Slip of the Knife Read Online Free PDF

after a long landing, narrow stone steps led down into the bowels of the building and a warren of white-tiled corridors.
    Kilburnie turned back to Paddy at the bottom of the stairs. “About the IRA—that’s just a canteen rumor.”
    Paddy nodded. “Understood.”
    “It shouldn’t go in the paper or anything. Could scare people. Cause friction.”
    “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” said Paddy vaguely, itching to get to the office now.
    “Now, this . . .” Kilburnie pointed down the corridor. “I’m here to support you. Are you sure you’re all right?”
    “Fine,” said Paddy sharply.
    She saw Kilburnie flinch at her coldness. Paddy could have faked a bit of trauma, but that wasn’t supposed to be the point. The incessant attempts to prompt her emotions were getting on her tits.
    Ahead of them, sheet-plastic abattoir doors glowed yellow from the light behind them and a radio hummed, muffled by the scratched, leathery material. Kilburnie reached out with both hands and pushed them open. The smell hit Paddy’s nose like a spiteful slap. Rancid meat and the afterburn of alcohol. She forced herself to take breaths in and out. She’d made herself dizzy in the mortuary once before by not breathing in enough.
    The bizarre tableau they walked in on stopped them dead. Kilburnie gasped, afraid again no doubt.
    Standing alone against a wall of glinting stainless steel was an elf dressed in green scrubs, face mask hinged off one ear. Her hands hung by her sides, turned towards them, like Jesus welcoming sinners in a painting. The wild brown hair was blunt cut above her shoulders. She smiled stiffly, eyes open a little too wide. She’d heard them coming down the stairs, probably heard the buzzer and the doors. Her welcoming stance had gone stale.
    “Hello.” The odd little woman refreshed her smile. She was young, her skin perfect, her figure unformed, as if she was still waiting for puberty to hit.
    Blane frowned. “John about?”
    The mortuary elf looked Paddy over, smart in a black wraparound work dress and platform orange-suede trainers. “He’s having a kip in the back.”
    All three of them considered the possibility that this tiny woman had risen from the Green, broken in for some sick reason, and beaten John to death.
    She touched a hand to her chest. “Aoife McGaffry,” she said, her Northern Irish accent thick and warm. “I’m the new pathologist.”
    Blane smiled. “Oh, I thought you were a nutter. What are you doing here at this time on a Saturday night?”
    Aoife stepped back, welcoming them into the big room. “We’re backed up.”
    “Old Graham Wilson had a heart attack a week ago,” Blane explained to Paddy. “They’ve been storing everyone they can until the new Path started.”
    Paddy had never met Graham Wilson but she’d seen him giving evidence at the High Court a couple of times. He was disheveled, looked as if he’d just been woken up, wore a crumpled three-piece suit and pince-nez.
    “Died on the job,” said Aoife. “Not ‘on the job’ as in mid- coitus,” she corrected herself, “but ‘on the job’ here.” She pointed at the floor in front of her. “Again, not in midcoitus.”
    It was supposed to be a joke but Blane flinched.
    Aoife McGaffry winced. Police officers might snigger at the nightie someone was wearing when they were told of a loved one’s death, they might make jokes about Head and Shoulders at the scene of car crashes, but, apparently, there were bounds of decency and the suggestion that a colleague had died in the course of a necrophiliac orgy wasn’t funny. Paddy liked Aoife immediately.
    “I’m Paddy Meehan.” She stepped forward and put out her hand.
    Aoife smiled at the outstretched hand. “You wouldn’t thank me for shaking it. It’d take ye a week to get the smell out.” She twisted around to look behind her. “Tend to go a bit ripe if they’re left for a week.”
    “I’m here to identify someone . . .”
    Behind her Blane barked, “SMR