Stone Cold (12 page)

‘We goin’ to watch from ’ere?’ Matty hissed.

‘No. If the thief comes through the same place in the wall we did, then he’s going to come right past here. We need to move around so that we can see the approach and the building as
well.

Sherlock circled the mortuary, Matty in tow, until he found a large holly bush that the two of them could lie beneath. From there they had a clear line of sight straight ahead to the door of the
mortuary and left to the direction Sherlock thought the thief would come from. If the thief came from a different direction, such as behind them, then the bush would still provide cover.

The sun was gone by now, and the stars were beginning to twinkle in the sky. Faint wisps of cloud drifted across the darkness. There was, fortunately, still no sign of rain. The conditions were
perfect.

And that’s where they stayed for the next three hours. Time passed slowly, like treacle trickling from a tin. Sherlock felt himself begin to doze a couple of times, and had to jerk himself
awake. Once he heard Matty snoring, and nudged the boy in the ribs with his elbow to wake him up. He didn’t mind if Matty caught some sleep, but making a noise like a pig eating its swill was
too much. It might alert the thief.

Sherlock had taken some scones from Mrs McCrery’s kitchen before coming out and hidden them inside his jacket. When he got hungry enough he pulled them out and passed a couple to Matty.
Unfortunately he didn’t have any water. He should have got a hip flask from somewhere, he realized, and filled it up before setting off. Next time he was in this situation, he would prepare
better.

After that realization, he couldn’t stop thinking about how dry his mouth was.

At some time during their vigil, a fox trotted across the lawn around the mortuary. It paused, head held high, and sniffed the air, then it moved on. Later a family of badgers – two adults
and five cubs – crossed the area in a line. They didn’t react to any smells or sounds – they just kept on moving, fearless.

The moon appeared from above the trees. It was three-quarters full – just the right size for the theft to take place on that day of the week, on that day of the month, in those weather
conditions.

Matty’s hand closed over Sherlock’s and squeezed. Sherlock glanced sideways to see that his friend was staring off to one side. He followed the boy’s gaze and noticed a
black-clad shape moving through the bushes. Whoever it was, they were crouching down and moving slowly, checking in all directions to see if they were observed.

Sherlock felt a warm flush of triumph run through him. He had been right! He had successfully predicted the theft!

The figure emerged into the clear area around the mortuary and looked around one final time, pausing and sniffing the air a bit like the fox had done. It was a man, and he was wearing a long
poacher’s coat – the kind with large pockets for hiding rabbits and grouse. He went up to the door. His body shielded what he was doing, but Sherlock thought that he was reaching into
an inside pocket of his coat. The pocket seemed to be full of something – something that squirmed as the man’s hand closed on it. He brought his hand out, and both Matty and Sherlock
gasped. There was a small figure, like a doll, crouched on his palm – and it moved!

‘That’s sorcery!’ Matty breathed.

‘No,’ Sherlock said, ‘that’s a monkey.’

‘I knew that,’ Matty said.

It had, to be fair, taken Sherlock a couple of seconds to recognize that the thing was a monkey. He had seen creatures like it before, at fairgrounds, at circuses and in zoos. This one was small
enough to be hidden in a man’s pocket, obviously, but intelligent enough that it could be trained. As the two of them watched, the monkey’s handler whispered something in its ear. Quick
as a flash it jumped from his hand to a drainpipe that ran up the side of the building to the roof. Sherlock saw it silhouetted against the sky for a moment, then it was gone.

The man looked around, checking to see if there was anyone there, and then slipped around the side of the building. Matty and Sherlock followed, keeping in the shadows and behind shrubbery as
much as they could.

They found the man by the back door. He was leaning against it, listening. After a few seconds, Sherlock heard a sliding sound as the bolts were pulled open by his little companion. He pushed
against the door, and it opened. Within a second the man had slipped inside and vanished into the darkness.

Sherlock considered for a few moments. Using a monkey to open the door was very clever, but Sherlock still wanted to know what was going on inside. Should the two of them wait, or should they
move closer?

The decision was obvious – he had to see. He had to know.

