When Trafalgar Law finally steps into the hospital's morgue, it is already past midnight. Moving towards the room's main light panel, he turns on only two of the room's eight bright neon lights. The light over autopsy table one, where he will be working, flickers to live as does another light halfway between the table and his office's door. The rest of the room remains half-shrouded in darkness, but its grey twilight is enough for him to find his way around safely. Not working in almost complete darkness is also less suspicious and considering current circumstances, Law would prefer to keep the amount of suspicious activities in his morgue to a minimum. It is bad enough, that he is being forced to leave his home for this in the dead of night. Normally, he wouldn't be at the hospital at all to perform a post-mortem examination at this time, let alone a secret one. For one because of the late hour and for another, because of the day: autopsies are not usually performed on weekends.

Disappointingly, the body is completely unguarded and has already been laid out for his autopsy, a manila folder on its chest. 'Disappointingly', because it means he has no chance to vent his frustrations unless it is to the deceased he is about to examine. Law thinks that it will be merely a formality. He has no reason to dispute the initial diagnosis of Doctor Hogback, who is a renowned doctor and a competent surgeon in his own right, and the one who signed the initial certificate of death. Really, he is only doing it because law enforcement is twisting his arm and they made it very clear that they are only demanding it because the Alabastian embassy is twisting theirs. There is something foreboding about being asked to perform a post-mortem in secret in the dead of night on the body of a prominent person originating from a cultural background that does not permit autopsies in the first place because they interfere with sacred burial customs. He of course understands the political implications as well as the cultural ones, but he desperately wishes he weren't caught up in them.

And not only because Dr. Hogback will be quite displeased when he learns how his diagnosis was called into question.

Several years back, when Law had been lauded as a promising heart surgeon well on his road to medical infamy, he had been personally acquainted with Hogback. But that had been before his fall from grace. He was painfully reminded of this every time he ran into his former peers: people had called him "genius and nigh infallible" back then; now, they referred to him as the "Surgeon of Death".

'Genius and infallible, until I wasn't,' he thinks to himself, eyeing the body on his worktable still covered by a white sheet.

What would eventually be ruled to have been a simple mistake during a fateful surgery and a regrettable case of malpractice - one he still couldn't explain to this very day, not even to his closest confidants - had ended his career as a surgeon and forced him to make the switch and become a medical pathologist instead. He was lucky to be working in a medical profession at all, even if his patients were no longer alive. Law didn't say it out loud, but he was eternally grateful to Doctor Kureha, who had offered him a job despite his occupational ban in his chosen field of expertise.

She had been one of the few who had believed (and vehemently argued) that the death that officially was ruled to have been a case of malpractice was not due to any mistake on his part and maintained this stance even to this day. According to Kureha, Law had been too skilled and too fastidious a surgeon to make the kind of mistake he was accused of. While the surgery had been complicated and risky for most, Law had been a specialist in the field and for him, it had been a routine procedure, she had argued. Those who had passed judgment on him, though, had ignored her. Sometimes, he wished he could tell her that she was right. But he was muzzled, effectively mute, on that matter. At least he still had a career.

Of course, if it hadn't been for that infuriating woman, then he wouldn't even be having that, he'd be - Law stops his mental rant and pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Get a grip on yourself, man. You have work to do," he reminds himself. He reaches for a pair of gloves and just as he is about to put the first one on, a familiar female voice rings out through the dark morgue.

"About time you got here. I thought you'd keep me waiting here by myself all night."

He freezes, then inhales deeply through his nose (1, 2, 3) and exhales through his mouth until the count of 10.

"What are you doing here?" he asks into the darkness, his eyes narrowed.

Law's tone is clipped and cold, barely hiding his annoyance. Few people in the world are capable of irritating him as much as the (unfortunately quite intelligent) woman currently hiding out in the dark morgue is.

"I'm merely here to observe," she says, her tone placating as she steps forward and into the light.

It has been several months since he's last been in the company of Okino Nami and, unfortunately, the time apart has done nothing to quell his attraction to the investigative journalist. (Was it only a week ago he contemplated asking her out for a coffee until his survival instincts screamed at him to put away his phone?) She is as infuriatingly beautiful as ever, even dressed in the standard blue scrubs most of the hospital's staff wear, which is also probably how she got into the morgue. Her hourglass-shaped body and luscious copper locks may be hidden by a hairnet, her shapeless scrubs and a single-use plastic apron, but he cannot evade the gaze of her clever brown eyes.

