Stone Cold by Andrew Lane Page A

with panes of frosted glass set into the top. Sherlock knocked smartly on the glass. A voice from inside called: ‘Enter!’
    Sherlock walked in and shut the door behind him. He wasn’t sure what to expect – dead bodies stacked up on shelves perhaps? – and he was a bit nervous as a result, but in fact
he found himself standing in a long corridor that ended with the mortuary’s back door, which appeared to be bolted from the inside. The only indication that he was somewhere medical was the
strong smell of disinfectant that assailed his nostrils.
    ‘Yes – who are you?’ a man said, stepping out of one of the side doors. He wore a white coat and gloves, both stained in ways that Sherlock didn’t want to think about.
The man himself was elderly, with a thick white moustache and white hair that was brushed straight back from his forehead. His face was lined and also tanned. In a part of his mind, Sherlock
wondered if he had been abroad in the recent past.
    ‘My name is Ainsley Dunbard,’ Sherlock said, holding out the business card he had taken from the
real
Ainsley Dunbard and holding his breath. This was the point where his
bluff might be called. ‘I’m a reporter for the
Oxford Post
.’
    ‘You’re a bit young for a reporter, surely?’ the man said, raising bushy eyebrows in surprise. He took off his gloves, reached for the business card and examined it
suspiciously.
    Sherlock took a relieved breath. The man clearly didn’t know who Dunbard was. ‘I’m actually an apprentice,’ he said apologetically. ‘The paper has taken me on so I
can get some work experience. I want to be a full reporter one day.’
    ‘Good for you,’ the man said. ‘I admire someone with a touch of ambition. M’name’s Lukather – Doctor Wilberforce Lukather. What can I do for you?’
    ‘I was hoping that the newspaper could do a feature on you,’ Sherlock said. He wanted, of course, to ask about the theft of body parts, but that would raise Lukather’s
suspicions straight away, and he would probably be refused an interview. On the other hand, if he started off by asking about the job of a pathologist, and then gradually got around to the thefts
– or, even better, Lukather volunteered the information himself – then he would get what he needed and the pathologist would be none the wiser.
    ‘A feature?’ Lukather said, suspicious but intrigued at the same time. ‘Why on earth would anyone want to know about me?’
    ‘Well, it’s the final mystery, isn’t it?’ Sherlock asked, remembering his thoughts after the lecture: ‘What happens when we die? How does a vital, alive person
suddenly become a block of flesh and bone and tissue? What happens to the soul? What happens to the personality? These questions are the kind of thing that would fascinate our readers, and you are
right at the sharp end, dealing with a person’s final moments every day of your life! People will be fascinated!’
    ‘Never really thought about it that way,’ Lukather said, brushing his moustache. ‘Autopsy work has always been the un-regarded cousin of the medical profession.’
    ‘Not any more,’ Sherlock promised. ‘I want to open the whole thing out – get your opinions on the whole business of life and death. Would that be all right?’
    ‘I suppose it would.’ He took a watch from the pocket of his waistcoat. ‘I can spare half an hour, I suppose. I was about to make a pot of tea. Can I interest you in a
cup?’
    Lukather led the way into a small room with several chairs – somewhere that grieving relatives could be comforted, Sherlock assumed. Light was provided by a large skylight in the roof.
They spent the next hour – far longer than the thirty minutes that Lukather had promised – with Sherlock asking questions about the process of death and autopsy, and Lukather answering
them carefully and with due gravity. Despite the fact that he desperately wanted to get on to the subject of the theft of body parts,