Tools of the Trade

Chapter 6

Six

Once back at Gravesend, Guthrie headed straight for the incident room and the coffee pots. His hands had not warmed up and his fingers were still numb. He just wanted to wrap them round a hot mug.

Alisdair had checked-in with the incident room coordinator, asking for messages and updates. He made some notes then walked over to Guthrie and handed him a piece of notepaper. "Post-mortem scheduled for eight tomorrow morning, sir.” Alisdair waited for a response from Guthrie who was too busy trying to get the lid on his travel mug. "I put the time on the note for you, sir, along with my mobile number."

"Huh? Oh, aye. Thanks, Alisdair,” Guthrie managed, still fiddling with the cup and lid combination. "Thanks for this." He waived the piece of paper noisily in the air and started towards the door. "Alisdair."

"Yes, sir"

"Look, I'm sorry. I've still to get my head around this...this..." he looked at the room and activity around him. "this stuff today. I thought I was going on holiday, a long overdue holiday, and this came up." Alisdair looked sympathetic and nodded. Guthrie wasn't sure, however, if the sympathy was genuine or just an attempt on Alisdair's part to try to understand the concept of a life beyond the uniform that probably fell completely outside the young man's thinking, but he kept on anyway. "Never mind. I'll meet you back here in the morning — let’s say nine. In the meantime, I'll head back south and grab some things that'll make my stay here a little more productive come tomorrow, and you can find out as much as you can about our Mr Gant. Make sure Family Services has made contact with his next o' kin and get all the relevant details on him. Since the PM is first thing, we won’t have to wait too long before we get the preliminary results. You and I can work out a plan of action first thing, brief your boss, and then hit the road. As soon as the call from the pathologist comes in here, they can phone us. We’ll see what we've got to go on at that point."

"Yes, sir. Of course." Alisdair had been taking notes and looked up to see the office door closing with a jerk, hitting Guthrie in the process. The sound of liquid hitting tile floor was quickly followed by, "Bugger!"