Read Mourn not your Dead for Free Online

his hands together and blew on them. “Heater’s out in the bloody car.” He gestured towards the doors. “Shall we see what Dr. Ling has in store for us this morning?” Smiling at Gemma, he added, “Not to mention getting warm.”
    They trailed Deveney through the maze of identical white-tiled corridors, passing no one, until they reached another set of double doors. A very official-looking sign above them read AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY—RING BELL FOR ADMITTANCE, but the doors stood slightly ajar and Deveney pushed on through them. A faint smell of formalin tickled Gemma’s nose, and then she heard the murmur of a voice. Following the sound to the autopsy room, they found Kate Ling sitting on a stool with a clipboard on her lap, drinking coffee from a large thermal mug. “Sorry, my assistant’s out with flu, and I couldn’t be bothered manning the portals. And it’s not as if anyone’s dying to get in here,” she added, looking at Deveney as if waiting for his groan.
    Deveney shook his head in mock amazement, then turned to the others, who had squeezed into the small room behind him, none of them venturing too close, to the white-sheeted form on the table. “Did you know that all pathologists have to undergo a special initiation into the Order of Bad Puns? Won’t let ’em practice without it. The doc here is a Grand Master and loves to show off.” He and Kate Ling grinned at each other, completing what was obviously a practiced and much-enjoyed routine.
    “Just finishing up my notes on the external,” Ling said, scribbling a few more words, then setting her pad aside.
    “Anything interesting?” Deveney asked. He studied the pad as if he might decipher it upside down, although Gemma thought it unlikely that the doctor’s scrawl was legible even right-side-up.
    “Lividity corresponds perfectly with the position of the body, so I’d say he wasn’t moved. Of course, we expected that from the blood spatter, but they pay me to be thorough.” She gave them a wry smile over the rim of her mug as she drank, then continued, “So if we calculate the drop in body temperature using the temperature of the Gilberts’ kitchen, I’d say he was killed between six and seven o’clock.” Swiveling around towards the countertop behind her, Ling exchanged her coffee for a new pair of latex gloves. As she pulled them on, she added thoughtfully, “One odd thing, though. There were some tiny rips in the shoulders of his shirt. Not large enough that I could hazard a guess as to what made them or why.” Sliding from the stool, she checked the voice-activated mike hanging over the autopsy table, then lifted the lid from the stainless-steel instrument box on a nearby rolling trolley. “All set, then? You’ll need to gown and glove.” She regarded them quizzically. “You lot are jammed in here like sardines in a can. I’ll need some elbow room.”
    Will Darling touched Gemma on the shoulder. “I can take a hint when I hear it. Come on, Gemma, we’ll wait in the corridor. Let them have all the fun.”
    Having appropriated two folding chairs from a nearby room, Will set them up just outside the postmortem room door and left Gemma for a moment. “I’ll find us a cuppa,” he said over his shoulder as he disappeared down the corridor.
    Gemma sat, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the wall. She felt a little resentful of having been so easily excluded, yet she was glad not to have to summon the resources watching an autopsy always required. With half her mind she listened to the murmured voices and the clink of instruments, imagining the methodical exploration of Alastair Gilbert’s body, while with the other half she thought about Will Darling.
    He had an easy assurance not consistent with his rank, yet there was no aggressiveness to it, and no sense of the desire to impress one’s superiors that she so often saw and knew she’d been guilty of herself. And there was something comfortable about him,