Page 24

Story: The Gloaming

“Did anyone see you?”

“Of course they did, but I work here – I’m not the one behaving suspiciously,” he snapped back.

I ignored him, opening the file. As well as photos ofMaggie’s injuries and details from the post-mortem scribbled in an almost illegible hand, there were images from the crime scene. I pulled them out and spread them across the small, immaculately tidy desk in the corner.

“Do you normally keep this kind of thing?” I asked. If I was honest, I hadn’t been expecting anything this useful.

Bradley shuffled his feet. “It’s not typical, no. But since… well, some of the things you’ve told me about the stuff going on – I figured there was no harm in being a bit more thorough. It’s another reason Carl’s pissed off with me, actually; he thinks I’m being unnecessarily morbid,” he explained.

“You’re a pathologist,” I pointed out. “How much more morbid could you be?”

He gave me a small smile and a shrug. “You’d think it would be part of the job description, but apparently there’s a sweet spot.”

I worked my way from one end of the table to the other, examining each picture. Most of them had been taken after Maggie had been removed from the scene, and I recognised the patterned glass of her bathroom window in the background. The bathtub was full of deep pink water, but it wasn’t the crimson you’d normally expect – unless vampires were involved, of course. I pointed this out to Bradley.

“Yeah, I wondered about that,” he agreed. “Some of the other details don’t add up either – I mean, even the water temperature must have been perfectly regulated, kept exactly above the point where blood stops clotting. You wouldn’t normally see that kind of precision in a suicide.” He shifteduncomfortably. “Reminds me of some case studies I read about Nazi medical experiments, actually. But Carl’s written up plenty of explanations, and I left him to it. I keep noticing details that don’t quite fit, and he hates it when I do that.” He paused. “You don’t think she killed herself, then?”

“I know she didn’t. I even think the person who killed her showed up at the crime scene. I’ve just got to prove it before anyone else gets hurt.” I selected a wide-angled photo taken from the doorway that showed the full room. “Somehow,” I added quietly.

It wasn’t a large bathroom. The sink was on top of a small, white unit right by the side of the tub. And by the sink was a tiny spray of flowers. I didn’t recognise the blooms, but alarm bells rang in my head.

“Do you know what kind of plant that is?” I asked Bradley, pulling out my phone to take a close-up of the image with the sink.

He examined the photograph and shook his head. “Why?”

“Didn’t anyone think it was weird, that they were just lying there?” I spoke more to myself than to him.

“It’s not that strange. People seem to romanticise death in cases like this – we’ll arrive on the scene to rose petals, candles burning, music playing, the lot.”

Tom had said Wyatt left coins or flowers at her scenes – and Maggie was severely allergic to all kinds of pollen.

“She had seriously bad hay fever. She suffered from it year-round.” I told him. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

“You think it’s a calling card?” I could tell he wasn’t happywith the idea.

“I do,” I replied, pulling myself out of my thoughts. “Yeah. I think I’ve got what I needed.” I hurriedly gathered the photographs and rammed them back into the folder, passing it back to Bradley.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “There are more somewhere, I kept as much as I could—”

“No, you’re fine Brad,” I answered. “You’ve already done more than I was expecting. Unless – you didn’t happen to notice if there were coins anywhere in the bathroom? Like, I dunno, coins that you’d have noticed?” It was a long shot, but still.

He waited before answering. “I don’t think so. I mean, people leave money lying around. I don’t think I’d have given it a second thought.” He sounded apologetic as we closed the door behind us, lowering his voice as we made our way down the corridor as quietly as possible.

“That’s okay,” I reassured him. “It was worth asking.”

The reception was still empty as he followed me out. I wondered where the receptionist could be.

“So – you don’t think this woman killed herself? It was one of your guys?” Bradley asked as I went to leave.

I looked up at him, gangly in his lab coat. I sometimes forgot how young he was. “I thought you didn’t want to know?” I sighed. “Yeah, I’m pretty certain. But there’s nothing you can do other than keep an eye out,” I added, quashing his protests. “We couldn’t prove it if we tried. And you need to keep your head down and stay safe.”

He nodded, his mouth downturned. “Let me know if there’sanything else you need,” he said instead of a goodbye. I made my way out to the car without responding. He was another person to keep out of it. Wyatt was my problem to fix.

7: More Than Mortality Allows

When I got home, Tom was asleep in my favourite armchair. Part of me wondered why he kept coming back here if he wasn’t going to speak to me – his breathing was a little too heavy for real sleep – but then I didn't want to be on my own, either. But I wasn’t in the mood to convince him to talk, even if it meant keeping what I’d learned about Maggie’s death to myself. Her funeral was tomorrow, and it could wait a little longer.

As it turned out, Tom had no intention of going.