Free Surrender by Donna Malane

running. They shuffled together so I could join them in the front seat. The interior smelt strongly of peppermints which I guessed from the synchronous jaw movements both guys were sucking. Without comment, the peppermint roll was angled towards me. A Lifesaver. Hang out with cops, pathologists and funeral directors long enough and you get to associate the smell of peppermint with the stench of death.
    The driver was just starting to reverse when Robbie appeared at my window. He handed me his card and I scrabbled in my shoulder bag and then handed him mine. He murmured about having written his home number on the back and I nodded.
    There wasn’t much talk on the drive back to town. These guys weren’t going to let conversation get in the way of their impressive sound system, so we listened to Ben Harper sing about fighting for his mind. I suspected the boys had mixed a bit of leaf with their tobacco, but I didn’t mind. They drove the whole way under fifty km per hour which suited me just fine. One of the smoothest rides you’ll ever get is in a hearse. Wasted on the dead, I thought, as I tapped the numbers from Robbie’s card into my iPhone, tellingmyself it was simply because I was always losing business cards.
    I sucked powerfully on my Lifesaver and settled in to enjoy the trip back over the Wainui hill. I thought about John Doe resting languidly in his wheelbarrow in the back. In all likelihood I’d never discover who he was. He’d lie around the Wellington Hospital morgue until the coroner made a call on how he’d died, and then if no one claimed him, he’d be cremated and his ashes stuck in an unmarked hole in the ‘memorial wall’ at the Karori cemetery. At least he’d have company there.
    I thought about the old custom of bribing gravediggers to bury paupers in existing plots. When Mum died my aunt arranged to have her buried in the old family plot. During the arrangements with the sexton, she uncovered historical records that listed two unnamed strangers buried alongside my great-grandmother. My aunt was horrified and wanted these uninvited guests removed, but I was strangely comforted by the thought that Mum wasn’t lying there with only her own ancestors — that some strangers had dropped in. A gregarious person in life, I reckoned Mum would have liked that.
    We’d driven all the way to the Basin Reserve before Ben stopped singing. I noticed how people in the cars alongside the hearse glanced nervously at us and then looked quickly away. The boys beside me stared straight ahead. I don’t think they realised the music had stopped.
    ‘Is Smithy doing the autopsy on this one?’
    The guy next to me shifted his feet around what I had thought was a KFC takeaway box but now realised was someone’s ashes.
    ‘Yup,’ he said, reaching to push the ejecting CD back in. ‘I think he’s on all this week.’
    I thought I’d try my luck before Ben started up again. ‘Did he handle that stabbing from Cuba Street?’
    Ben drowned out his response, but I caught the nod and at the same time a cry went up from the Basin. I don’t think anyone was celebrating the news that Smithy had cut Snow open from sternum to pubis, but I’d be happy to join in if they were. More likely someone had just hit a six on the cricket grounds. The traffic lights turned green, Ben Harper whined again about fighting for his mind, and the hearse purred forward into Adelaide Road.
     
    I helped the boys unload the wheelbarrow and roll it into the hospital morgue discreetly hidden away in one of the older buildings of the spanking new hospital. While they went in search of munchies from the tuck-shop, I checked the paperwork and read that pathologist Dr Grant Smith, aka Smithy, was down to perform the autopsy on my John Doe at ten o’clock the next day.
    I took the opportunity to flick back a few pages, and confirmed that Smithy had also performed the autopsy on one James Patrick Wilson (aka Snow). There was no clue to the findings