The Resurrection of the Body Read Online Free PDF Page A

told the detective sergeant everything I know yesterday, when I made my formal statement.’
    He was looking at me oddly. The way he stared made me quite irritated, in fact more than that, quite angry. I began to worry that Sidney might have said something to him about Jim, and that he expected me to say something about it. Well, if that was the case, he was wasting his time.
    ‘The post-mortem was carried out yesterday,’ Stone continued. ‘Death was caused by a single blow with a long-bladed knife, entering between the sixth and seventh ribs, piercing the lung, the apex of the heart, and the pulmonary artery. It was twisted before it was pulled out, to cause the maximum damage.’ He paused. ‘It’s not easy to kill someone with a knife, you know.’
    I had never thought about this. Again, the tone in Stone’s voice and the manner of his questioning made me uneasy.
    ‘I’m sorry, I don’t follow you.’
    ‘What I’m saying is that this seems to have been a deliberate, perhaps premeditated, murder. It wasn’t a frenzied attack by a madman, or someone trying to protect themselves who happened to have a weapon to hand. No, this was a cold-blooded killing by someone who knew what he was doing.’
    ‘I see.’ I was taken aback; I couldn’t see what this had to do with me.
    ‘But there’s another problem. Somebody is very keen to make sure that we don’t get to the bottom of this.’ Again he kept his eyes on me, no doubt waiting for my reaction. ‘Well, I suppose I had better tell you what’s on my mind. The truth is, something quite extraordinary has happened . They telephoned this morning, at about 6.15, to say the body has been stolen from the mortuary.’

T he Body Vanishes
    After he had said this there was a long silence in the room. The first thing that came into my head was that somebody was playing the most extraordinary kind of practical joke. I wondered if it was Stone, his way of getting back at me for what I had said to him weeks ago over the incident with Mercy. I thought of what Harriet had said, that the doctor on the phone might have been ironical. It actually crossed my mind at that moment that perhaps they were all playing some savage kind of trick on me.
    But that was paranoid. A man had died. My thoughts were utterly egocentric. I pushed them to the back of my mind and forced myself to think clearly. Perhaps this kind of thing was not uncommon. Perhaps dozens of bodieswere illegally removed from mortuaries each year, though I couldn’t imagine why, or who would want them. It was just the timing that made this seem so strange. My skin was prickling with that irrational fear which can overtake you, say, in a cemetery on a dark night. I glanced down at my watch; I had a few minutes left. I looked up at Detective Chief Inspector Stone.
    ‘I’m afraid I don’t know what to say. When did it happen?’
    ‘In the early hours of this morning, it seems.’
    ‘But how could they steal a body? From Bart’s? Didn’t anybody see anything?’
    ‘The post-mortem wasn’t done at Bart’s. It was done in the city mortuary, by a forensic pathologist. The place is locked up at night but there’s no one on guard …’ He rolled his eyes heavenwards. ‘It seems it was a piece of cake.’
    I got to my feet; I was aware that time was short, and that somehow, despite this shocking news, I had to get through the service. I said, ‘I’m sorry, fascinating as it is, I have to go now. Perhaps we could continue this conversation afterwards.’
    ‘Do you mind if I use your phone?’
    I sighed and pushed it over to him. He dialled a number and spoke mainly in monosyllables, while I could hear the faint squeaking of a woman’s voice in the earpiece. I made a few unnecessary corrections to my sermon, stood up, leaving Stone still talking, and went to the vestry to prepare myself.
    I remember little of the service. The church as alwayswas full and decorated with flowers. At the front of the church stood the