Chapter 25: The Morgue
[Moriarty's Flat, Southwark — November 3, 2008, 11:00 AM]
The problem arrived through Protocol Three: a client whose associate had died in custody, and whose post-mortem was about to reveal toxicology results that would transform a routine death-in-custody investigation into a murder inquiry.
"The associate was poisoned before arrest," Priya explained, projecting the case file onto the whiteboard. "Potassium chloride injection, masked as a diabetic episode. Clean, except the pathologist at St. Bart's is good. If the tox screen comes back detailed, they'll find the injection site. The client needs the report altered or the samples contaminated before the analysis is complete."
"Timeline?"
"Post-mortem is scheduled for next week. Samples go to the lab within forty-eight hours of examination. After that, the data enters the system and can't be erased without triggering audit flags."
James studied the file. The mathematics were straightforward: they needed someone inside St. Bartholomew's Hospital who could access the morgue, the pathology lab, or both. Someone with legitimate credentials. Someone who could be persuaded.
"Who works the morgue?" he asked.
Priya pulled up a second file. Staff list—four pathologists, six technicians, three administrative staff. She'd already highlighted the vulnerabilities: a technician with a gambling problem (too similar to Cooper; patterns repeated were patterns detected), an administrator going through a divorce (emotional volatility, unreliable), and—
"Molly Hooper," Priya said. "Twenty-seven. Junior pathologist. Imperial College, then Bart's. Published twice in the Journal of Forensic Pathology. Single. Quiet. Her colleagues describe her as talented but overlooked."
"Criminal record?"
"Nothing. Not even a parking ticket. She volunteers at an animal shelter on weekends. She's as clean as they come."
"Which makes her either impossible to turn or desperate for attention."
"Her social media is minimal—a cat blog with eleven followers. No relationship history worth mentioning. She eats lunch alone in the cafeteria more days than not." Priya paused. Pushed her glasses up. "She's lonely, Jim. That's the vulnerability."
James stood. Walked to the window. The view hadn't changed in eight months—rooftops, aerials, the particular geometry of Southwark—but his relationship to it had. He'd stood at this window after the Millbrook job with bruised knuckles and shaking hands. He'd stood here after Fletcher's death with steady hands and a blank interior. Each time, the view was the same and the man was different.
"I'll need a cover," he said. "Something that gives me legitimate reason to be in the building. Something beneath notice."
"IT support," Priya said. "Bart's contracts its IT through a third-party firm. I can insert credentials into the contractor database. You'd be just another technician doing a system upgrade."
"Jim from IT."
"Jim from IT."
The irony wasn't lost on him. In the show—the fragments he could still recall, eight months into a life that was rapidly overwriting the memories of the one before—Moriarty had used exactly this cover. Jim from IT. The disguise so mundane it was invisible.
The difference was that the canon Moriarty had been playing a role. James would be doing the same thing—but the role he'd be playing was closer to who he'd actually been, before the crash, before the transmigration, before the criminal empire. An ordinary man. A nobody. The kind of person who fixed printers and apologised for the inconvenience.
"Set it up," James said. "I'll go in Wednesday."
---
[St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Smithfield — November 5, 2008, 12:35 PM]
The cafeteria at Bart's smelled of institutional cooking and disinfectant—the universal olfactory signature of hospitals, identical on both sides of the Atlantic. James collected a sandwich and a coffee from the counter, paid with coins, and scanned the room.
She was at a corner table. Alone, as Priya had predicted. Brown hair pulled back loosely, a few strands escaping. White coat over a jumper that was slightly too large—the kind of clothing choice that prioritised comfort over presentation. She was reading something on her phone and eating a yoghurt with the mechanical rhythm of someone who treated lunch as fuel rather than pleasure.
James sat two tables away. Close enough for proximity. Far enough for plausible coincidence. He opened a technical manual—printed that morning, prop material—and pretended to read while constructing his approach.
