Sam Bourne 4-Book Thriller Collection

‘You need to see a medical history. Maybe—what’s his name again?’

‘Baxter.’

‘Maybe Baxter had a history of renal problems. Any reference to that or to dialysis or kidney trouble of any kind, and that will give you an explanation.’

Will was silent.

‘I’m ruining it, aren’t I?’

‘Well, if we’re talking news value, the choice between the death of an old man with a past history of renal failure and an attempted kidney-snatching is very close. But, yeah, you might be right: the kidney-snatching probably just edges it.’ Will was relieved they were back into banter mode. Several days now stood between them and the row; the wound seemed to be closing.

Thursday, 10.02am, Missoula, Montana

The next morning, Will was ushered into Dr Russell’s office. He saw it straight away, a certificate on the wall carrying an emblem Will recognized: an open book, inscribed with Latin words, topped off by two crowns.

‘Ah, you were at Oxford. Like me. When were you there?’

‘Several centuries before you, I suspect.’

‘That can’t be true, Dr Russell.’

‘Call me Allan.’

At last, a lucky break. ‘You know, Allan, I’m not even sure I’ll write about it for the paper, but this Pat Baxter business does intrigue me, I must confess,’ he began, as if settling down for an agreeable chat at high table. Will noticed his own English accent had become more pronounced.

‘Let me have a look here,’ Russell was saying, as he turned to his computer. ‘Ah yes, “Severe internal haemorrhaging consistent with a gunshot wound; contusions of the skin and viscera. General remarks: needle mark on right thigh, suggestive of recent anaesthesia”.’

‘Now, how are you defining “recent” there, Allan?’ Will hoped his tone was saying, Purely out of academic interest . . .

‘Probably contemporaneous.’

‘You see this, I have to say, is what intrigues me. Why would anyone anaesthetize someone before they kill them?’

‘Perhaps they were trying to reduce the victim’s pain.’

‘Do murderers do that? It makes no sense. Unless—’

‘Unless the killer was a medical man. Trained to give a shot before any procedure. Force of habit perhaps.’

‘Or if he wanted to do something else before the murder. Perform some other operation.’

‘Like?’

‘Well, I understand that Baxter was found minus one kidney.’

Russell began to laugh, in a way Will struggled to find funny. ‘Oh, I see what you’re driving at.’ Russell was grinning. ‘Tell me, Will. Have you ever seen a dead body?’

Instantly, Will remembered the corpse of Howard Macrae, under a blanket on that street in Brownsville. His first. ‘Yes. In my work it’s hard to avoid.’

‘Well, then you won’t mind seeing another one.’

It was not as cold as he expected. Will imagined a morgue to be a giant fridge, like those cold storage rooms at the back of large hotels. This was more like a hospital ward.

The orderlies were moving a gurney into a curtained-off zone which Will took to be the examination area. With not even a moment’s warning, Russell pulled back the sheet.

Will felt his stomach tighten. The body was stiff and waxy, a yellowish green. The stench was rancid; seeming to come his way in waves. For a second or two he would think it had passed, or that at least he had got used to it, and then it would strike again – inciting Will to empty his guts out on the floor there and then.

‘It can take some getting used to. Apologies. Now take a look at this.’

Will moved closer. Russell was gesturing towards something in the stomach area, but Will was transfixed by Pat Baxter’s face. The papers had run photos, but they were grainy – ‘grabs’ from TV footage mainly. Now he saw the weathered cheeks, chin, eyes and mouth of a man he would have identified as middle-aged, poor and white. He had a longish beard that, in a different context, might have looked elegant, even statesmanlike. (The face of Charles Darwin popped into Will’s head). But the effect here was to give Pat Baxter the appearance of a homeless man, one of the winos found sleeping by trash cans in a park.

Russell was pulling back the sheet around Baxter’s torso. Will could tell he was trying to conceal one thing, probably the bullet wounds, and reveal something else. ‘Look closely. Can you see it?’

Will leaned forward to see Russell’s finger tracing a line on the dead white flesh. ‘That’s a scar.’

‘In the area of the kidney?’

‘I would say so.’

‘And that can’t be from that night, right? I mean, it takes ages to form a scar.’

Russell pulled back the sheet, stripped off his latex gloves and headed for a basin in the corner of the room. He began scrubbing, talking over his shoulder. He was enjoying this.

‘Well, of course, it’s hard to be certain, what with the severe trauma to the skin and viscera.’

‘But what’s your professional opinion?’

‘My opinion? That scar is, at the very least, a year old. Maybe two.’

Will felt his heart sink. ‘So it didn’t happen that night? The killers didn’t take out Baxter’s kidney?’

‘I’m afraid not, no. You look disappointed, Will. I hope I haven’t spoiled your story.’

But you have, arsehole, was Will’s first thought. All this chasing for nothing. Then he remembered what Beth had said on the phone last night.

‘There is one last thing that might help. Do you think we could check Pat Baxter’s medical records?’

Russell gave him a mini-lecture about patient–doctor confidentiality, but soon relented. Back in his office, he pulled up the file.

‘What are we looking for?’

‘The date Pat Baxter had his kidney removed.’

Russell paused, scanning the pages. Finally: ‘That’s odd. There’s no record of a kidney operation.’

Will perked up. He remembered Beth’s briefing on the phone last night. ‘Anything there about a history of kidney problems, any disease, any references to renal failure, dialysis, anything?’

A longer pause now. And then, with a hint of puzzlement, ‘No.’