Law hopes that his expression remains neutral but he has a feeling, she already knows she isn't welcome in his morgue tonight. (Or ever. Because a morgue is not a place for, you know - socializing.) Knowing her and his luck, it is probably why she is here in the first place.

"Are you contemplating switching careers, Nami-ya? Do you think you have what it takes to become a pathologist?" he asks as the rubber glove snaps against his wrist, hoping to distract her. He doesn't know how long she has been in the room, alone with a dead body that, strictly speaking, isn't even supposed to be here and he hopes against hope that she is unaware of the body's identity. Maybe, if he finds the right conversational thread, he can get her to run out on him without having to give anything away. Despite everything, he'd rather keep her out of this, if at all possible.

"Hardly. I am quite happy with my chosen profession. Investigative journalism is what I do best, as you well know."

And Law does. He first made the acquaintance of Okino Nami 5 years ago, when she had investigated the sudden death of Caliper Deft Dirk, the man who had died on Law's operating table. It was thanks to her, that Law was still a free man.

A debt he could probably never repay.

When his patient had died, the initial assumption had been that he hadn't been strong enough to survive what had commonly been deemed to be a high-risk procedure. But then several inconsistencies had appeared and all of a sudden, Law had found himself being cast as the prime suspect in a murder case. It was only due to Miss Okino's intuition, persistence and determination that the death was officially ruled as malpractice, although it had - in fact - been murder.

The truth had been that a man named Caliper had never existed. It was a false name attached to a false identity that had been provided for one Patrick Redfield, an infamously notorious criminal who back then had been in custody at the high-security facility of Impel Down. At the time of his surgery, Patrick's trial had still been ongoing and although his death sentence was a foregone conclusion, he was in poor health, which jeopardized his planned public execution. Law had been brought in as a specialist to ensure, that Patrick survived long enough for his verdict to be carried out.

However, Law had failed to do so through no fault of his own. It turned out that several independently acting groups had felt that Patrick Redfield was better off dead sooner rather than later, their interference leading to his death in the middle of the procedure Law had been performing on him.

It had been Nami who had uncovered the false identity and falsified medical records. And it had been Nami who had provided evidence that a murder had taken place and that Law was to be the scapegoat. Lastly, it had also been Nami who had taken it upon herself to barter for his life and freedom.

Although she couldn't identify the actual murderer (or so she had claimed), she managed to piece together as full a story as possible: everything that had gone wrong during the surgery, everything he'd had to adjust to on the fly, turned out to have been an attempt to kill his patient, most of which Law had successfully thwarted. The mishaps had been designed to make him look inept or careless, but Law's skill and experience as a surgeon had rendered most of them useless. Someone had even gone to the trouble of planting a false nurse in his OR. Although Law had kicked the false nurse out in the first quarter of the procedure because of their unprofessional conduct (because when he says 'swab' he expects a nurse to know that enquiring whether moping up the floor can wait until after the surgery is neither what he is asking nor funny), he had unfortunately been too late to prevent a fatal injection of a nerve toxin that ended up killing the patient.

Afterwards, the clues had gone in every direction: rival criminal groups, various intelligence agencies, a hired killer and even conflicting branches of the government itself. Truly, he had been shocked to hear it all when Nami had laid it out before everyone in that hearing chamber, exonerating him from every accusation levied and instead providing a wide net of suspects and potential murderers who had both, a motive and the opportunity.

It had been the story of a lifetime and Nami had traded all of it for Law's freedom, handing over all of her research and evidence to the government under the condition, that an innocent man would not go to jail, saddling him with a false verdict of malpractice and what he considered a life debt, instead.

"Keeping a man alive only to kill him publicly is not a good look for the government," she'd told him later when he asked her why she'd done it, and that was that.

'I have to get rid of her', Law thinks. He already has an inkling where this is going and he is not keen on it. "Nami-ya," he begins and she shushes him.

"Hush, doctor. Let's keep this sweet, short and simple, yes? You are about to perform an autopsy on King Nefertari Cobra because his family doubts the veracity of the death certificate issued by Doctor Hogback. You have been asked to do this in secret because the current theory is that the cause of the king's death was not a natural one. There is also the possibility that Hogback may have falsified the certificate for unknown reasons. You agreed to the procedure and to allow a representative of the Nefertari to observe it. I am that representative."

For a moment, he simply stares at her. "Proof it," he demands.

