‘How’s he looking?’ Ravi asked, as Pip unwrapped one side of the tarp, trying to ignore the mess of the back of Jason’s head. She felt detached from the person who had done that, separate somehow, because she’d lived a hundred lifetimes in the hours since. Pip prodded his neck, feeling the muscles beneath his skin, moving down his shoulders over his bloodstained shirt.
‘Rigor has started,’ she said. ‘It begins in the jaw and neck, but it hasn’t got much further than that.’
Ravi stared at her, a question in his eyes.
‘That’s good,’ Pip said, answering the unasked thing. ‘That means we managed to delay the onset… by quite a bit. It hasn’t even reached his lower arms yet. Rigor mortis is normally complete within six-to-twelve hours. He died over six hours ago now, and it’s still only in the upper part of his body. That’s good,’ she said, trying to convince herself as much as Ravi.
‘OK, good,’ Ravi said, the word escaping his mouth as a wisp of cloud in the cold air. ‘And the other thing?’
‘Lividity,’ Pip said. She gritted her teeth and unwrapped a little more of the tarp. She leaned forward and carefully peeled up the back of Jason’s shirt by an inch, peering in closer at the skin underneath.
It looked bruised; a mottled, purple-red tinge from the blood that had pooled inside.
‘Yeah, it’s started,’ Pip said, stepping one leg inside the footwell of the car to get closer. She reached over and pressed her gloved thumb into the skin of Jason’s back. When she pulled it away, the mark of her thumb stayed behind, one small, white half-circle, an island surrounded by discoloured skin. ‘Yes, it’s not fixed. Still blanchable.’
‘Which means…？’
‘Which means that now we’ve flipped him, the blood will move again, start to settle on the other side. Make it look like he hasn’t already been lying in this position for almost five hours. Buy us time.’
‘Thanks, gravity,’ Ravi said with a thoughtful nod. ‘The real MVP.’
‘Right, well.’ Pip ducked her head and moved back out the car door. ‘Now those two processes are really going to kick into high gear because it’s time to –’
‘Microwave him.’
‘Will you stop saying microwave him?’
‘Just supplying the comic relief,’ Ravi said seriously, holding up his gloved hands. ‘That’s my job in the team.’
‘You undersell yourself,’ Pip said, and then pointed to the ice packs dotted around the inside of the car. ‘Can you grab those?’
Ravi did, collecting them up in his arms. ‘Still frozen solid. We got it really cold in there.’
‘Yeah, we did well,’ Pip said, moving to the front of the car and opening the driver’s side door.
‘Just going to take these back,’ Ravi gestured at the ice packs.
‘OK, rinse them off, in case they smell like – you know,’ Pip called. ‘Oh and, Ravi, see if you can find cleaning supplies in there. Anti-bac spray, some cloths. A broom maybe, so we can do a sweep for any hairs.’
‘Yeah, I’ll have a look,’ he said, running off towards the office building, kicking up the gravel around him.
Pip lowered herself into the driver’s seat, a glance over her shoulder at Jason Bell, keeping her eyes on him. Alone again. Just the two of them in this small, confined space. And even though he was dead, Pip didn’t trust him not to grab her when her back was turned. Don’t be silly. He was dead, six-hours dead, even though he only looked like he’d been gone for two. Dead, and helpless, not that he ever deserved any help.
‘Don’t try and make me feel bad for you,’ Pip told him quietly, turning away to study the buttons and dials on the control panel. ‘You evil piece of shit.’
She grabbed the dial – currently on the coldest setting – and turned it all the way to the other side, the notch pointing to a bright red triangle. The system was already on the highest number, a 5, the incoming air hissing loudly through the vents. Pip held her gloved hand out in front of one and kept it there as the air went from cool to warm, to hot. Like a hairdryer held close to her fingers. This wasn’t an exact science; she didn’t know by how much this would be able to raise Jason’s body temperature. But the air felt hot enough to her, and they had some time to heat him up, while they dealt with the rest of the scene. But not too long, because the heat would start to accelerate the rigor and the livor mortis. It was a balancing act between the three factors.