Down Among the Dead Men_ A Year in the Life of a Mortuary Technician - Michelle Williams [28]
We would have to think seriously about this. From what I had seen of his face, he was certainly viewable, but the small fact remained that his head was at this moment resting between his legs on a body tray in the fridge. I wasn’t experienced enough to be sure that we could reconstruct him well enough to allow the next of kin to see him. But I wanted so much to do it – and knew that Clive and Graham would want to do it as well – not so much for our satisfaction, but for his family.
I went back to the body store and told Clive what Bill had asked. I had expected him to be hesitant but he said at once, ‘No problem, Michelle. We’ll have this poor chap looking as good as new. No one will ever guess what’s happened to him, not from looking at him.’
Bill Baxford was duly promised that we would be able to do an identification of the motorcyclist for his family that day. It was booked for two thirty in the afternoon, which meant that we had approximately four hours to try to create the effect that his head had not left his body. We did not know whether his family had even been told of the horrific injuries. All we knew was that this man had been travelling at perhaps seventy miles an hour down a narrow country lane in the west of the county when he had lost control. His front wheel had then clipped a fallen tree by the side of the road; he had been catapulted over the handlebars into a field. Unfortunately, and with the cruelly perfect aim of fate, he had landed with his outstretched neck on the large circular blade of an old farrow abandoned among some stinging nettles, thus severing his head.
The pathologist on for today, Dr Peter Gillard, arrived. Between them, he and Ed do most of our post-mortems. A strange little man but, honestly, I say ‘strange’ with affection. He was quite short, quiet, but deep down there lurked a wicked sense of humour. Graham and Clive had told me, and I had seen for myself, that he was also a complete pain in the behind because, they said, he lacked confidence and would often ask the technicians for advice. That said, he was not really any trouble – by which I mean in the sense that he was undemanding, to a degree unconcerned, and was happy to be directed. This may seem an unfair thing to say about a consultant pathologist but, believe me, I had very quickly discovered that some could be completely unreasonable and unmanageable with no respect for the mortuary technicians, whom they just saw as androids that can stand and eviscerate bodies all day long. At least Peter Gillard wasn’t like that.
He looked at the headless corpse on the dissecting table. Clive had told me that his usual first question before he starts is, ‘Have you got a cause of death yet?’, but on seeing this case, all he said with a wince was, ‘Oh dear.’ He checked that the bodies we had got out were the correct ones and asked Clive to call him when we were ready. As I was preparing myself to start the evisceration, I began to wonder how we could hope to make any difference to this man. I stood over the body and placed his head, still in the helmet, to one side. Clive and Graham were at work on their bodies, and the radio was playing some Michael Jackson.
As I picked up my post-mortem knife it occurred it me that it wouldn’t be very often that I would have to cut open a headless body. I felt uncomfortable, but I reckoned that I was experienced enough by now to put this to one side and prepare myself to dive straight in, so that within fifteen minutes the torso in front of me would be completely empty, with its contents in a stainless steel bowl. The more I studied the body, though, the more sick I felt; it just didn’t feel right. Despite this, I placed my blade between the clavicles and began to cut down towards the pubis. Still feeling nauseous, I started to retract the skin away from the ribcage and removed the sternum exposing the organs.