‘Yes, but—’
‘Be nothing left of the body by then, just a pile of bones on the floor.’
Roberta hardened her frown into a scowl. ‘You pair are seriously harshing my mellow here.’
He spread his hands. ‘All I’m saying is:circumstances change, and if we don’t do something there’s going to be no crime scene left to preserve. The bugs will have eaten it all.’ He curled his lip. ‘And can you imagine thesmell? Even if the forecast’s wrong and it only hits twenty degrees, the whole hotel’s going to stink like a charnel pit.’
Wellthatwas romantic.
How were you supposed to enjoy a good romp with your wife when the stink of rotting corpse was slithering in under the bedroom door? That’d dampen your ardour.
She looked up at their dead knight and his shrivelled willy. ‘Mind you, how can I catch a murderer if we’ve no clue how or where our victim actually died?’
Moore nodded. ‘Exactly! At least if the Scene Examiners and the Pathologist were here, we’d have something to go on. But with the bridge out...?’
‘Ooh, ooh!’ McKinnon did his bouncing up and down thing. ‘We’ve got stuff for taking fingerprints in the crime-scene kit, if that helps?’
He was kinda sweet, in his own way, but clearly thick as mince.
‘Oh aye, that’ll be agreathelp.’ Roberta gave him her best innocent smile. The one that every PC in NE Division had learned to fear. ‘And what, pray tell, are we going to do with any fingerprints you find? Will we be able to runthem through the system with no phone lines? No internet connection? Mobile signal?’
His face fell a bit at that. ‘Ah.’
‘Maybewe can leave them at the bottom of the garden, and the Fingerprint Fairies will spirit them off to Magic Pixie La-La-Land, so the Great Goblin can sprinkle unicorn powder on them and tell us which of the guests they match?’
‘Well, it—’
‘Or are you planning on doing it yourself, by hand? Trained in fingerprint analysis, are we? Got our own magnifying glass and deerstalker?’ She thumped him. ‘Didn’t think so.’
He stared at his boots. ‘Sorry, ma’am.’
‘Go see if you can find us a couple of long ladders. And make sure you wear gloves! Killer might have been at one of them.’
McKinnon scurried off.
Sergeant Moore watched him go. ‘He was only trying to help.’
‘You go find the laundry. I want a couple of double sheets, clean as you can get them.’
‘I know he’s young, but Mikey’s not as daft as he looks. He’s a good kid.’
‘He’s an idiot.’ She pointed off into the hotel. ‘Go. Sheets.’
Sergeant Moore sighed, then turned and wandered off, shaking his head.
Leaving Roberta on her own with the body.
A middle-aged man, crucified on a big metal stag’s antlers, with his pyjama bottoms round his ankles. Moore was right, it wasn’t really dignified, was it? Even if Sir Reginald Bradbury-Scottwasa dick.
She nodded at his corpse. ‘Right, listen up: I didn’t like you, and you didn’t like me. And I think we can both now agree that you were wrong and I was right about that. But Iwilldo my best to find out who killed you. Even if they had good reason and you deserved it.’ Quick swig of mediocre hot chocolate. ‘Fair enough?’
Sir Reginald just dangled there.
But then some people were just rude that way.
‘There we go.’ PC McKinnon stood back, hands on his hips, admiring his handiwork. Like he’d just painted the roof of the Sistine Chapel, single-handed, instead of stuck up a couple of large A-frame ladders in a hotel lobby.
On the plus side, they were easily big enough to reach the body.
