The Alex King Series, A BATEMAN [good books for high schoolers .TXT] 📗

The official authorisation should be here within the hour, I don’t want any further delays.”

29

 

There was something about the clinical, almost voyeuristic process of an autopsy that left King cold. The final indignity, as if death wasn’t enough. The humiliation of being taken apart and scrutinised, samples removed and then to be roughly sown back together and the waste sluiced down a drain seemed so far removed from the being who had existed shortly before. No wonder Caroline, and many like her throughout her curious profession thought of the dead as nothing more than merely fat, muscle and bone did not surprise King. He had battled for years to justify, to be able to live with what he had both seen and done. He always knew he did it for a cause, for the freedom and protection of the oblivious people he lived amongst. His country.

He was no stranger himself to death. He had killed in the heat of battle. Not great company advancements in a regular army, but secret wars. Deniable affairs with little in the way of support. All-out close quarter battle with guerrillas and terrorists. He had gunned down people who had been trying to kill him. He had gunned down people who posed a threat to his country or the western world. He had killed with a knife, made death look like an accident and he had even killed with his bare hands. The first lives he had taken had been without a weapon, and he still thought of what happened, and the two men whose lives he had taken that night. It was part of the baggage that travelled with him, for all these years on the path that had been shaped for him by second chances and secretive government departments. In many ways, what he had done for his country since was his way of making amends. Of quantifying his mistakes, of becoming a better man and serving his country as those two men had, and would have continued to if words and actions, drink and ego had not got out of hand. It had been in his nature to attack, to never back down. He had always been that way. On the streets, in the boxing ring, on the run.

A long time ago. Another life.

King had watched Amanda Cunningham remove Snell’s organs and place each in various dishes and containers. He had watched the measured way she had peeled back the flesh, the muscle, prise the bone apart or make significant cuts and remove the necessary body parts. The way she had dissected the organs, taken samples and placed in a selection of test-tubes and petri dishes.

He had watched, but found the experience cold and dispassionate. He wondered how a woman like Amanda Cunningham would get into the profession. He had taken himself outside to get some fresh air, to air the stink of death from his clothes, his skin. He wondered if it was why Amanda Cunningham drank. She clearly had a problem. The excessive amount she consumed, the denial afterwards in the sobering light of day.

He took out his phone and checked the display. Nothing from Caroline. He quickly texted: Are you ok? Call me xxx. He fired it off, then instantly regretted it. They had a rule. But they were on separate missions and he needed to know if she was safe and well. He hoped she was not stewing over Amanda Cunningham staying at the same hotel. He needed to fill her in when he could, but he still thought he’d keep quiet about their ill-fated dinner at the cottage. That was a mistake, and nothing happened. Nor was it even on the cards to happen. Naivety and stupidity. Both Caroline and King worked on a need to know basis, and as far as he was concerned, this would be one of those times.

King wandered through the connecting corridor, bought a cup of tea at the hospital café and walked back around the main building. The hospital was a large site, with what looked to be four main buildings and a connecting corridor running between them. Many people were choosing instead to walk on the paths between the neatly kept lawns. He crossed over a helicopter landing pad, passed by the accident and emergency department and walked back around to the pathology unit. He sipped his tea, perched on a wall and thought back to the house on the Roseland Peninsular. Helena Snell and Viktor Bukov did not kill Sir Ian Snell. He had caught enough of their conversation in Russian to know that they hadn’t been anywhere near. But he was troubled nonetheless. Something was going on and he needed to connect the dots. He took out his mobile phone again, checked to see if there was a message from Caroline. There wasn’t. He just hoped she was ok.

King had lost count of the amount of times luck had saved him. The amount of times he had walked away, when others every bit as good or as professional as him had died. He had begun to question whether he had been blessed with luck. Not from his childhood, that was for sure. Not many children would have lived a worse life than he had. Not children born and raised in Britain, at least. He had known hunger and pain. He had known true fear and despair. He had been beaten by his mother’s succession of partners. He had gone days, looking after his younger brothers and sisters, without money to buy them food, or to pay the rent, while his mother had been coming down or out dealing drugs. But he had survived. Survived the care homes after she had died. Survived life on the streets. Survived when he had a contract put on him by boxing promoters who had lost a fortune when he refused to take a dive in the ring. He had