He pulled Matty with him, out of the shelter of the holly bush and towards the mortuary. For a few moments he debated whether to go in through the back door, as the thief had done, but he
decided that would be a mistake. He might meet the man as he was coming out, which would be a disaster. When they got to the wall, he gestured to Matty to stand with his back against the bricks and
his hands clasped in front of him. Matty realized immediately what was going on and gave his friend a leg-up. Sherlock virtually flew on to the roof, and had to extend his hands to catch his weight
as he fell forward. The air whooshed out of his lungs as he hit the stonework. He stayed still for a few moments, desperately hoping that the thief somewhere below hadn’t heard him. There was
no sound; no movement. Eventually, when he thought it was safe, he moved on.

The roof was sloped, and there were several skylights in it. Sherlock quickly crawled across to one of them and looked down. Fortunately the moon had risen higher in the night sky, and its
silvery light shone down through the glass and into the room. It took a few moments for Sherlock to recognize it, but it was the room where he and Lukather had talked a few days before. The room
was empty.

Sherlock crawled across to the next skylight. The room below him now had two metal-topped tables, the size of beds, in its centre. They were set side by side. The edges of the tables were
raised, and each one had a drain set towards one corner so that it could be washed down. Presumably this was where Lukather actually conducted his post-mortems. Again the room was empty, but there
was an open door over to one side. Sherlock crawled in that direction, and found himself staring through a third skylight into a room that was empty apart from a series of large drawers set into
one wall, stacked five across and four up. The drawers were large enough that there could be a body inside each one. On the outward face of each drawer there was a metal frame in which a small
piece of card rested. There was writing on each card – presumably the name of the person whose body resided therein.

The man was standing in the centre of the room.

Sherlock couldn’t see his face – he was wearing a scarf wrapped around the lower half, obscuring his chin, mouth and nose. He was staring at the drawers. He reached into his pocket
and pulled out a piece of paper. After glancing at it for a few moments, he strode across to one of the drawers and checked the writing on the card that was attached to the front. He grunted, and
moved to the next drawer. Again he looked at the piece of paper in his hand, checking the details. This must have been the right one, because he reached out with his right hand and opened the
drawer.

Sherlock caught his breath. This was fascinating – it hadn’t occurred to him before, but the thief was looking for particular bodies! He wasn’t just taking a part from a body
at random – he was specifically targeting them! Did that mean he was specifically targeting the parts as well? And if so – why?

While Sherlock was asking himself these questions, the thief was pulling the drawer fully open. The movement took a lot of effort, even though the drawer appeared to be sliding on greased
runners. Eventually the drawer was completely open. Looking down on it from above, Sherlock could see a shape beneath a white sheet – presumably the dead body.

The thief reached out a hand. For a moment, with a shiver, Sherlock thought he was going to pull the sheet completely off, but instead he just pulled it up a little, revealing the corpse’s
feet. There was, Sherlock saw, a cardboard tag attached to the big toe of the left foot by a length of string. He supposed that was to make sure that the bodies didn’t get mixed up.

Something moved beside Sherlock.

He jerked away, suddenly thinking that it might be the monkey, but when he whirled his head around to look it was only Matty. He must have found his own way up.

‘What’s goin’ on?’ Matty asked.

‘Shh!’ Sherlock said. He indicated the scene below.

Down in the mortuary storage room, the thief was checking the tag on the corpse’s toe, double-checking that the name on the drawer matched and that he’d got the right one. He
released the tag and reached into his pocket, taking something out and unfolding it with a click. It took Sherlock a moment to work out what it was, and then he realized – it was a knife!

The thief bent down and began to work on the corpse’s right foot – the one without a tag.

‘’E’s takin’ its big toe off!’ Matty breathed.

Indeed, that did appear to be what the thief was doing. He was working at cutting the corpse’s right big toe off. It was hard work, and Sherlock heard some swearing coming from the room
below, even through the glass. Eventually, however, he succeeded, and the big toe vanished into his pocket along with the knife. He quickly threw the sheet back over the corpse, pushed the drawer
shut, and left.

Sherlock scrambled back across the tiled roof to the first skylight that he had looked through, trying to make as little noise as possible. He gazed down through the blurry glass as the man
below entered the autopsy room again and began to make his way towards the door to the hall. His monkey was still sitting on the metal post-mortem table, alternately grooming its fur and looking
around.

