shaken by a blast from the horn of a truck rumbling past University Hall. The noise shattered the glass shell containing Lucy and her thoughts. She got to her feet and hoisted her backpack on her shoulders, turning her back against the chill wind.
I’ve used that gun now, Graeme, just like you showed me. Now I’m going to come and talk to you about it, and maybe you can tell me for a second time why I did it.
She walked across the park towards City Road and King Street, a small figure overshadowed by the university buildings crowded onto the perimeter of the parklands. Unnoticed by almost everyone.
4
There were certain things Grace knew she could never do. The sectioning of the dead was one of them, even though the postmortems she had attended were always such matter of fact events. It was only this remaking of dissection as an everyday occurrence which made it bearable for her. Today, that this was just regular, paid work for them all, had the opposite effect, she did not know why.
She watched the attendant wheel Henry Liu to the stainless-steel table then saw him jerk his thumb at the corpse and ask it to get up on the table now if it didn’t mind, mate, because they were all in a hurry.
Grace felt the joke was on her. She glanced at Harrigan beside her but did not see a flicker of reaction in his face. How did he do it?
The pathologist appeared, Kenneth McMichael, shambling angel of death, a massive man in his surgical gown. Dressed and groomed by St Vinnie’s, his coke bottle glasses were flecked with flakes of dandruff from his oily black hair. He leaned over the corpse and took its head in his huge, dexterous hands, turning it this way and that as he studied the wound, as delicately as if he were holding a child.
‘Now,’ he said, and the word was almost a sigh, ‘this is not something you’d be expecting when you got out of bed this morning.
Are we dealing with a regular firearm here?’ His voice was soft and dry like the crunch of fine sand.
‘No, we’re not, Ken,’ Harrigan replied matter of factly. ‘This is very much a one-off. Specially modified to do the maximum amount of damage close up.’
‘You can put it down as succeeding in that case,’ the pathologist said, with a slightly ironic raising of his eyebrows. ‘All right. Let’s start.’
Harrigan’s expression did not change but Grace was surprised to notice him suppress a recoil to this comment.
On the steel table, technicians stripped the body of its clothes, peeling it to indiscriminate nakedness before charting its fragile geography by x-ray.
‘He’s not going out dancing tonight,’ one said, removing the shirt.
‘Not without a makeover,’ the other replied.
The pathologist grinned as they spoke and briefly hummed cha-cha-cha . With gentle finesse, he welcomed his subject into its permanent silence by sectioning it down to piecework, his soft voice speaking his findings into a cassette recorder. As Henry Liu’s body was opened out into its layered complexity, Grace smelled a pervasive odour she had never noticed so vividly before: old blood. It stank, there was no other word for it. She stepped back, giddy on her feet, swallowing. Briefly she thought she would faint.
‘Are you all right? Leave if you have to,’ Harrigan said.
‘No, I’m okay. I’ll stay.’
‘Is your companion feeling this, Harrigan?’
McMichael was looking at her, unsmiling, for some reason angered.
She shook her head.
‘Yes, you are,’ he said. ‘Now why is that? You could even say this is beautiful.’
He gestured to the open cavity of skull on the table in front of them, where the interior bloomed pink and grey into the open air. The attendants were also watching her.
‘He was murdered,’ she replied. ‘People do feel for the dead.’
‘Do they?’ he asked and leaned on the table, supporting himself with both hands. He smiled at her. ‘Autopsy. From the Greek. Auto , self. Optes , witness. Navel-gazing in other words.’
I’ve used that gun now, Graeme, just like you showed me. Now I’m going to come and talk to you about it, and maybe you can tell me for a second time why I did it.
She walked across the park towards City Road and King Street, a small figure overshadowed by the university buildings crowded onto the perimeter of the parklands. Unnoticed by almost everyone.
4
There were certain things Grace knew she could never do. The sectioning of the dead was one of them, even though the postmortems she had attended were always such matter of fact events. It was only this remaking of dissection as an everyday occurrence which made it bearable for her. Today, that this was just regular, paid work for them all, had the opposite effect, she did not know why.
She watched the attendant wheel Henry Liu to the stainless-steel table then saw him jerk his thumb at the corpse and ask it to get up on the table now if it didn’t mind, mate, because they were all in a hurry.
Grace felt the joke was on her. She glanced at Harrigan beside her but did not see a flicker of reaction in his face. How did he do it?
The pathologist appeared, Kenneth McMichael, shambling angel of death, a massive man in his surgical gown. Dressed and groomed by St Vinnie’s, his coke bottle glasses were flecked with flakes of dandruff from his oily black hair. He leaned over the corpse and took its head in his huge, dexterous hands, turning it this way and that as he studied the wound, as delicately as if he were holding a child.
‘Now,’ he said, and the word was almost a sigh, ‘this is not something you’d be expecting when you got out of bed this morning.
Are we dealing with a regular firearm here?’ His voice was soft and dry like the crunch of fine sand.
‘No, we’re not, Ken,’ Harrigan replied matter of factly. ‘This is very much a one-off. Specially modified to do the maximum amount of damage close up.’
‘You can put it down as succeeding in that case,’ the pathologist said, with a slightly ironic raising of his eyebrows. ‘All right. Let’s start.’
Harrigan’s expression did not change but Grace was surprised to notice him suppress a recoil to this comment.
On the steel table, technicians stripped the body of its clothes, peeling it to indiscriminate nakedness before charting its fragile geography by x-ray.
‘He’s not going out dancing tonight,’ one said, removing the shirt.
‘Not without a makeover,’ the other replied.
The pathologist grinned as they spoke and briefly hummed cha-cha-cha . With gentle finesse, he welcomed his subject into its permanent silence by sectioning it down to piecework, his soft voice speaking his findings into a cassette recorder. As Henry Liu’s body was opened out into its layered complexity, Grace smelled a pervasive odour she had never noticed so vividly before: old blood. It stank, there was no other word for it. She stepped back, giddy on her feet, swallowing. Briefly she thought she would faint.
‘Are you all right? Leave if you have to,’ Harrigan said.
‘No, I’m okay. I’ll stay.’
‘Is your companion feeling this, Harrigan?’
McMichael was looking at her, unsmiling, for some reason angered.
She shook her head.
‘Yes, you are,’ he said. ‘Now why is that? You could even say this is beautiful.’
He gestured to the open cavity of skull on the table in front of them, where the interior bloomed pink and grey into the open air. The attendants were also watching her.
‘He was murdered,’ she replied. ‘People do feel for the dead.’
‘Do they?’ he asked and leaned on the table, supporting himself with both hands. He smiled at her. ‘Autopsy. From the Greek. Auto , self. Optes , witness. Navel-gazing in other words.’
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