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Maggie’s funeral was the following day, which meant it was my last chance to find out more about her death. Grabbing my coat from the cloakroom, I gave the room one last glance beforeheading to my car. Turning up the music and singing along loudly, I tried to distract myself.Not exactly a day I want to remember, I thought. Nothing about it reflected my grief, or how I’d felt about my friend.

I pulled up outside the Medico-Legal Centre as the sun was going down – though it had barely gotten light anyway. The city’s public mortuary was inside, but though I dealt with death regularly, I’d never had much occasion to visit in person before. Unfortunately, it was time to get hands-on. Now that I’d seen Wyatt here in the city with my own two eyes, I knew the only way to get what I needed was in the square, red brick building in front of me. I got out of the car and closed the door quietly, wishing I’d changed out of my funeral dress.

The whole drive I’d gone over scenarios and backstories, trying to come up with a viable reason a coffee shop owner might need to see her friend’s corpse. Pushing through the double doors at the entrance, it quickly became apparent that there wasn’t all that much in the way of security in a place like this – in fact, there might be cover enough for me to quickly sneak my way into the back. There was a reception desk in the lobby, but while the computer was humming quietly, there was no one manning it. As calmly as I could, I hurried past and through the door behind, the overpowering scent of air freshener stinging my nose – not quite strong enough to cover the stench of death.

The long corridor beyond had several doors dotted along it. They appeared to lead to offices, but that wasn’t what I was after. Tom and I had been exploring the coroner’s computer servers for years, so it had been no problem to discover there was neverany intent to open a formal inquest into Maggie’s death. However, I also knew it was standard procedure to carry out a post-mortem examination on suicide cases. The only snag was that this particular coroner was pretty old school – which meant if I wanted to learn anything useful, I needed the hard copies of his notes.

I finally spotted the door I wanted at the end of the hall and was almost through it when someone called out behind me. I swore under my breath.

Mind racing, I breathed a sigh of relief at the face that greeted me.

“Bradley!” I smiled, “Holy fuck, you scared the shit out of me!”

“Erin?” he whispered, clearly annoyed. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“You know, the usual.” I jerked my head towards the door behind me. “I won’t be a minute, I promise.”

Bradley pulled a face, his rich, dark skin puckering around his mouth as he thought it through.

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to be,” I insisted. “Especially this time.”

“I know,” he sighed. “But Carl’s got it in for me at the minute, reckons I’ve been stealing his lunch or some rubbish. I know full well it’s Brenda on reception that takes those stupid mini cheeses he eats, but—”

“Your workplace drama is remarkably normal for someone who cuts up dead people for a living.”

“Says the woman who hunts vampires,” he muttered. “Atleast my clients don’t fight back.”

I held back the threatening eye roll and went with it. “You can handle Carl, Brad. You always do. And I’ll owe you one – I just need to see something.” I gave him my best pleading look. I’d known the pathologist a few years now, having bumped into him repeatedly at suspicious crime scenes – and I couldn’t forget the childish rivalry between him and his elderly co-worker.

“You owe me about six already, and I don’t know what you think you’ve got to offer to pay me back.” He huffed as he said it, but was already leading me back along the corridor, fumbling with a keychain before unlocking the final door. “I don’t get why you’re so interested in what’s in there anyway, it’s only a suicide. Not your remit, right?”

“You’d be amazed at what’s become my remit,” I murmured, following him through.

“I don’t want to know.” He shook his head. “Just get done what you’ve got to and go. She’s due to be picked up in the next hour, anyway.”

I nodded, swallowing as I took in the wall of steel. Most of the deaths on this side of the city came through here eventually. One day, so would I. Hopefully not any time soon.

Bradley didn’t seem to notice my apprehension and crossed over to the nearest drawer, pulling it out without a word. I turned my face away. I knew I had to look, but now the moment was here, I felt woefully under prepared.

“Margaret Elizabeth Everett,” he read aloud from the hastily scrawled label on the drawer.

“Do you have the full file for her?” I asked, still staring atthe white tiled floor. I’d never known Maggie and I shared a middle name. I shook myself as a wave of nausea rolled over me, suddenly eternally grateful for the awful aftershave Brad wore, that was apparently potent enough to block out any additional odours in the room.

“Give me a moment, I’ll be back,” he replied, closing the door behind him and leaving me alone with her.

I raised my eyes to the steel drawer. There was a crisp white sheet over her body, but her head had been left uncovered. Her unruly curls of ginger hair looked different somehow – too bright against her stark, waxy skin. She didn’t look like my friend at all.

Maggie had been the first person we’d recruited at Jolt. Despite our best intentions, it hadn’t taken long before Jonathan, Tom and I had realised we weren’t up to organising a business ourselves. Jon had recruited her, though it occurred to me now he’d never said how – we’d just accepted she’d had an amazing trial day, and even better: she understood the accounts. Maybe Tom would have talked to her about how she’d got the job if they’d ever managed to go on that date. She and Tom might have talked about a lot of things. We’d never know.

Swallowing back the tears I’d contained earlier, I hardened myself. I hadn’t had the opportunity to examine Jon’s body for clues – and given the circumstances, I was happier not to have to see what the killer had left of him – but Ineededto find something on Maggie to point me in the right direction. The tang of copper filled my mouth, my heightened senses confirming that her body had come into contact with a vampirerecently – but it wasn’t enough.

Walking around to the other side of the drawer, I examined her face and hair again. Nothing seemed amiss, but I hadn’t expected it to. There was no way Wyatt had survived this long and been sloppy to boot. I pulled back the sheet, silently apologising.

The colour was bleached from her skin, no longer the creamy smoothness I’d once envied. Vertical cuts at her wrists had been stitched neatly together along the veins, but I could see they were deep. Probably deeper than I’d expect the average person to be able to make unaided, but I wasn’t a professional. It was the method I’d been expecting, given that she’d been found in a bathroom. But a glance showed me nothing else was unusual – there wasn’t even a puncture wound. I pulled the sheet carefully back over her and sighed.Now what?

I might not have believed Tom about Wyatt initially, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t done the reading – there had been killings like this before. And I couldn’t help but notice how it echoed one of the many myths about the origins of the vampire species; women who would bathe in the blood of the young to preserve their youth and live forever, never ageing. It was sick.

Bradley snuck back in as I was closing the drawer up. He handed me a thin paper file in a brown wallet, glancing back into the hall behind.