Local Gone Missing(51)

I should have brought Ronnie in with me, she told herself. She’d have been able to tell me all the important points after.

“Do you have any questions, Miss King?” he was saying.

“Er . . .” She wanted to ask the risk of it coming back and if she still might die but she’d pushed the words down too far to retrieve now.

“Good. Well, we’ll carry on with the hormone therapy and send you an appointment letter for your next blood test. But you are good to go back to work in a managed return.”

And she was back in the waiting room.

“How did you get on?” Ronnie said.

“I don’t know. I can’t remember a single thing he said.” Apart from being ready to go back to work.

“Was it bad news, then?” And Ronnie moved closer to her so their bare arms touched and Elise shivered.

“No. I’m sure I’d have paid more attention if it had been. It was sort of mood music. Good-so-far sort of thing. Keep calm and carry on.”

“Are you ready to go home?”

“No. Actually, there’s someone else I want to see while I’m here.”

“On the wards?”

“No, the mortuary.”





Thirty-eight


WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2019





Elise


Hi, Aoife. How are you?”

“Elise! What are you doing here?” the pathologist said, slipping up her Perspex mask. “I thought it had to be a direct order before you set foot in here.”

The autopsy tables were scrubbed and empty, so Elise slid round the door and sat on a stool as far from the working surfaces as possible. She was usually up in the gallery, watching Dr. Aoife Mortimer at work from a professional distance, but she needed to get up close and personal today.

“I’ve just been upstairs in Oncology and I thought I’d come and see you,” she said.

“And?” Aoife said, taking another stool. “How did you get on?”

“All good, thanks. Got to keep taking the tablets but the doctor says I can go back to work as planned.”

“That’s great news.”

“Yep,” she said quickly, panic rising in her gorge. Her return-to-work interview with Human Resources was scheduled for Friday and she felt sick at the thought.

“I can’t wait,” she added.

It was what she’d trained herself to say when asked. No one need know what she really felt. That the excitement of taking back control of her life was being eclipsed by the terror of standing in front of her team again and not being up to it. Of dropping the ball.

“Going foggy,” her consultant had called it when she’d told him. He’d recommended mindfulness. “It’s normal to be worried but I expect you’ll only be going back eight hours a week at first to ease back in,” he’d told her as if she should be grateful, but she couldn’t see how she could get any traction with a handful of hours.

How will I ever get back to full power? To DI King?

“Actually, I thought you were already back when I heard it was you who found the Ebbing body on Monday.”

“Ha! No, I was actually on a walk when I smelled the smell.”

“Poor you. Not a particularly pleasant corpse.”

“No, well . . .”

“Look, don’t do too much at first,” Aoife said as if she’d been inside Elise’s head. “It’s going to be tough to begin with and you need to be kind to yourself.”

“I know,” Elise snapped. “Sorry, but I feel so unfit—the treatment’s really knocked me back.”

“It will. But you’ll rebuild your strength quickly. Are you doing the exercises?”

“Yes, Doctor . . .”

“It’ll be so important in the long run.”

“I know. I’m desperate to be back to normal.”

“Of course. Caro misses you terribly. We all do.”

Elise felt her eyes prickle and clenched her fists against her thighs. “Thanks,” she managed. “Look, I’ve been thinking about the Charlie Perry case.”

“Not just a social call, then!” Aoife laughed softly.

“Well, I need the stimulus so I’m not thinking about cancer every moment of the day.”

“Go on, then—I’ve got five minutes.” Aoife took another stool. “What were you thinking about?”

“I wondered if you found maggots or eggs on the body.”

The pathologist’s eyebrows disappeared under her scrub hat. “I see.”

“I’m just exploring ideas. And wondering when he died. Have you identified the weapon used to hit him, by the way?”

The pathologist crossed her legs to get comfortable. “Well, the impact injury looks as though it was caused by a heavy object. Traces of engine oil were found around the wound site, so maybe a car tool. The team is still searching for it. Look, this is all getting a bit detailed—”

“Sorry. It’s just an intellectual exercise while I climb the walls at home—just trying to stretch my brain back into shape before I’m back in the incident room. So maggots or eggs?”

Aoife smiled. “Okay. I’ll just say the initial observations show eggs. But, Elise, you know how complex time of death is. We’ve been here so many times. Nothing is black and white. It was very hot over the weekend and significantly cooler on the earth floor in the cellar, so decomposition could have been speeded up or slowed down, depending on where he died and when he was moved. Did you know he didn’t die in situ and was moved later? Anyway, these are very early days—we need the labs to do their stuff. I’m being pushed by Caro—you all need to be patient.”