• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

I sat in awe.

The food arrived, but that wasn’t going to stop Clive now that he was well and truly ‘lagered’, plus, there was now a curry in front of him. Then Graham leaned across the table to him and said, ‘Tell Michelle about Michael Walters.’ Clive’s face exploded with delight, and for a minute I thought I might have been in danger of getting covered in the contents of his mouth. ‘God, yes! I’d forgotten about him.’ I didn’t need to encourage him to tell me more. ‘Michael Walters was a head case, complete and utter. Lived with his parents, but kept himself to himself in his room when he wasn’t in the local funny farm. One evening Ma and Pa returned home with a fish and chip supper. They settled down in the kitchen, to tuck in. The kitchen was directly below the bathroom which was next to Michael’s room upstairs; they heard the bath running, so decided not to bother him but were content he was home and safe.

‘So, there they are, about to have a right old nosh up, when Mr Walters senior notices that there’s some tomato sauce on his plate when he sat down at the table after making a brew, which is not what he asked to be put on his plate by Mrs Walters; he’d opted for HP. He’s about to ask his wife what she thinks she’s playing at when he just happens to look up to the ceiling to see blood dripping off the light fitting.’

Graham chortled at my expression. Clive was getting into his stride. ‘They found their son in the bath, with the walls, floor and ceiling drenched in blood. He had been stabbed seventy-three times and hit on the head with a hammer three times.’

I winced. ‘Seventy-three times! Who did it? His girlfriend? Boyfriend?’

Clive grinned his usual wicked grin. ‘The house was completely secure, and none of the neighbours reported seeing anyone around the house while the Walters were out; also, because of his mental problems, as far as his parents knew there was no significant other.’

‘Then how . . .?’

Graham was almost wetting himself, because he knew what was coming. Clive, being Clive, tucked into some lamb vindaloo, leaving me waiting and itching to hear the rest of the story. At last he found time for me. ‘John Parker decided that since there was no evidence of a third party, it didn’t need a forensic PM and faxed through the details and request, exactly as if Michael Walters had keeled over after chest pains. Like this was an everyday post-mortem request, with no suspicious circumstances! Idiot.’

‘The pathologist on for that day was Martin Apse – nice bloke, wasn’t he, Graham? Wouldn’t normally say boo to a goose, but he really had the heebie-jeebies when he read that particular E60 – the request from the Coroner’s office for a post-mortem to be done. I thought he was going to faint. He started to shake and kept muttering, “I don’t believe it,” to himself He went up to his office and twenty minutes later, John Parker phoned through to say that it was going to have a forensic PM after all.’

‘And?’

This time Clive needed a long drink, followed by calling for a refill before he could continue. I could have collapsed with the anticipation. ‘The forensic pathologist took eight hours to determine that each and every wound – including the hammer blows – could (and he would only say “could”) have been self-inflicted.’

‘You are joking ,’ I decided at once, but Graham rushed to confirm what Clive had said.

‘He’s not. The poor bugger did it to himself. Took slices of flesh off his own legs and everything. I never saw such a mess of a body, and to do it to yourself, well, unbelievable.’ With that, they both tucked into their curries as though they had just told me a fairy story, and I contemplated that, with time, I was also going to become this blasé about my job.

Another half hour went by with talk about the mortuary, and at that point I really had started to have enough of work. Yes, I loved my job but, as fascinating as I found Clive’s reminiscing, I am a breathing human being, and enough was enough for one week. I wanted now to forget