The Turning Tide Read online

  Dougie had passed through the sweating stage to the stage where he was just clammy and shivering. Iain reckoned the lad had a minute on his feet, tops.

  ‘Doctor, are you after the head?’ Iain asked Harriet. He set up a side table with a face mask and the skull saw, but hadn’t peeled back the scalp yet.

  ‘No thanks,’ she said, looking up from where she was poring over the X-rays Iain had taken earlier. ‘It’s brain soup in there. We have a cause of death, no point going further.’

  Ian grunted his assent and unfurled a black bit of plastic from a roll.

  ‘What’s that?’ Dougie asked.

  ‘Bin bags – ten for one of your fine Scottish pounds at the supermarket in Cameron Bridge,’ Iain said. ‘Best deal on the high street.’

  ‘No, I mean what’s it for?’ Dougie asked. His voice was as weak as a sick child’s.

  ‘This is for the organs when the examination’s finished,’ Iain said. He started scooping the organs from the washing up basin into the bag with his hands. In the periphery of his vision he saw the photographer pitching and rolling like a ship on the sea. ‘Normally they go back in the abdomen and we pop the ribs back on. Then it’s stitched up. But this one’s a wee bit far gone for an open casket, wouldn’t you say?’ He had hardly finished the sentence when Dougie’s limp body hit the floor.

  ‘Bloody hell, not another one,’ Harriet Hitchin said. ‘Iain, hold his feet up while I get the smelling salts.’ She strode across the room to the first aid kit by the sink. It rarely saw action apart from fainting photographers and students. Not much call for first aid in a mortuary, seeing as most of the visitors there were already dead. ‘And tell Alastair to stop bringing us the newbies.’

  The sound of a phone made them both jump. ‘New security doorbell,’ Iain said and gestured to a phone and screen on the wall. ‘Bet it’s Alastair. Typical of him to turn up now that all the action is finished. Go on, buzz him in.’

  ‘It’s not Alastair.’ Harriet checked out the black-and-white monitor. ‘This is going to sound odd, but . . . it looks a bit like that MP,’ she said. ‘You know, Morag the Moaner?’

  ‘A real live politician?’ Iain whistled. ‘Must be my lucky day. Well, let her in then.’

  : 5 :

  Morag Munro smoothed her silver streaked bob behind her ears and checked to make sure no one was was coming up the road. She was recognisable to most of the population of Cameron Bridge and if anyone saw her at the mortuary it would surely be the talk of the pubs for days. Luckily the building was halfway up a glen and off the tourist drag. Cameron Bridge was even deader up this end than usual.

  No pun intended.

  She rang again. If no one answered soon she would have to go, or else risk missing the second sleeper service. She had sent Arjun down to London on an earlier train. ‘I have some paperwork to finish up,’ she said, assuring him she would be back at Westminster and raring to go before nine a.m. tomorrow.

  The door finally cracked open. ‘Good afternoon!’ she said, and gave her best neighbourhood-canvassing smile. Morag offered her hand to the scarecrow-haired woman in wellies and a green plastic apron who opened the door. ‘Is your supervisor here?’

  ‘I’m Dr Hitchin.’ Harriet’s plummy voice revealed her irritation at being mistaken for the help. ‘I’m the pathologist.’

  Morag paused a moment. She should be able to recognise the UK’s forensic pathologists cold; there were only about thirty of them. ‘Harriet, I remember now,’ she snapped her fingers. ‘You were the Home Office path on the Bulgarian nanny trial in Leeds, yes?’ An infant had died in the care of a nanny, with the prosecution arguing hard that it was the result of shaken baby syndrome, not cot death. Harriet’s testimony had been key to getting the conviction, though that was overturned on appeal after her record-keeping scandal emerged. ‘Sorry for not recognising you sooner,’ Morag said.

  Harriet stood aside and let Morag enter. ‘Thank you. I do what I can in service of the law,’ she said.

  ‘So what brings the Shadow Home Secretary here?’ Iain shouted through the open door of the post-mortem suite. ‘We’ve already gone and voted for your precious Union, there’s no one to impress now.’

  ‘Sorry, what did you say? I couldn’t hear you over the . . . I guess you call that music?’ She raised her eyebrows at Harriet.

