Hand for a Hand by Frank Muir Page A

changed, that instant in time when something inside her died. He struggled to force his thoughts back to Jack.
    “Chloe’s scar,” he said. “Why do you remember it so clearly?”
    “She needed a couple of stitches. I took her to the hospital.”
    “You and Chloe were dating?”
    “Yeah.”
    “So, the scar’s recent?”
    “Last summer.” He sniffed again, tugged a hand through clumped hair. “Is that important?”
    “Could be.” He dialled Mackie’s number. It was answered on the second ring. “Bert. Andy here. Have you completed your examination?”
    “Other than spectrographic analysis, yes, I’m more or less finished.”
    Gilchrist puffed out his cheeks, then let out his breath. “Find any scars?”
    “One. On the right hand.”
    A bull butted him in the gut. “Whereabouts?”
    “Base of the thumb. Fairly recent, I’d say.”
    Last summer? Gilchrist pressed his phone hard to his ear as Mackie confirmed size and angle, and concluded with, “It looks like a knife wound.”
    “How about an artist’s palette knife?”
    “That’s an interesting suggestion. But, yes, any kind of knife would make sense. Why do you ask?”
    “Jack’s with me. He might be able to make an ID.”
    “Your son, Jack?”
    “Yes.”
    “Good lord, Andy. Are you saying.…”
    “Nothing definite, Bert. But we’d better take a look at it.” He hung up and glanced at Jack. “I’m sorry, Jack,” he said. “It’s not looking good.”
    “It’s Chloe. I know it is.” His voice sounded steady, as if he was oblivious to the gruesome prospect of examining amputated extremities.
    Gilchrist wondered how on earth he ever got himself into such a morbid job.
    He felt his heart sink. He hated to admit it.
    But Jack was right.
    G ILCHRIST FOUND M ACKIE in the post-mortem room in the Bell Street mortuary, a woman’s body on the stainless steel table in front of him, opened from sternum to pubis. Cruel looking surgical equipment lay on flat metal surfaces. Something wet and slimy and white as brain glistened by a set of scales. The air felt cold, and hinted of decaying flesh and formaldehyde that left an aftertaste on the tongue.
    Mackie caught Gilchrist’s eye, and stepped away from the table.
    Gilchrist introduced Jack, then together they followed Mackie into another room.
    Gurneys lined either side.
    Mackie shuffled forward without a word, and halted at one of the gurneys halfway along on the left. He peeled back a cotton sheet to reveal two clear plastic bags. Through the plastic sheen, the amputated hands looked ghostlike, as if at any moment they could move of their own accord and crawl from their confines. If Gilchrist had any doubts they were from different bodies, they evaporated right then.
    He stood beside Jack. “Ready?”
    Tight-lipped, Jack nodded.
    Gilchrist eyed Mackie.
    Mackie opened one plastic bag, removed a hand, the left one, and placed it palm down on the gurney. Then he did the same with the right hand. He pushed the bags to the side and positioned the hands so they looked as if they were reaching out for Gilchrist.
    Jack let out a rush of breath and took a step back.
    Something clamped Gilchrist’s chest. He stared at the hands, the claws, the lifeless things on the table. They had once belonged to a young woman, once touched and caressed and moved with life. An image of him holding those hands, looking down at those fingers, burst into his mind. He fought off an overpowering urgeto take Jack by the arm and lead him from the room. But his pragmatic side kept him rooted. He had a victim to identify, a murder to solve, and he prayed to God that Jack would simply shake his head and tell him the hands could not be Chloe’s, that they belonged to some other poor soul.
    “The scar should be on the inside,” Jack whispered, and held his own hand out and pointed to the base of his right thumb. “About here.”
    Mackie eyed Gilchrist with an intensity he had not seen in the old man’s eyes since he performed