Down Among the Dead Men (6 page)

When we followed him in, he was reading the notes and looked up to say, ‘Mr Wilson, surgeon to the stars, strikes again, then.’

Graham laughed. ‘Looks like it.’

Ed explained to me, ‘Charlie Wilson is a regular contributor to our workload. He’s a surgeon of the old school, which basically means jack of all trades and master of none. All
around him, younger colleagues are coming through and techniques are being developed, and he can’t quite seem to cope with either.’

While he was talking, he was walking around Mr Chandler, checking that I had noted all the tubes correctly, looking for old surgical scars, and recording the swelling of the tissues and the
rash.

‘Michelle’s doing this one with you,’ said Graham.

‘Good. You get started while I change. When you take the dressing off the wounds, don’t forget to measure them.’ With that he was off to the changing room, and the bell for the
front door sounded, so that Graham left the room too. From watching Clive and Graham, I knew that I could now take out the lines and make the first midline incision, but what I would find when I
did worried me greatly.

Inside two minutes, I knew that I had been right to worry. In the few weeks I’d been doing this job, I’d seen a lot of astonishing things – blood filling the abdomen when an
aortic aneurysm burst, a liver almost completely replaced by white cancer deposits, an ovarian cyst eighteen inches across – but this topped them. The abdominal cavity is normally a clean
place but Mr Chandler’s was filled with curdled, yellow pus. I had to step back and turn away because it not only looked horrible, it stank horribly too and, forgetting
his
poor
stomach, mine began to churn at the sight.

At this point, Ed came back into the PM room and sniffed the air. ‘Eau de peritonitis, I think,’ he said cheerily. ‘Hang on.’ Having put on an apron, a cap, a mask,
plastic sleeves and gloves, he came to stand beside me. ‘Forget about removing the intestines first. Just take it all out in one.’ Normally, we tie off and remove the intestines before
taking out the rest of the organs, but delving around in that horrible mess would have been vile and probably done more damage than good.

Even so, it wasn’t easy, what with having to reach down so far into the body that I was almost falling in, and with having to avoid splashing. Eventually I got everything out of Mr
Chandler and Ed helped me get it all across to the dissection bench. While he set to work, I scooped out the rest of the pus from the abdomen, trying hard not to fill my own mask with vomit, and
then set about taking out the brain. Every so often Ed swore loudly (which I tried not to laugh at) as the intestines, made fragile by the inflammation, tore and spilled contents over the
dissection table. Usually he could take all the organs out in ten minutes but this time it took him closer to thirty. As I was weighing the organs, he said suddenly, ‘Ah!’ and he
beckoned me over, waving the brain knife in my direction.

‘There,’ he said, pointing with the scalpel at the underside of the liver. I couldn’t see anything for a moment, then made out some stitching that was embedded in pus.
‘See how loose that is?’ he asked. As he spoke, he gently pulled at one of the stitches with forceps and it came away easily. ‘Bile’s leaked out into the abdomen from that
and, hey presto, this is what happens.’

I asked, ‘Does it happen often?’

Ed shook his head. ‘No, not often, thank God.’

‘Should it have happened?’

He hesitated, then said neutrally, ‘That’s for the Coroner to decide.’

TEN

Easter was here before we knew it, and Mum wanted us all to do our normal bank holiday stuff. This consisted of a night in with a takeaway on the Saturday at their house, then
up early on the Sunday, and ready to catch the bus into town at eleven thirty for a pub crawl, in our Sunday best, with bank holiday Monday to recover. This was the whole family – Mum and
Dad, Michael and his girlfriend Sarah, myself and Luke. These Sundays nearly always turned into a long day, so my first task was usually to find a sitter for Harvey and Oscar; being German shepherd
crosses, they can be a bit of a handful. I had happened to be having lunch with Maddie mid-week, on one of the rare occasions when we both managed to escape the pathology building at the same time.
I was telling Maddie about the dogs needing a sitter, and she jumped at the chance. ‘I’m not going home, as Mum’s going away; anyway, I love your house, and it’d be nice to
cosy up with the dogs. Better than being in the flat on my own all weekend.’

