Ghastly Business by Louise Levene

Author:Louise Levene
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2011-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Monday morning was spent at Holborn mortuary. Either the building was subsiding or there was something wrong with the design of the slab, because a good half of the fluids drained on to the floor as the pathologist worked and gathered in a noxious puddle to the side of Dora’s typewriting table. Dora raised her feet and placed them on the crossrails of the rickety bentwood chair, not daring to interrupt. It was only when the mortuary assistant was swabbing, stuffing and stitching the corpse (which had been found with its head in the kitchen stove and which might reasonably have expected a simple verdict of suicide) that Dr Kemble noticed the foetid little moat that had formed around her.

‘I can’t put my feet down.’

‘Stand on your chair and I’ll come and get you.’

Easier said than done. She hitched up her skirt and carefully climbed up while the pathologist, having removed gloves, apron and overalls, paddled into the mess with his white rubber galoshes, grimacing cheerfully.

‘Put your arms around my neck.’

Later that night, the mortuary assistant had already wheeled away the corpse and washed down the slab. Later that night, the pathologist laid Dora down on the chilly white porcelain and cut away her clothes with his icy rib scissors, cataloguing each mark on her body as he painstakingly inflicted it.

The following day dawned so crisp and bright that Dora walked all the way to Whitehall before hailing an omnibus, her head filled with her dark, delicious dream. She was eager to see Kemble again while the memory was still hot and fresh but the office was deserted with nothing but a note from Hubbard smugly explaining that he (not Mrs Strange) would be accompanying the chief as he went about his business at Hackney and Islington mortuaries, so there.

When they returned an hour later Hubbard immediately sat down at his desk and slowly began translating his Pitman jottings into longhand so that Dora could have the privilege of typing them all up in triplicate on the pre-printed post-mortem forms. Dora had tried pointing out that it was far quicker for her to just type up the lot in situ with her portable machine but Hubbard clearly preferred the old, haphazard system.

Dora banged away at her typewriter all morning, doggedly filing and cross-referencing index cards while she waited for each successive sheet from the scribbling Hubbard. She was getting through cards at a terrific rate but would only take a dozen or so at a time from a packet, thereby necessitating frequent trips to the store cupboard. Frequent opportunities of imagining Kemble sneaking in from the other side. It was rather a shock when she finally did bump into him. He put a hand on her shoulder.

‘Well? How are you getting on, Mrs Strange?’ His voice was wrongly soft – as if he didn’t want it to be heard in the office outside. The hand slid down her back to her waist and she could feel the bony warmth of his fingers through the fabric of her blouse.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.