The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Natural Causes: Episode Nine
It was a skimpy thing, a cocktail dress rather than one a young woman might wear every day
The high-pitched whine of the bonesaw always set McLean’s teeth on edge, like fingernails scraped down a blackboard. It went on far too long, and ended with the horrible sound of the top of the skull being cracked off like a boiled egg. “Interesting. The brain appears to have been removed.
“Here, Tony. Look.”
Steeling himself, McLean moved around. Seeing the dead girl’s head opened up only made her look smaller, younger.
The cavity inside her skull was dull, lined with dried blood and flecks of bone from the saw, but it was plainly empty.
“Could it have rotted?”
“Not really, no. Not given the state of everything else. I’d have expected it to have shrivelled up a bit, but it’s been removed.
“Probably through the nose; that’s how the ancient Egyptians used to do it.”
“Where is it then?”
“Well, we’ve these samples, but none of them looks like a brain to me.”
Cadwallader pointed at a stainless-steel trolley upon which sat four specimen jars.
McLean recognised the heart he’d seen the day before, but didn’t want to hazard a guess as to the other organs.
Desiccated
Two more jars stood in white plastic containers to prevent their desiccated contents leaking from large cracks that split the glass.
All had been uncovered in hidden alcoves, arranged symmetrically around the dead girl’s body.
There had been other items in each of the alcoves too, yet another piece of the puzzle still needing to be put together.
“What about the broken ones?” McLean peered at some browny-grey sludge smeared on the inside of a jar.
“That could be brain, couldn’t it?”
“It’s difficult to tell, given the state of them. But I’d hazard a guess that was one of her kidneys and the other one a lung.
“I’ll run some tests to be sure. Whatever it was, the jar’s the wrong shape for it to have been her brain. You should know that, Tony.
“I’ve shown you enough. And besides, if it did come out through her nose, it would have been pretty well mushed up. No point sticking that in a preserving jar.”
“Good point. How long ago do you reckon she died?”
“That’s a difficult one. The mummification shouldn’t have happened at all; the city’s too humid, even in a walled-up basement.
“She should have rotted away. Or at least been eaten by rats.
“But she’s perfectly preserved, and I’ll be damned if I can find any trace of the chemicals you’d need to do that.
“Tracy can run some more tests, and we’ll send a sample off to be carbon dated; we might get lucky with that.
“Otherwise, judging by her dress, I’d say at least 50, possibly 60 years. Any better than that’s up to you.”
McLean picked up the thin fabric that was laid out on the trolley along with the sample jars, holding it up to the light.
Brown stains smeared the lower half, and the delicate lace around the neck and sleeves had frayed into gossamer strips trailing in the air.
It was a skimpy thing, a cocktail dress rather than something a young woman might wear every day.
The faded floral pattern looked cheap; he turned it around and saw a couple of neatly hand-sewn patches around the hem.
Impress
No manufacturer’s label. It was the dress of a poor girl trying to impress.
But as he looked back at her twisted, desecrated body he was all too aware that he knew nothing else about her at all.
The front door of the tenement was unlocked again, wedged half open with a bit of broken paving slab. McLean thought about shutting it properly, but decided against it.
The last thing he wanted was to be woken by the students from the first-floor flat pressing all the buzzers at four in the morning until someone let them in.
It was too warm for vagrants to be looking for places to spend the night, and even a dozen of them wouldn’t make the stairwell smell any worse than it already did.
Wrinkling his nose against the spray of too many tomcats, he climbed the stone steps up to the top floor.
The answering machine flashed a single message as he closed the door and dropped his keys on the table.
He pressed the button and listened to his old flatmate suggesting they meet in the pub. If it hadn’t been for the flashing light he might have thought it an old message – Phil phoned at least twice a week with the same suggestion.
Just occasionally he even took up the offer. Smiling, he went to his bedroom and stripped off, dropping his clothes into the laundry basket before walking through to the bathroom.
A long, cool shower soaked away the sweat of the day, but it still couldn’t wash the memories clear.
He thought about going for a run, or maybe hitting the gym, as he towelled down and pulled on a T-shirt and loose cotton trousers.
An hour of hard exercise might help, but he didn’t want the company of driven executives. He needed to be with people who were relaxed and having fun, even if he was just on the outside watching.
Maybe Phil’s idea wasn’t so bad after all. Slipping on a pair of loose shoes, he grabbed his keys, banged shut the door and headed out to the pub.
Onslaught
The Newington Arms wasn’t the best place to drink in Edinburgh, not by anyone’s measure. But it made up for that by being the nearest to his home.
McLean pushed through the swing doors, bracing himself for the onslaught of noise and smoke, then remembered that the wise men in the parliament down in Holyrood had banned smoking.
It was still noisy, though no doubt they’d ban that next. He bought himself a pint of Deuchars and looked around for any familiar faces.
“Oi, Tony! Over here.” The shout coincided with a lull in the noise as the jukebox paused between selections.
McLean located the source, a group of people huddled around a table over by the large window looking onto the street.
Post-grad students, by the sight of them. Lording it over them all, and beckoning him to join them, Professor Phillip Jenkins beamed a beer-fuelled smile.
“How’s things, Phil? I see you’ve got your harem with you tonight.”
McLean sat down in the space made as the students shuffled up the bench.
“Can’t complain.” Phil grinned. “The lab’s just had its funding renewed for another three years. And increased, too.”
More tomorrow.