Maddie almost glowed as she was saying this. Luke and I really appreciate such offers, and take advantage of them when they come, which is all too rarely. We arranged that Maddie would arrive on
Good Friday afternoon and stay over till bank holiday Monday.

On Thursday evening, Luke and I went out and bought Maddie all the goodies we could think off, including a supply of her favourite cider (not forgetting the blackcurrant to go with it), a bottle
of vodka with a few cartons of orange juice, and treats and food for the dogs.

On Friday morning, Luke and I woke early, got Harvey and Oscar into the back of the wagon and drove them out to the local hills surrounding Gloucestershire. Luckily for us, the rain stayed away,
and it was perfect dog-walking weather. It was a bit cold for us humans, but perfect for canines; for an hour and a half they ran about like animals possessed, so were pleasantly sleepy when Maddie
arrived at one o’clock. Luke and I were then shoved out the door by Maddie at about two o’clock after I’d spent sixty minutes trying to organize her. ‘Look at them
both,’ Maddie said, pointing at Harvey and Oscar fast asleep on the sofa. ‘How difficult can it be to look after two sleeping angels?’ she asked, followed by a wink.

We arrived at Mum and Dad’s shortly after, kitted out with our overnight bags ready for our three-night stay. ‘Your brother’s not staying over, so you two can have the big
room,’ Mum informed us as we came through the back door.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Williams,’ Luke replied in joking manner as he greeted Mum with a kiss on the cheek.

Luke and my parents had got on like a house on fire right from the off. Mum was proud of the way he looked out for me, and also admired him for putting up with me. I think I have become less
hectic with age, but I’m sure she would disagree. In my head, I am now reasonably sensible and not nearly so difficult – I still cringe when Mum and Dad remind me of some of things I
did and said when I was a teenager – but sometimes Mum looks at me and I see in her eye the same look as she used to give me. It helps that Dad and Luke have a lot in common – and,
although this is mainly sport, they also get on well as people. Not only that but, as far as Dad is concerned, if Luke makes me happy, then he is happy.

‘You’ve arrived just at the right time,’ Dad said. As I looked around to see what was waiting for our perfect timing, I caught Dad grinning at Luke. ‘The football’s
just kicked off on the TV.’ With this unspoken decision made by the males of my family to sit and watch the whole ninety minutes, Mum and I decided to do a bit of internet shopping and bored
the backsides off Dad and Luke as to how much cheaper things are online; I even managed to get Luke to part with his credit card, which was a victory indeed.

As the evening approached on Good Friday, the mood in the Williams household became very mellow and very, very relaxed. Mum cooked a huge pot of chilli served with home-made bread and, as Dad
said, ‘Real butter, not that spreading rubbish.’

Saturday morning consisted of a hugely long lie-in and the usual Scottish fry-up after twelve o’clock, then more football for the men, and the town centre for Mum and me so that we could
do some real shopping (again supported by Luke’s credit card). You may think this is an unnecessary thing for me to do – spend my well-paid boyfriend’s salary – but, for all
its glamour, confidentiality, excitement and strangeness, an APT is pretty poorly paid. I have to cover the expenses of living – Luke and I both have our own homes – so my low salary
leaves little for luxuries.

Saturday evening was fairly quiet as well, and I could not help calling Maddie to see how she was doing with the dogs, and, of course, they were all fine.

‘I don’t know why you fuss so much about them,’ Luke told me. But he knew deep down, as much as I did, that every now and then they could become a little excitable and start to
chase each other around the house, up and down the stairs, through the kitchen, out the garden, back in the house, finishing by throwing themselves against the front door, with a quick rest ready
for the next lap.

Not long after this, the Indian meal that we had ordered arrived and we all sat down and ate to the point of bursting before collapsing on the sofa and watching TV for the remainder of the
night.

Sunday arrived and the inevitable fight began over the bathroom. We all needed to be ready to go out the door at eleven thirty that morning, and no one wanted to be last one in the shower and
therefore the last one that everyone was telling to get a move on. Anyway, with a bit of planning and bickering, we all managed to be ready to go out on time. We met Michael and Sarah in town and,
as usual, Mum and Dad wanted to start the day off at the Social Club. Gramp would probably be in there with his friends and this was always good for some giggles. But the downside of the Social
Club was that Sarah was going to be the youngest in there; after her in age terms would come my brother, then me and Luke, and then the age gap would jump twenty-five years to my parents; following
that, the age range extended into the far distance.

