Dead Simple

with a blower heater on the floor, pink Artexed walls, a pink carpet, an L-shaped row of visitor chairs, and a small metal desk on which sat three telephones, a stack of small brown envelopes printed with the words ‘ PERSONAL EFFECTS ’, and a large green and red ledger bearing the legend ‘ MORTUARY REGISTER ’ in gold block lettering.
    There was a light box on one wall, as well as a row of framed ‘ PUBLIC HEALTH AND HYGIENE ’ certificates, and a larger one from the ‘ BRITISH INSTITUTE OF EMBALMERS ’, with Cleo Morey’s name inscribed beneath. On another wall was a closed-circuit television camera, which showed, in a continual jerky sequence, views of the front, back, then each side of the building, then a close-up on the entrance.
    ‘Cup of tea, Roy?’
    Her clear bright blue eyes engaged with his for just a fraction longer than was necessary for the question. Smiling eyes. Incredibly warm eyes.
    ‘I’d love a cup of tea.’
    ‘English breakfast, Earl Grey, Darjeeling, China, camomile, peppermint, green leaf?’
    ‘I thought this was the mortuary, not Starbucks,’ he said.
    She grinned. ‘We also have coffee. ’Espresso, latte, Colombian, mocha—’
    He raised a hand. ‘Builder’s tea, perfect.’
    ‘Full fat milk, semi-skimmed, with lemon—’
    He raised both his hands. ‘Whatever milk you have open. Joe not here yet?’
    He had asked Joe Tindall, from SOCO, to attend.
    ‘Not yet, do you want to wait until he gets here?’
    ‘Yes, we should.’
    She flicked a switch on the kettle and disappeared into the locker room opposite. As the kettle began burbling, she returned with a green gown, blue overshoes, a face mask and white latex gloves, which she handed to him.
    While he pulled them on, she made his tea for him and opened a tin containing digestive biscuits. He took one and munched it. ‘So you’ve been here on your own all week? Doesn’t it get you down? No conversation?’
    ‘I’m always busy – we’ve had ten admissions this week. Eastbourne was going to send over someone from their mortuary, but they got too busy as well. Must be something about the last week in May.’
    Grace pulled the band of the mask over his head, then let the mask hang loose below his chin; the young men had not been dead long enough to smell too bad, in his experience. ‘You’ve had the families of all the four young men up?’
    She nodded. ‘And has the guy who was missing, the groom, turned up yet?’
    ‘I’ve just come from the wedding,’ Grace said.
    ‘I thought you were looking a bit smart for a Saturday, Roy.’ She grinned. ‘So at least that’s resolved itself?’
    ‘No,’ he replied. ‘That’s why I’m here.’
    She raised her eyebrows but didn’t comment. ‘Anything in particular you want to see? I can get you copies of the pathologist’s reports to the Coroner’s office.’
    ‘What I want to start with when Joe gets here,’ he replied, ‘are their fingernails.’

48
    Followed by Joe Tindall, who was tugging on his gloves, Grace followed Cleo along the hard, speckled floor, watching her streaked blonde hair swinging against the neck of her green gown, past the glass window of the sealed infection chamber, into the main post-mortem room.
    It was dominated by two steel tables, one fixed, one wheeled, a blue hydraulic hoist and a row of fridges with floor-to-ceiling doors. The walls were tiled in grey and the whole room was surrounded by a drain gulley. Along one wall was a row of sinks and a coiled yellow hose. Along another was a wide work surface, a metal cutting board and a glass-fronted cabinet filled with instruments and some packs of Duracell batteries. Next to the cabinet was a chart itemizing the name of each deceased, with columns for the weights of their brain, lungs, heart, liver, kidneys and spleen. A man’s name, Adrian Penny, with his grim recordings was written in blue chinagraph pen.
    Seeing what Grace was looking at, she said cheerfully, ‘A motorcyclist we did a PM on yesterday. Overtook a lorry and didn’t notice a steel girder sticking out the side – sliced the poor sod’s head clean off at the neck.
    ‘How the hell do you remain sane?’ he asked.
    Grinning, she replied, ‘Who said I’m sane?’
    ‘I don’t know how you do your job.’
    ‘It’s not the dead who harm people, Roy, it’s the living.’
    ‘Good point,’ he said. He wondered what her views were about ghosts. But this was not the time to ask.
    The room felt cold. There was