The Officer in the Oubliette
Chapter Five: Lingua Franca
South Bank of the River Thames – Tuesday: 07:30
Booth, Brennan and Rob followed in Harriet's footsteps towards the blue tent. Just as she was about to lead them inside, a man exited and narrowly avoided crashing into her.
"Oh! Sorry, Daniel." Harriet said as she pulled up sharply and saw who she had nearly flattened.
"Eager as always, Harriet?" He teased with a soft hint of a French accent.
"Yeah, yeah. So, how much longer do your people need with the body?"
"A good while, yet. Problem is that we might need to move it sooner than I would like because of the incoming tide."
"How high can it reach along this stretch?"
"According to the Port Authority, approximately seven metres."
Rob, knowing his partner very well, and therefore realising that she wouldn't get around to it anytime soon, made the introductions.
"Doctor Brennan, Special Agent Booth – this is Doctor Daniel Sidibe, our resident forensic pathologist. Doctor Sidibe, our American colleagues will be shadowing us today. I hope that's okay with you?"
A look of excited recognition crossed the pathologist's handsome features. He sidestepped Harriet and shook Booth's hand, then Brennan's.
"Doctor Brennan, it is a great pleasure to meet you. I was just telling one of my colleagues that I am very much looking forward to catching your presentation tomorrow, and now you're here at my crime scene! You know..." The doctor continued in a tumbling rush of words "I am personally familiar with your work at Mourdiah. My family is from there and they still speak of it."
"You are from Koulikoro?"
"Yes."
"It is a beautiful part of the world. I would very much like to go back to Mali one day."
"Yes, one day you must return. But now is perhaps not the safest time."
Brennan nodded. "Sadly, you are correct."
"Are you here to examine the body we found this morning?" The doctor, this time, addressed both Brennan and Booth.
"Our American colleagues are tagging along to get a first-hand look at how we go about things on this side of the Pond." Rob interjected before either Booth or Brennan had a chance to respond. He wanted to make clear that they were not there in any professional capacity, fearful as he was that the normally fiercely territorial doctor wouldn't approve of having his crime scene infiltrated by outsiders. And so the next words out of the other man's mouth took him completely by surprise.
"It would be my honour to show you round. Doctor Brennan, Agent Booth – please, please...after you."
As Brennan and Booth ducked inside the tent, the tall form of Doctor Sidibe following on behind, Rob caught his partner's eye and shrugged. From the look on Harriet's face, she too was startled by the uncharacteristically easygoing demeanour of their forensics expert.
The pathologist guided them over to an area marked out by white tape with the words "POLICEDONOTCROSS" written in bold dark blue lettering along its length. The body lay on the muddy ground in the centre and was surrounded by irregularly spaced yellow plastic evidence markers.
"The deceased is still partially clothed and unhelpfully for you, Doctor Brennan, from what we can see at this time, all of the soft tissue remains. Still, any observations you may care to make are most welcome."
"I appreciate your professional courtesy, Doctor Sidibe."
"Bolondio kelen te se ka foi taa."
"Yes. This is true." Brennan agreed, while Booth looked over at her in confusion. When she failed to pick up on his unspoken request for a translation, he leaned in closer to her and asked what the pathologist had said.
"He said that one finger can't pick up anything." She said simply, matching his hushed tone.
Booth had hoped for some kind of follow-up explanation, but Brennan bent down next to the body and immediately became engrossed in conversation with Doctor Sidibe. He kept quiet, allowing them to do their thing. Likewise, Rob and Harriet looked on in silence, the latter Booth noticed, looking decidedly impatient.
As they listed the deceased's obvious (to Booth's eye) and not so-obvious injuries, Brennan effortlessly switched from speaking English to whatever language it was that the other man had spoken a few moments earlier. The pathologist was obviously impressed. Booth got that. Bones was after all an honest-to-god genius. But that didn't give the guy the green light to keep sneaking admiring looks at his partner. Because sooner or later (probably the latter knowing Bones), she would notice. And then where would they be?
A few moments later, Brennan took a breath and looked up at him, a slow, coy smile gradually reaching the corners of her mouth. "It means, used within this context, that two heads are better than one."
Man, he was really in trouble if she was going to start being deliberately obtuse.
"So, what can you tell us?" Harriet asked the pathologist, taking advantage of the pause in their conversation.
"As I told the SOCO before you arrived, it's evident from the remaining clothing and a cursory prelim examination, that the deceased is male, aged between eighteen and thirty years (although, based on the clothing he's wearing and the look of him, I'd estimate age at the latter end of that scale), but radio carbon dating should narrow this down for us. Given that the body appears to have been submerged in water for only a short time, there's a decent chance we'll find some useful trace evidence."
"So, was he killed, take his own life, or did he drop dead of natural causes?" Harriet pressed.