Nami offers him that infuriating "cat that got the cream"-smirk and pulls out what appears to be a power of attorney, signed and sealed by either the Alabastian ambassador or another official presiding over more stamps than brains (he doesn't look too closely at the signature, the seals say it all). Law groans in frustration.

"I'm the one that recommended you, you know," she says softly. "They thought that something was off and didn't want Hogback or someone he could order around to perform the autopsy. So I told them about you."

He is none too happy to hear her admission. But it explains how an Alabastian official knew his name and could force local law enforcement to enlist Law to perform an impromptu post-mortem in secret.

"I remember specifically asking you to keep me out of your messes, Nami-ya," Law replies, shooting her a glare. "I have a very distinct memory of you and me taking cover behind a fountain while people shot at us where I told you just that."

"I know, I know, but you do this all the time, don't you? Autopsies, I mean. Surely, me recommending you to a friend in distress as a competent and trustworthy pathologist to assuage her worries about the possible falsities in her father's death certificate, him being a man of great political power, influence and importance, is not 'dragging you into my messes'?"

A part of him wants to say 'yes, it is', because he is certain, before the day breaks someone will be shooting at them or threatening to end him and his career (again). But another part says 'no', because he is here to put a grieving person's mind to rest. Because he knows that a post-mortem examination cannot be performed on Alabastian soil for religious reasons, and ruling out unnatural causes of death in figures of political importance before having performed an autopsy is generally considered a stupid thing to do.

And maybe this time around, there will be no guns and threats to his life; no hiding out in tight spaces with her pressed intimately against him; no lingering tension between them that will keep him awake for weeks, wondering 'What if?'. Maybe this time, he can ask her out for that coffee and get her out of his system for good.

"You will stand right there," Law says, pointing at a spot on the other side of the stainless steel table, "and you will not touch anything. Understood?"

Nami offers no quip or remark, just holds up her empty gloved hands in a gesture of surrender and then crosses them behind her back.

"Good."

Law resumes setting up his workstation, occasionally shooting his guest a warning glare to drive home the point.

"How long have you been here?"

"I came with the body half an hour ago."

"You have been waiting in the dark morgue with a dead body for half an hour?"

"Give or take."

"Some people would find that creepy."

Nami doesn't respond. He knows she scares easily so this uncharacteristic display of bravery comes as a bit of a surprise.

"Do you know why he wasn't put in one of the cooling units?"

Nami shrugs. "They said you'd be here momentarily. Clearly, 'momentarily' means something different in Alabastia."

Law suppresses a grin, then checks his workspace once more: bone saws, scalpels, scalpel blades, scissors, rib shears and toothed forceps, a multitude of cotton swabs as well as several clear receptacles should he find anything unusual and, lastly, his personal recording den den mushi. Satisfied that everything is in place, he starts the recording and picks up the manila folder that has been left for him.

"This is an autopsy log of Dr. Trafalgar Law. Today is Sunday, the 13th day of the month of Nerona, zero hours and 45 minutes. I am performing an autopsy at the special request of the Alabastian embassy to confirm the cause of death of the deceased identified as his royal highness, King Nefertari Cobra, aged 50 years at the time of his death. The deceased is male and of Alabastian descent. He is 6 feet tall, that is precisely 6 feet zero inches, and weighs around 70 kilograms or 154 pounds."

Opening the folder in his hand, Law scans the documents that could be provided to him at such short notice. Although the ink is, basically, still wet there is more information than he had expected.

"The time and cause of death were recorded by Doctor Hogback, who was present when the deceased was found at the Palace of Diplomacy. The recorded date of death is the 12th day of the month of Nerona, between 2:30 PM of the 12th, that is 14:30 hours, and half past five of the evening, that is 17:30 hours. The estimated time of death is based on witness testimonies that confirmed the deceased to be alive at 2:15 PM and engaged in a heated argument with one of his retainers."

Law shoots Nami a questioning look, but her face remains neutral.

"The deceased was found at 6:08 PM, unresponsive to stimuli, with Doctor Hogback being summoned immediately to attend. No revitalisation measures were attempted, as according to Doctor Hogback's report, rigor mortis had already begun to set in. After examining the body, Doctor Hogback confirmed that the deceased had passed away due to natural causes, diagnosed as a heart attack. I will now begin my examination of the deceased."

Law risks another questioning look at Nami. Her lips are pressed together tightly, but her face is a stony mask that only cracks as he pulls the white sheet covering the body back to reveal the deceased's face and torso.

