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By Root 207 0

to expose the ribs and the intestines, and then folded back the skin to either side of the body, as he told me to do. This was to take a while and Clive got a bit agitated; he eventually lost patience with me. He had shown me at what point you need to cut the intestine, to be able to unravel it, but I only managed a few inches before, in a hurried manner and while trying hard not to show his impatience, he took the knife and finished the rest of the evisceration himself. At least, though, as he eviscerated, he talked me through everything he was doing, and got me to do the ‘easy’ bits, like loosen the lungs from the back of the thoracic cavity, which meant basically just lifting them up. The speed and slickness with which he released the tongue from the bottom of the mouth were unbelievable. Clive never made a mark on the neck and, once he had packed the inside of the throat with cotton wool, you would never have known any different.

Clive went on to tell me about a family that he once had to show the stitching to on a deceased’s head, as they did not believe that he had had a post-mortem. ‘The secret is to cut low around the back of the head, Michelle; that way, when they are laid out on the pillow, the stitching is concealed underneath the head, and with the knots behind the ears, see?’ I was not about to tell him that Graham had already told me this, and just nodded. ‘Then, Bob’s your uncle; nobody but us need know the difference.’ He finished this sentence off with a wink.

He then said, ‘I think you should have a go at reconstruction.’ With that, Clive handed me a large shiny silver needle that was curved at the end. This was threaded with what looked liked carpet twine and, as it turned out, it was. ‘Start from the pelvis up, over and under, over and under,’ he said, leaving me a little foxed. To Clive it was second nature; to me it was piercing someone’s skin and sewing them up with carpet twine.

I had no idea at that time that I would soon get into such a flow, but I actually found it quite easy to reconstruct and my initial fear of piercing a body with a huge needle soon faded. Clive reminded me to stop three-quarters of the way up, as we still had to replace the organs in the body after they had been examined by the pathologist.

Clive next told me that I needed to stay in the post-mortem room because, having worked with the body, I was now contaminated, and that Dr Burberry would be arriving shortly. He then left and so I sat in the PM room alone with the little old lady, listening to the radio and awaiting the pathologist. Within ten minutes, the door from the consultants’ changing room opened, and Dr Ed Burberry entered the PM room. ‘Good morning, Michelle,’ he said with a smile. ‘How are you?’ He must have seen that I was as nervous as hell. I was convinced he was going to ask me a medical question that I had no idea about, and that I would probably forget everything that Clive had told me I had to tell him about the patient in front of me.

I nodded at him and squeaked rather inanely, ‘Yes, thank you, Dr Burberry.’

I should not have worried about striking up a conversation with Ed. It turned out we got on like a house on fire. We spoke freely about each other’s interests and I began to relax in his company. He let me in on a few secrets about Clive and Graham, as he had worked alongside them for so long; he knew how they liked to work and what routines they had. He gave me tips on how to stay ahead of the pathologist during an evisceration and what they expected from their technician while in the PM room.

I finished my first post-mortem session full of knowledge, but the best thing was the feeling that I had done something a step up from cleaning down. I was now, sort of and after a fashion, able to do what Clive and Graham did, and I could now properly help towards the running of the mortuary. And he might be a consultant pathologist, but I was sure I had found a friend in Ed.

When I got home that evening, the first thing I did, after letting Harvey and Oscar out, was phone my parents to tell them I