The Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterill

brain with one neat slash. He repeated this action several more times until the brain sat in slices like a soggy loaf of bread. He gently separated the sections and used a large magnifying glass to inspect each one.
    Dtui, with a surgical mask over her face against the dust, was sweeping in the storeroom.
    “Dtui, bring me the camera, will you?”
    She looked at him with her brow furrowed. “The camera?”
    “Yes, please.”
    “Well….”
    “What’s wrong?”
    “There are only three exposures left on the film.”
    “That’s enough.”
    “Doctor, Sister Bounlan’s wedding party is tonight. I was….”
    “I sympathize with her. But this is more important. Believe me.”
     
     
    Once he’d saved and labeled the samples, Siri announced he’d be going out for a while. He collected a plastic bag full of liquid, and some vials, and left. He didn’t say where he was going.
    He walked out of the morgue and past his old crippled motorcycle. It had lain collecting dust and cobwebs in the cycle park for three months. He couldn’t afford the new carburetor it needed. He was about to check to see how much money he had on him for the taxi
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fare when he had an idea. He turned back to the morgue and surprised Dtui reading.
    “Dtui.”
    “Oh, my God. Don’t do that. You scared the life out of me.”
    “Then don’t do things you’d be scared to be caught doing. How did you get here today?”
    “Eh? Same as every day. On my bicycle.”
    “Good. I want to borrow it.”
    “What for?”
    “What for? What do people usually use bicycles for?”
    “You aren’t going to ride my bike.”
    “And why not?”
    “I’d never be able to forgive myself if you…well, you know.”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “Look, doctor. You aren’t a young man.”
    “Are you suggesting I’m too old to ride a bicycle?”
    “No.”
    “Then what are you saying?”
    “That over the age of seventy, the odds of having a heart attack rise forty percent every year.”
    “God, so I’m already at 120 percent. They aren’t good odds.”
    “Okay. Maybe I got the figures wrong. But I don’t want my bicycle to be the cause of your death.”
    “Dtui. Don’t be ridiculous. I swear I won’t have a heart attack. Just lend me the bike.”
    “No.”
    “Please.” His green eyes became moist. That always melted her.
    “All right. But on two conditions.”
    “I’m sure I’ll regret this, but what are they?”
    “One, that you ride slowly and stop if you feel tired.”
    “Certainly.”
    “And two, that you train me to be the new coroner.”
    “What?”
    “Doctor Siri. There you are begging the Health Department to send someone to train in Eastern Europe and not getting anywhere.”
    “No.”
    “Whereas here you have a young intelligent nurse, absorbent as blotting paper, enthusiastic as a puppy, resilient as a…a…brick, already in place, eager to be your apprentice.”
    “No.”
    “And then you could say you have this bright girl who already trained as a coroner and she’s ready to go to further her education in Bulgaria or some such place.”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “You aren’t the type.”
    “Because I’m a girl?”
    “Because you read comics and fan magazines.”
    “I need stimulation.”
    “I can’t believe you’re even asking. You’re a bubblehead. When did you suddenly develop an interest in pathology?”
    “I’ve always been interested. But you don’t give me a chance to do interesting things. You treat me like a secretary.”
    Geung walked in on them with a bucket in one hand and a mop in the other.
    “Are you h…having a fight?” He smiled.
    Siri grabbed the bike key from Dtui’s desk. “No. We aren’t having a fight. Nurse Dtui is just trying to extort three years of free education and a tour of Europe out of me in return for twenty minutes on her bicycle. That’s fair, don’t you think?”
    Dtui stormed out the door. “Take the damn bike.”
     
     
    Considerably more than twenty minutes