  ‘Cannibal Coffin,’ Iain said. ‘Best zombie-themed band coming out of Scandinavia these days.’

  Morag deployed her static smile. Christ, what a plonker. ‘Lovely,’ she said. She and Harriet walked to the threshold of the PM suite. ‘I was passing through, on my way back to London tonight. National preparedness for mass disasters is coming up in committees and I thought that it would be good to have a chat with a manager here, to see how we’re prepared in the Highlands. In case there’s anything the facility needs from the Home Office to get up to scratch.’

  Her eyes wandered over the walls, illuminated with flickering fluorescent lights. Outside the mortuary was nondescript, hardly discernible from the many ramshackle farm buildings on the edge of Cameron Bridge. Inside it looked like a horror set. Forget contingency plans and emergency preparedness. What the place needed was a wrecker’s ball.

  ‘Iain, turn the music off or I will,’ Harriet growled. He grumbled an oath in response but the racket stopped, severing Cannibal Coffin mid-wail.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ Morag said. ‘Do you think the facility would need any particular improvements to deal with a localised or regional crisis?’

  ‘What sort of improvements?’ Iain loped over to them. Morag’s sharp eyes took him in one look, from the rounded shoulders and heavy fists of a pub brawler to the cynical and pinched face of a disappointed Yes voter. Her fingers started to drum lightly against her thigh. This was a variety of man she knew well. The kind who had joined the SNP in their droves after the referendum with promises to vote her out, but with any luck had forgotten to turn up on polling day. All mouth and no kilt, as her father would say.

  ‘I think upgrading the facility is an excellent idea,’ Harriet Hitchin said. ‘We can never be too prepared for what might befall us.’ She paused. ‘If you need someone to head up a survey of the mass disaster capacity in Scotland . . .’ she babbled hopefully.

  Morag could hear the edge of longing in Harriet’s voice, the hope for escape from this backwater, this go-nowhere post. Useful. She filed that titbit away on her mental Rolodex. She craned her head and tried to peek round the corner. ‘Could I perhaps see the rest of the building, or are you in the middle of something? I mean apart from the death metal?’

  ‘There’s a PM on,’ Harriet said. ‘Post-mortem, I mean, not the Prime Minister, ha ha.’ Morag smiled weakly. ‘You’re welcome to come through but it’s a ripe one.’ She pointed to a neatly folded lab coat. ‘Put this on over your clothes and grab a pair of wellies.’ She looked at Morag’s shiny red heels. ‘You’re a braver woman than me: I wouldn’t chance the pavements here in a pair of shoes like that.’

  ‘Years of practice,’ Morag said. That, and a stubborn refusal to let visiting Cameron Bridge mean she should take a day off from looking professional. No one seemed to take any pride in their appearances any more, not in her opinion. The number of people trudging up and down the high street in rigger boots and joggers was appalling. Only slightly better were the outdoor gear brigade in top-to-toe North Face all year round. Fleeces and walking trousers were for the hill, not the office.

  Harriet walked back over the low divider on the floor. Morag shucked her red shoes in the corridor and slipped into a pair of rubber boots. She tiptoed over the barrier but hung back slightly as the smell hit her. She couldn’t say she hadn’t been warned, but this was beyond foul. Almost sweet, like shit and cake. ‘You know what, I’ll watch from here,’ she said, putting a hand over her nose and mouth.

  Iain grabbed her by the shoulders and steered her towards the handwa
sh station. ‘Don’t be daft, lass, you’re here, might as well muck in. Scrub up.’ He threw a pair of gloves at Morag and she reluctantly washed her hands and followed him to the examination table.

  ‘Is it anyone special?’ Morag asked, crinkling her nose as they stood round the body. She longed for a handkerchief, some perfume, anything.

  ‘Body from up in Raasay, by Skye,’ Harriet said. ‘A couple of kayakers found it washed up on a beach.’

  ‘I think I read about that in the paper this morning,’ Morag said. ‘Rum business. What a terrible tragedy.’

  ‘All in a day’s work,’ Iain said. A few tissue samples had been put aside to send to the toxicology lab, but the rest was otherwise untouched.

