The Dead Tracks (44 page)

    'So
what the fuck are we supposed to do now?' Healy said from behind me, shining
the torch into the face of the man on the floor.

    We'd
found Daniel Markham.

    Healy
traced Markham's dead body with the torch, careful not to disturb the crime
scene. Eventually we'd have to call it in, but first we had to clear our heads.
Press Reset. Our best lead was lying in a pool of his own blood on the floor of
a derelict house.

    'Difficult
to tell how long,' Healy said, 'unless you want to shove a thermometer up his
arse and take his temperature.'

    He
moved the torch beam down Markham's arm, blue veins prominent below the skin.
The blood that hadn't left his body through his chest had pooled in his legs,
his feet and the small of his back. Healy used the torch to signal one of his
calves. The area directly in contact with the lino hadn't filled with blood.
The area just above it had.

    'That's
hypostasis,' he said.

    Once
gravity kicks in, your red blood cells head south and settle; but the skin
that's in direct contact with a surface won't fill up because the capillaries
are compressed.

    He
swung the torch around the kitchen.

    'The
body hasn't been moved,' he continued. 'Once the red blood cells drop, they
stay dropped. If he'd been turned over from his front, the blood would be in
his shins, knees, top of his thighs and the front of his chest - not where it
is now.'

    'Looks
like he's got rigor mortis too,' I said.

    Healy
stopped, turned to me, eyes narrowing. 'So what else am I telling you that you
already know?' He was angry that we'd hit another dead end, and he needed
someone to offload on. 'You going to tell me how it is you're a part- time
pathologist as well as a part-time policeman?'

    I let
the insult slide.

    '
Huh
?'

    'What
are we arguing about, Healy?'

    'I
just like to know who I'm dealing with.'

    I
rubbed my fingers across my forehead. I'd only known him for a short space of
time, but Healy was nothing if not predictable.

    'I
wanna know who I've got along for the ride,' he said. 'I don't want surprises.
I don't want a knife in my back.'

    I
stared at him. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

    'You
know what it means.'

    'I
don't even know what you're getting your knickers in a twist about. So I know
what rigor mortis looks like. So what?'

    'So,
I don't trust you.'

    You
don't have to trust me. You just have to work with me. When this is all over,
I'm sure there'll be plenty of time for us to find a cosy corner somewhere and
discuss what we do and do not know about the human body after it dies.'

    His
eyes narrowed again. 'What the fuck do
you
know about death?'

    He
realized what he'd said within about a second of it coming out of his mouth,
but Healy wasn't the type to apologize. The best he could do was a vague
flattening of his mouth. It was a typical Healy moment; a pointless argument borne
out of him realizing he wasn't in complete control.

    He
fixed the torchlight on Markham's face.

    'Yeah,
he's stiffened up,' he said quietly.

    Rigor
always starts in the facial muscles, before crawling its way through the jaw and
the throat and then out into the rest of the body. It can give you an
approximate time of death, but even a pathologist would have struggled to
pinpoint it exactly based on the kind of conditions we were dealing with. The
fact that rigor mortis had set in certainly put him at under thirty-six hours,
and the hypostasis in the lower parts of his body was a dark purple. I'd
shadowed the Forensic Science Laboratory in Pretoria for two months as part of
a feature I was writing about post- apartheid South Africa in the late
nineties, and had been to a few crime scenes. Maximum lividity occurred about
six to twelve hours after hypostasis set in. Which meant Markham was alive when
he woke up this morning.

    'If
we call this in, it's over,' Healy said, the torch back on Markham's body,
running the length of one of the knife wounds. This whole thing goes down the
toilet.'

    I
nodded. He was right. At the moment, we were ahead of the curve and the police
were playing catch-up.

    I
started pulling the room apart, pushing furniture aside, dragging the sofa out
from the wall, trying to zero in on anything that would give us a lead. Healy
started as well, stepping around Markham in the kitchen, and opening and
shutting drawers.

    Moving
to the TV cabinet and the stack of videotapes, I knelt down and started pulling
them out of their sleeves, tossing them away one after the other.

    Then,
midway through, I stopped.

    The
second from last tape was in a bright red case, different from the others, and
had no printing on it at all. I pulled the cassette out. Written across the
label in the middle was a message in black marker pen.

    It
said
,
Help me
.

    We
didn't speak as I switched on the VCR, slid the tape in and turned the TV on. Blackness.
And then, seconds later, the set was filled with a shot of Markham.

    He
had tears in his eyes.

    His
brown hair was shorter than in the photo I'd taken from the youth club, and
he'd lost the horn-rimmed glasses. Dark eyes like chips of wood gazed out at
us; stubble bristled as his hand traced the line of his jaw. He looked in good
shape and was dressed well too: a name- brand polo shirt and a pair of jeans.
No shoes.

    He
sniffed and then took in a long breath. His eyes drifted off camera, before
coming back again. It was recorded during the day, in the middle of the living
room. In the background we could see the kitchen, and a little of the stairs.
He ran a hand through his hair, as if he didn't know where to start.

    Then
he cleared his throat.