For a moment, Law is stunned. Nami gasps. Thin dark veins surround Nefertari Cobra's mouth and his lips are stained with a deep, almost black colour.

"The deceased's lips and veins of the surrounding tissue are visibly discoloured. The discolouration surrounds the deceased's oral cavity in a radius of about two and a half to three centimetres. It is darkest on the deceased's lips. The discolouration is -"

Here Law pauses to fish a single cotton swab out of a container, swipes it carefully across the dead man's lips and then studies it thoroughly. Nothing appears to have rubbed off.

"a blue-greenish shade, deepening to black. Swiping the discolouration with a cotton swab has not visibly stained the swab. The swab is archived under TL-13-08-NK-01."

As he states this to the recording snail, Law places the swab in a plastic bag and seals it, then writes his archival designation on it. Nami, following his orders, does not touch anything, although she notices more discolourations on the body before Law does: the fingertips on the dead man's left hand are similarly stained. Quietly, she draws his attention to them by holding up her own hand and wiggling her fingers. Law seems to understand and he carefully examines the appendages.

"Similar discolouration can be found on the fingertips of the deceased's right and left hand. Curious - I would expect them to be on his dominant hand only. There appears to be nothing unusual under his fingernails at first glance," he says. Searching his workstation, Law picks up a magnifying glass. "There are what looks like skin particles and some dirt under the deceased's nails," Law informs the snail. He takes a few samples (TL-13-08-NK-02 and TL-13-08-NK-03, respectively) and moves on.

He expects her to turn away once he performs the first incision into the deceased's chest cavity, and indeed her discomfort becomes apparent when he opens up the body's ribcage.

Law doesn't pause the recording snail but he indicates his office at the back of the room with a jerk of his head. Nami shoots him a grateful look and quietly hurries off, leaving the door to his office open. He hears a faint clicking sound and the light of his desklamp spills into the examination area, golden and warm. Through the windows separating his office and the morgue, he can see Nami's silhouette as she settles into the chair closest to the door, probably listening closely to every word he says.

About two hours later Law wraps up the autopsy, pushes the body into a freezing unit and cleans up his workspace. He frowns at the recording snail as he places it in its tank with a handful of cut-up lettuce. He can feel a headache forming.

"So?" Nami's voice asks quietly. She lingers near work table two, close to the spot he had ordered her to stay in earlier.

"So," Law begins and strips off his soiled single-use gear, revealing a lab coat, a pair of well-worn jeans and a dark button-down shirt underneath, before walking towards the journalist. "Your friend or whoever it was that asked you was right. It wasn't a heart attack."

"Then Hogback did falsify the death certificate?" she enquires, following after him as he leads her back into his office and takes a seat behind his desk.

"I'm not saying that," Law says with his index finger raised. "I am saying that after a thorough post-mortem examination, I can confirm that it was not a heart attack. Hogback would have likely come to the same conclusions if he had been called on to perform one. As would have any other medical examiner if they knew what to look for."

"What about the discolourations on his mouth and fingers?" Nami asks.

"From something he ingested. I found similar discolouration in his mouth, oesophagus, stomach, liver and small intestines. Few things come to mind that could have caused this, but I am not sure how and when the deceased would have come across them, let alone in one lethal dose."

"Wait - lethal dose?"

"Yes. The deceased was poisoned. I can't be sure until I have the lab results, but I believe he was given 'cubilis fallax' or 'deceitful rest'. The discolourations on his body do match with those commonly observed for it."

"Then why do you need a lab report?" Nami asks confusedly.

"Let's presume my assumption is right and he was given cubilis fallax. It is a naturally occurring poison mostly found in unripe blue peas, to a dosage of on average 0.00015 grams per pea. The lethal dose for an adult man of King Nefertari's stature and age would be something around 18 grams," Law begins his explanation.

"So that would be - how much does a single pea weigh? Sounds like a lot of peas if you ask me," Nami says with a doubtful expression.

Law pulls up an eyebrow but nods.

"Correct, Nami-ya. You need a little under 1.5 kilograms of raw, unripe blue peas to produce 1 gram of cubilis fallax. Or roughly 24 kilos of raw, unripe blue peas for what would constitute a lethal dose for the deceased. It would have been quite the feat for King Nefertari to consume 24 kilos of anything, let alone 24 kilos of unripe legumes, unnoticed. Not to mention that I would have found them during my autopsy when I examined the contents of his stomach and intestines. There were leftovers of some lentils and gourds, poultry, rice, bread and some sort of confection that was swallowed practically whole. No blue peas, neither ripe nor unripe ones."

