Pulse(17)

I forced my eyes back down and glanced through the post-mortem report.

It only showed preliminary results but did reveal that no puncture marks had been found in the man’s skin, other than the one we had made in his elbow to take blood and administer the adenosine. A dip test of urine found in the bladder had confirmed the presence of a high concentration of benzoylecgonine, confirming the existence of a large dose of cocaine in the man’s system.

The pathologist suggested that, most probably, the cocaine had been ingested orally as he found no evidence of powder in the nasal passages, and no residues in the lungs as might be expected if that much of the drug had been smoked. He had sent samples for analysis taken from the lungs and stomach to confirm this opinion, along with other specimens from the man’s liver, kidneys, heart and brain. A sample of hair had also been acquired to establish if there was a history of prolonged illegal drug use.

As DS Merryweather had indicated, there was no definitive cause of death recorded in the report even though the pathologist did hint that the urine dip test made it likely that a cocaine overdose was the culprit. His final conclusions would only be made on completion of the toxicology tests.

I put the papers back in the folder and placed it down on the passenger seat. For some considerable time I simply stared out the windscreen, drops of fine rain periodically marking the outside of the glass.

Why did I worry so much about this man?

Sadly, death in hospital was not uncommon. Dealing with the dying was one of the pitfalls of being an emergency-care doctor. Strokes and heart attacks were the most common causes. Accident victims who arrived alive mostly stayed that way, at least until they had passed through to specialist surgical teams. Nevertheless, I had witnessed hundreds, if not thousands, of my patients as they took their last breath and their lives literally slipped away through my fingers.

Not that I had become immune and unaffected by the process of death, especially if the victim was a young adult or, worse, a child. Over the years, I had shed more than my share of grief-driven tears for those I had never known before they had arrived in front of me with non-survivable injuries or untreatable disease.

Some of my colleagues tried to grow a thicker skin or build a shell of indifference around themselves, anything to allow them to continue to function when the natural instinct was to simply close one’s eyes and run away.

But there was something about the death of this particular man that troubled me.

Maybe it was because no one knew who he was – his wife and family would still be unaware that their husband and father had ceased to exist nearly four days ago. Or perhaps it was that, in my experience, smartly groomed men in sober suits rarely presented at hospital with massive cocaine overdoses.

Had he overdosed on purpose in order to kill himself, or had it been an accident? A cubicle in a gentlemen’s toilet seemed a strange place to commit suicide, but who was I to talk? Was it really any more strange than the rocks below Clifton Suspension Bridge? Was shattering one’s body with a high-speed fall in a public place somehow preferable to privately swallowing a cocaine-laced sandwich in a locked lavatory?

If one was so desperate to die, did the manner or the venue matter?

But, if the man had killed himself, why did he dispose of any form of identification beforehand? I knew that many suicides go to great lengths to ensure that their loved ones are not the first to stumble across their lifeless corpse. Did this man simply want to die without his family ever finding out?

It sounded like a sensible idea to me.

I read through all the papers twice more before driving to Cheltenham police station and parking in one of the visitor spaces round the back.

DS Merryweather had asked me to phone him when I had the blood-test results but I had no real desire to speak to him again. I decided I would just hand in the folder at the reception desk, marked for his attention, and then leave. But it didn’t quite work out like that.

‘Dr Rankin,’ called out a voice behind me as I climbed the three steps up to the back door of the police station. I turned around.

‘PC Filippos,’ said a young uniformed officer. ‘We met at the hospital last Saturday.’

‘Yes,’ I said, nodding. ‘You’re half Greek.’

He smiled broadly at me, clearly pleased I’d remembered. ‘Can I help you?’

‘I have a folder for DS Merryweather.’ I held it out. ‘Could you please give it to him?’

‘Sure,’ he said, taking it. ‘Are these the blood-test results for the nameless man?’

I nodded again. ‘Have you still not found out who he is?’

‘Not yet but I’m sure we will eventually.’

‘Did you find anything at the racecourse?’

He looked at me quizzically.

‘On Saturday night, after the man died, you told me you were going back to the racecourse to search the Gents where he was found.’

‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘So I did.’

‘So what did you find?’ I asked again.

‘Not a lot. There was nothing in the cubicle and mostly just paper towels in the rubbish bin by the washbasins.’

‘Mostly?’

‘There was also some other general waste, you know, a few newspapers, a couple of discarded racecards, some torn-up betting slips and one of those small flat quarter-bottles of whisky.’

I thought back to the slight smell of alcohol that had been present on the man’s breath at the hospital. It could have been whisky.