Percy is now just past the point where his stomach betrays him, but not by a generous margin, and the anticipation of the smell of disinfectant generally puts paid to breakfast. The local forensic pathologist, on the other hand, a full-bearded man of Falstaffian temperament and proportions, is far chirpier than his duties license him to be. Percy finds him at his desk, jovially munching down a bacon sandwich, a cream-filled pastry next in line, and taking periodic, noisy slurps from a colossal mug of steaming black coffee, all the while humming along to some Sturm und Drang classical piece – Wagner? Beethoven? – piped through the autopsy suite’s tinny little speakers and rebounding flatly off its tiled walls and wipe-down surfaces.
Falstaff finger-mimes two minutes while he finishes whatever meal this is – breakfast, given the hour, but Percy’s already learnt not to make assumptions about occupations that make nonsense of “a day’s work”. And so he passes the time strolling about the anteroom (or whatever the correct term is), past the shelves groaning with folders of undigitised reports, the drawers of years-old tools and supplies, the tatty scrubs hung up or stuffed in lockers, rubbing his arms against the chill of the ventilation. Everything has the same time-served patina – there is nothing younger than a decade, at least – which is just about what he’s come to expect from municipally funded facilities.
He browses through the recent admissions that appear on a large grimy touch-screen. Judging by the grim gallery of mugshots, the pathologist’s had a busy week. Next to their picture, each entry contains the usual information – name, gender, age, date of discovery – with here and there some ad hoc annotations of a more cryptic or irreverent nature added in a handwritten scrawl. There’s a death by misadventure (“swimming while stupid”), a stabbing, two—no, three overdoses, and something tentatively labelled “UAV mans?” And towards the top left, most recent of these admissions, his own “Jane Doe” (so no progress on the name front, then).
“Quite the little box of mysteries you’ve brought me, here, Inspector…?”
“Gordon.”
“Oldcastle.” The pathologist wipes a beefy hand across an apron already smeared with … please let it be ketchup, which Percy shakes without, he hopes, betraying any squeamishness. Oldcastle gestures to the adjoining room, and they advance through double swing-doors into the standard setup of cadaver drawers and stainless steel dissection tables, on one of which his peripheral vision immediately picks out flowing blonde locks creeping out from under a white covering sheet. The long lethal fingers of a powered-down dissection bot hang limply over her like some patient metal spider over its prize. “Yes, quite the box of mysteries.”
The pathologist picks up a battered old tablet and proceeds to talk him through his findings.
“Firstly, to get the obvious out of the way, the fall is what did for her – or rather, the landing, if you can call it that.” A little black-humoured chuckle. “Anyway, she was alive when she hit the ground. Secondly, Haze: yes; addict: unlikely.”
“How so?”
“You see this?” Oldcastle taps on the tablet a couple of times, and turns its screen to face Percy, which displays a little graph with various spikes and troughs. “From hair samples, I’ve been able to chart usage frequency. Good thing she has such long hair! And you see, these” – indicating the peaks – “are just too regular. Almost to the hour.” Oldcastle looks at him. “What addict do you know has such a steady supply?”
“Which suggests what?”
“Well, I’m not the inspector, Inspector.” He grins. “But if you ask me, it would suggest scheduled dosing in a controlled environment.”
“Such as what? Some sort of medical establishment?”
“That would account for the nightdress, perhaps, and you’re welcome to crosscheck with any outstanding AWOLs in municipal facilities, but as far as I’m aware no such establishments, municipal or otherwise, use Haze for medical purposes. Closest I’ve come to something like this is the brothels. Use the drug to tether the girls and boys to them, control them, pacify them, keep them compliant. And maybe the Bouts – should such things exist, of course.” He winks.
“Prostitution? Really?”
“Well, now, that was my reaction. But I mean,” he reaches down to sweep back the white sheet, “she’s certainly got the goods, don’t you think?” Percy flinches involuntarily and looks away. “Well, had, anyway.”
The autopsy process has done something to straighten out the crumpled mess that he had last seen in the atrium of the Arc, but it is still a shocking sight. On top of her original injuries, the large Y-shaped incision, that previous such visits have made familiar, runs from pelvis to sternum and diverges up to each collar bone. As least the pathologist has made an effort to clean her up a bit, but he still dare not look too closely at the face.
“Well” – a chummy leer and an elbow in the ribs, which Percy ignores – “you wouldn’t have kicked it out of bed, would you? And once the facial reconstruction comes back, I’ll bet she was a real looker too. So all things so far point to working girl. However: look at the skin.” The pathologist trails a blue-gloved finger along the hollow of her forearm, moves down to the unbroken hand, and turns it over, pointing out the pads of the fingers, the nails, the knuckles.
“Yes,” Percy agrees, “I’d noticed the quality of the nails. And the hair.”
“No working girl I know has skin like this – at least, not the street walkers. In fact, strange as it is to say this,” he moves down to the feet, turning over one of the soles, revealing a pad and heel of almost childlike purity, “I’d wager that our girl here has never walked a street in her whole short life. Literally.”
“So, a high-class escort?”
“Even high-class hookers need to walk, Inspector. However, that might have been my guess too, until I thought to look elsewhere.” Oldcastle raises his eyebrows meaningfully, at which Percy lowers his in incomprehension. “She was a virgin, Inspector.”
“Oh.”
“Which would seem to rule out prostitution, of whatever class. But then I had a sudden thought, about why she seems so pristine. So I did some analysis on the bones. Because, Inspector, no matter what everything else is telling you, the bones will never lie. And guess how old they tell me they are?”
“The bones? Well, if she’s … What? Late teens? Then I’d go for that.”
The pathologist shakes his head again. “One year old. Give or take.”
“But that’s impossible.”
He gives Percy a shrewd look. “No, Inspector, not impossible. Just very very naughty.” The pathologist laughs. “You know, you really should get out more.”
Tidelands is a weekly sci-fi/fantasy serial that publishes every Friday, emailed straight to your inbox. All instalments are free, but you can support my writing by taking out a paid subscription, or buying ebook or paperback editions of the collected instalments.