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By Root 140 0

and I was left with a problem. What was I supposed to do? I knew that a few years ago most pathologists had been quite happy to trust the technician to ensure that the right body was being PMed, but now things were different. Clive would have kittens – he would have given the pathologist a large piece of his mind in my situation, but there was no way I could do that. I didn’t have the confidence and I was far too junior. In many respects, I had become assured in my abilities to do the job over the past few months, but not in this. I would be disobeying the direct order of a consultant. Reluctantly I set to, but only after carefully checking the identity of the deceased again and getting Maddie to check a third time with me.

In fact, it was nearly forty-five minutes before Dr Zaitoun returned. He made his way without apology first into the female changing room then, when I had put him right, into the one he was supposed to use. When he emerged five minutes later, I was hard pressed not to burst out laughing. The scrubs he had put on were not well tailored to his small size and he had not thought to ask for a small set, so the waist of his trousers was tied just beneath his armpits and the hole in the top for his head was almost large enough to admit his shoulders. By the time he got the disposable gown on, he looked like a small boy in his father’s PJs. I tried to direct him to where the masks and caps and gloves were, but he said only, ‘I don’t need things like that.’

When I told him, ‘The information on the case is on the side in the alcove,’ he said airily, ‘Oh, I don’t look at that until the end. It influences me, I find.’ I thought that this was the whole point, but made sure it remained as just a thought and kept my mouth shut, for fearing of cracking into laughter more than any other reason.

I had put the organs in a large bowl on the side and he set to dissecting them while I began to reconstruct the body. I had read the information that the Coroner’s office had supplied and had learned enough to reckon that it was probably going to be a cardiac death – chest pains and shortness of breath – so I fully expected Dr Zaitoun to find the coronary arteries to be furred up. What I didn’t expect was that ten minutes after he’d started, he’d say suddenly, ‘Pneumonia,’ with which he went to the sink and washed his gloved hands. Then he was off to the alcove.

I called out to him, ‘You’ve forgotten the brain, Dr Zaitoun.’ He had left this in a separate bowl on the scales.

He looked surprised. ‘Why did you take that out?’

‘We always do, as the Coroner requests a full post-mortem.’

He frowned, paused, thought about things, and then said, ‘You look at it. It’s not really relevant to this case.’

‘I can’t do that.’

He looked surprised. ‘No? Well, just put it back in the body.’

Before I could say any more, he had picked up the paperwork and was closing the door to the changing room, leaving me gobsmacked. What could I do except what I was told? But that wasn’t the end of it, because when I was putting the organs back in the body cavity I couldn’t help noticing that his investigation had been a bit superficial: one slice through the liver, spleen and lungs, only one kidney cut and the heart barely looked at.

When I told Clive at lunchtime, he shook his head. ‘What did I tell you? A complete and utter twat.’

FORTY-TWO

I was pleased it was the weekend again. Although I was amazed at how quickly the weeks went by at the mortuary, I was still very glad when Friday evening approached and I knew I could lie in on a Saturday morning. If anyone had ever told me that working with the deceased would be so physically demanding, I would have laughed, but I had quickly noticed that my thighs and upper arms were always aching by the end of the week. At least I wouldn’t need the gym (thank God).

I was also relieved that Luke and I had nothing planned for the weekend, and I could look forward to collapsing Friday night, with maybe an hour at the local pub, then back home to a huge sofa, food and a decent bottle of red wine. I