Free Wet Graves by Peter Corris Page B

corpse—the man had been of shorter, blockier build than Brian Madden and had lacked his thick pepper and salt hair. Bald, anonymous and dead. There’s not much to say about a corpse that’s been in the water a while. It’s as if the sea has wiped away status, career, personality, history, the lot. I shook my head and the drawer slid back with scarcely a sound. The label on the front read DROWNED MALE.
    The attendant moved a plastic bucket aside with his foot. He’d had it all ready to bring into use. He looked almost apologetic. “You’ve done this before,” he said.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œSo had the last copper who was here. Didn’t matter. I still had to use the bucket.”
    We held the door open and we went out into the corridor where the all was warmer but still smelled of death. “The police are interested in this one, are they?” I said.
    He shrugged. Maybe he only liked to talk about buckets.
    Back at the desk I surprised the aspiring medico running a pink marker pen through a paragraph in a physiology textbook. He looked guilty. “Important passage,” he said.
    â€œGood luck to you. Can you give me the name of the policeman who asked you to keep that list?”
    He tapped his teeth with the pen. “Sergeant Meredith.”
    â€œDid he leave you his number?”
    â€œI think so.” He searched among the books, pens, papers and used tissues on his desk, examined several slips of paper with writing on them, but shook his head each time. “I can’t find it, but it doesn’t matter. He’s due in now with someone to look at the body. You can talk to him in person.”
    â€œMeredith’s personally bringing someone in to look at the body?”
    â€œYes, probably a relative.”
    â€œI showed you my private enquiry agent licence before.”
    â€œYou did.”
    â€œI’m working on a missing persons case.”
    â€œI guessed that. Not your subject in the drawer, eh?”
    â€œNo. What makes you think the sergeant’s got hold of a relative?”
    â€œI think he said so on the phone. He’s a pleasant chap. We’ve talked a bit. I’ve a knack for getting people to talk. When I’m a doctor …”
    â€œWhich I’m sure you will be.”
    â€œThank you. It could be useful.”
    â€œCertainly. Do you know why the police are so interested in this body, doctor?”
    He let go one of the few smiles the place would see all day. “I heard the sergeant say something about another bridge case. I didn’t know what that meant. The harbour bridge, I assume. But those injuries aren’t consistent with a fall …”
    I didn’t hear the rest of what he said. I was out through the door and down the steps looking along the street for a place to hide. I stood in a shop doorway near the Ross Street corner and watched a young, smartly dressed man climb out of a red Holden Commodore, open the back door and escort a small, middle-aged woman to the steps of the morgue. Another car drew up, parked illegally, and a big man in a rumpled suit got out and joined the pair on the steps. They went in and I waited. When they came out the woman was distressed, leaning on the young man’s arm and holding a handkerchief to her face. The other man, whom I’d tagged as Meredith by now, talked briefly with them, patted the woman’s shoulder and went off to his car. I scooted down the street for mine and was sitting in it, ready to go left or right, when the Commodore, moving slowly as if it was already part of a funeral procession, turned out of Arundel Street.
    The Commodore turned left into Parramatta Road, and I had to skip through a second of red light to stay behind. A bad start Do that to someone who suspects he’s being followed, and it’s like turning on a siren. But the Commodore driver didn’t react. He drove steadily in the centre lane up past the railway and