Connie imagined his expression as one of gratitude. Hadn’t this been what he’d longed for? It wasn’t vengeance. The protection of future potential victims was the worthiest cause there was. She took no joy from it.

As the light re-entered the box and fresh rain hit her face, Fergus/Harris surrendered to his first and last true death.

Connie gulped the blissful air of freedom. Her left eye throbbed, swollen shut, her arms burning with the acid of strain, body bruised.

They lifted her out to a waiting stretcher; Meggy, Elspeth and Baarda already gone.

‘Might as well leave him where he is,’ she muttered as police began the process of removing Fergus/Harris’ corpse from the coffin.

‘Dr Woolwine.’ Ailsa Lambert appeared alongside the stretcher. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I am now,’ Connie said.

The chief pathologist turned her glance to the body being lifted from the ground.

‘Have you been practising more of that corpse whispering I witnessed previously?’

‘It didn’t start out that way,’ Connie said. The world was greyer than usual, and the pathologist’s face was veering in and out of focus. She lifted her hand, a length of leather still clutched in her fist. ‘You’ll be needing this as evidence.’

Chapter Forty-Two

Connie perched on the edge of Baarda’s bed, reading a newspaper. She’d been allowing him to rest intermittently then reading him an article she found particularly amusing or outrageous. Mainly politics, some entertainment. No true crime stories. Enough of that. It had been three days. Visitors had come and gone – a steady stream of them – many travelling from London just to spend thirty minutes talking quietly to an unresponsive man. Baarda had no idea how popular he really was. Connie made a mental note to remind him of the fact when he was up to more lectures from her.

Even his wife had made a brief appearance. She’d managed to sit at his bedside for all of fifteen minutes before deciding the charade was too ridiculous to pull off.

‘He’s a good man,’ Connie had told her. ‘For reasons best known to himself, he still loves you.’

‘I’m sorry, when did my marriage become your business?’ his wife had hissed.

‘When he and I put our lives in each other’s hands. It’s amazing how much you begin to care about someone in those circumstances,’ Connie said. ‘Listen, it’s really not that difficult. Just decide if you want him or not. If not, then do the decent thing and set him free.’

‘How dare you comment on my personal life.’

‘How dare you fuck my partner’s colleague without any visible signs of remorse, or even an acknowledgement of the pain you’re causing,’ Connie said.

‘I could make your professional life very uncomfortable indeed,’ Mrs Baarda had hissed.