Stone Cold by Andrew Lane

had given him a lift back to Oxford – about the strange creature living in the woods near that strange house. It
suddenly gave Sherlock an opportunity that he had thought he might have to manufacture himself. ‘Talking of bits of bodies,’ he said, deliberately roughening his tone a bit to match the
journalist’s, ‘what ’appened at the mortuary then? I hear there was some thefts there. Nothin’ to do with this creature then?’
    Dunbard nodded. ‘’S right. Strangest thing I ever heard of. Couldn’t make it up, if you know what I mean. ’Parently it’s been ’appening for a while –
someone dies, their body is brought into the mortuary for an autopsy, an’ then they’re sent off for burial, but it turns out that there’s less of the bodies bein’ buried
than there was at the autopsy. Always different bits missin’ – eyes, ears, hands, feet, anythin’. I did wonder if it was connected to that monster story, but I reckon it’s
just students muckin’ around.’
    ‘Bodysnatchers?’ Sherlock ventured, remembering the lecturer at Christ College.’
    ‘Nah – they’d’ve taken the whole body. That’s where the money is. Bits of bodies aren’t worth anything.’
    ‘How did it get discovered?’
    He laughed – a bitter sound, like a barking dog. ‘Gent buried ’is wife, then realized she’d been interred along with ’er weddin’ ring, some earrings an’
a pearl necklace, so he ’ad her disinterred. Trouble is, the ears was missin’. Cue big rumpus an’ lots of runnin’ around.’
    ‘And nobody knows where these body parts have gone, or who took them?’
    Dunbard shook his head. ‘Not a clue. The police’re stumped. We’ve run out of different ways of reportin’ the case, so we’ve stopped runnin’ the
story.’
    ‘Didn’t I read that the police questioned a lecturer from Christ Church College?’
    ‘That’s right,’ Dunbard confirmed. ‘We never actually named ’im, because it turned out ’e had an alibi for all the dates on which things went
missin’.’
    ‘And did you ever talk to the pathologist in the mortuary?’ Sherlock asked. It was an important question, as the answer would dictate what he did next, but he tried to make his tone
as innocent as possible.
    ‘Nah. Tried to, but ’e wouldn’t see me.’ He shrugged. ‘Okay, is that it? Cos I’ve got an important story about silt in the canal to type up.’
    ‘Yes. Thanks.’ Sherlock started to move away, then turned back. ‘Sorry, but do you have a business card, or a visiting card or something? Just in case I have any more
questions?’
    Dunbard reached into his shirt pocket and took out a slip of cardboard. ‘’Ere’s me details, but you can find me in this place most days.’ As Sherlock was walking away he
heard the man saying, more to himself than to Sherlock, ‘an’ to think I left the
London Gazette
for this. Supposed to be more responsibility, but the office cat gets out more
than I do!’
    Sherlock tucked the business card into a pocket of his jacket. He had plans for it, and didn’t want it to get lost.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Sherlock left the newspaper building and headed in the direction of the mortuary. Oxford Hospital was an impressive red-brick building set in the middle of a small lawn. The
mortuary was in its own single-storey building, set discreetly off to one side. Walking through the hospital grounds towards it, Sherlock took a deep breath and ran over in his mind the story he
was going to tell. Of course, it all depended on how well-known the reporter Ainsley Dunbard was. If the doctor who carried out the post-mortems on the bodies of the dead knew Dunbard by sight,
then Sherlock’s entire ruse was doomed from the start, but Sherlock had specifically asked Dunbard if he had interviewed the pathologist, and the answer had been in the negative. Surely the
reporter would have mentioned if he had known the pathologist from before?
    The door to the mortuary was white-painted,