Sherlock felt a sudden cramp in his leg. He’d been crouched for too long in the cold. He tried to extend it surreptitiously, but he overbalanced and fell forward. He shifted his hands
wider apart to take his weight, but there must have been a splinter of wood in the frame of the skylight, and he felt it jab into his palm. Without thinking he pulled his hand away, but his weight
was too far forward and he fell into the glass and wood of the skylight.

Into, and through.

The skylight broke under his weight, and he fell head first into the room below. The metal autopsy table was directly beneath it. If he hit it he would probably break something – most
likely his skull. He desperately twisted his body, trying to catch the edge of the skylight with his foot. He managed to hook the toe of his boot over the wood, and his body swung like a pendulum.
His head rushed towards a set of chains and racks that were hanging from the ceiling, presumably for moving bodies around and holding them up, and he grabbed for it desperately with both hands.
They caught hold just as his toe slipped off the frame of the skylight. He had a confused impression of the thief in the room below glancing upward in shock, and springing backwards the way he had
come. Sherlock’s body fell again, but this time swinging on the suspended racks like an acrobat on a trapeze. The metal was slippery beneath his fingers, and he lost his grip. He flew
sideways, bouncing off the wall and landing on the tiled floor. His head hit the tiles and he saw a crimson galaxy of stars rotating in his field of view. He felt sick, and his hands were burning
with pain.

Knowing that the thief was there, and desperate to get past him, Sherlock forced himself to his feet. His vision was blurry – he could see two thieves standing in two separate doorways
– but he blinked hard until his head cleared.

The thief scowled at Sherlock. He was unshaven, with wild black hair and ears that looked as if they had been repeatedly hit by someone’s fists. A boxer maybe, Sherlock thought muzzily. A
boxer with a monkey – that probably meant he was from a funfair: a keeper for the animals and a participant in the boxing rings that were a central feature of most travelling fairs. Not the
kind of person who would be stealing body parts, necessarily.

‘A spy, eh?’ he snarled. ‘You workin’ for the rozzers? That ain’t goin’ to stop me – I’ll cut yer throat anyway!’

Desperately aware that he had ruined the whole plan, Sherlock held up his scratched and torn palms. ‘Sorry – I was trying to get hold of –’ he thought for a moment
– ‘some morphine. I’ve got a kind of . . . need for it!’ He tried to sound as pathetic as possible. ‘Look, I’ll get out of your way. I won’t try to stop
you, and I won’t come after you. I just want the morphine.’

‘Students!’ the thief growled, but as Sherlock edged one way around the metal table he went the other. He seemed to be accepting the possibility of Sherlock being a thief too, and
despite his bluster he didn’t seem to want any trouble. He just wanted to get out with his stolen toe.

His monkey, however, had other ideas.

It grabbed a scalpel from a metal tray and leaped at Sherlock’s head, making a wild
chittering
sound. Sherlock saw the creature coming out of the corner of his eye and whirled
around. He ducked just as the monkey got to him. It sailed over his head, slicing at Sherlock with the scalpel but missing.

‘Barney! You stupid critter – come ’ere!’ the thief yelled, moving fast towards the door, but the monkey wasn’t listening. It landed on the metal table and whirled
around, jumping straight back at Sherlock’s chest. It grabbed hold of his shirt with its back paws and its front left paw, and jabbed the scalpel at Sherlock’s left eye. Sherlock caught
its arm in his left hand. It was thin, like a twig, but hairy and incredibly powerful. He could feel the muscles writhing beneath its skin as the monkey fought to force the scalpel closer to
Sherlock’s eye.

Sherlock forced his right hand between the monkey’s chest and his own and pushed. The monkey’s back paws scratched the skin of his stomach as it scrabbled to get a grip. His shirt
tore, but he managed to push the animal away. With one massive effort he threw it across the room. It hit the wall, screaming in anger, and dropped out of sight. The scalpel hit the wall and
clattered to the floor. Sherlock could hear the monkey’s claws clicking on the tiled floor as it moved, but he didn’t know where it was. The thief didn’t either – he was
poised in the doorway, not sure whether to run or to rescue his creature.