    'My
name is Daniel Markham,' he said, his voice wavering, his eyes watering, his
face etched with unease. 'And this is my confession.'

Eleven months ago

    Daniel
Markham opened the door to his office and stepped inside. It was too warm. The hospital
was always either stiflingly hot or freezing cold. Never in between. It was the
beginning of November, and the weather had been unseasonably mild for a week,
but still the central heating in his part of the building hadn't been adjusted
properly. He'd put in two complaints, neither of which had been met with any
kind of response. It was the NHS in full working order.

    He
hung up his coat and went to the windows, opening them as far as they would go.
A faint breeze wafted in. Sitting at his desk, he booted up his computer and
started going through his unopened mail. At the top of his in- tray was an
appointment diary, which his secretary filled in for him at the beginning of
each week. Without her, he would be lost. He remembered the faces of his patients,
but not always their names and certainly not the times they were expected. The
only appointment he
did
remember was the one at Barton Hill Youth Club
on Monday afternoons, where — as part of a drive by the hospital to get
consultants out into the field as volunteers - he spent five hours with the
parents of kids suffering from cerebral palsy, helping where he could.

    Initially,
he'd seen the volunteer work as wasted hours. In fact, when the email had first
gone round, he'd thought it was a joke. In a hospital system that could barely
cope with the ratio of patients to staff as it was, an afternoon field trip
seemed like an idea that would only ensure fewer people were seen and more
complaints rolled in. But the hospital trust were determined to carry through
the commitment they'd made to the community in an expensive PR campaign the
previous year, and - after some initial scepticism - Markham had grown to love
the time he got to spend at the club. The parents of the kids were so different
from the patients he had at the hospital; so positive, despite the heartache
they'd had to endure. His patients tended to be the opposite: most of them were
antagonistic and cynical and only looked for ways to head further down the
spiral.

    Throwing
away half the mail he'd opened up, he pulled his appointment diary down from
the in-tray and turned to 3 November. His days were divided up into hour-long
sessions, and the day was full, from 8 a.m. through to i p.m., and
z
p.m. through to 6 p.m. First up was a name he definitely didn't recognize:
Sykes. Probably a new patient. He turned to his computer, logged into his
e-diary and clicked on the entry for 8 a.m. marked 'Sykes'. His medical history
came up. Broken arm at nine. Fractured wrist at seventeen. Nondescript doctor's
appointments throughout the course of the rest of his life until a fortnight
ago when he'd returned five times over the course of a ten-day period
complaining of insomnia, anxiety attacks, severe chest pains and problems
concentrating at work. Markham scrolled down and clicked on the GP's referral
letter. The patient had been given a medical on his last visit to the surgery,
and nothing had been found. Physically, he was fine. Markham's two-second
diagnosis was depression.

    On
the desk, his phone started ringing.

    He
picked up. 'Hello?'

    'Mr
Sykes is here for you,' his secretary said.

    Markham
looked at the clock on the wall. It was just before eight.

    'Okay.
Send him in.'

    He moved
across to where two sofas were sitting in an L-shape in the corner of the room.
They faced a tilting, high-backed leather chair. In between was a coffee table
with a series of heavy, and largely tedious, books he'd picked up from a market
for a tenner. He wanted the room to seem less like an office in a sprawling,
faceless hospital and more like a place to feel at home.

    Two
knocks at the door.

    'Come
in.'

    Mr
Sykes entered. He was in his late thirties and six foot, but looked much
shorter. He was stooped, almost curved from the middle of his spine. Brown
hair, dark eyes, a couple of days of stubble and a tired expression. Markham
studied him: some of it was the lack of sleep, but not all. He carried a kind
of sadness with him. 'Mr Sykes?'

    He
nodded. 'Dr Markham.'

    'Please,'
Markham said, pointing to the sofas. 'Take a seat.'

    Sykes
nodded his thanks, and looked around the office, sitting down on the nearest
sofa. He perched himself on the edge, legs together at the knees, looking nervous.

    'Can
I get you something to drink?'

    'No,
I'm fine, thank you,' Sykes replied, glancing briefly at Markham and away
again. He had the look many had on entering the office for the first time: a
mix of expectation and terror.

    Markham
sat in the leather chair. 'So what brings you here today?'

    Sykes
nodded. Hesitated. 'I, uh…' He stopped, looked around the office again. Drummed
his fingers on his knees. 'I haven't been feeling right.'

    Markham
nodded. 'In what way?'

    'I
don't think I've slept for about six weeks now. Not properly.'

    'Has
something been bothering you?'

    Sykes
looked up. 'Yes.'

    'What?'

    'Lots
of things. Lots of different things. I'm worrying so much I'm having anxiety
attacks — these great big waves of panic rushing through me.'

    'What's
been worrying you?'

    'I
get these chest pains,' Sykes said, his eyes fixed on a space behind Markham.
Almost no eye contact so far. 'Physically, they can't find anything wrong, but
I can feel something eating away at me from the inside.'

    Markham
paused. 'Okay. Let's take a couple of steps back. What is it you do?'

    Sykes
looked up briefly. 'I kind of freelance.'

    'Doing
what?'