The journalist tilts her head to the side. "Cubilis flax... I've never heard of that," she admits.

"Cubilis fallax," he corrects and then explains. "I believe that traditionally, it is a fine white powder. The unripe peas are crushed and distilled several times until all that remains is the pure toxin. It takes the shape of opaque white crystals that are crushed and ground up. Very popular in the eighteen hundreds. It was a widespread sleeping aid until the side effects of an overdose became common knowledge. Its usage has been banned worldwide. I am no toxicologist, but I recall the process of creating it to be quite involved."

There is a moment of silence between them.

"You know... if I hadn't performed the autopsy tonight, I probably wouldn't even have bothered to look for traces of the poison. Certainly, whoever will be preparing the body for a burial won't be seeing any of the discoloration I found," Law adds, inwardly already resigned to his fate.

"What do you mean?"

"Visual evidence of this toxin exists only during a small time frame. Once the rigor mortis has fully passed and the livor mortis is fixed, the discolouration also fades. So the time frame to observe the discolouration would be between 8 to 9 hours after death," Law explains, noticing that Nami's expression has shifted to that shrewd look she gets when she is deeply in thought. "Had I not seen the discolouration tonight, I would not have had reason to perform a full post-mortem, nor would I have taken as many samples for a toxicological report. An examination of the deceased's major organs, excluding the head, would have been deemed sufficient."

"So if things had gone as they usually would for an Alabastian diplomat, there either would have been no post-mortem at all or it would have taken place tomorrow, at the earliest, at which time the discolouration would have either not yet appeared or have already faded away, depending on how the body was stored, correct?"

"Correct. Had the body been frozen, rigor mortis would have likely lasted longer and it would be improbable for an examiner to see the discolouration develop. Had the body been kept at room temperature or kept cool at a temperature above the freezing point, rigor mortis would have already faded and the discolouration would have gone unnoticed as well. Either way, seeing the discolouration at such a prominent stage was a stroke of luck. It further narrowed down the time of death and put us on the right course to identify the actual cause of it."

"What would you have identified as the cause of death without the discolouration to tip you off?" she enquired and Law felt himself shrug.

"I would have not taken the same samples I took today. I probably would have confirmed Doctor Hogback's diagnosis unless the toxicology report would have indicated foul play."

"But if you had been asked to perform the autopsy specifically to refute the first diagnosis, surely you would have found something?"

"I am flattered by your faith in me, Nami-ya, but I am not wholly immune to confirmation biases, as it were. Doctor Hogback is a capable and respected member of the medical community. While I will concede that this does not exempt him from making mistakes, by his reputation alone, his diagnosis holds a certain weight. Cubilis fallax does affect the heart indirectly and a poisoning can be mistaken for a cardiovascular disease unless one knows what to look for. I would have known, but I wouldn't have been looking for it."

"How do you know about cubilis fallax?" Nami asks.

"It was briefly covered during my time in university. However, you may recall, that I have a lingering interest in the morbid and macabre. It features heavily in a book I own. 'The poisons that shaped our world'. An interesting read. I can recommend it."

"Haven't seen that crop up on any bestseller lists," the journalist says and Law allows himself a small smirk.

"I would be surprised if it did. It was published 120 years ago."

"Not exactly common knowledge then?"

"Depends. As I said earlier, anyone who studied medicine in the last 10 years will have at least heard of its existence. It was covered extensively during my time as an example of how a clear case of cardiovascular disease could be something quite different. I would wager that anyone studying forensics would have similarly learned about it."

"Well, that seems oddly convenient, doesn't it?" Nami says thoughtfully, balancing her chin on her hand. "King Nefertari Cobra is murdered with a rare, antique poison that imitates heart attacks. His death is subsequently diagnosed by a medical professional to have occurred because of a heart attack. The poison is not easily found out except within a specific time frame by someone with specific knowledge of the poison, such knowledge being accessible mostly through old obscure books or studying medicine or forensics. Additionally, chances that the poisoning is discovered in a timely fashion are slim, as King Nefertari's religious beliefs forbid a post-mortem examination that could, under certain circumstances, reveal the poisoning to be the actual cause of death. That's quite the coincidence, wouldn't you agree?"

