Dead Men's s Boots

Eventually the magistrate looked up. He cast his gaze around the room, as if someone at the back had just spoken and he was trying to work out who so he could hand out some lines.

‘Miss Bruckner?’ he said, in a querulous tone. Pen got to her feet, holding up her hand unnecessarily. Her fall of red-gold hair made her hard to miss even when she was sitting down. As always she looked much taller than her five foot and half a spare inch: that effect is even more pronounced whend „n you’re facing her, staring head-on at her scarily vivid green eyes, but it’s noticeable even from the back.

Pen may be a small package, but what’s in there was tamped down with a lot of force and the lid stays just barely on most of the time.

‘And Professor Mulbridge?’

On the other side of the court, another woman who’d been scribbling notes in a ring-bound notebook looked up, flicked the book closed and stood. She was older than Pen, and she made a strong contrast to her in a lot of ways. Matt-grey hair – the same grey as Whistler’s mother’s, or a German helmet – in a well-sculpted bob; grey eyes flecked with the smallest hint of blue; an austere, thin-lipped face, but with a healthy blush to her cheeks that suggested a warm smile lurking there under the superficial solemnity.

She was dressed in a formal, understated two-piece in shades of dark blue, looking like a probation officer or a Tory MP, whereas Pen was wearing flamboyant African silk. The older woman’s cool self-possession was clearly visible under the self-effacing smile and polite nod. Clearly visible to me, anyway: but then, I go back a long way with Jenna-Jane Mulbridge, and I know where most of the bodies are buried. Hell, in a few cases I even dug the graves. People who don’t know her so well are apt to take away from their first meeting a vague sense of heavy-handed maternal benevolence: and to be fair, if I were going to describe Jenna-Jane to someone who didn’t know her, ‘mother’ might well be the first couple of syllables I’d reach for.

‘Here, your honour,’ Jenna-Jane said mildly.

Her voice said ‘Trust me, I’m a doctor’: and she is, as far as that goes. Then again, so were Crippen and Mengele, and they both sold patent medicines in their time.

The magistrate tapped the stack of papers in front of him. ‘And I presume Doctor Smart and Mister Prentice are also in attendance?’ ‘Yes, your honour’ and ‘Here, your honour’ came from somewhere off to my far right. The magistrate acknowledged them with a curt nod.