that we’re total idiots.”
    â€œThat remains to be seen. This hand, for example,” she said, picking up the severed right hand.
    â€œWhat about it?”
    â€œIt seems that none of you noticed that this hand does not belong to the victim. It’s from a completely different person.”
    Shit.
    That was what my subconscious had been trying to tell me all night.
    â€œNope, we missed that,” I admitted.
    â€œHmmm.”
    â€œWhat else have you found out?” I asked.
    She put the hand back on the autopsy table and gave me a plastic bag containing a bullet slug.
    â€œYou’ll want this,” she said. “Recovered from his chest.”
    â€œThank you.”
    She read her notes. “The victim is a white male around twenty-eight years old. His hair has been dyed blond but it was originally brown. The lack of compression of the blood vessels in the arm or ligature marks on the wrists leads me to the conclusion that the victim’s right hand was cut off postmortem. After he