Page 41 of Her Lips Are Sealed

‘Sorry, did I miss much?’

‘No, you didn’t. Susie is just about to weigh the internal organs.’

‘When you pass them to me,’ Susie replied.

Declan smiled at her. ‘You are correct. Morgan, please can you fiddle with my radio, it keeps losing signal. I wanted a bit of Classic FM for Rachel; I think she would enjoy the calming music.’

‘What’s up with your Alexa?’

‘What isn’t up with his Alexa?’ Susie giggled.

‘I’m not even giving her the time of day. Do you know she is listening to my every conversation and it’s too much. I was sitting in the cinema with Theo when my phone started showing me adverts for every kind of cutting tool you could ever think of. Freaked me out so much I came here and unplugged her. I bet she’s still listening in though.’

Joe looked at Declan. ‘Where’s your phone?’

‘In my pocket. Why? Do you need to use it?’

‘No, but your phone is listening too. I was thinking about getting a moped for work and suddenly, I was getting ads for mopeds, and it freaked me out so bad. I mean I didn’t even say it out loud.’

Declan, who was mid pass of Rachel’s heart to Susie, paused. ‘We’re all doomed, you know that, don’t you? Technology is going to take over one day just like in Terminator. Oh and, Joe, please don’t get a moped, I don’t want to be having to cut out your heart to weigh it when you crash and kill yourself.’

Joe’s mouth fell open, and Morgan had to turn away to hide the smile. She began to fiddle with the dial on the radio until the music began to play again. Everyone went silent as they watched Declan continue with the job of removing Rachel’s organs.

TWENTY-FIVE

Two post-mortems later, Morgan felt as if she could curl up in a ball and cry. She didn’t, instead she sat in Declan’s office nursing a mug of coffee that had a splash of single cream in it. He’d run out of milk and that was all he had in the mini fridge he kept his lunches in since a leaky tube full of post-mortem blood had dripped all over his tuna salad sandwiches. It tasted divine if not a little sickly though, but she needed something. Her hands were a little shaky with the lack of food and standing up for so long. Declan was typing on his keyboard.

‘Well, both women were killed by the same method of death, asphyxia by compression of the larynx with the tights that were found wrapped around their necks. Their manner of death as you both know is homicide. They both suffered petechiae, pinpoint haemorrhages in the eyes caused by the restricted blood flow. There is soft tissue damage to their necks, bruising and abrasions from the ligatures and both hyoid bones were fractured. The same manner and mechanism of death, so similar there is no disputing it’s the same killer. Ash was in a further stage of decomposition than Rachel, she was killed first I would say at least thirty-six hours before as all signs of rigor had left the body.’

‘What about their red lips?’ Morgan asked.

He shrugged. ‘Not a lot I can do with that. I’ve taken samples to send off for testing, but until you find a possible lipstick match to send off as well for comparison, I can’t tell you anything other than it is very red and a long-lasting one because it’s well and truly stained them.’

Morgan sighed. They had to find that lipstick.

There was a gentle knock on the door and Declan grinned and jumped up, rushing to open it. Standing there in full priest mode was Theo, and Morgan thought how dashingly handsome he looked in his washed-out faded jeans, black shirt, suit jacket and white dog collar.

Theo’s face lit up when he realised who it was staring back at him.

Declan ushered him inside, closing the door. ‘Come on in, Theo, before you get dragged away by that Nurse Pennington. I swear she has the biggest crush on you.’

Theo laughed. ‘It’s the dog collar, does something to women that makes them want to commit every sin known to the Church.’

‘Some of those women need Satan, not God, the way they behave, it’s shameful,’ Declan muttered.

Morgan, who had jumped up to hug him, laughed so hard it felt good, despite the graveness of the reason they were sitting in Declan’s office in the first place.

Theo squeezed her back, rocking her gently, and whispered, ‘Are you okay? Your face…’

‘I’m fine, thank you. All the better for seeing you.’

‘Then my mission here is complete, making you happy is the ultimate goal. But I’m disturbing you all, I’m sorry, I’ll come back later and let you finish.’

Declan shook his head. ‘We’ve finished the work stuff, Theo, you’re not disturbing us at all. What are you doing here?’

‘One of my parishioners is on palliative care and her daughter rang to see if I could visit.’

At this, Morgan thought about Josie mentioning how lonely she was. ‘Bless you, that’s a nice thing to do. How sad for them both.’