The pen was a standard move. He'd learned it from a negotiations textbook in his previous life: create a small moment of mutual action that bypasses social barriers. He placed a biro on the edge of his tray, positioned so that a slight bump would send it rolling.
He bumped the tray. The pen rolled. Stopped at her foot.
Molly looked down. Picked it up. Held it out to him with a smile that was hesitant and genuine in equal measure—the smile of a person who'd been trained by experience to expect that strangers wouldn't notice her.
"Thanks," James said. Soft voice. Irish accent dialled down to a murmur—warm, unthreatening, the vocal equivalent of a cardigan. "Sorry about that."
"No worries. I'm always dropping things. Pens, keys, once an entire tray of histology slides." She winced at the memory. "That was a bad day."
"I can imagine. Jim, by the way. IT."
"Molly. Pathology."
"Pathology? That's the—"
"Dead people department, yes." The words came with practised resignation, the disclaimer of someone who'd watched too many dinner companions lose their appetites. "It's less grim than it sounds."
"I wasn't going to say grim. I was going to say interesting. Dead people can't lie about their symptoms."
Molly blinked. The hesitant smile widened by a degree. "No. No, they can't. That's actually... that's exactly right. Living patients can be terrible historians. Dead ones are very straightforward."
"Honest to a fault."
"Literally." She laughed—short, surprised, the laugh of someone who wasn't accustomed to people matching her sense of humour. "Sorry. Pathology jokes. Occupational hazard."
"I fix computers. My jokes involve turning things off and on again. Trust me, you're winning."
The conversation should have lasted five minutes. A contact established, a rapport initiated, a foundation laid for the next approach. James had scripted it: introduce, connect, withdraw, return. The cultivation playbook he'd used with Cooper, with Vance, with every asset he'd developed since March.
But Molly kept talking. And the things she said were—not what he'd expected.
She described a case from that morning: a body pulled from the Thames, cause of death unclear, and the puzzle of determining whether the drowning was ante-mortem or post-mortem. The way she explained it—precise vocabulary, animated gestures with the yoghurt spoon, genuine fascination with the forensic methodology—was compelling. Not because it was useful (though it was; understanding forensic procedures was operationally valuable). Because it was real. She cared about the work the way James cared about systems—not for the outcomes, but for the elegance of the process.
"Sorry," she said, catching herself. "I'm going on. You probably don't want to hear about decomposition rates over lunch."
"Actually, I do. The temperature dependency is fascinating. Does water salinity affect the timeline?"
"Significantly. Fresh water accelerates it. Salt water preserves. The Thames is brackish, so—" She stopped. Studied him. "You're actually interested."
"I'm actually interested."
The silence that followed was different from the calculated pauses James deployed in client meetings or asset cultivations. It was unscripted. Comfortable. The silence of two people who'd unexpectedly found themselves enjoying each other's company.
"Your coffee's getting cold," Molly said. "I should—I mean, I need to get back. But this was nice. Talking to someone who doesn't look horrified when I mention lividity."
"It was nice."
"Same time tomorrow? I mean—if you're around. For the IT thing. No pressure."
"I'll be around."
She left. James sat with his cold coffee and his prop manual and the pen that had started all of it. The sandwich was mediocre—pre-packaged, the bread slightly damp, the filling indeterminate. Hospital food. He ate it anyway, because the alternative was admitting that he'd spent forty minutes talking to a target and forgotten to be hungry.
She's an asset. A means to an end. Morgue access, forensic expertise, evidence manipulation.
The internal recitation was accurate. It was also incomplete, and the incompleteness was the problem.
Walking out of Bart's, past the porters and the patients and the particular atmosphere of institutional suffering that hospitals carried like a scent, James caught himself doing something unexpected.
He was smiling.
He stopped. The smile died. Smiling wasn't part of the plan. Molly Hooper was an asset, nothing more. He told himself this twice, once on the steps and once on the pavement.
It didn't help.
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