  Morag looked at the body, then looked quickly away. It was too late. The image of the black and green torso, cut open and splayed like a carved Christmas turkey, was already burned on her retinas. The head lolled back, supported by a white plastic block, displaying the cut throat and lidless, horrible eyes.

  She tried not to gag, but words were slow to come. ‘I’m sure the fiscal and the police will have it solved soon,’ she eventually said. She looked round. ‘Are you on your own? No police to witness the procedure?’

  Iain looked at the clock on the wall and shook his head. ‘Ali MacLean was meant to be here for the PM, but I think he’ll have sneaked off for his tea by now.’ He clocked Morag’s look, the one that said she expected no better from the local constabulary. ‘He’s a good man, that MacLean, you know,’ Iain said. ‘His dad was mates wi’ yer husband’s dad, as I understand it.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Morag turned back to Dr Hitchin. Obviously, with a career like hers, what was most important to the constituents was who her father-in-law had been friends with. The Highlands never changed. ‘Any ideas on who the body might be? Such a terrible thing to have happened, and right on our own doorstep.’ Her eyes were starting to water now – how on earth did they stand the smell?

  ‘He’s a bit of a mystery man at the moment,’ Harriet said. ‘His hands are in poor shape for fingerprinting, no ID on the body or the bag. With luck it won’t stay that way. We’ll get an approximate age off the bones and his stature and compare those against missing persons. If there’s a match, we can get family DNA and confirm it. Or we might get lucky and get dental records, you never know.’

  ‘I guess any evidence you might use for catching the murderer is probably destroyed, too?’ Morag asked.

  ‘It depends,’ Iain said. ‘Why, is there something you want to tell us?’ He chuckled until Harriet shushed him.

  ‘We don’t know yet,’ Harriet said. ‘Since he was in the bag, there might be a chance of some evidence surviving under his fingernails. It’s a matter of the lab trying to extract genetic material and seeing what they come up with.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Morag said. ‘And this takes, what, a few hours? A few days?’

  ‘If we’re lucky, days. Could be weeks or longer.’ Iain said. ‘Or months, depending on what the path labs have on their schedules already. It’s not like that rubbish you see on the television, with all those magical hologram databases instantly matching enhanced CCTV images to your ID cards and that nonsense, you know. Maybe as Shadow Home Secretary that is something you ought to know about—’

  ‘Don’t listen to him,’ Harriet sighed and turned back to Morag. ‘You know, this is refreshing. It’s so nice of you to take a keen interest in our work. The details will all be in my report,’ she said. ‘Anyway, about the rest of the facility. Iain can give you a tour if you like?’

  Morag’s eyes widened. ‘No, I think I’ve seen enough for now,’ she said. ‘Train to catch. Don’t worry, I can let myself out.’ She spun on her heel and marched towards the door, leaving star-struck Harriet trailing in her wake.

  Morag Munro left so quickly that she forgot to take her shoes. And she never even noticed the photographer lying on the floor, much less the quiet click of his digital camera snapping away.

  : 6 :

  Erykah’s mobile wouldn’t stop ringing. She had set it to vibrate, but even that was distracting.

  She twirled the diamond engagement and wedding rings on her finger. They felt unfamiliar there. But they were necessary for keeping up the pretence. The Big Billions Lottery publicity shoot was supposed to be a small thing, they said. A couple of hours at most. It was now taking over the entire house. ‘We want to show you as approachable and normal as possible,’ explained the set dresser they had sent. ‘Your own home, your own clothes. An everyday couple – like any of our other players.’

  ‘It could be anyone,’ Erykah said.

  He nodded. ‘Exactly. Gorgeous house. We couldn’t have had a better couple for our first winners, you two really look the part,’ he said. ‘This place is immaculate. I wouldn’t change a thing.’

  He started scattering primary coloured cushions and vases of flowers around the rooms. The photographer’s assistant rolled out a huge Union Flag rug in shades of grey on the dining room floor and fluffed some newly purchased Keep Calm pillows. Erykah cringed.

  ‘I feel terrible,’ Erykah said. She looked over a printed sheet of talking points she had been handed when they arrived. ‘I know almost nothing about the lottery, my husband bought the ticket. I have to admit, I had never heard of it before we won.’

