I was less bothered than he thought. I was the newbie here, and I’d done little to earn any respect beyond managing to avoid bowing to Lady Sullivan. Even if other people were aware of my rising-from-the dead experience, it was more likely to send them running away screaming rather than wanting to be my buddy.
A werewolf, a vampire and a zombie all strolled into a morgue…It had the beginnings of a fine joke. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure there would be much of a punchline.
Becca’s body was laid out waiting for us. I was glad to see that she was in human form. I wasn’t sure what happened to werewolves when they died; if they reverted to animal form, I’d have had considerable difficulty examining Becca. In fact, I didn’t know squat about the physiology of werewolves.
I squared my shoulders and looked her over with a detached eye; at least this was easier than confronting Tony’s corpse.
Becca’s skin already possessed the pallor of the dead. ‘How long has she been dead for?’ I asked, gazing at the network of scars – both old and new – on her body.
The white-coated werewolf pursed her lips. ‘Forty hours, give or take.’
I nodded, peering at the deep slashes on her wrists. ‘And the murder weapon?’
‘She committed suicide,’ Robert answered instantly.
I waved my hand. ‘Whatever. Where is the knife that was used to cut her wrists?’
There was a pause. I glanced up briefly and saw Robert indicating agreement to the morgue technician. She turned, opened a drawer and held up a sealed transparent bag. ‘Here.’
The knife was surprisingly slender. I stared at it for a moment, trying to work out if it was the same one that had killed me. There was no way to be sure without testing it. ‘It needs to be checked,’ I said. ‘We need to know whether there are traces of anyone else’s blood on it besides Becca’s.’
Robert’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why would someone else’s blood be on it? Even if Becca’s death is related to DC Brown’s, you said that he hanged himself.’
I raised my head and regarded him coolly. ‘I’m not required to explain every detail to you. However, it’s important to leave no stone unturned. There is no excuse for shoddy detective work.’
‘Are you implying that we are shoddy?’
‘No.’ My voice was flat. ‘I’m saying that I want to make sure nothing is missed.’
He looked away and sighed. ‘Very well.’
The technician handed the bag to Lukas. He broke the seal and began to draw out the blade.
‘What are you doing?’ I objected. ‘You’ll contaminate it! We have to send it to a lab!’
‘D’Artagnan,’ he said softly, ‘I can find the answer to your question far quicker than any laboratory.’ He raised the knife to his mouth and his tongue flicked against it. I watched him in horror.
‘Well?’ Robert demanded.
Lukas returned the knife to the bag and looked at me, apology in his black-eyed gaze. ‘There is only one blood type on this blade, and it belongs to a werewolf.’
Fine. I turned away. It had been a long shot anyway.
I returned my focus to Becca. Crouching by her head, I brushed away the hair from her neck and gazed at her skin. I squinted and peered closer. Damn it: I couldn’t see any evidence of any miniscule pinpricks that would tally with the one on Tony’s body. I checked her other side. Nothing.
‘If you tell me what you’re looking for then I can help you,’ the technician said irritably. ‘I might be a werewolf, but I’m as good at my job as any human.’
I straightened up. ‘Tony – Detective Constable Brown – had a tiny mark here.’ I indicated the spot on my own neck. ‘The pathologist who conducted his post-mortem believes he was injected with something prior to his death which might have incapacitated him.’
‘I’ve found nothing of that sort here.’
I stood my ground. ‘It was a very small mark. Have you tested her blood?’
The technician regarded me implacably. ‘She slit her own wrists. There’s nothing to test for.’
I waited. Robert sighed. ‘Do the tests,’ he said. ‘We would hate for the Metropolitan Police to think that we weren’t investigating the untimely demise of our own kind thoroughly enough.’
I knew that he was humouring me, but it didn’t matter. As long as I got the results that I wanted, I’d put up with all manner of bullshit.
