Ward unzipped her coveralls and began wrestling her way out of them. I noticed she seemed to have put on a little weight but didn’t think anything of it.
‘Once the developers realized it was going to be a long haul, they cut back on security,’ she went on, tugging an arm free. ‘Usual story. Made do with fences and “keep out” signs and left the place to fall down by itself until they got the green light to demolish it.’
‘Until the bats.’
She gave a wry smile. ‘Until the bats.’
I looked up at the boarded-up building. ‘You think this could have anything to do with the protests?’
‘It’s somewhere to start. First off, though, we’ll need to make sure the building’s safe before we send anyone else inside. I’m not risking any more injuries, and we’ve already contaminated enough crime scenes for one day. Whatever’s in that room we found, I don’t want any more ceilings dropping on it.’ She yanked at one of the coverall sleeves that had become stuck. ‘God, I’d forgotten how much I hate these bloody things.’
With a grunt, she finally shucked free. My first reaction was that she’d put on more weight than I’d thought, but then I realized. She cocked an eyebrow at me.
‘What’s up? Wondering if I’ve eaten all the pies?’
I smiled. ‘How far along are you?’
‘Just over six months, but it seems like a bloody age. And, before you say anything, yes, I do know what I’m doing. It’s not as if I’m on foot patrol, so I can work as long as I feel fit. I’m not missing my shot at SIO to sit at home knitting bootees.’
I understood now why Whelan had been so concerned about her being in the loft. And why Ward had been so affected by the sight of the dead woman and her unborn child. The victim’s pregnancy had been at a similar stage as her own.
‘Boy or girl?’ I asked, feeling the familiar stab of loss as I thought back to my own wife’s pregnancy.
‘Don’t know, don’t care. My husband’s hoping for a boy, but I told him if he wants to know the sex he should have got pregnant himself.’
I knew she was married but I’d never met her husband. Although Ward and I had worked together several times, we’d never socialized, and on the occasions we’d met our private lives hadn’t really been on the agenda.
Still, her news was a bright note in an otherwise grim evening. I waited by my car, while Ward went into a briefing with senior members of her team and fire-safety officers. Shortly afterwards they were joined in the mobile command post by three more people, a short-haired man in his forties whose authoritative demeanour suggested he could be Ward’s superior, and a younger man and woman who trailed behind like his entourage. None of them looked happy. Not only had the pathologist been seriously injured, but now we were looking at multiple homicides that might or might not be connected.
What had seemed like a routine investigation had become a different beast altogether.
After twenty minutes, a PC came over with the message that I might as well go home. All further work had been suspended until the loft was safely shored up and given the all-clear by health and safety: I’d be contacted when I was needed again.
And so I’d driven back to Ballard Court. There was no question of trying to sleep before Rachel left, so after a shower and breakfast we sat at the table over coffee, trying to pretend it was just another morning. That grew harder as the time approached for her to leave. She didn’t want me to drive her to the airport, as that would only prolong the goodbye, and I felt my heart sink when her phone chimed to announce the taxi’s arrival. I held her close, breathing in the clean scent of her hair to memorize it.
‘See you in three months,’ she said, giving me a final kiss.
When the door had closed behind her, I turned back to the empty apartment. The gleaming kitchen seemed even more clinical than usual, the abstract paintings on the walls of the lounge and hall more alienating than ever. I was used to being there on my own, yet Rachel’s absence shouted out everywhere I looked.
Tired, but knowing sleep was out of the question, I loaded the breakfast plates into the dishwasher and made myself another coffee. The apartment had an elaborate barista-style machine that ground beans, frothed milk and carried out any number of other esoteric tasks. Rachel loved it, but to me it seemed a lot of fuss for a cup of coffee. Taking a jar of instant from a cupboard, I poured myself a mug in half the time and sat down with it at the granite kitchen island.
Now Rachel was gone I felt at a loss. I’d probably head in to the university department later, but that still left me with a few hours to fill. Restless, I went online to see if the grisly discoveries at St Jude’s had made it on to any of the news sites. The story was buried away in the regional sections, short on details except that human remains had been discovered at the derelict hospital. There was no mention of either the sealed chamber or Conrad’s accident. The site was too public for the police to keep a lid on what had happened for very long, but Ward was evidently hoping to delay the media frenzy as long as possible.
Good luck with that, I thought.
Having read what little coverage there was about the investigation, I ran a quick search on the hospital itself. There was no shortage of information about St Jude’s, from petitions and blogs rallying support against the hospital’s demolition to amateur websites detailing its history. It had started life in the nineteenth century as a charitable infirmary run by nuns. By the 1950s the hospital had begun to expand, the stern Victorian building presiding over the new departments and facilities built in its grounds. There were numerous photographs chronicling the stages of its life, from sepia prints that showed raw, new-looking stonework and sapling-dotted grounds to more recent snaps taken when the building was a boarded-up wreck. One image that looked to have been taken in the 1970s showed St Jude’s in its bustling prime. Where now only rusted posts survived, a large sign detailing the hospital’s departments stood next to the main doors. Walking past it were two nurses caught mid-stride, laughing as they smoked cigarettes. Behind them a man and child — boy or girl; it was impossible to tell — were frozen in time as they passed through the big doors.
There was something melancholy about seeing all those images of past lives. It wasn’t something I wanted to dwell on right then, and the background reading into St Jude’s hadn’t provided any great insights. Still, looking at my watch, I saw I’d killed almost an hour. Long enough for me to head into work.
Shutting my laptop, I put it in my bag and collected my jacket from the hat stand in the hallway. Then, with a sense of relief, I went out and closed the door on the opulent apartment.
For the past few years I’d held an associate position in the forensic anthropology department of one of London’s larger universities. It was an association based on mutual convenience. My teaching duties were minimal, but it provided me with an income and facilities and allowed me the freedom for police consultancy work. Earlier that year my tenure had looked shaky when I’d been unofficially blacklisted by police forces after an investigation had ended badly. But since the Essex case my star was on the rise again, and I’d recently been offered another two-year contract, on better terms than before.
Yet I’d been putting off signing it. Although my position at the university seemed secure enough for now, I’d no illusions what would happen if my star waned again. And after the uncertainty and upheaval of earlier that year, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to wait for that to happen. Rachel’s arrival in my life had been a huge change, one that had given me a fresh perspective.