Pashazade

They were waiting outside a steel door in a dark underground corridor that was to-the-bone cold, something Raf hadn't previously felt in El Iskandryia. The occasional shop or café might be air-conditioned but this was different. Cold grey walls and cold stone floor, even cold overhead strips that had a light thinner than the washed-out blue of dawn outside. For once Raf wasn't wearing shades: Versace wraparounds didn't seem appropriate in a morgue.

'You know,' said Felix slowly, 'you don't really act like a bey.' From his hungover growl it was hard to tell whether this was meant as a compliment.

'Most of the time I don't feel like one.'

'Then you'd better start pretending,' said Felix seriously. He curled his fingers into a clumsy fist and punched Raf lightly on the shoulder. 'Okay?'

Raf was still wondering exactly how he felt about becoming the fat man's unofficial adoptee when Felix hammered hard on the closed door for a second time.

'All right, all right...'Bolts drew back inside and someone in a mask peered through a sudden gap. Over her shoulder came a blast of blood and formaldehyde.

'You're late.'

Felix checked his watch. 'It's only five a.m...'

'I did it at four. Still, you might as well come in and see.' The woman stepped back, then stopped dead at the sight of Raf, her face suddenly indignant behind her mask.

'It's okay,' Felix said hurriedly, before she could slam the door. 'This is the dead woman's nephew. They were very close, and he's as desperate as me to find her killers ... Raf, meet Kamila. Kamila, meet Pashazade Ashraf al-Mansur.'

'This is not fair,' the girl protested tightly, backing away from the door as Felix gently pushed his way into the autopsy suite. 'I'm taking a risk just talking to you.'

'Kamila works for Madame Mila,' Felix told Raf. 'Her father works for me. Sometimes these things are useful.' He ignored the cadaver of an elderly woman laid out on a mobile cart and made his way towards a steel autopsy table where another ripped-open body lay covered with white gauze. Holes had been punched in the table's surface to let liquid drain down to a collecting tray underneath.

'What did you find?'

'The cause of death was a puncture wound to the chest. The mechanism of death was—'

'Kamila!'

This wasn't what we agreed,' the girl said furiously. 'It's bad enough that you're here. As for him ...' She glared at Raf.

'How did my aunt die?' Raf kept his question short and his voice as cold as the mortuary in which they now stood. Somehow the dark glasses in his pocket had found their way onto his face. Pretend, Felix had said. Raf could do one better than pretend: when necessary, he could be.

'Well?' Raf demanded. Even the fat man looked shocked at the sudden anger in his voice. 'I want to know ... How did she die?'

'Heart attack,' Kamila said quietly. 'The pen severed her left main coronary artery. Which produced a big ischemic area. Tamponade was absent since the pericardium was punctured, but she—'

'You know what the fuck this means?' Raf demanded, swinging round to Felix.

The fat man nodded. 'The pen spiked her heart. Not much blood on the outside, quite a lot on the inside but, technically at least, still death by heart attack. How am I doing?'

The girl gave him a grudging nod.

'Seen it before,' Felix said cryptically. He yanked away the covering gauze without asking Kamila's permission.

Despite his best intentions, Raf looked. He couldn't help himself. All the same, he knew that from now on it would now be impossible to think of Nafisa as anything other than so much jointed meat. What had once been human was human no longer. The body had been sliced open in a Y that began at each shoulder to shoulder, met below the breastbone and ran in a single slash down to a depilated pubis. The intestines were still in place but heart, lungs, oesophagus and trachea were a black and gaping cavity.

'Any signs of rape?' he asked abruptly.

'No.' The girl's answer was brusque. As if that was exactly the kind of question she'd expect someone like him to ask.

'Then why was her shirt open?'

In answer, Kamila turned her back on him. 'I'm about to repack the body,' she told Felix. 'You can indent the coroner-magistrate for a copy of my report. She may even let you have one.'

Felix nodded. 'What about other wounds?'

'What did you have in mind?' She'd spotted where Felix had lanced into the dead woman's abdomen to take a core temperature, though the fat man hoped that the fact wouldn't make it into her final report. And that wasn't what he was asking about, anyway.

'Anything ...'

The girl started to shake her head, then paused. 'Maybe this,' she admitted, lifting one of Nafisa's hands, which moved unwillingly beneath her grip. Detritus had been scraped from beneath each split nail and bagged and labelled. The tips of each finger still showed traces of staining where prints had been taken.

'Could be nothing,' said the girl. She nodded at the circular bruise that the fat man that had already noticed on the dead woman's palm.

Felix nodded to a small metal trolley. 'Okay to touch this?' He lifted Lady Nafisa's Mont Blanc pen, transparent bag and all, from a metal kidney dish and held the blunt end to the bruise, without letting pen or flesh actually touch. The end was way too small.

'Anything else?' asked Felix.

Raf wondered if the Chief and the pathologist had noticed the pen was missing its top, then realized both of them must have done. Which made his not mentioning the fact significant. Some kind of interdepartmental dance was going on between Kamila and Felix that Raf didn't begin to understand ...

But he would. Raf was making it his business. Secure the circle, the fox always said. So if the coroner-magistrate had him pegged as culprit, well, he'd bring Felix on-side as protection. And if staying close to Felix meant involving himself in Iskandryian politics then he could do that too, and play out his role of Bey. Life's absurdities existed to be milked for all they were worth. And besides, anything was better than being returned to Seattle to face Huntsville or Hu San. Which was exactly what would happen if anyone discovered who he really was.

'Answer the man,' Raf ordered. 'Anything else?'

'Nothing,' said the girl firmly.

Felix smiled. 'Normal stomach contents?'

'Chief!' Her voice was exasperated, as if she expected him to ask the ridiculous but still found it irritating. This is a minimum-invasion autopsy — boss's orders, minister's orders too. Simply confirm cause of death. Repack body, sew along dotted line. You know how this goes ...'

'Simply confirm cause of death,' Felix said slowly. 'Sweet fuck. You know how worried I get when I hear those words?'

'Cause of death pen. Mechanism of death torn heart muscle. Manner of death homicide.' It was obvious Kamila considered their visit well into overtime. She'd had enough of the two men trespassing on her territory and wanted them off it, just as soon as possible. All the same, she was willing to compromise. 'Look,' she said as she herded them towards the door, 'you can indent me direct for a copy of the report.'

Felix nodded thanks. 'About those stomach contents,' he added softly. 'Just tell your father the results and let him pass them to me. Okay?' Felix smiled sweetly and dragged Raf from the room before Kamila had time to refuse.