There was compensation, though. It wasn’t exactly rockin’, but it was at least cheap and cheerful, as Mum has always said. As we walked into the bar, which, incidentally, women
are
allowed into, but only on best behaviour, we saw that the place was full of retired people, elderly ladies dressed up in their best clothing with full make-up. All of them appeared to be
wearing the same bright blue eye shadow and deep red lipstick. Gramp was sitting with his friends and we were encouraged to join them. We stayed for a couple of hours in the Social Club, which
turned out to be very sociable indeed, and good fun. We left Gramp and his friends to continue the afternoon in the club, which I was sure they would do in the accustomed manner, and the six of us
then headed over the road to a proper pub. Dad knows most of the landlords around town and we are always warmly welcomed by them. Since my parents gave up the pub trade, they do not see a lot of
their old social circle, so in a way, days like these are very much a chance to catch up with their old friends and acquaintances.

ELEVEN

Clive had put me straight about mortuary security very early on. ‘There is nothing, Michelle, nothing at all, more important than the security of this place.’
Graham nodded in silent agreement. ‘You never let anyone in unless you know who they are and why they want to be here, understand?’ Clive, laid back about so many things, was clearly
telling me that on this subject he wanted me to listen and mark his words. He continued, ‘There’s a lot of funny people out there, and some of them think that the best way to spend a
day out is drooling over dead people.’

I had known that people like that existed, but I didn’t think that it would be a problem in a small mortuary in a rural county. My disbelief must have shown on my face because Graham
added, ‘You’d be surprised, Michelle. We get all sorts around here. A few years ago, one of the porters was caught in the mortuary when he had no business being here. Nobody could prove
anything, but we all knew what he’d been up to, didn’t we, boss?’

Clive nodded. ‘Dirty bugger.’

‘What happened to him?’

Clive said, matter of factly, ‘The head porter had a chat with him. He got a job as a milkman shortly after, I believe.’

‘And you have to be careful when it comes to viewings, too,’ said Graham.

‘What do you mean?’

Clive explained. ‘We’ve had occasions when the “next of kin” weren’t quite as closely related as they claimed. In fact, we’ve had one occasion when he
wasn’t related at all.’

‘You’re joking!’

Clive shook his head. ‘Luckily, I didn’t leave him alone, although he was bloody keen that I should. Turned out he wasn’t the brother of the deceased lady but the bloke who had
lived over the road from her. Always fancied her, apparently.’

All this was an aspect of the job that I hadn’t really thought about before. It had seemed obvious that you have to keep a mortuary locked, but I hadn’t realized that you had to
regard the place as a high security vault.

Clive said, ‘You’ve got to look on viewings as the weak point in our security; it’s when we have to allow outsiders in and so when we’re vulnerable.’

‘We get all sorts in,’ chuckled Graham, shaking his head. ‘All sorts.’

Clive asked him, ‘Do you remember that bloke who wanted to bring his cat in to pay his last respects?’ They both laughed.

Graham added, ‘And that old woman who wouldn’t leave Dr Romney alone. Remember her?’

Clive became excited. ‘Yes!’ He turned to me. ‘Dick Romney used to work here as a pathologist about ten years ago. Poor bloke. This widow kept after him for ages. It got so he
was afraid to answer the telephone.’

Graham began to laugh so much that he caught his breath and went red in the face, stamping his foot and coughing up phlegm. I asked, ‘Why? What had happened?’

‘She and her husband had been a very devoted couple who’d lived together for years and years, and she’d gone a bit doolally, I suppose. Finally he died and she came in to view
him. I had the body laid out really nicely so that he looked as if he’d just gone to sleep, and she came in, took one look at him, turned to me and said, “That’s not my husband.
That’s an actor.”’

‘What did you do?’

‘I argued, but it was no use. She knew that it wasn’t her hubby, and she wasn’t about to listen to me. She insisted that we had substituted an actor who looked exactly like her
husband. Didn’t seem to think it odd that we happened to have had a dead actor identical to her hubby on hand, just when required.’