Law feels a leaden weight form in his stomach. When she puts it like that, it sounds an awful lot like he is the only one who could have, except of course- oh no, no, no, no!

"Nami-ya," he begins just as he hears the loud clashing of metal on tiles and a somewhat muted male voice cursing outside of the morgue.

"Shit," Nami says and reaches for the desk lamp, switching it off.

"Nami-ya," Law begins again, not liking one bit where this is going, but she is already pushing him underneath his desk and squeezing herself in with him.

"Shh", she breathes against his ear. In the darkness, it is difficult to make out her shape, though he can feel where she is pressed against him, his left arm trapped between his torso and her back. Carefully he pulls it up, moving it with her as she shifts into a more sustainable position. He notes that she has pulled his desk chair closer, probably to better hide them.

Then the heavy door to the morgue is forced open.

"Well, where is he?" growls an unfamiliar voice.

"How should I know? I just got here!"

"Ugh... why am I forced to work with you imbeciles?" a third voice asks, this one decidedly female.

"What's an imbecile?" the second voice asks, sounding confused.

"Look into a mirror," the female voice replies dismissively. "I don't see a body. Or a coroner."

"My intel says that the autopsy is scheduled for tonight. I am sure of it."

The female's high-heeled shoes click loudly against the concrete flooring. They become louder as she steps into the office and Law tenses in his hiding place. With a soft 'click' the light is flicked on. He feels Nami shiver against him - probably not because of his new after-shave - and wills her not to give away their hiding place. They can hear the strange female moving around the room, opening his file closet. A disinterested snort can be heard at one point.

After a few moments of his heart beating frantic patterns against the inside of his chest, the light in his office is switched off again.

"Well, he's not here. And from the looks of it, he hasn't been here in a while," the female says.

"So what does that mean?"

"It means your intel is useless. And you managed to make it to double digits? Pathetic," the woman snarls.

"But... but... the autopsy!"

"Look, autopsies are messy, alright. Does this room look messy to you? Or wet?"

There is a moment of silence and some helpless flapping. "No?" the second voice finally asks.

"No. Exactly. Either this pathologist is ridiculously anal about cleaning his workspace, in which case I believe he would still be here, or no autopsy took place. Now, which of these two is the more likely scenario?"

"But... what about the body? What do we do now? Should we take it?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?!"

"Nothing. And you can stop searching. It doesn't matter if the body is here or not. What matters is that the autopsy doesn't take place until tomorrow. That's how long it'll take for the final traces of the poison to be broken down. All we need to do is make sure that the initial certificate of death isn't questioned and we do that by ensuring that there will be no autopsy tonight."

"Maybe the guy is on his way here already?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we get there. I'll be retreating to base. You two will observe the hospital and alert me when the doctor shows up. There is no need to kill him - just delay him. Stage a robbing or something like that. Just make sure you give him a good hard knock so that he can't do anything tonight."

"What if someone else does the autopsy?" the second voice asks, sounding panicked.

"Not happening," the first voice grunts. "They specifically requested that Trafalgar guy. Don't know what his relation to the king is, but they were very insistent that he be the only one to cut open the old bastard."

"Something to look into later. You have your orders," the woman says and there is a sharp sound of something hard-hitting flesh - a salute, maybe? - and then the sharp sound of heels stalking away and fading into the background.

"Alright, Mr. 32 came through. This doctor, Trafalgar? He has a bright yellow motorbike. And according to 32, it's not parked at his place. So he must be on his way here. You take the parking lot, I take the garage. And for fuck's sake, try not to kill the guy. The last thing we want is to confirm any suspicions of foul play," one voice says.

"Okay. So... what do I do?" the second voice says and there is a deep, frustrated sigh.

"Fine, imbecile. You keep open those eyes of yours and keep on the lookout for any yellow motorbike with one man riding it and heading for the hospital. If you see someone like that, you give them a good hard knock on the head and steal all their valuables, okay?"

Another moment of silence and then: "Okay!"

"Now let's get out of here. This place gives me the creeps," the first voice says and the heavy doors of the morgue fall shut.

Law begins counting in his head, backwards from 100. He has just arrived at 24 when Nami shifts, slowly pushing his office chair away to crawl out of their hiding space.

"Nami-ya," he begins again (third time's the charm) and since he isn't immediately shushed, he asks: "What is going on?"

"It appears, Doc, that I've once again pulled you into one of my messes," she replies grimly.