Free A Killing Kindness by Reginald Hill Page B

niece?'
    That's right.'
    'Then maybe she'll get in touch with her. I mean, they must have been close.'
    'Maybe,' said Pascoe. 'We'll call you in if it  happens.'
    She dug her elbow in his ribs and soon her  breath steadied into the regularity of sleep.
    Pascoe found sleep difficult, however, and when  it did come, it came in fits and starts and flowed  shallowly over a rocky bed. Ellie was partly responsible by putting the thought of Pauline Stanhope  into his mind, but she would have been there anyway. He always slept badly the night before attending a post-mortem and tomorrow he was due at  the City Mortuary at nine A.M . to attend the last  forensic rites on the body of Pauline Stanhope.
     

 
    Chapter 8
     
    The police pathologist was a swift, economical  worker who never took refuge in the kind of ghoulish heartiness with which some of his colleagues sought to make their jobs tolerable. Pascoe  was glad of this. He liked to enter an almost trance-like state of professional objectivity on these occasions and had already offended the Mortuary Superintendent and the nervous new Coroner's  Officer by his brusque response to their efforts at  socialization.
    The pathologist examined the neck first before  asking the Superintendent to remove the clothes  which were then separately packaged and sent  on their way to the laboratory. After a further  careful examination of the naked body, turning  it over on the slab so that nothing was missed, the  pathologist was ready to make the median incision.  As the scalpel slipped through the white skin, the  Coroner's Officer swayed slightly. This was his first  time, Pascoe had gathered from the man's nervy conversation with the Mortuary Superintendent.  He reached into his pocket, pulled out a notebook,  and tapped the man on the shoulder.
    'Borrow your pen a moment?' he asked brusquely.
    'Yes, of course,' said the man.
    Pascoe scribbled a few notes, then returned the  implement.
    'Thanks,' he said. 'You'd better have it back. Your need's greater than mine. Your boss is a  stickler for detail in all these forms, isn't he?'
    The man managed a pale grin, then began writing at a furious rate.
    After a while Pascoe took his own pen from his pocket and followed suit.
    There was another disturbance, more obvious  this time, about thirty minutes later.
    Voices were heard distantly upraised. After a while the door opened and a porter came in and  spoke quietly to the Mortuary Superintendent who  relayed the information to Pascoe.
    'There's a woman outside with a man. She says  she's the girl's aunt and she's making a fuss about  seeing the body.'
    Pascoe looked at the cadaver on the examination table. The sternum and frontal ribs had been  removed and the omentum cut away so that heart,  lungs and intestine were visible.
    The pathologist continued with his work, undisturbed by the interruption.
    'I'll sort it,' said Pascoe.
    He went out of the examination room, through  the storage room, into a small reception area, where a clerk was holding Rosetta Stanhope at  bay.
    With her, to Pascoe's surprise, was Dave Lee.
    'Mr Pascoe,' she said, 'they say my niece is here. I've a right to see her, haven't I? I'm entitled. I want to see her.'
    Emotion was giving her voice rhythms and  resonances from her childhood, forcing them up through the heavy overlay of conventional urban  Yorkshire.
    'You can't stop her, mister,' said the man. 'It's  her niece.'
    'I'm sorry, Mrs Stanhope,' said Pascoe quietly. 'There's an examination going on just now. When it's all over we'll make arrangements, I promise you.'
    'You've no right to stop her,' said the man  belligerently. 'Like she says, she's entitled.'
    'I don't think you'd want to see her now, Mrs  Stanhope,' said Pascoe. 'Please. Later. It's for the  best.'
    'You mean, they're cutting her up?' asked the  woman.
    'There has to be a post-mortem,' said Pascoe  gently.
    She nodded and Pascoe took her arm and led  her