Let them eat cake.

The thought of cake wandered aimlessly into her mind as she pushed the knife into his flesh. Layers of moist sponge, moving against a birthday blade, except it wasn’t her birthday and this cake had bones.

The slim body on her pathology table couldn’t have had many birthdays, 16 or 17 at most. She wondered how many cakes he’d been given, how many candles he’d blown out, how many wishes he’d made and kept secret to ensure they came true.

She was glad she’d made the effort to make George a cake for his birthday this week. He deserved it for the crap he put up with at home; not that this kid didn’t deserve it, his red velvet flesh now flayed and ready to serve.

No doubt he had it coming, they all do, they’re all as bad as the next drug runner Laura, don’t get emotional because he’s a kid. It’s a cut and dry case, just cut him open and sew him back together again.

To the police, to David, he was just another gang-on-gang drug case gone wrong, taken from a world where life hangs by a thread and apologies don’t count. You do bad and you get done. A life for a life, where there is no right or wrong, just dead or alive. No court case, no just deserts, just a swift exit. Laura felt the pull of duty even more so for the young bodies that came across her pathology table. She was the only one who could really understand why this life had so violently and unceremoniously stabbed them in the back.

We have the murder weapon Laura, we just need to find the kid who’s prints match. We’re all stretched let’s just get this son of a bitch and move on, find out who this poor guy is and let his family know, you know the drill.

That night in bed, after the body came in, David was firmer than normal that work shouldn't come home. They trod a fine line as Chief Forensic Pathologist and Chief Detective Inspector, he kept to his side and she to hers. That’s how they made this work. He held her tightly under the sheets, his hands of truth and judgement one minute inflicting punishment and the next forgiveness as they worked their way confidently across her body.

On the day of the postmortem no one came to observe, with the team stretched after one of David’s junior DC’s leaving the previous week on account of ‘stress’. Laura had no idea of the boy’s name, nor would she until they’d run the blood work. The stab wound to his neck was most probably the fatal one severing a carotid artery, though she methodically worked to complete the PM as all humans dutifully deserved no matter their past discrepancies. 

As the boy lay on the table, Laura couldn’t help thinking that his face looked serene. He knew he was at peace, no more secrets to keep, no more people to run from, no more deception. He deserved more from this world, a world that most probably dealt him a shitty hand and an even shitter end. 

She stared at the stab wound at his neck. She’d measured it, photographed it, studied it like some kind of classical artefact, like it mattered. She’d already flushed her gut instincts up the chain but they’d come back down like a lead weight. This wasn’t done by another street kid, it was done by someone who knew how to wield a blade, by someone who knew the place to aim, by someone who knew how to make it quick. 

That night in bed, David showed Laura the cake his boss got him, celebrating twenty convicted and prosecuted murder investigations since his promotion. In the picture he was laughing, showing rows of pearly white teeth as he cut through each layer of frosted blue cake. Each layer another murder, another bad guy off the streets, another set of complicated circumstances that no one would ever truly understand. He brought a piece for her but she couldn’t stomach it.

Don’t worry babe, we’ve already got the perp, he’s already in custody, just run the blood work and let’s get this one done and processed yeah? Then let’s celebrate, can you get away from George tonight?

She feared the power he was collecting. The one thing that had pulled them together in the beginning was their love of the job, their passion for truth and for doing good, but it had gone above him. There were too many layers now, too many lies and secrets. The cake was becoming too dense and too complicated, the jam and cream and hidden guts inside all threatening to come spewing out.

The morning the kid was brought in David didn’t come to the lab like he normally did, didn’t take his chance to push her up against the changing room lockers before the rest of the staff arrived. He just sent one of his lads, one of the layers underneath him, a chip off the old block.

David says don’t forget the stab wound on his stomach Laura, looks nasty?

The pathology lab felt colder that day than normal. When she got to it, the boy’s body was a menu of evidence. Not just of the trauma that ended his life but of so much building up to it. As she peeled back the layers of skin and sinew it became more and more obvious. With each section the story became more complicated, the skin telling one story for it to build and grow with each layer her scalpel uncovered. 

Only the killer would have known about that stomach wound, the lad who delivered the body sure did look like he knew how to wield a blade. Nevertheless, he knew too much, knew he would have needed to throw in some extra injuries to make it look like a gang-on-gang gone wrong. In the cold light of the pathology lab, after pulling back all the gruesome layers, she saw the truth at the bone.

David was the predator in this habitat. He pulled people in when he needed them most, only to eat them alive when they got too familiar. God only knows what he’d promised this kid, freedom for his information, a way out from the mess he was in, only to be stabbed in the back by the system he should have been able to trust most.

They’re scum of the earth Laura, don’t feel sorry for them because they’re kids, they’d stick a knife through that pretty face so much as look at you, they’re scum Laura, they’re scum.

She looked at the innocent face of a kid who'd picked the wrong path. Inevitably she’d fallen for it too. Fallen for his smooth words and smooth hands all over her in the pathology lab changing room. He’d preyed on her when she needed someone like him the most, someone to make it all seem worth it.

That night on the driveway at home, she sat in the car outside listening to the steady hum of south London traffic. He’d used her. Used her mind, her skills, her experience and turned her into a weapon. How many victims had she betrayed, not explored the evidence to the full extent, not raised her suspicions. How many people were in prison because of her; she’d handed them over on a shining silver platter ready to be eaten alive.

Where are you my angel? You did so good today my no.1 girl, what would I do without you?

The layers were crumbling, the jam was going mouldy, the layers of skin and sinew and tissue were all being exposed to the true disease below and she was part of it, one of the layers that needed ripping out and replacing.

Inside the Victorian terrace house they’d lovingly restored together, the kids were already playing with George’s birthday balloons, her scrappy yet lovingly made red velvet cake sat patiently waiting for something to happen. She watched her husband George wrestle the kids as they sang happy birthday in a range of out of pitch tones. Her lovingly dependable George, the one who stood by her whilst she let David’s easy words fool her into fooling around.

She watched him cut through the dense layer of sponge and Chantilly cream; the knife moving so smoothly through each layer, each lie, everything she’d built up over time to culminate in this red velvet mess. Her eyes pricked as she realised how easy it had been to move the knife through his moist centre, twisting it unwittingly as she went.

Laura had to tell him, she just needed to figure out when, where, how; how on earth to deliver the fatal force of the knife. She crept upstairs before the tears came and gave her moist centre away.

In their master bedroom sat a small duffle bag, fully packed and ominously placed in the center of a lonely king size bed. On top, a single handwritten note balanced precariously on the handle.

David called, I know everything.