‘Isn’t it just? I have no idea how I’ve lasted so long,’ Ted said.
‘Don’t talk like that, Dad. You are everything to me and Lizzie.’
They shared a rare moment of emotional exchange. It wasn’t that their relationship was sterile, anything but. Ted threw Lizzie around screaming, onto sofas and rugs, and she chased him around the park in Keswick on market days. Their life together was vital and growing in energy by the day as Lizzie became a toddler. But these quiet moments where Kelly told Ted how precious he was were rare. She understood how little time hehad left compared to what had gone before, and they were playing catch-up.
She’d only discovered her true paternity a couple of years ago. For forty years she’d believed another man was her blood father. They’d lost so much time. Which was one reason she turned up to so many of his autopsies. It might seem macabre, but it was time she could spend learning from him, watching him, loving him.
The man on the slab told them everything they needed to know about how transitory life was.
‘And this is the young woman’s brother, you say?’ Ted looked at Jamie. She nodded.
‘How terribly sad. Is it a domestic do you think?’ he asked.
‘I’m not sure. She was hiding away in a hotel in Skelwith Bridge for a reason.’
‘Ah, the German spy of Skelwith Bridge!’
‘You know it?’
‘Of course!’
‘Apparently she asked to stay in the exact room.’
‘Do you think it’s significant?’
‘I’m not discounting it. Anybody who hides something purposely in the room occupied by the ghost of a spy deserves attention to me,’ she said. ‘Not because I believe in ghosts but because they did.’
‘Quite. Well, he hid out in Rydal Caves if that means anything to you. I read local histories when I get the chance.’ He winked over his mask and she smiled at him. They got back to the man on his slab.
‘Falls are brutally violent,’ Ted said, beginning his examination of the body. He walked around it and observed the corpse. Kelly watched him and imagined Jamie in life, persuasive, cogent, winning.
A brother.
Ted spoke into his mic. Two assistants busied themselves.
‘Extensive blunt force trauma. Multiple injuries consistent with a fall from height of approximately thirty feet. Impact site appears to be the cranium and left shoulder. Visible evidence of defensive preservation wounds on both hands and wrists, indicative of trying to break his fall.’
He looked up at Kelly.
‘Is that conclusive?’ she asked.
‘Not one hundred per cent. However, it’s what I look for in suicides, because genuine ones give up and don’t try to break their fall.’
‘Christ, is that true?’
‘We can only go on the data. On average, accidental falls are more survivable because people try to protect their heads. I’m sorry, it’s not a very pleasant conversation for a Wednesday evening is it?’
Kelly listened to the list of terrible wounds, and it was moments like this that she knew a spirit – the essence of somebody – had left a body. Jamie’s body was simply a pile of flesh and bone lying on the gurney.
‘Does what you know about him lead you to see this as a desperate conclusion to a psychological problem?’
She considered his explanation and decided that no, from what she knew about Jamie Robbins so far, he showed no signs of mental disorder.
‘Three in four suicide fatalities have tried before,’ he said.
‘Jesus. He doesn’t fall into that category either.’
Discussing suicide stats was probably one of the more rigorously cheerless topics she’d contemplated lately.