  The set dresser looked over his shoulder and chuckled. ‘To tell you the truth, I hadn’t either until they hired me to do this job,’ he said. ‘You’re not the only one.’

  ‘No, I guess not,’ Erykah said. ‘But you took the job anyway? For a company you had never heard of?’

  ‘Sure, why not?’ He grinned. ‘So it’s registered in the Channel Islands, or whatever. We’re living in a global economy now, right? It all goes in my bank account just the same.’

  ‘Sure,’ Erykah said. It occurred to her that so far, she hadn’t met anyone else from the Big Billions lottery. Rab assured her everything was in hand; he showed her some emails he received, and a business card from someone he said came by when she was out buying groceries. But shouldn’t someone from the lottery be here right now, hovering over their first jackpot winners? Something about the arrangement felt strange to her.

  ‘Anyway, honey,’ the set dresser said. ‘I think the entire point of this photo shoot is to spread the word. Get it up in the public consciousness, you know what I mean?’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Erykah said. ‘Of course. Of course.’

  The glass doors facing out into the garden were flung open and let in a chilly breeze. The set dresser examined Erykah’s outfit, a sleek navy blue bandage dress that showed off her athletic frame, her bright coral lipstick. ‘I don’t suppose you have something a little less . . . severe? And maybe, I don’t know, softer make-up? The press will be here any minute.’

  Erykah gritted her teeth but obliged. It had been a long time since anyone had told her how to dress, when to smile, and how to do her make-up, but she wanted this over with and quickly.

  By the time she came back downstairs in a prim tea dress that she hated the reporters were already waiting. The photographer shoved her outside. Pots of hothouse flowers had been dotted around the garden, and lights were set up to make it all look warmer and more spring-like than it really was.

  ‘That’s it; now pop the champagne, Rab. Erykah, if we can get you with a glass in there . . . perfect.’ They were ordered this way and that. Sitting on the stone garden seat, standing by the glossy black door to their house. With the cheque, without the cheque. Standing together, standing alone. Erykah under the horse chestnut tree in the back garden, close cropped so the bare branches didn’t show, trying to hide her chattering teeth. Rab put his thumb over the top of the bottle of fizz and shook it up, spraying it all over his wife. The cameras snapped away.

  ‘She’s a great looking lady,’ one cameraman murmured to his assistant. ‘And look at this place. This guy’s got to be the
luckiest slob in the world.’

  Erykah had misgivings about playing house for the cameras but did her best to go along. She bared her teeth in the perfect imitation of a spontaneous laugh over and over. Meanwhile she was totting up the sums in her head. Maybe her initial reaction to the news had been over the top. Even subtracting Rab’s outstanding loans, they were still going to end up with more cash than she could ever have expected to see in her life.

  Her married life up until now had been only merely wealthy. This? This was Rich with a capital R. The kind of money that made even people in Molesey stop and stare: vulgar, shameless. The kind of rich that hip-hop songs were written about, that kids back in Streatham dreamed about. She didn’t stop herself from doing the mental maths, calculating how many childhoods of growing up in poverty this would have bought. It would have paid for her first sixteen years a hundred times over. With cash to spare.

  In between shots she grabbed a bile-coloured chenille throw that had been draped over the sofa and wrapped her hands around a mug of tea. ‘Warming up,’ she smiled at the photographer’s assistant who noticed her trembling hands. ‘Do you have to do an outdoor shoot in February?’ He shrugged and mumbled something about the light. She fumbled with her mobile, clocking the missed calls and voicemails. She decided to ignore those for now.

  Because she was scared. Really scared. How much longer? she wondered. How much longer until someone in the press figured out who she was? Before her name pinged some newspaper editor’s memory bank and they dug out those photographs?

  Maybe not, though. Maybe they would miss it. It was all back in the time before the Internet, and who knew for sure, maybe by now it was gone for good. Maybe no one would care. Maybe her married name would be enough to trip up anyone who went looking. The trial had been big news at the time, sure, but who would remember the girlfriend of an accused murderer from over twenty years ago?

  Erykah put the mug back on the counter. What would her life be like now if things had gone differently? She might have stayed at university, never met Rab, and had a career. Or she might have stayed with Grayson and life would have been, if not much like her dreams, at least interesting. In the three years they had been together, he had never bored her.