Chapter Nine

Cassie's route home took her past the turning to the mortuary, where she was relieved to see that the rubberneckers of earlier had gone, at least for the night. She slowed her pace, struck by a sudden thought. Had she turned off the body store lights when she'd left to go to the pub ? It wasn't like her to forget something like that but still .?.?. Swearing, she dug out her security pass.

Once inside, she opened the door to the body store – and found it pitch-dark, and silent but for the murmur of the giant fridge.

You're losing it.

She flicked the lights on. ‘Goodnight again, everyone,' she said, picturing her guests slumbering behind the wall of polished steel. Her eye fell on the drawer marked ‘Sophia Angelopoulos' and she added, ‘Goodnight, Bronte.'

Her head whipped to the right. What was that? A faint scraping sound from the autopsy suite next door. Then silence. With every sense on high alert she edged towards the door and into the corridor. Heard the scraping again and then a clunk. Turning the handle of the autopsy suite door as quietly as possible, she inched it open – and saw something in one of the frosted-glass windows set high up in the outer wall.

The head and shoulders of a figure silhouetted against the night sky .

‘Hey!' shouted Cassie, flicking on the light switch. She closed her eyes, blinded by the sudden assault of fluorescent light, and heard a loud scrape-thump .

With her heart tap-dancing in her chest she raced out of the main entrance, pulling the door closed behind her. Sprinted around the mortuary to the side where the windows gave onto a narrow strip of concrete path and a line of trees. Only then did she slow her pace, realising she might be in danger.

But all she found there was a ladder lying haphazardly on the concrete. Earlier that day two guys with chainsaws had been cutting back the dense leylandii that screened the mortuary from the hospital car park: they must have left the ladder here to finish up tomorrow.

Cassie stood there panting, feeling her heart jumping around. There was a soft breeze but the black-green of the leylandii foliage was eerily still and silent for a living thing.

She pulled out her phone and turned on the torch. Scoping the area ahead, she could see no sign of life but beyond the corner of the mortuary building, shaded from any lamplight, the rear wall stood in deep darkness. Was somebody hiding in the shadows?

Taking a deep breath, she killed the torch and stepped quietly closer, buoyed by a sense of outrage. If someone had tried to break into her mortuary, threatening her guests, she was going to catch them. Stupid? Maybe. But she'd always had a settled sense of confidence that she could handle herself.

Less than a metre from the corner, a dark figure sprung out.

She yelped in shock, raising her phone, as if that would be any use as a weapon.

‘Cassie?' The face swam into focus.

‘Oh Jesus Christ, Barney, you scared the shit out of me.' Barney was one of the hospital security guards.

‘You and me both! I was having a cig in the car park and I see someone creeping around over here – turns out it was you.' Nodding down at her phone, which she still had half raised like a weapon, Barney gave a wheezing laugh. ‘What were you going to do with that? Insta me to death?'

Cassie was still breathing hard. ‘Did you see anyone else over here, before me?'

He shook his head ‘No, it was the torch that alerted me.'

‘Someone put a ladder up to one of the windows.' She lifted her chin. ‘Could you keep an eye out? In case they come back?'

‘I would do, but I'm going off shift. I could ask Davy when I hand over?'

They shared a sceptical look: Davy didn't stray far from the A maybe, spotting an open window, they'd hoped to sneak an image of the place where ‘Tragic Bronte' had undergone her post-mortem.

Ghouls .

After pulling on her jacket she went back into the body store to turn the lights off.

The vibe in here was usually tranquil, but now she picked up a kind of jangling in the air, as if the attempted intrusion had left her agitated. Fanciful? Probably . But something drew her to the drawer marked ‘Sophia Angelopoulos aka Bronte'. She went to set her hand flat on the steel – and got an electric shock.

Don't leave me!

The words clear, in Bronte's slightly harsh tones, and undercut by a note of desperate appeal.