"I think we can rule out natural causes. See here." Doctor Sidibe pointed towards the dead man's exposed neck. "There are clear indications that a ligature was applied – now, whether the man took his own life, or died as a result of an accident, or met his untimely end at the hands of another person is yet to be determined."
"Leaving aside for a moment that a witness saw someone throwing something into the water off the side of a boat earlier this morning...and shortly after, our divers pulled this guy from the drink, do you think it's likely we're dealing with a homicide?"
The pathologist ignored Harriet's follow up question and turned to Brennan. "Do you have to put up with this, too? This constant pressure to deliver instant remedies based on nothing more than guesswork?"
"Yes. Although, I think Agent Booth has improved in that regard. He now understands that I am uncomfortable with conjecture, supposition and other types of unscientific guesswork."
"Thanks, Bones." Booth said sarcastically. He did his best to ignore the smirk that had found its way onto Rob's face.
"Of course, he still expects me to make those types of unscientific pronouncements."
"I tell myself that they can't help it. It makes it easier." Doctor Sidibe smiled, his rich brown eyes roaming the length of Brennan's body as she again turned her attention to the body at their feet.
Brennan may have been oblivious, but Booth wasn't so blind. And so when a few minutes later, the pathologist had told them all he could at that time, he reached out his hand and helped Brennan to her feet. "No point hanging around here then, Bones."
Harriet looked over at the two Americans. If she didn't know better, she'd swear Agent Booth was jealous of the obvious attention being paid to his partner. She was now certain that there was something going on there. Never one to stand in the way of romance, or good sex (because surely Agent Booth was hot heaven between the sheets), she agreed with Rob that she would stay behind to escort the body back to the morgue. There was no need for anyone else to accompany her and Doctor Sidibe.
"We may as well head back to the Nick, then." Rob looked over at Booth and Brennan.
"Who's 'The Nick'?" Brennan asked.
"No...Sorry. The 'Nick' is what we call the Police Station."
Brennan again wondered why it was that people felt the need to clutter their everyday language with slang. All it did, unsurprisingly, was cause confusion. But she kept the thought to herself and followed Booth and Rob out of the tent and into the pale lemony sunlight.
"Agent Booth, Doctor Brennan, there's no reason for you to head back with me straight away. If you want to get some breakfast first, please do."
"You up for some breakfast, Bones?"
"I could eat."
"Can you recommend anywhere?" Booth asked the officer as he again took in the impressive view across the water.
"Sure. Walk with me to the high street, there's a place not far from the station."
"I thought you were based at Scotland Yard?" Brennan asked, stepping aside quickly as two men wearing full-body diving gear crossed their path and hurried down to the water's edge.
"Nah. I was only there for your presentation. Har and I are based at Southwark Police Station, which is about a ten minute walk away. That's why we called you down here – the dead man is on our patch. Lucky us, eh."
xxx
Fifteen minutes later, Officer Jackson left his American colleagues at his favourite cafe and walked the remaining couple hundred metres to the police station. As he climbed the stairs which led up to the CID unit, he recalled his partner's words from the previous evening: "So,doyouthinkthey'retogether?" He had initially rejected the idea, but the more time he spent with them, the more he began to see what Harriet meant. Agent Booth had looked decidedly uneasy at the crime scene as Sidibe tried to cosy-up to Doctor Brennan. And last night at the pub, he'd seen the good doctor sending some less than platonic looks her colleague's way.
And then there was the touching. That wasn't normal. Henever touched Harriet. Most of the time, if he was honest with himself, he forgot she was female. Sometimes it occurred to him and he'd open doors for her (sometimes she'd huff at him when he did so and other times she smiled and thanked him – honestly, he'd given up trying to work out why the same action elicited different responses from her) and other times, when questioning a particularly aggressive suspect, he'd position himself slightly in front of her, making sure that if anyone was going to get a smack in the face, it would be him. But that's as far as it went.
Half an hour later, Rob put down his pen and got up from his desk. He needed caffeine, or else he'd never make it through to the end of his shift. Walking across the hall to the small communal kitchen, he picked up the kettle, weighing it in his hand to see if it held enough water, before setting it to boil. He emptied a large teaspoon of instant coffee granules into his beloved "Tottenham Hotspur" mug and added a half teaspoon of white sugar. Reaching towards the fridge for some milk, he glanced out of the large window, down to the street below. As usual, the high street was busy. Cars and vans hurtled up and down the road in steady straight lines, while bikes and motorcycles wove in and out, messing with the symmetry.
He then looked to the right, just in time to see Agent Booth and Doctor Brennan exit the cafe. As the pair stepped down off the step and onto the pavement, he noticed that Agent Booth's hand momentarily came to rest at the doctor's lower back.
No. He didn't touch Harriet like that. Never like that.