Free Tangled Web by Ken McClure

failing to come up with an alternative.
    ‘What d’you mean, bits?’
    ‘Dismembered remains.’
    ‘Are you telling me that the child’s body had been dismembered?’ asked Harcourt, his voice rising with incredulity.
    ‘No, no … there was no child’s body,’ spluttered Prosser angrily. ‘Just bits, assorted human bits, lungs, kidneys, a heart maybe and I saw a finger among the mess.’
    ‘Bloody hell,’ exclaimed Harcourt, suddenly getting the picture. ‘Have you spoken to anyone in Pathology yet?’
    ‘Just a mortuary technician; he wasn’t on duty yesterday. No one else was in when I called.’
    ‘I’ll get on to them right away and get back to you. Give me your number.’
    Prosser gave him the number and added, ‘The child’s funeral is at eleven. We need the body.’
    ‘Do the parents know about this?’
    ‘The father was present when I opened the box.’
    ‘Oh my God, worse and worse,’ gasped Harcourt. ‘Something tells me we’re in big trouble over this one.’
    ‘You speak for yourself,’ said Prosser. ‘It’s nothing to do with me. My driver collected the coffin in good faith and remember … the funeral’s at eleven.’
    A frantic search of the mortuary fridge failed to come up with the body of Megan Griffiths. Harcourt stood beside consultant pathologist, Peter Sepp, becoming more and more agitated as he watched the proceedings. ‘What the hell am I going to tell the parents?’ he demanded in an angry urgent whisper.
    Sepp’s expression was cast in stone. ‘There’s only one explanation,’ he said, as the head technician closed the fridge doors and gave a final shake of the head. ‘The child’s body must have got mixed up with the biological waste bag …’
    Harcourt looked at him as if he couldn’t believe his ears. ‘The biological waste bag?’ he repeated slowly.
    ‘The bits we don’t need when we’re finished with them,’ said Sepp. ‘They go into a biological waste bag for disposal along with clinical refuse from the theatres.’
    Harcourt gave himself a few moments to let nightmare images dissipate before asking, ‘Can’t you recover the child from the bag then?’
    Sepp shook his head and looked at Harcourt directly. ‘I’m afraid not,’ he said. ‘It gets taken to the incinerator every night.’
    Harcourt felt himself go weak at the knees, as the full implication of what he was hearing became apparent. ‘Let me get this straight,’ he said, ‘You’re telling me that pathological … offal was put into Megan Griffiths’ coffin while her body was sent to the hospital incinerator in a biological waste bag?’
    ‘That’s what it looks like,’ agreed Sepp reluctantly.
    ‘Jesus Christ! How in God’s name could something like that happen?’ demanded Harcourt in a barely controlled whisper in deference to the fact that several of Sepp’s technical staff were still within earshot.
    A shake of the head from Sepp, ‘I really don’t know,’ he said.
    ‘Christ the lawyers will be gathering like hyenas round a dead mammoth when they hear this,’ said Harcourt. ‘Find out who’s responsible. Blame has to be apportioned and seen to be apportioned otherwise we’ll all be tarred with the same brush.’
    ‘You’ll tell the parents?’ asked Sepp.
    ‘I can’t imagine a queue forming to compete for the privilege,’ said Harcourt sourly.
    Harcourt’s pager went off and he picked up the phone mounted on the tiled mortuary wall. His expression suggested he wasn’t hearing good news. ‘Tell them we’ll issue a statement in due course,’ he snapped before slamming the phone back on its hook. ‘It’s started,’ he complained. ‘The father must have been on to the papers already. The Bangor Times wants to know if the rumours are true. Have we really lost a baby’s body? God, it’ll be TV and the nationals by lunchtime and something tells me they’re going to think losing the body would actually have been preferable to the truth when they find