Chapter Five

The next morning on her way to work Cassie saw a gaggle of people milling about on the towpath close to where Bronte had fallen.

Getting closer, she saw that some were aiming their phones at Bronte's balcony or taking selfies, no doubt posting to social media. At the junction of towpath and estate there now lay a drift of flowers in plastic wrap, cards – some home-made – and here and there a tea-light holder. As she passed the pop-up wake, a young woman was just bending down to add another bunch of tulips to the canal-side shrine, her face blurred with tears. Cassie avoided her eye: these public outpourings of sympathy for a stranger made her feel uncomfortable.

She'd been sixteen when the news dropped that Amy Winehouse – Camden's most celebrated resident and recovering druggie – had died after a vodka binge. Her feelings of seemingly inconsolable anguish had endured for weeks on end – something that oddly she couldn't recall experiencing after being told, at the age of four, that both her parents were dead.

Cassie and her friends had done the whole ‘Amy death trip' – holding an overnight vigil outside her home, making a pilgrimage to all the pubs she'd drunk in, and later, travelling to her grave up in Edgware cemetery to light a black candle and (without any sense of irony) drink a bottle of supermarket own-label vodka. But in the last few years she'd witnessed Amy's transformation from a real person with a huge talent into a brand, and Camden turned into a magnet for death tourists. It made Cassie uneasy: sure, there was genuine admiration but it was clear that many were getting a fix of ersatz angst at the avoidable death of a troubled young woman.

Surely Bronte wasn't big enough yet for her death to have the same impact?

Fifteen minutes later she got her answer. Rounding the corner into the mortuary car park she blinked at the scene that confronted her. There were two TV crews filming the mortuary, a Japanese female reporter in a suit doing a piece to camera, and a bunch of random civilians aiming their phones at the building.

WTF?

Clearly they had heard that Bronte's body was here. Crossing the car park, Cassie felt her blood pressure spike as she bumped into a young woman with a buzz cut dyed pink, who was walking backwards while filming on her phone. Swinging round, she pulled a big fake smile and said, ‘Sorry, my bad!' but then fell into step alongside Cassie. ‘I'm Charly' – pausing to allow Cassie to introduce herself, an invitation she ignored. ‘You look like you work here? It's terrible news isn't it. Did you see Bronte come in?'

Cassie said nothing but it didn't stop the questions. ‘Has anyone viewed the body? When will we find out how she died?' By now they had reached the mortuary entrance. ‘Could you give me a quote?' asked Charly.

‘Sure.' Cassie smiled. ‘Go fuck yourself.'

Only then did she realise that the woman had been filming her all along, with her phone held casually at waist height. Marvellous.

She swiped herself in as fast as she could, horribly aware of the arc of phones and cameras aimed at her. Jesus. Was this a taste of what life had been like for Bronte?

She went straight into the mortuary manager's office. ‘Christ, Doug, have you seen .?.?.?'

‘I know, I know.' Doug was a worrier at the best of times, but now his face was creased and pale and he was rubbing his sternum like he did whenever he got an attack of acid.

‘What is wrong with people?' fumed Cassie, digging in her bag for some antacid tabs. ‘Aren't they trespassing?'

‘It's a grey area apparently,' he sighed. ‘But the police are on their way: they can order them to disperse to avoid a public nuisance.'

‘Thank Christ! Imagine coming to view a body of someone you loved and facing that.' She shook her head. ‘Are Bronte's .?.?. I mean, Sophia's family coming in?'

Doug nodded. ‘Yes, her mother and father are due in about an hour – I thought that would give you enough time to make her .?.?. respectable.'

‘I'm not a miracle worker,' she muttered, picturing her damaged face and stoved-in head.

‘I know you'll do your best. At least there's no PM list today. Oh, and just so you know, the parents separated years ago, can't stand each other apparently, but they've called a truce to view the body together because it's what Sophie would have wanted.'

‘Oh great,' said Cassie, handing him the tablets. Estranged couples could be a nightmare: rather than uniting them, the death of a child often brought old grievances bubbling to the surface.

Doing without a shower, she got straight into scrubs before going to prep Bronte for viewing.

After transferring the body-bagged figure to a trolley she wheeled it into the autopsy suite. Since there were no post-mortems scheduled, Jason was rostered off, which meant no dance music on the radio, no whistling and no tacky comments. That helped her mood. You could keep your spa days, whale music and yoga – the solitary moments she spent here with only her guests for company was the closest she ever got to chilled.

Extracting Bronte from the body bag was easier now that rigor was fading. Again she covered her nakedness, this time with the red plush viewing coverlet, before casting an eye over her damaged face and head. After the PM she had carefully padded out her smashed skull with cotton wool and lint, more or less restoring the natural curve of her head, but the lividity that stained her face purple from the side of the temple down past her jaw presented more of a challenge.

‘OK, Bronte, let's get you looking nice for your mum and dad.'

Cassie noticed that her right eye had reopened, and seemed to be sending her a hostile look.

Don't be ridiculous , she told herself.

She reached for some cotton wool. Lifting the eyelid gently, she used tweezers to place a wisp on the eyeball before lifting the eyelid down over it. ‘The slight friction will keep your eyes closed,' she murmured, repeating the routine with the left eye and smoothing down the lids.

Luckily, the skin over the cheekbone was still intact so it didn't need micro-stitching. Cassie got to work with some concealer and foundation she'd bought on her way in – and ten minutes later was applying a final dusting of powder. The lividity was still there but no more than a shadow now.

She had washed and towel-dried Bronte's long, curly, near-black hair the previous day but it was still damp. Firing up the hairdryer she kept in her locker she lifted each hank of hair to dry over her fingers. ‘You always had fabulous hair, so thick,' she said. It proved a godsend now, concealing the neat stitches Cassie had used to repair the ear-to-ear incision over the top of her head.

Having arranged Bronte's hair around her face, she stood back to assess her efforts. Not bad at all given what she'd had to work with, although the one-sided swelling to Bronte's face gave it the suggestion of a sneer.

As if she were saying: Is that the best you've got?