Free The Righteous Men (2006) by Sam Bourne

audibly getting
out of the bath.
    ‘But it is complicated. The guy has a kidney missing.’
    ‘You need to see a medical history. Maybe — what’s his name
again?’
    ‘Baxter.’
    ‘Maybe Baxter had a history of renal problems. Any reference to that
or to dialysis or kidney trouble of any kind, and that will give you an
explanation.’
    Will was silent.
    ‘I’m ruining it, aren’t I?’
    ‘Well, if we’re talking news value, the choice between the death
of an old man with a past history of renal failure and an attempted
kidney-snatching is very close. But, yeah, you might be right: the
kidney-snatching probably just edges it.’
    Will was relieved they were back into banter mode. Several days now stood
between them and the row; the wound seemed to be closing.
Thursday, 10.02am, Missoula, Montana
    The next morning, Will was ushered into Dr Russell’s
office. He saw it straight away, a certificate on the wall carrying an emblem
Will recognized: an open book, inscribed with Latin words, topped off by two
crowns.
    ‘Ah, you were at Oxford. Like me. When were you there?’
    ‘Several centuries before you, I suspect.’
    ‘That can’t be true, Dr Russell.’
    ‘Call me Allan.’
    At last, a lucky break. ‘You know, Allan, I’m not even sure I’ll
write about it for the paper, but this Pat Baxter business does intrigue me, I
must confess,’ he began, as if settling down for an agreeable chat at
high table. Will noticed his own English accent had become more pronounced.
    ‘Let me have a look here,’ Russell was saying, as he turned to
his computer. ‘Ah yes, “Severe internal haemorrhaging consistent with
a gunshot wound; contusions of the skin and viscera. General remarks: needle
mark on right thigh, suggestive of recent anaesthesia”.’
    ‘Now, how are you defining “recent” there, Allan?’
Will hoped his tone was saying, Purely out of academic interest …
    ‘Probably contemporaneous.’
    ‘You see this, I have to say, is what intrigues me. Why would anyone
anaesthetize someone before they kill them?’
    ‘Perhaps they were trying to reduce the victim’s pain.’
    ‘Do murderers do that? It makes no sense. Unless—’
    ‘Unless the killer was a medical man. Trained to give a shot before
any procedure. Force of habit perhaps.’
    ‘Or if he wanted to do something else before the murder.
    Perform some other operation.’
    ‘Like?’
    ‘Well, I understand that Baxter was found minus one kidney.’
    Russell began to laugh, in a way Will struggled to find funny. ‘Oh, I
see what you’re driving at.’ Russell was grinning.
    ‘Tell me, Will. Have you ever seen a dead body?’
    Instantly, Will remembered the corpse of Howard Macrae, under a blanket on
that street in Brownsville. His first. ‘Yes.
    In my work it’s hard to avoid.’
    ‘Well, then you won’t mind seeing another one.’
    It was not as cold as he expected. Will imagined a morgue
to be a giant fridge, like those cold storage rooms at the back of large
hotels. This was more like a hospital ward.
    The orderlies were moving a gurney into a curtained-off zone which Will took
to be the examination area. With not even a moment’s warning, Russell
pulled back the sheet.
    Will felt his stomach tighten. The body was stiff and waxy, a yellowish
green. The stench was rancid; seeming to come his way in waves. For a second or
two he would think it had passed, or that at least he had got used to it, and
then it would strike again — inciting Will to empty his guts out on the
floor there and then.
    ‘It can take some getting used to. Apologies. Now take a look at this.’
    Will moved closer. Russell was gesturing towards something in the stomach
area, but Will was transfixed by Pat Baxter’s face. The papers had run
photos, but they were grainy — ‘grabs’ from TV footage
mainly. Now he saw the weathered cheeks, chin, eyes and mouth of a man he would
have identified as middle-aged, poor and white. He had a longish beard that, in
a