Read Online A Long Time Dead (The Dead Trilogy) by Andrew Barrett - Free Book Online

appeared to be little more than levelled waste ground. Buildings of a more acceptable nature surrounded it as though offering protection to those who couldn’t bear to think of death just yet.
    The mortuary was a single-storey building with moss-covered roof tiles; a rutted dirt track led up to the overgrown ‘delivery’ entrance; cracked windows at the back, and clunking refrigeration equipment slung up over that entrance on rusting metal girders. Old doors with flaking paint over chipped wood; chipped by equally old gurneys with stained frames and gnarled, squeaking wheels.
    It was wintry enough in the car park to nip Roger’s finger ends, but as he carried the tripod and camera case, and Chris carried the flash into the mortuary, it felt bitter, eye-wateringly bitter. They set their equipment down in the area where the freezers and fridges hummed directly outside the examination room’s double flap doors.
    Roger slung his waxed jacket over a gurney.
    A whiteboard, scribbled with names corresponding to the numbers on the fridge and freezer doors, glowed under bright fluorescent tubes. Above the board, an Insectocutor radiated ultra violet, and below it on a shelf, cans of fly spray and several whiteboard markers. Someone had used the markers on a girlie calendar nearby.
    He heard the detectives’ voices echo, and peeked inside the examination room before Chris pushed past him. Inside the examination room was a cupboard with stacks of protective clothing. The detectives were already suited and booted.
    White tiles and stainless steel, sluices, tubs of formaldehyde, handsaws, power saws, knives, scalpels and rib shears, the furniture and fittings of the Pinderfields General mortuary. Clinical waste bins stood in a row alongside floor squeegees; a stainless steel sink, a rotary floor scrubber for when things got really messy, and tucked under a bench was a small pile of cadaver head supports that looked like a nest of giant dead spiders. The smell of disinfectant was strong and the floor still shone from a previous hosing down; the grate in the centre and the gridded drains running to it were still wet with diluted blood.
    Roger and Chris donned flimsy blue elasticated over-shoes and green plastic smocks.
    They all awaited Shelby and the pathologist. Chatter among the detectives intensified as they began making preparations; clipboards were out, pens lay nearby, boxes of latex gloves, rows of plastic sample bottles, stacks of evidence bags, exhibits books and piles of yellow CJA exhibit labels were all on view. The second exhibits officer, DC Clements smeared Vicks across her top lip, and held the jar out to Chris.
    “No, thanks,” he grinned, nudging Roger. “We’re used to it, aren’t we, mate?”
    Roger raised his eyebrows, “You going to be okay?” he asked Clements.
    Just then, the doors swung shut. “Hiya, Chrissy.” Ann, the mortuary tech, blew a kiss.
    Chris turned away; his saggy cheeks lost the grin, and they reddened as the officers made fun of him. The more they teased him, the more he seemed to regress into the taciturn mood he adopted on their way here. He tried to smile, but was obviously desperate to be away from their attention.
    “Oi!” Roger shouted. “Enough, prick.”
    “Why? You gonna run to Mayers?” A detective leaned out of the group, smirk on his face, staring at Roger.
    “Leave it, Haynes,” someone whispered, could have been Firth.
    Roger peeled his eyes from Haynes, tied the green plastic smock over his waistcoat and finished setting up the camera equipment. Sally Delaney’s body craved his attention. White pallid skin. Stained red.
    Chris said, “You okay, Rog?”
    “Tired.”
    With a clipboard under his arm, Wainwright entered the room, pulling on his latex gloves. Shelby and the coroner’s officer, Jacob Cooper, followed, the voices hushed. “And just how professional do you lot think you sound? I could hear you from up the sodding corridor!” Shelby stared directly at