Page 90 of A Game of Lies

For one tiny moment, Ffion tortures herself with the idea of seeing Leo every day at work; catching up over a canteen coffee at lunchtime.

‘She said she trusted my judgement on arresting Ceri Jones,’ Leo says bitterly. ‘A judgement I based on the compelling evidence that Ceri’s envelope was the only one to have been taken.’

‘I—’

‘Because you took it!’

‘I messed up, alright!’ Ffion knows she sounds broken, that her throat is thick with the threat of tears.

‘But you’realwaysmessing up. You don’t think things through, and then everything crashes around you, whether it’s work or … or …’ Leo blinks, and there’s a flash of pain in his eyes before they harden again.

‘Or what?’ Ffion says urgently. If he means their relationship, she’ll just do it. She’ll tell him how she really feels, and—

‘Fuck up your career if you want.’ Leo starts walking towards the house. ‘But don’t drag mine down with it. I’m done.’

‘Done with what? You can’t just walk out on a murder investigation.’

‘No, Ffion,’ Leo says, without looking over his shoulder. ‘I’m done with you.’

THIRTY-THREE

TUESDAY | LEO

Bryndare mortuary is an uninviting single-storey building at the rear of the hospital. Leo presses the buzzer and a second later, the door clicks open.

‘Have you been here before?’ George asks, as they follow the mortuary technician through a door and down a long corridor. The smell of disinfectant doesn’t quite mask the underlying stench of death, which grows steadily stronger as they draw nearer to the windowless morgue.

‘Once.’ Leo still remembers the look on Ffion’s face when she realised who she’d be working with on the Rhys Lloyd murder. His own expression must have been pretty similar, he supposes, and, despite everything, a smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. It’s not every day you encounter last night’s one-night stand in a morgue.

Miles Young is already on the slab, his naked body covered with a green sheet. Izzy Weaver, the forensic pathologist, whips it off like a stage magician. ‘The ultimate exposure,’ she says, in lieu of hello. She nods a greeting to George as Leo casts an eye over the body. Miles is lean, rather than toned, with visible hip bones and a bony chest. His hands are encased in paper bags.

‘What are your first impressions?’ Leo asks.

‘I’d say he’s dead,’ Izzy says drily, ‘wouldn’t you?’ She picks up a recording device and holds her finger over the record button. ‘Well-nourished Caucasian male, no visible scalp trauma. There’s a reality TV show for everything nowadays, isn’t there?’

There’s a pause, before Leo realises Izzy is talking to him.

‘Cooking, dancing, ice-skating. Everyone’s an expert after six episodes.’

‘I guess so.’

‘External auditory canals patent and free of blood. They should do one about pathologists.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘A reality TV show. Six amateur sleuths, a fridge full of bodies …’

George grimaces. ‘Bit macabre.’

‘Aren’t they all?’ Izzy presses record. ‘Did you ever seeWho’s Your Daddy?Win a hundred thousand dollars if you can guess which of these twenty-five men is your biological father. Left lower eyelid on the inner conjunctival surface: a one-millimetre petechial haemorrhage.’

‘That’s horrific,’ George says.

‘Very normal for strangulation.’ Izzy examines Miles’s face. ‘No, reality TV shows are the scourge of modern society.’ She presses record again. ‘Similarly sized petechial haemorrhages can be seen on the skin of the upper eyelids.’

‘You didn’t watchExposure, then?’ George asks.

‘I’d rather gouge my eyeballs out with a Durham retractor.’ Izzy resumes her examination, lingering on the angry marks around Miles’s neck. ‘Ligature mark, width approximately three millimetres. Horizontal with upward deviation.’ She stops. ‘Was he sitting down?’

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