Detective Inspector Donal Crinigan was writing a staff progress report on a Detective Nathan Rock, when there came a knock on his office door.
“Come in,” said Crinigan and looked up to face a man in a white laboratory coat.
“Brendan me old bollix, what brings you to the real side of the police department?” joked Crinigan.
“This does,” said Brendan O’Donnel also from Ireland and head of forensics at the Met.
Crinigan slid his report to one side and looked the file O’Donnel placed in front of him.
“What is it?” asked Donal
“It’s the report that you asked for from Phnom Penh to identify the dead body they’d found” said O’Donnel.
“And?” enquired Crinigan
“And nothing,” said O’Donnel, “these DNA fingerprints and blood samples do not match dental records we obtained for this individual. There are two people here, not one, and the blood cells are certainly nothing that I have ever come across before.
Crinigan looked at the report and then at O’Donnell.
Looking confused, he picked up the telephone and asked the Met operator to call Clerk in Cambodia.
“Hello, Timothy here, how are you Donal?” said the voice on the phone.
Crinigan switched to speakerphone,
“Confused,” said Crinigan “according to our forensic team these are samples from two bodies”.
“I know it’s baffled us too,” said Clerk “but I can assure you inspector, I was present when the samples were taken and it was only from one body. . . . Has the body arrived yet?” asked Clerk.
“No,” O’Donnel intervened, “only the report, the body is “due in this afternoon.”
“Ok,” said Clerk “maybe wait until you examine that, maybe that might shed some light on something, but it has confused the hell out of us.”
“Ok, Timothy, we will do that, thanks.” Crinigan then hung up and spoke to O’Donnel.
“Have you got anything at all on this Brendan?”
“I have a name, address and next of kin details for the blood, DNA and fingerprints, but the dental records are no use at this stage, because the ones from Phnom Penh don’t match the ones we obtained from Dr. Baker, the Brighton dentist, this morning.”
“Ok,” said Crinigan “anything would be a start, let me see what you have .”
O’Donnel handed Crinigan another folder and he took a glance.
“Right,” said Donal “I will wait and see what you can dig up from the autopsy. . . . Thanks Brendan.”
“See you later” said O’Donnel and left the office
Crinigan moved the files to one side and returned to Nathan Rock’s staff report, but unable to concentrate he put his pen down and glared blankly at the wall.
‘This,’ he thought, ‘is going to be very interesting.’